when heated to 788°, it again became yellow and brittle when poured in water. It was a remarkable phenomenon that the same substance under the influence of heat should thus repeatedly change its colour and character. Some curious facts were ascertained by Mr. Charles St. Clair Deville, a brother of the previous gentleman, who found that the temperature at which this peculiar change occurred was 338°. He also found that if the yellow sulphur was melted many times and poured into water, it gradually assumed a beautiful red colour. Another

curious fact which he discovered was, that the yellow sulphur would dissolve very easily in bisulphuret of carbon, previously being heated at 450°, and cooled rapidly; but that when it had been once heated it became at that temperature insoluble. Magnus confirmed some of these facts, and also produced a black sulphur. A young French chemist, of great promise, named Berthellot, had made several fine discoveries during the last few years, and had found the exact temperature at which sulphur became insoluble. His most remarkable discovery was that heat and electricity produced the same effect upon sulphur. The previous researches of chemists were resolved by him into the fact that sulphur could be made to assume two distinct conditions, one which was electro-negative, and the other electro-positive. These experiments showed that the relation of chemical and electrical phenomena were more nearly identical than we were disposed to believe a few years ago. Heat, light, and electricity, were the same thing, presenting different phenomena, according to its vibrations. Mr. Regnault had attempted to explain this by saying, that the difference in the two sulphurs was due to their relative amounts of latent heat; but this did not appear to be the explanation.

Mr. Crace Calvert referred next to the two metals nickel and cobalt. Cobalt was the substance by which the porcelain manufacturer got those beautiful blue colours which were put on common ware.

Nickel was

the metal which enabled the Birmingham manufacturer to produce german silver, which was so useful and ornamental for domestic purposes. Cobalt and nickel were always considered as very brittle metals, but Mr. Deville had obtained them pure, and found they had an extraordinary amount of ductibility, malleability, and tenacity. So tenacious was cobalt, that wire made from it was twice as strong as that made of the same diameter of iron. These new qualities would enable nickel and cobalt to be turned to many uses in delicate machinery. Moreover, these metals do not oxydise in the air. No furnace heat that had been obtained would melt platinum. Mr. Deville had not only produced a furnace heat sufficient to melt platinum, but to volatilise it. He had also found that it possessed the curious property of absorbing oxygen, as silver does. It was believed that silver was the only metal that had this peculiar property of absorbing oxygen, when melted, and giving it off as it cooled. Mr. Deville had discovered that platinum had the same property. Mr. Faraday had experimented on gold, in a great state of division, when a thin leaf of gold was placed between the eye and the light, the light was seen through. [Gold leaf fastened on glass showed this fact plainly.] This proved that there was no substance, however heavy, through which light would not pass, and that every particle of a solid substance had a space between, perhaps greater than the atoms themselves occupied. A piece of gold weighing two-tenths of a grain, a goldbeater could make into a gold leaf ten inches square. But this mechanical division of gold was nothing compared to the chemical division of gold, which might be made infinitessimal beyond calculation, and yet visible. Mr. Faraday assumed that there was one part of gold in one thousand parts of fluid, and still that quantity was sufficient to tinge the light when passing through. [Mr. Calvert performed an experiment similar to that of Mr. Faraday.] He took a weak solution of gold, and

put into it a piece of phosphorus, when the gold was liberated, and he found it to be a beautiful green colour at a certain stage, and then it became purple. He also found that this action of phosphorus enabled him to obtain the gold in such a state of division, that though the metallic gold was twenty times heavier than water, it took months before the gold would deposit itself on the sides or bottom of the vessel. Mr. Calvert said he should conclude his lecture by drawing their attention to some very interesting researches by a French chemist. M. Pean St. Gilles had remarked, that if you take a solution of acetate of iron, which is used extensively in this neighbourhood for calico printing, and heat it for a certain number of hours, it became opaque with reflected light, but transparent by transmitted light. It was strange that the solution lost in this process the disagreeable taste of iron, giving the remarkable result of a solution of iron perfectly tasteless. But the most extraordinary part of the change was, that a solution of the modified acetate produced no blue with yellow prussiate of potash, while the non-modified gave intense Prussian blue. Therefore, by heating the acetate of iron for a few hours to near the boiling point, its nature was completely changed-a result which could not be explained at the present day.

WORKING MAN'S COLLEGE.

BY A. J. SCOTT, Esq., M.A.

[The Inaugural Address of the Manchester Working Man's College, delivered at the Mechanics' Institution, January, 1858.]

I cannot but feel this occasion to be a solemnly important one. I do not wish to encourage exaggerated hopes as to its immediate and direct results. I shall not be over much surprised or disappointed if, after a year or two, this should be spoken of as a comparative failure, and yet I have no doubt whatever that the ultimate and essential results of this experiment-for an experiment it must be cannot be otherwise than most important. Working Men's Colleges, that is to say, institutions the object of which is to give a systematic and combined instruction in the principles and methods of the various branches of study, commenced in London; the instruction being not in this or that branch of study, as fancy might direct, but in principles and methods, showing the way in which the higher results of the different studies have been obtained; how the astronomer and geographer have gone about the great problems presented to them; not what the mere details of fact and information are that fall under the various heads, but what are the great leading principles of thought by which they are connected; the object being to give a higher discipline to the mind than can be communicated in merely desultory and scattered information. I was delighted to hear the language of your chairman in regard to one of the results to be hoped

C

for from such institutions [the removal of class distinctions by intercourse]. That result is exemplified in the Working Men's College, in London. There you will see Frederick Maurice, who has recently shown the depth of his learning and his thought in the history of the philosophy of the ancient and modern world; there you will see Charles Kingsley, one of the most popular and fashionable writers of fiction; there you will see John Ruskin, our most influential and eloquent writer on subjects of art-these men you will see as the working and laborious teachers of working men, and mingling with them not on a footing of condescension on the one hand, and of an expected servility on the other, but on both sides as brother man with brother

man.

If this were all, good must come; we shall understand one another's intellectual condition and wants, as we have hardly had the means of doing hitherto. From London such institutions spread, it is interesting to observe, to the cities of the old Universities; there you had the two extremes brought together; you had the fellows of colleges, the men whose studies were of the most abstract sort, the representatives, as it were, of the head of the country in its most separate working; and on the other hand the working men of the towns of Oxford and Cambridge, the hand of the country. Now that the scheme of Working Men's Colleges has reached Manchester, the industrial capital of the country, the question must have new interest, new importance. How the experiment turns out here may be of greater consequence than elsewhere. In many respects it is more hopeful; on many accounts we have reason to believe that the struggle which it will have to undergo, previous to ultimate victory, must be more severe than elsewhere. What are the results which we look for from institutions of this kind? What good have they done, and what are they to do? This has been an eventful year, which we have just closed; things have happened to agitate the hearts as well as the thoughts of the people