Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 713, August 25, 1877», sayfa 5

PLAYTIME AT OXFORD

'What is to be done this afternoon?' is a question invariably asked by scores of undergraduates, either at the well-supplied breakfast-table (for whatever men do not learn at Oxford, they at least learn to eat a good breakfast), or by those victims of procrastination who leave everything to the last moment, just as the scout is bringing up the more modest luncheon.

There are certain rules at the university – social rules I mean – which, though unwritten, are not to be broken save under severe penalties, such as being entered among that class of undergraduates yclept 'smugs.' Of these unwritten laws, one of the best and most universal enacts, that a great part of the afternoon shall be spent outside the college, presumably in active and healthy exercise, even if it be but a sharp constitutional. Not that this is a hardship, or that the answers to the question, 'What's to be done?' and the modes of spending these two or three hours, are monotonous or circumscribed. Far from it. Many places may be more full of life and amusement than Oxford in the morning and evening; but few, I am sure, can surpass the bill of amusement which Alma Mater presents to us after lunch.

Every taste can find appropriate satisfaction, save perhaps the taste for picturesque scenery, in which the neighbourhood of Oxford, to use a 'varsity term, 'does not come out strong.' Still, if I may believe report (never believe an undergraduate when he tells you a tale of a fellow he knew), Cambridge is rather worse off. We have Shotover and Bagley Wood to set against their Gog Magog Hills. Be that as it may, simple walking does not find many advocates, except on Sunday, or as a stop-gap on some off-day when rackets and the river begin to pall, as every amusement seems to do by the end of term. I have even heard a member of an eight-oar say after six weeks' daily attendance at the river, that 'he really felt he'd had almost enough of it.' And it is rather an objection to rowing, that as soon as your blisters have hardened and you feel indifferent about the cushion on your chair, the act of pulling your own weight and a trifle over begins to have a certain sameness.

To return to walking. Much of that otherwise tame exercise is involved in going to witness sports of various kinds. Almost every day in winter there is either a football match or a racket match, or the trial eights or some college sports to be inspected; or we may look in at the fives-courts or at the gymnasium, and see Tompkins vaulting the high-horse, which he does not do so well as at lunch; or to the dog-fancier's in – Street, and look over Jenkens's bull-pup. Not that there is any ratting going on of course, or such a thing as a badger in the county; but these are lazy ways of getting through the time, and except occasionally, none of our party is reduced to them. No; for Brown votes for rackets: a game active enough, I can vouch. It looks so easy to hit the ball with the great battledore-shaped racket – until you try: perhaps as easy as battledore and shuttlecock, now ousted by lawn-tennis. So just descend into the black-lined arena, and you will discover that the small sphere you aim at finds out all sorts of impossible angles, and dodges you in a way that no fellow can stand; so that rackets is rather dispiriting to a beginner. Having only once got up the ball in the course of an hour, and having sharply struck myself on the side of the head with my own racket, to say nothing of the curious attraction of the ball to my shoulder-blades, I determined that that should be my last as well as first visit to a racket court, charming as the game doubtless is when well played. So Brown will not ask me to make up his four for Holywell. There are also one or two tennis courts in Oxford; but I do not think that the favourite game of the Merry Monarch is very generally played except on grass.

I shall not part from Brown yet, but shall accompany him to Holywell and get a hand in the fives-court. It is a hot game, but not a graceful one, like rackets. It is all very well to poise your racket overhead, sway backwards and send the whizzing ball against the wall. But it is quite another thing to flounder after it with outstretched hands, which seem monstrous in their hot clumsy gloves, and missing it by a hair's-breadth, 'vainly beat the air.' Say what you like against it, there is no better exercise, though I should not think of bringing a certain young lady to witness my performances there, any more than I should of asking her to come to hear me viva-voce'd in the schools.

But I have wandered from the subject to the fair sex. To return to Jones, who is going to scull as far as Sandford in the fairy outrigger in which he is proud to disport himself. With some reason too, for the equal dip of the sculls in an outrigged skiff is hard to attain, and the art of turning those craft in any reasonable space is known only to a few of the initiated. I have always found that when I steered 'by the bank,'

 
E'en for a calm unfit,
I'd steer too near the sands to boast my wit,
 

as Dryden says; though I am not quite sure that he exactly means that. Others of our luncheon-party are bound by college patriotism to go down to the barges and undergo their day's training for the Torpids. These are of the stalwart sort; but they will not have a very pleasant time of it, nor will Jones in his skiff, for the wind is rather strong, and the water even on the lower river must be pretty rough; so two of our company, not of the stalwart kind, are going to the Freshman's river to engage one of those sailing-vessels called at Oxford a 'centre-board.' The wind is blowing fairly up stream; but they will have some trouble at a certain corner called 'Blackjack;' and I shall not be surprised if their new flannels are somewhat shrunken by to-morrow. Still they can swim; and if they can't, they ought to.

Besides the Rugby votaries of football, the Association and other clubs play in the parks. The practice of the former is the most interesting to watch; and though this pastime is, not without some reason, deemed by many to be silly and even barbarous, it seems to be generally largely patronised by spectators.

We must not neglect the new running ground with its comfortable pavilion, where, if we do not wish to take a trot ourselves, we may read The Field, and watch through the window the training of the crack whose performances it records. And talking of running, there is or was a Hare and Hounds Club, which numbered some distinguished runners among its members; and one college at least had lately, and perhaps still has, a pack of beagles. If a man be of very solitary habits and much inclined to hide him from his kind, there is jack-fishing in many parts of the river, engaged in which contemplative recreation he may moralise to his heart's content. There is a Gun-club too; to say nothing of the hunters, hacks, and pony-carts which may be obtained for a consideration. I don't know whether the hunters are screws, for I've never tried one, and for the same reason I don't know whether they are dear or cheap; on the whole, however, I should be inclined to say not cheap. Then there is a bicycling club, whose members perform immense distances in wonderful times, and who talk of going to Aylesbury or to Banbury and back, as outsiders do of Cowley and Cuddesden. And if you are one of the country's defenders, are there not drills in St John's Gardens, or parades in the Broad, and evolutions of all kinds in the parks? harder work than the road-making lately fashionable at Hinksey, near which, I believe, are the rifle butts. Playing at labourers has gone out, I believe.

But the summer term is the term for fun. Woful is the man who is in the schools in the bright days of June, when the sun at length gets through the Oxford fogs. The summer term is, technically speaking, two terms, for there are four terms in the 'varsity year, though no 'varsity man ever yet knew the distinctive names of them; and so the summer terms are twice as jolly as the other two, though only equal to one in length. Ah me! I shall soon have cause to sigh for the days that are no more. Then cricket and lawn-tennis, the eight-oar races, the lazy punt and nimbler canoe, cider-cup and skittles at Godstow, bathing at Parsons, archery and croquet, and cousins and sisters, and the occasional flower-show, will recur amongst the standing-orders of the past!

Every afternoon, when it is fine, the cricket-grounds, most of which are at Cowley, present a lively scene. The practising nets are occupied by batsmen, the sound of whose strokes on the much-enduring leather is like the tap, tap, tapping at the hollow beech-tree, or at the garden-gate, according to the taste of the listener. If you go in front of the nets, keep your eyes and ears open, or you may get knocked down by a stray ball – a danger kept constantly in your mind by frequent cries of 'Head!' which cause many to anticipate the bump in store for one. A man does not look to advantage at the moment when he becomes conscious of a descending cricket-ball in close proximity to the back of his head. In the centre of the ground a college match is being played; and in the tiny structure often graced by the title of Pavilion much beer is being consumed. At the further end, a couple of games of lawn-tennis are being briskly kept up. Altogether, the college ground is not a bad place in which to spend the afternoon, even though you may not be A1 at cricket.

As to the river, every visitor to Oxford in the summer term has seen that, and its varied and variegated load of eight-oars, four-oars, dingies, whiffs, skiffs, cockle-shells, pairs, punts, and coal-barges. For my own part I prefer the Cherwell and the cushioned punt. It is not a bad plan to get on shore in the Botanical Gardens, and stroll up the High as far as Cooper's, wherein to consume strawberry ices. I do not much affect the archery and croquet, nor yet the flower-shows; very good in their way, I daresay, but you can enjoy them at home, where a racket court, or even a skiff, is not always handy, and where skittles are apt to be voted low, and the secrets of cider-cup hidden from the butler's ken. So make your hay while the sun shines. And almost as fast as the skittles fall before the practised hurler, fly the nine weeks of the summer term, which comes to most men but three times in their lives; and if enjoyed again, must be so generally only at the expense of a disastrous 'plough,' a catastrophe which necessitates extra reading and perhaps a change of residence.

So the curtain falls upon the glories of the final tableau, the Commemoration, a tableau which has sadly wanted its proper amount of blue-fire lately. Even the Long Walk is beginning to fail as an avenue, and there are some gaps in the foliage, I think. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy: but even though he does work, and 'reads' when he ought, Jack need not be dull withal at dear old Oxford.

THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS

While the President of the Royal Society is travelling in America, studying, in company with Professor Asa Gray, the peculiar vegetation at the foot of the Rocky Mountains – while Dr Tyndall is solacing himself with a quiet holiday in his own house on the Bel Alp – while spectroscopists are rejoicing in the new 'grating' constructed by Professor Rutherford, which multiplies to an extraordinary degree their power of observation – while physicists and naturalists are betaking themselves to inland villages or to remote bays on the sea – while amateurs are looking at the one hundred and seven photographs of the Arctic expedition recently published by the Admiralty – while artists, engravers, and printers are at work on the voyage of the Challenger – while readers are acquainting themselves with Mr Darwin's new book, The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the same Species – while the British Association are reckoning up the profit and loss of their meeting at Plymouth – while the promoters of the Ordnance Survey of Palestine are appealing for funds to finish their work – while geographers and adventurers are soliciting means for the exploration of Africa – while Europe is trying to prevent immigration of the Colorado beetle – while Mr Varley is attempting by telephone to carry music from Her Majesty's Theatre to the 'other side of the water' – while the Treasury are considering whether they will ask parliament to vote three million pounds for the building of the much wanted new public offices – while Mr Berthollet is pointing out 'the possibility of producing temperatures really approaching three thousand degrees' – while Mr Rarchaert is shewing that his locomotive, combining the two essentials of adherence and flexibility, will travel safely round curves of two hundred and fifty mètres radius – while Mr Cornet, chief engineer of mines in Belgium, is endeavouring to prove that compressed air can be used in mines; and while the Social Science Council are settling their programme for amendment of law, repression of crime, promotion of education, improvement of health, furtherance of economy and trade, and diffusion of art – while all this is going on, science, art, and philosophy progress in a way that implies force within as well as without.

Where steam is employed, especially on board ship, it not unfrequently happens that a sudden occasion arises for exercise of the utmost power of the engines, and that to this gain extreme power for the short time required is of more importance than economy of coal. The method hitherto adopted to effect this object is to drive more air through the fire, or to throw a jet of steam into the chimney.

Mr Bertin, a French marine engineer, has proved that the best method is to throw jets of slightly compressed air into the base of the chimney by means of a centrifugal ventilator, or at higher pressure by employing a blowing-machine working with a piston. Under the transitory action of these jets of air the combustion in the furnace is doubled, and the ship, like a warrior in extremity, may make efforts impossible in ordinary circumstances. The increase in the consumption of coal is not more than twenty per cent.; and the method having been tried on board one of the national frigates, La Résolue, has proved so effectual, that its adoption is only a question of time. Mr Bertin has described his method and the principles on which it is based in a paper to be published in the Bulletin of the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale.

The same Society have just recognised the merits of an English chemist, Mr Walter Weldon, by conferring on him their Lavoisier medal —grande medaille d'honneur – for his discoveries and improvements in the art of manufacturing chlorine. Formerly all the manganese used in the process was wasted, and manganese became scarcer and dearer. Waste is an opprobrium in chemical operations. Mr Weldon shewed a way by which the manganese could be reoxydised over and over again indefinitely; and at once an offensive part of the process was got rid of, and the price of chlorine fell thirty per cent. This of course cheapened all the articles, and they are numerous, in the production of which chlorine plays a part; and Mr Weldon's method has been adopted wherever chemicals are manufactured on a great scale. Mr Lamy, who drew up the statement of the grounds on which the medal was awarded, said: 'If we have not the good fortune to designate a Frenchman for your suffrages, at least we have the satisfaction to present an inventor belonging to a friendly nation, the first among all for the development and the potency of its chemical industry.'

If this be true, there is a chance for another ingenious chemist for the Council General of Guadeloupe offer a reward of one hundred thousand francs to the inventor of a new method of extracting the juice of the sugar-cane, or of manufacturing sugar.

Hitherto it has been thought that to produce a good black dye the co-operation of a metallic substance or of a chlorate, or both combined, was indispensable. The question arose: Were those ingredients really indispensable? Mr Rosenstiehl first shewed that the metal might be dispensed with, and recently, as may be seen in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Mr Coquillion has proved that the chlorate is not required, for in the one case as in the other, the use of 'nascent' or active oxygen will effect the desired object. We are informed that the fact observed by the French chemist 'is an elegant demonstration of the action of active oxygen upon aniline salts; that it will perhaps enable us to obtain blacks derived from aniline in a state of greater purity, and to hasten the moment when we shall know their elementary composition; a question which, in view of its great interest, has been proposed for a prize by the Industrial Society of Mulhausen.'

Mr Cornet, whose name has been mentioned above, in a mathematical discussion of the question, says that compressed air would be largely used in mining operations 'were it possible to keep the temperature of the air from rising during compression much above that of the atmosphere, and from falling during expansion to the temperature of freezing water.' And he thinks that he has found 'the means for attaining this end in the use of water-spray, which could be introduced into the cylinder of the compressor, and into that of the machine using the air in the mine.' The practical details are not yet made known; but if they succeed, 'the use of compressed air in mines will soon become general, and the problem of mining at any depth will be solved.'

One part of the method devised by Mr Cornet had been previously thought of; for in 1875 an air-compressor was working in the St Gothard tunnel, of which it was said: 'The heat produced by compression is reduced by the circulation of cold water in the walls of the cylinder, in the interior of the piston and its rod; and an injection of water-spray at the two extremities of the cylinder completes the cooling.' When the compressors were at work they supplied to the tunnel fifteen cubic mètres of air per minute.

When messages were first sent by telegraph, many persons were exceedingly puzzled to understand how they were sent; and now the telephone has come to disturb them with another puzzle. But scientific men have long known that 'galvanic music,' as it is called, was discovered forty years ago, that an electro-magnet on being suddenly magnetised or demagnetised gives out audible sounds, and that many notices of the curious fact were printed in English and foreign journals. Professor Graham Bell, whose experiments have been already mentioned in these pages (ante , ), succeeded in making the sounds, which were commonly very faint, audible to a large number of persons. This was accomplished, as he explains, 'by interposing a tense membrane between the electro-magnet and its armature. The armature in this case consisted of a piece of clock-spring glued to the membrane. This form of apparatus,' he continues, 'I have found invaluable in all my experiments. The instrument was connected with a parlour organ, the reeds of which were so arranged as to open and close the circuit during their vibration. When the organ was played, the music was loudly reproduced by the telephonic receiver in a distant room. When chords were played upon the organ, the various notes composing the chords were emitted simultaneously by the armature of the receiver.'