University of Virginia Library

SCHOOL OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

Prof. Smith.

There are two classes in this School.

Junior Class.—The Junior or General Class meets three times
each week throughout the session of nine months. The object of the
course of lectures to this class is to furnish the student with a comprehensive
view of Modern Physics, and to make him familiar with
its methods of investigation. With the design of laying a thoroughly
scientific basis for the course, a large space is given at the outset to
the discussion of the cardinal doctrines of motion and force. These
doctrines are established, and their leading consequences are traced,
without the use of mathematical symbols. Guided by these truths,
the teacher discusses, in the light of experiment, the structure of
matter according to the received atomic hypotheses, and the equilibrium
and motion of solids and fluids. These topics, with various
applications, occupy the first half of the course of lectures.

The remainder of the course is devoted to Molecular Physics, and
treats of Capillarity, Osmose, Wave Motion, Sound, Light, Heat and
Electricity. In this, as in the previous portion of the lectures, the
established laws of motion and force are kept steadily in view, and
an attempt is made so to present and discuss the phenomena as to
convince the student that the entire body of Physics is doubtless a
coherent and harmonious system of mechanical truth.

Text Books.—Ganot's Physics, Stewart on Heat.

Senior Class.—This class meets twice a week, and studies Mechanics
and Astronomy.

Text Books.—Parkinson's Mechanics, Norton's Astronomy.

Mineralogy and Geology.

These subjects are assigned to a separate class, which the members
of the other classes in the School may attend without payment of an
additional fee. In this class the lectures commence with General
Mineralogy, which is treated with especial reference to Geology, to
which it is designed to be an introduction. In the lectures on Geology,
the specific identity of ancient and modern Geological causes is
pointed out; the present action of these causes, whether atmospheric,
aqueous, or igneous, is considered, and their effects in the past history
of the Earth are examined. The illustrations are drawn, as far as
practicable, from the Geological structure of Virginia.

The students have an opportunity of familiarising themselves with
the minerals, rocks and fossils exhibited in the lectures.

Text-Books.—Dana's Manuals of Mineralogy and Geology.

Class of Practical Physics.

Arrangements are now making to accommodate those students
who, expecting to be teachers of Science, or for other reasons, desire
to acquaint themselves practically with the details of Physical Manipulation.
These accommodations will, it is hoped, be enlarged as
the demand for them augments. The course of instruction will be
partly experimental and partly theoretical. For the present, the subjects
presented will be these:

A. Experimental.—1. Study of the Construction, Management and
Preservation of Physical Apparatus. The student will take apart,
examine and put together various philosophical instruments, and
will carefully repeat with them the experiments performed in the
lecture room.

2. Use of "Instruments of Precision."—Measurement of length, of
differences of altitude, of volume; Calibration of tubes; Specific
Gravity of solids and liquids; Measurement of small intervals of
time by revolving mirror; of number of vibrations of sounding
bodies by Sirene, Monochord and revolving mirror or screen; of Curvature
and focal distances of mirrors and lenses; Manipulation and
use of the Telescope, Microscope and Spectroscope; Daily Observations
with Meteorological Instruments; Determination of the errors
of instruments.

B. Theoretical.—Reduction of Observations; Interpolation; Graphical
representation of results; Method of least squares; Essays on
prescribed physical topics.