Henry E. Eoscoe, Osborne Reynolds 151 



were sometimes difficult to follow, but capable and earnest 

 students always derived great benefit from them, and he 

 brought up a number of distinguished men who look back 

 with gratitude and affection to the inspiration they received 

 from his instruction. 



His researches nearly all possessed fundamental import- 

 ance. To quote Horace Lamb 1 : 



" His work on turbine pumps is now recognized as 

 having laid the foundation of the great modern develop- 

 ment in those appliances, whilst his early investigations 

 on the laws governing the condensation of steam on metal 

 surfaces, and on the communication of heat between a 

 metal surface and a fluid in contact with it, stand in a 

 similar relation to recent improvements in boiler and 

 condenser designs." 



He laid the scientific foundation of the theory of lubrica- 

 tion, and his papers on hydrodynamics have become classical 

 both on account of their theoretical importance and practical 

 applications. Like Rankine, his mind was not satisfied with 

 finding useful applications of his scientific knowledge, but 

 he took an active interest in all questions which touched the 

 foundation of elemental forces and atomic structure. He 

 was the first to give the correct explanation of Crookes' 

 radiometer, and in his later years he tried to formulate a 

 structure of matter and sether which should account for 

 gravitation as well as for electrical and other forces. What- 

 ever may be the ultimate fate of these speculations, they 

 were worked out in a systematic and original manner, and 

 incidentally contain results of permanent value. 



Three years after Roscoe's appointment in Manchester, 

 Robert Bellamy Clifton was elected to the Chair of Natural 

 Philosophy, but resigned in 1865 to take the Chair of Experi- 

 mental Physics at Oxford. His successor, William Jack, 

 subsequently Professor of Mathematics at Glasgow, was 

 interested mainly in the theoretical side of the subject, and * 

 resigned in 1870. It fell to his successor, Balfour Stewart, 

 to organize the department as an effective home of research, 



1 Obituary Notice of Osborne Reynolds, " Proc. Roy. Soc.," 

 Vol. LXXXVIIL, p. xvi (1913). 



