:. MILLER, WILLIAM HALLOWS, M.A., F.UJJ. 



MILLEU, WILLIAM HALLOWS, M.A., F.R.a 



MM*. The introduction thus afforded was the turning-point in 

 the setentifie rerser of Ura young student. Dr. Danicll admitted liiui 

 o bu laboratory, and toon Mom* hU kindest and inoet valued friend. 

 Uadrr these favourable auspices, Mr. Ililler tacoessfuUy punued bin 

 eJhsmical and lotaUoe dnoaUon; proving also that be did not neglect 

 the kicker studies bj carrying off tbeWameford prue for 1839, an 

 aejileiiieu> for the eiicoarafenMtit of theological itudie* among 

 medical students. 



During the rammer of 1840 Mr. Miller Tutted Germany, and paued 

 a few wseks in the laboratory of Liebig at Oiessen. In the same year 

 * Dew offlce was instituted at King's College, that of DemonBtrator of 

 Chemistry, and Mr. Miller was inrited to accept it. In this capacity 

 he roodrrvd essential assistance to Professor Dsniell by giving a part 

 of his coons of lecture* during his severe indisposition in 1841. 

 About this time Mr. Miller took his degree as Doctor of Medicine in 

 the University of London. From that period until the death of the 

 profancr in 1845, 1'r. Miller continued to take part of the lectures, 

 and otherwise to assist his friend. He aided in chemical researches 

 upon the buildiug-ttoaea used for the Houses of Parliament, and con- 

 ducted the Tarious experiments required in their joint investigations 

 upon the Kltctrolysis of Saline Compounds. A paper embodying 

 these investigations was published by them conjointly in the ' Philo- 

 sophical Transactions' for 1S44. On the death of Professor Daniell, 

 in 1815, Dr. Miller was appointed to the vacant chair of Chemistry in 

 King's College. In the same year he read a paper before the British 

 Association on the fixed line* of the Prismatic Spectrum, which was 

 published in the Philosophical Magaiine ' for that year. In 1851 he 

 was appointed one of the government commissioners to report on the 

 water upply of the mttro|K>lis, and one of the assay era to her 

 Msj-ty' Mint From time to time Dr. Miller has furnished papers 

 to the British Association ; but hi* principal work two pnrta of which 

 an already published, and the third nearly completed is entitled 

 . nts of Chemistry, Theoretical and Practical 



Dr. Miller holds the offices of President of the Chemical Society, 

 Vioe-IVsidcnt of the Royal Society, Honorary Fellow of Ki.u's 

 College and of the Pharmaceutical Society, and Aseayer to the Mint 

 and to the Itank of England. 



MILLER, WILLIAM HALLOWS, M.A., F.R.S., an eminent 

 phytici-t, <T\ i-Ullo/iapher, and mineralogist, Professor of Mineralogy 

 in the University of Cambridge, was educated at St John's College, 

 and took his II A. degree in 1S26, afterwards becoming a fellow and 

 tutor of his college. In 1832 he succeeded Mr. Whewell in the chair 

 of mineralogy, and in 18S8 was elected a Fellow of the lioyal Society. 

 He is also one of the leading Fellows of the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society, of which, after filling the office of one of the secretaries for 

 one yean, l.e has since become a vice-pronident. One of Professor 

 Millers most important contributions to physics is the subject of a 

 On Spurious Rainbows,' in the seventh volume of the ' Tran- 

 ' of the society lot named, being one of the recent investiga- 

 liy which the theory of the rainbow has been brought to its 

 actual state of apparent |*rfection. Mr. Airy having previously deter- 

 mined the reUtive distances of the brightest parts of the first spurious 

 bow, and of the first and second dork rings, from the geometrical 

 place of the bow, by calculations founded on the undulatory theory 

 oflifht. Professor Miller in this paper compares these results with 

 observation, employing M. Ilabiuef* method of artificially exhibiting 

 rainbows, and the accompanying spurious bows. He finds that the 

 MsmcM between theory and observation are not greater than 

 might reason* Uy be expected. 



The same work coLtains also the following papers by Professor 



tag to the Oblique-prismatic System,' two i*pers, vols. v. and vii. In 

 U, first of these Uo papers he described and adopted, we believe for 

 the Ant time in this country, the method of repre.enting crystalline 



* by their sphere* of projection, first employed by Professor 



an of Konigsberg, and afterwards by Qravmann and Uhde. 

 I dmcnm of a crysul is the representation of a sphere, to the 

 m of which the boss of the crystal an referred by means of per- 

 pendicular* drs n from the centre of the sphere. It has the advantage 

 of exhibiting all the faces of a crystal without confu-ion in one figure, 

 M! also of allowing all the requisite calculations to be performed by 

 spherical trigonometry. Professor Miller baa continued to employ the 

 mae method in bU subsequent works. Although the reflective gonio- 

 meter if M Koflish invention, and wsa produced by Dr. WoUacton 

 more than forty years ago, the number of physical inquirers, even of 

 Pfolessii mineralogisU,- who an accustomed to its use hi the measure- 

 ment of the angles of crystal, is still very small. On this account 

 Professor Miller, ho is skilled in this branch of practical crysUllo- 

 repay, is frequently applied to by geologists, chemist*, and others, to 

 identify minerals which have occurred to them, or measure and 

 describe crystals of raits and other chemical bodies that have been 

 formed in their laboratorin. The results will be found in papers 

 pmbliabed by him in the Third Series of the ' Philosophical Magazine ' 

 and in mtiuoirs by various authors, contained in the journals of 

 societies and other collections. 



IWeesor Miller has produced, in conjunction with Mr. Henry J. 



Brooke, perhaps the most philosophically valuable treatise on Mineralogy 

 in the English language, being a new edition, published in 1SS2, of Uie 

 'Elementary Introduction' to that science, by the late William 

 Phillip*, F.it.S. [I'lin.Liri, WILUAM.] In the preface Mr. Brooke 

 states, with characteristic candour, that with the except! 

 mation relative to many minerals derived from his long acquaintance 

 with them, and the supply of specimens and crystals for re-examina- 

 tion, this treatise has been composed and arranged entirely by Professor 

 Miller, Mr. PhilUps's work having been entirely reconstructed by bin). 

 It is superfluous to remark, that the latest observations and discoveries 

 hare been introduced ; but it is proper to notice, that whilu. in other 

 mineralogical treatises it has been the practice to omit nearly all the 

 optical characters of minerals, except those of colour and lusti 

 work is advantageously distinguished by an account of the characters 

 and phenomena which depend upon refraction and polariinti. : 

 by many notices of the curious properties they confer upon individual 

 minerals. To make this addition to descriptive mineralogy, the physical 

 pursuits of Professor Miller had eminently qualified him. 



An important port has been taken by Professor Miller in the resto- 

 ration of the standards of weight and measure, which became requisite 

 on the destruction of the national standards by the fire which destroyed 

 the houses of parliament in 1*34; and the subsequent construction 

 and verification of the new parliamentary standard of weight has been 

 entirely effected by him. In 1838 a Commission was appointed to 

 consider the steps to bo taken for the restoration of the standards. 

 The members received propositions and suggestions from various other 

 men of science and persons engaged in business, including the subject 

 of this article, whose views were stated in an elaborate letter addressed 

 to the Astronomer lioyaL A series of connected extracts from this 

 letter, comprising apparently nearly the whole, was printed for official 

 use in a quarto volume in 1840, and laid before parliament iu the 

 succeeding year. The observations and recommendations relative to 

 the intended standards which are offered in these extracts are of a 

 very refined and philosophical character, indicating also iu the remarks 

 on the metals and other substances proposed to be used in their con- 

 struction, the knowledge arising from the habits of minute attention 

 to the physical properties of bodies acquired by the study of minerals. 



On the subject of the substitution of arbitrary, that is of artificially 

 selected and defined standards of weight, measure, and other physical 

 propel ties, for the natural standards originally suggested by the genius 

 of Wren and Mouton, and some of their associates, and which, in 

 modern times, it had been supposed niL'ht be defined with indefea- 

 sible exactitude, but the use of which again, the refined investigations 

 of a more recent period have shown to be fallacious Professor Miller 

 is distinguished from other men of science of the present day by a 

 view, which, we believe, is peculiarly his own, uniting a reference to 

 natural elements with their definition by actual observation, u-iug for 

 that purpose experimental facts, not ideal relations which cannot be 

 realised. He urges that the standard of length, for example, might 

 be compared with some distance existing iu nature, of which the 

 length of the seconds' pendulum he thinks is probably much tho best, 

 but that the length should be expressed in terms of the leugtli 

 actual pendulum, swinging seconds iu air at a given temperature, 

 pressure, &c, on a given spot, "not iu terms of an imaginary pen- 

 dulum, in absolute vacuo, at the level of the sea lie., circumstances in 

 which the observations cannot be made, and to which the observations 

 cannot be reduced, on account of our imperfect knowledge of the 

 'constants of nature,' on which the reductions depend." But in some 

 respects Professor Miller goes further than others in rejecting imagi- 

 nary standards, for he would also put aside 'standard temperature 

 and pressure' as being, not the viitu.il constants they ore asaumed to 

 be, but pernicious fictions. 



On the 20th of June 1843, a Commission, consisting, with certain 

 changes and additions, of the same scientific men as tho previous 

 Commission for the restoration of the standards, was appointed, by 

 the Lords of the Treasury, to superintend the construction of uow 

 parliamentary standards of length and weight. Of this Professor 

 Miller was a member, and undertook, at the request of the First Lord, 

 tho construction of tho standard of weight ; tho lato Mr. F. Jiaily 

 [!!AII,T, FRANCIS] having at the same time undertaken the con- 

 'traction of the standard of length. The Commissioner*, in tlio 

 minute of their first meeting, July 11, 1843, state that they " had 

 the highest satisfaction iu recognising tho fitness of these gentle- 

 men, by their talents, their knowledge of the subjects, and their 

 habitual accuracy, to undertake the tasks assigned to them." In t heir 

 report of March 1S54 they state that the actual work of forming the 

 standard of weight has accordingly been brought to its termination 

 by Professor Miller. For this standard platinum was adopted, and of 

 the form, a cylinder having a groove near the top for convenience of 

 lifting, recommended by Professor Miller. "For tho comparison of 

 weights, Professor Miller procured from Mr. Barrow a balance of the 

 utmost delicacy. This instrument was mounted in a cellar b< 

 the Mineralogical Museum at Cambridge, and there all the operations 

 of weighing the rcprencntetives of tho lost Standard, tho New Primary 

 Standard, anil the copy of tho French Standard, were informed." 

 Of the materials for restoration of the values of the old or lost stan- 

 dards, being weights which had been compared with the lost Imperial 

 Troy pound standard, the brass pounds had gained in weight, no 



