Joseph David Everett. 379 



without curtains, and seldom sat in an easy chair. He practised 

 bicycling continually from such an early date as 1868. In his later 

 years he took to golf with some eagerness. Shorthand was one of his 

 hobbies ; he introduced a system of his own, and published several 

 books about it, one when he was at Totteridge. 



A great many scientific papers were " referred " to him for 

 criticism, more particularly after his retirement, and he was always 

 willing to do such work. He acted as " expert " in revising mathe- 

 matical and physical slips for the Royal Society's Catalogue of 

 Scientific Papers, his daughter having for some time before been 

 engaged on the work under George Griffith. 



Prof. Everett remained Secretary of the Underground Temperature 

 Committee of the British Association from its appointment in 1867, 

 and drafted twenty-two 'reports, which have been published. A 

 summary of the first fifteen was published in 1882. In 1871 he 

 moved the appointment of a British Association Committee " for the 

 Selection and Nomenclature of Dynamical and Electrical Units," of 

 which he became Secretary, and in 1873 he presented a report recom- 

 mending the C.G.S. system, and introducing the names Dyne and Erg. 

 In 1875, under the auspices of the Physical Society, he published his 

 book (subsequently enlarged, and of many editions) on Units, which 

 was very useful in making these units well known. This book is 

 truly a remarkable performance. It is difficult to think of any other 

 author who would not have made it a dry catalogue, but Everett 

 made it interesting reading, although what is most characteristic about 

 the book is its concise precision of statement. Like everything else 

 done by the author, everything is finished up, there are no loose ends. 

 The work involved in the reduction of so many quantities to their 

 equivalents in C.G.S. units was very great. Every reader feels that 

 he may depend implicitly upon the accuracy of all the results, and 

 this is a matter of very great consequence. It has been translated 

 into Russian, German, French, Polish, Italian, and other languages. 

 In 1881 the C.G.S. units were adopted by the International Congress 

 of Electricians at Paris. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society 

 in 1879. 



His translation of Deschanel's "Physics," 1869-72, became, with 

 additions and alterations in this and many subsequent editions, almost 

 his own book. It has been, and still is, a valuable text-book. In 1901 

 the electrical portion of this was re-written. Other books, in addition 

 to those already mentioned, were : " An Elementary Text-Book of 

 Physics," 1877; " Vibratory Motion and Sound," 1882; " Outlines of 

 Natural Philosophy," 1885. He wrote the article on Interpolation in 

 the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1902-3. From the reading of his paper 



