March 9, 191 1] 



NATURE 



49 



friendship with him during- the few short years of life 

 that were left to him. 



Gadolin was the most distinguished of Bergman's 

 pupils. Under him he began the metallurgical and 

 mineralogical inquiries with which his name is asso- 

 ciated. At Upsala, too, he commenced his work on 

 specific heat, which he subsequently published at 

 Abo in 1784. On the death of Bergman, he was a 

 candidate for the chair at Upsala, but Afzelius was 

 chosen, whereupon Gadolin returned to Finland, and 

 in 1785 was made professor extraordinarius at the 

 University of Abo. The duties of his office left him, 

 however, ample leisure, part of which he occupied in 

 travel in Germany, Holland, and England. He estab- 

 lished a literary connection with Lorenz Crell, which 

 led to frequent communications to the Annalen which 

 Crell edited. Whilst in London he published a memoir 

 on the analysis of iron ores bv wet methods, in which 

 he gave the first suggestion of a method of volumetric 

 analysis, and in conjunction with Crawford he under- 

 took a series of determinations of the latent and specific 

 heat of ice. Passing over to Ireland, he made the 

 acquaintance of Kirwan, with whom he subsequently 

 corresponded on mineralogical matters. 



Gadolin was early attracted to the work of the 

 French School of Chemistry, and made known the 

 •new doctrine to northern Europe. On his return to 

 Abo in 1789 he adopted the new chemistry as a feature 

 of his teaching. In 1797, on Gadd's death, he became 

 ord'inary professor of chemistry, holding the chair 

 until 1822, when he retired. Phlogistonism died hard in 

 Sweden, but Gadolin 's handbook, which he published 

 in the Swedish language in 1798, did much to kill it. 

 The most fruitful period of Gadolin 's scientific activity 

 is comprised between the years 1788 and 1803. 



It was Gadolin who first made known the existence 

 of a new earth in a black niineral from Ytterby, in 

 Sweden, which Ekeberg subsequentlv termed Yttria- 

 earth, the first discovered member of that numerous 

 group of bodies we term the rare earths. The mineral 

 itself became known as Gadolinite. A hundred years 

 later Marignac and Lecoq de Boisbaudran found a 

 new element in Samarskite, which they named Gado- 

 linium, in honour of the discoverer of the first of this 

 series of substances. 



The great fire of 1827, which practically destroyed 

 Abo, and with it the university buildings and the 

 whole of his mineral collections, terminated Gadolin's 

 scientific career. The site of the university was 

 moved to Helsinj^fors, and Gadolin retired to the 

 country, where he died on August 15, 1852, at the age 

 of ninety-two. 



In the handsane quarto volume before us Prof. 

 Hjelt and his collaborator have put together a very 

 complete account of Gadolin's career and of his ser- 

 vices to science. This is followed by copious extracts 

 from his correspondence, some details of his courses 

 of university lectures, and a selection of his more 

 important memoirs, and the whole concludes with a 

 lisr of his contemporaries, more particularly of those 

 associated with him as academic colleagues, co- 

 workers in science, or as literary correspondents. The 

 chapter on Gadolin's scientific activity contains an 

 admirable critical account of his relation to his period 

 iand of the ptrt he played in connection with the 

 downfall of phk istonism. It also contains a full and 

 discriminating analvsis of his more important 

 f memoirs, viz., on specific heat, on iron analysis, and 

 on his detection of the first member of the series of 

 frare earths. The short acount of his system of teach- 

 ijing is largely made up of extracts from the manu- 

 scripts of his lectures. Thev are especially rich in 

 historical references and throw interestin?^ sidehVhts 

 '1 his period. T. E. T. 



NO. 2158, VOL. 861 



' NOTES. 



We notice with deep regret the announcement of the 

 death, in his fifty-ninth year, of Prof. J. H. van 't Hoff, 

 honorary professor of general chemistry in the University 

 of Berlin, on February i, at Steglitz, near Berlin. 



The nineteenth " James Forrest " lecture of the Institu- 

 tion of Civil Engineers will be delivered on Wednesday, 

 June 28, by Dr. F. H. Hatch, his subject being "The 

 Past, Present, and Future of Mining in the Transvaal." 



The president of the Royal Society and the members 

 of the General Board of the National Physical Laboratory 

 will meet at the laboratory on Friday, March 17, for the 

 annual visitation, when the various departments will be on 

 view. 



Prof. H. E. Armstrong, F.R.S., has been nominated 

 the delegate of the Royal Institution at the celebration of 

 the centenary of the Royal Frederick University of 

 Christiania, and Sir James Crichton-Browne, F.R.S., as 

 delegate at the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the 

 University of St. Andrews. 



Lieut. -Colonel DAvm Prain, F.R.S., director of the 

 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has been elected a member 

 of the Athenaeum Club under the provisions of the rule 

 which empowers the annual election by the committee of 

 a certain number of persons " of distinguished eminence 

 in science, literature, the arts, or for public services." 



It is announced in the Revue scientifique that M. Fauvel 

 has offered 30,000 francs for the construction of an annexe 

 to the laboratory of the National Museum of Natural 

 History in Paris. 



The death is announced, at sixty-eight years of age, of 

 Mr. John Sime, CLE., late Director of Public Instruction 

 in the Punjab and Under-Secretary to the Punjab Govern- 

 ment in the Education Department. 



We regret to notice that Mr. E. E. Wilson, formerly an 

 assistant in the radiography department of the London 

 Hospital, died on March 2 as the result of disease con- 

 tracted by frequent exposure to Rontgen rays. 



The Easter excursion of the Geologists' Association will 

 be to St. David's district, South Wales, and will extend 

 from April 13 to April 22. The excursion directors are 

 Mr. J. F. N. Green and Prof. O. T. Jones, and the 

 excursion secretary Mr. A. L. Leach, Giltar, Shrewsbury 

 Lane, Plumstead, S.E. 



A conference of members of the Museums Association 

 and others interested in museums will be held at Belle 

 Vue and Bankfield Museums on Saturday, April 8, for the 

 purpose of discussing subjects of interest to those con- 

 cerned in the work of museums, art galleries, and kindred 

 institutions. Anyone proposing to attend the conference 

 should communicate with Mr. H. Ling Roth, Briarfield, 

 Shibden, Halifax. 



Dr. John W. Harshberger, assistant professor of 

 botany in the University of Pennsylvania, has just returned 

 from an expedition in the Everglades of southern Florida, 

 during which he collected several plants previously un- 

 known to science. The Everglades themselves, he reports, 

 are fast passing away through continual drainage, and 

 their vegetation is likely soon to become extinct. 



We learn from Science that the U.S. Senate has passed 

 the Weeks Bill providing for the establishment of a forest 

 reserve in the Appalachian Mountains. The Bill is applic- 

 able from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, on the eastern 



