October 13, 1923] 



NA TURE 



551 



without entailing on the public any expense on this 

 account." 



The zeal and energy of the medical officers^ and 

 their love of science^ however, seem not to have been 

 equal to the occasion, for after vainly endeavouring, 

 .until the end of 1855, to carry out the orders they 

 had received, without entailing expense on the public, 

 .it was arranged, at the direction of the Honourable 

 Board, that two European soldiers should be told ofi[ 

 'at each station to undertake the duty of making 

 meteorological observations on an allowance of 25 

 rupees per month for each observatory. The soldiers 

 were sent to the Bombay Observatory early in 1856 

 for a preparatory course of training, on the successful 

 completion of which they were furnished with certifi- 

 cates of competency to perform the work. Soon after 

 this time the real work of meteorological registration may 

 'be said to have commenced, for, so far as the observers 

 are concerned, the work from this time appears to 

 have been carried on generally in a thorough and 

 satisfactory manner. Under Mr. Chambers's adminis- 

 tration the instruments were for the first time regularly 

 compared with standards, and trustworthy data, such 

 as made the Climatological Atlas of India possible, 

 were collected. 



Dr. Christian Hess. 



One of the directors of the Farbenfabriken vorm. 

 Friedr. Bayer und Co., in Leverkusen, Dr. Christian 

 Hess, died on July ii in Bonn, after a serious operation. 

 He was born January 14, 1859, at Eisenach, studied 

 chemistry first at Jena and then in Berlin, where he 

 worked for his doctorate under A. W. v. Hofmann in 

 1881. After having been assistant chemist to Prof. 

 Wichelhaus at the Institute of Chemical Technology, 

 he went in 1883 to the newly founded weaving, dyeing, 

 and finishing school in Crefeld, where he developed 

 very great activity as a teacher and an expert adviser. 

 At that time he invented his process for removing 

 iron from water. The large number of coal-tar dye- 

 stuffs of a new character, which were discovered at 

 that time, brought with them the necessity of using 

 new methods for dyeing. This caused a lot of diffi- 

 culties in the dyeworks, to meet which the dyemakers 

 engaged colourists of good chemical training, able to 

 introduce the new methods. One of the first of these 

 was Dr. Hess, who was engaged by the Farbenfabriken 

 in 1894. 



Dr. Hess showed remarkable commercial ability, 

 and after some time the whole of the sale of dyestuffs 

 was entrusted to him ; he was nominated a director in 

 1906. His knowledge of men and things enabled him 

 to render many important and lasting services to the 

 industrial side. His firm, his colleagues, his employees 

 and the great number of men he helped with good 

 advice, with sound reasoning and with hearty en- 

 couragement, when in difficulties, will much regret his 

 premature death. 



Prof. J. Violle. 

 The issue of the Revue scientifique for September 22 

 contains a notice of the death of Jules Violle, professor 

 of physics at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, 



NO. 2815, VOL. I 12] 



which occurred at Fixin, near Dijon, on September 12. 

 Violle was born in the same district on November 16, 

 1841. After obtaining his doctorate in 1870, he was 

 in succession professor of physics at Grenoble, at 

 Lyons, and at the Ecole Normale. In 1897 he was 

 elected a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 

 succession to Fizeau. He was president of the French 

 Physical Society, of the Society of Electricians and of 

 the Committee of Inventions for National Defence. 

 His earliest research was a determination of the 

 mechanical equivalent of heat by means of the Foucault 

 currents in a disc rotating in a magnetic field. His 

 result, about 4 per cent, too high, was published in 

 1870. His work on the temperature of the sun appeared 

 in 1877, and in 1884 he proposed as a standard of light, 

 that radiated normally by a sq. cm. of molten platinum 

 at its freezing-point. From 1886 to 1905 he published 

 in conjunction with Vautier a number of memoirs on 

 the speed of sound particularly in tubes. His " Cours 

 de physique," which began to appear in 1883, was 

 never completed. 



We regret to record the death, on July 26, of 

 Alexander Ellinger, professor of pharmacology in the 

 University of Frankfort. Before the foundation of the 

 latter university Ellinger held a similar chair at 

 Konigsberg. He was best known for his chemical work. 

 Thus he showed that ornithine and lysine are decar- 

 boxylated by bacteria to putrescine and cadaverine 

 respectively. He supphed the final touches to the 

 determination of the constitution of tryptophane, and 

 synthesised this amino-acid. Its transformation to 

 kynurenic acid by the animal organism occupied much 

 of his attention, and a few years ago he was able to 

 elucidate the mechanism of this peculiar change, which 

 apparently takes place via the keto-acid corresponding 

 to tryptophane. 



The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly of July includes 

 an obituary notice of Prof. William Henry Goodyear, 

 best known by his work entitled " The Grammar of the 

 Lotus," who died in February last aged seventy-seven. 

 The theory developed in this book was conceived during 

 his studies of lotiform decorations in Cypriote art, 

 and included a study of the lotus in the decorations on 

 peat from early Egyptian times. In his work as an 

 architect his discoveries of architectural refinements 

 will prove most important. His published work is 

 extensive and valuable, and is fully recorded in the 

 sketch of his career by Mr. W. S. Conrow. 



We regret to announce the following deaths : 



Sir Halliday Groom, emeritus professor of midwifery 

 at the University of Edinburgh and lately president 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, on 

 September 27, aged seventy-six. 



Dr. P. Friedlander, professor of organic chemistry 

 and of organic-chemical technology at the Darm- 

 stadt Technical College, aged sixty-six. 



Dr. Herbert McLeod, F.R.S., honorary director of 

 the Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers, on 

 October i, aged eighty-two. 



