Dec. 2, i875j 



NATURE 



89 



was a good classical scholar, and could converse with 

 perfect fluency in English, French, German, Danish, and 

 Italian ; and could read with ease nearly all the modern 

 European languages. He made some strong friendships 

 among his colleagues, and his acknowledged ability and 

 his manner and address, which were eminently those of a 

 polished gentleman and man of the world, won for him 

 universal respect and esteem. 



Altogether I looked upon Rudolf von Willemoes- 

 Suhm as a young man of the very highest promise, per- 

 fectly certain, had he lived, to have achieved a distin- 

 guished position in his profession, and I look upon his 

 untimely death as a serious loss not only to the expe- 

 dition in which he took so important a part, but also to 

 the younger generation of scientific men among whom he 

 was steadily preparing himself to become a leader. 



C. \V\•^•ILLE Thomson 



H.M.S. Challenger, Tahiti, Oct. i 



THE PENIKESE SCHOOL 



OUR readers will regret to hear that the Anderson 

 School of Natural History in Penikese Island, U.S., 

 has come to an untimely end, and will no doubt regret 

 still more that it has done so amid much unpleasant feeling 

 between those chiefly concerned. We shall endeavour to 

 state fairly the facts of the case. 



Mr. Anderson, who is a wealthy merchant, made a gift 

 of Penikese Island and 50,000 dollars in cash to the late 

 Prof. Agassiz, in order to enable him to start a school for 

 the practical teaching of natural history. This sum, it 

 may well be believed, was only sufficient to start the 

 school, erect buildings, furnish apparatus, and other neces- 

 saries. No one can complain that Mr. Anderson did not 

 also endow the school, and during the life-time of the 

 elder Agassiz there seems to have been no difficulty as to 

 funds. On his death, his son, Mr. Alexander Agassiz, under- 

 took to carry on the school. This he did, we believe, very 

 unwillingly, as he knew there were no funds available for 

 the daily business of the school, and he did not consider 

 the island a suitable location for such an institution unless 

 largely endowed. Moreover, it was his father's earnest 

 wish that he should devote most of his time and energy 

 to the Museum at Cambridge. However, he consented 

 to conduct the school on condition that Mr.'Anderson 

 would contribute the sum of 10,000 dollars towards its 

 support for the next three years. The first intimation of 

 any dissatisfaction on the generous donor's part seems to 

 have been made to the trustees at the end of 1874, when 

 he sent them 1329-60 dollars to pay off debts which had 

 been incurred, announcing at the same time that this 

 was the last contribution he would make. The trustees 

 seem, nevertheless, to have made every effort to carry on 

 the school. A member of Prof. Agassiz's family contri- 

 buted a guarantee fund of 3,000 doDars, and appeals were 

 made in all directions, but without anything like success. 

 Clearly the trustees and the teachers themselves could 

 not be expected to carry on the school at their own 

 expense, and all that they had any right to look for from 

 Mr, Anderson was the balance of the 10,000 dollars which 

 he promised ; why he failed to contribute this, we are 

 unable to say. Had he done so, those interested in the suc- 

 cess of the school would have had time to set about raising 

 something like an endowment fund, and a fine opportunity 

 would have been afforded to the U.S. Government to show 

 their appreciation of practical scientific teachers and scien- 

 tific research. As it was, the only course which seemed left 

 to the trustees, when everything is taken into account, was 

 to close the school and sell off the furniture and aquaria. 

 Mr. Anderson seems to have considered himself iU used 

 and insulted by the trustees, and Mr. Agassiz in parti- 

 cular ; but so far as the facts are known to us, we cer- 

 tainly believe he is mistaken. Mr. Agassiz has duties of 

 the highest importance to attend to in connection with 



the Cambridge Museum, and he could not possibly be 

 expected to waste his time and energy on an undertaking 

 in whose success no one seemed to be interested. He 

 seems to us to have acted in a straightforward and 

 honourable manner, and only to have given up the school 

 when he saw there was no possible hope of getting funds 

 to carry it on. Mr. Anderson, for some reason which 

 does not appear, seems to have lost his temper, and may 

 naturally have been annoyed that the public did not 

 come forward in support of the school which he so 

 generously founded. The result is certainly to be re- 

 gretted, but we hope that Mr. Agassiz and Mr. Anderson 

 may come to a better understanding, and that even if the 

 school be not again started, the latter will see that the 

 former has acted all along in the interests of science, 

 whose servant he is. To have touched the Agassiz 

 Memorial Fund, now 347,000 doUars, as some one sug- 

 gested should have been done, was simply impossible ; it 

 was collected for a special purpose. 



Mr. Agassiz took two of the most promising Penikese 

 pupils into his laboratory at Newport, and intends, we 

 believe, as soon as the necessary means can be collected, 

 to establish a school at some more suitable locality. 



THE THEORY OF "STREAM LINES" IN RELA- 

 TION TO THE RESISTANCE OF SHIPS* 

 IL 



T T might at first sight appear that I have now the materials for 

 the proof of my chief proposition, the assertion of the im- 

 resisted progress of a subnaerged body ; for such a body might be 

 assumed to be surrounded by a system of imaginary pipes, as 

 shown in Fig. 8 ; and each of these pipes being in equilibrium 



Fig. 8. 



endways, that is to say, the flow of fluid through it not tending in 

 the aggregate to move it endways, neither, it might be said, would 

 the flow of fluid tend to move the submerged body endwajrs. But 

 this reasoning would not be sound. The pipes we have fiitherto 

 been considering have been of imiform sectional area throughout 

 their length, an assumption which has been necessary to the 

 treatment pursued, as the velocity has in each case been assumed 

 to be uniform throughout the pipe. The section of the pipe may 

 have been square, circular, trapezoidal, or any other form ; but 

 the area of the section has been assumed to be the same through- 

 out the length of the pipe. 



But pipes of uniform sectional area do not truly represent the 

 flow of a fluid past a submerged body. I shall presendy ask you 

 to consider the fluid as flowing past the body through a system 

 of imaginary pipes ; but to render the assumption admissible, 

 the sides of the imaginary pipes mvist not be so placed as to in- 

 terfere with the established course of the fluid, whatever that 

 may be ; in other words, if, for the sake of illustrating the be- 

 haviovur of the fluid, we assvmie that it is divided into streams or 

 filaments flowing through imaginary pipes, we must accept such 

 a form for those imaginary pipes that their sides exactly follow 

 the paths of the adjacent particles of fluid. 



Now such a rule may, and probably wiU, require the imagi- 

 nary pipes to be of varying sectional area throtighout their length. 

 Therefore, before we can apply the analogy of the flow of fluid 

 through pipes to the flow of a fluid past a submerged body, it is 

 necessary to consider the behaviotur of fluid in pipes of varying 

 sectional area. 



It is, I think, a very common bat erroneous impression, that a 



* Address to the Mechanical Section of the British Association, Bristol, 

 August 25, 1875 ; by William Froude, C.E , M.A-, F.R.S. President of 

 the Section. Revised and extended by the author. Continued from p. 52. 



