Nov. 28, 1889] 



NATURE 



£9 



spot seen on that occasion attained a latitude of 40", a circum- 

 stance for which there are only a very few recorded precedents. 

 Besides these spots mentioned by Father Perry some much 

 larger groups have also been seen at a less but still considerable 

 distance from the equator. Thus on July 26 and 27 a group was 

 noticed in lat. 24^ S., while another and more important group 

 in nearly the same latitude was observed during three successive 

 rotations in August, September, and October. Bearing in mind 

 that the mean distance from the equator of all spots in 1888 was 

 scarcely more than 7 , and in the first five months of 1889, but 

 little more than 5", these outbreaks in high latitudes become 

 very significant ; and taken with the marked increase in number 

 and size of spots during the months of June, July, August, and 

 September, as compared with the earlier part of the year, point 

 to the minimum being definitely passed. If this be so, the 

 period of quiescence has been decidedly shorter, the run down 

 from maximum swifter, and the turn towards recovery sharper 

 than in the preceding cycle. Judging from the form of the spot 

 curve on previous occasions when a short period of minimum 

 has followed a maximum of low intensity, as was that of 1883, 

 we may expect that the revival will be rapid, and the next 

 maximum a strongly marked one. 



PROPOSED MEMORIAL OF DR. JOULE. 



A PUBLIC meeting was held on Monday in the Mayor's 

 ■^ parlour at the Town Hall, Manchester, for the purpose of 

 considering the proposal to erect a memorial of the late Dr. 

 James Prescott Joule. The meeting was convened in response to 

 a memorial influentially signed by residents in Manchester, 

 Salford, and the neighbouring country who desire that the 

 " deep sense of the benefits conferred on mankind for all time, 

 as well as of the great honour which accrues to this district, by 

 the scientific work of the late James Prescott Joule should be 

 marked by the erection of some durable memorial of him in the 

 city." The meeting was very numerously and influentially at- 

 tended. The Mayor of Manchester presided, and amongst those 

 piesent were Sir H. E. Roscoe, M.P. , Mr. J. VV. Maclure, 

 M.P., Dr. Ward (Vice-Chancellor of the Vicjoria University), 

 Dr. Greenwood (Principal of the Owens College), Prof. Osborne 

 Reynolds, Prof. Munro, Dr. Talham, Mr. F. J. Faraday, and 

 many others. 



A number of letters of apology for absence were read. Lord 

 Derby wrote from London : — 



" I cannot attend the meeting on Monday in aid of the Joule 

 memorial, having business here, but I heartily sympathize with 

 the object, and will with pleasure contribute." 



Mr. William Mather wrote : — 



"When the beautiful simplicity of Dr. Joule's life and 

 character are regarded in conjunction with the world-wide fame 

 his labours have acquired among the greatest intellects of our 

 time, we in Manchester must feel that our late fellow-citizen's 

 memory deserves to be kept ever fresh in our midst by a 

 memorial alike worthy of this city and of the imperishable 

 renown which Dr. Joule has won. Those of us who apply 

 science to industry are deeply indebted for the means through 

 which we work to the original thinkers who put the laws of 

 Nature into our hands with clear definitions as to their purposes. 

 I trust this sense of indebtedness may be felt throughout this 

 district, and that funds maybe generously supplied to enable the 

 committee to raise a memorial amply testifying to our gratitude 

 and to our admiration for the late Dr. Joule. 



The Bishop of Manchester wrote : — 



" I greatly regret that I am prevented by an engagement from 

 attendmg the meeting in connection with the proposed memorial 

 to Dr. Joule. I think that it would be an honour to any town 

 to be the birthplace and home of the man who first proved the 

 truth of the great principle of the conservation of energy. I 

 most heartily sympathize with the movement which the meeting is 

 called together to initiate, and I shall verygladlygive a contribution 

 to any fund which may be to-day established or recommended." 

 The Mayor, having spoken of the relations between Manchester 

 and science in past time-, said the scientific work of Dr. Joule 

 had made the name of Manchester famous throughout the world, 

 not merely as that of a great industrial and trading city, but as 

 a centre of intellectual culture and home of genius. This great 

 man was born in Salford, hut he learnt his science as a boy from 

 Dr. Dalton, in George Slnet in this city. There, he, for a 

 period of nearly half a century, found the congenial society which 

 stimulated his genius. He read many of his papers there ; his 



experiments were performed in this city ; and to the end he con- 

 tinued to re.'ide in the suburbs, in a quiet and unostentatious way^ 

 his riches truly consisting, not in the extent of his possessions,, 

 but in the fewness of his wants. The last generation honoured 

 the memory of Dalton by a statue in marble by Chantrey, which 

 was considered to be one of the most beautiful works of art ia 

 the city, and it was suggested that they should show their appre- 

 ciation of Dalton's great successor in a similar way. 

 Mr. Oliver Heywood moved : — 



" That this meeting desires to mark its deep sense of the 

 benel ts conferred on mankind for all time, as well as of the 

 great honour which has accrued to this district, by the scientific 

 work of the late James Prescott Joule, by the erection of a 

 durable memorial of him in Manchester, in the form of a white 

 marble statue." 



Sir H. E. Roscoe, M.P., said he ftlt it a pleasure and an 

 honour in more ways than one to be asked to second the resolu- 

 tion, because, in the first place, he was one of the oldest scientific 

 friends of the man whose memory they had met to honour, and 

 because it had been his privilege not only to become acquainted 

 with his important scientific labours, but to enjoy the friendship 

 of one who might truly be said to have been a typical man of 

 science, the simple straightforward searcher after truth for its 

 own sake and that alone. Another reason was a more personal 

 one. On the occasion of his first public utterance in Manchester, 

 now more than thirty-two years ago, when he read his inaugural 

 address on taking up the duties of the Chair of Chemistry in the 

 Owens College, he drew attention to the great work accom- 

 plished by Joule. This was, so far as he could learn, the first 

 occasion on which Joule's work and its importance was brought 

 publicly before a Manchester audience, and he remembered as if 

 it were yesterday being asked by several Manchester friends who 

 this Dr. Joule was of whom he had spoken in such high terms, 

 and what was the great discovery he had made. And then he re- 

 membered that, after explaining as well as he could to unscientific 

 people the meaning of the mechanical equivalent of heat and 

 the conservation of energy, he added in joke, in order to impress 

 the matter on minds unaccustomed to deal with subjects scien- 

 tific, that in the good time coming Manchester would be immor- 

 talized, not, as they thought, by being the seat of the cotton 

 trade, but rather as being the place v.'here John Dalton worked 

 out the atomic theory of chemistry, and James Prescott Joule 

 placed upon a sure experimental basis the grand principle of the 

 conservation of energy. Since that time many things had hap- 

 pened, many changes had occurred, and the knowledge of Science 

 and her doings was more widespread. We had acknowledged 

 our indebtedness to Dr. Dalton, and we were now met to con- 

 sider how we could best do the same for Joule. The memorial 

 which had been presented to the Mayor was of itself proof 

 that Manchester was anxious to recognize merit such as that 

 of Dr. Joule, and to acknowledge that services thus quietly and 

 unostentatiously rendered were sometimes of far greater value to 

 the Stale than those about which much more was heard. This 

 was not the occasion nor was that the place to enter into an 

 elaborate discussion of Joule's scientific labours. It was sufficient 

 now to remember that, just as Lavoisier, more than a century 

 ago, proved the indestructibility of matter, so Joule nearly half a 

 century ago proved the indestructibility of energy — that we could 

 no more destroy or create energy than we could create or destroy 

 matter. And " thereby hangs a tale " — a tale so interesting that 

 it would take long to tell it ; a tale so far-reaching that it con- 

 cerned every great industry ; a tale so important that without it 

 all the modern applications of scientific discovery to the daily 

 wants of mankind could not have been made. The events 

 which formed the incidents in this tale had happened in our 

 midsf, and had taken place so quietly that but few had known 

 of their existence. Like many great discoverers, Joule was far 

 in advance of his time ; and even the results of his most im- 

 portant reseat ch, that on the determination of the mechanical 

 equiv.ilent of heat, met with opposition, and were received with 

 incredulity by men who ought to have known better. Indeed, it 

 was an open secret that when Joule's first paper on this subject, an 

 abstract of which had been read at the Cork meeting of the British 

 Association on August 21, 1843, was presented to the Council of 

 the Royal Society for publication in theirTransactions, someof the 

 niemhers of that learned body openly expressed their opinion 

 that the paper was nonsense from beginning to end, that the 

 author, who was a mere amateur, living in some remote and 

 rather uncivilized part of the country, out of the charmed circle 

 of metropolitan and professional science, had been entirely 

 mistaken, because he had, forsooth ! neglected the whole question 



