i6o 



NA TURE 



[Dec. 19, 1889 



in the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. Two 

 years later he succeeded to the Chair of Botany in the 

 Royal College of Science, Dublin, and this post he held 

 until his death. During his student life he paid con- 

 siderable attention to the practical study of geology ; and 

 for many years he collected Coleoptera, of which he 

 possessed a very fine, collection, now in the Dublin 

 Museum of Science and Art. 



During the nineteen years exclusively devoted to natural 

 science, Prof. McNab pubhshed a considerable number 

 of technical papers ; most of these were short, but some 

 forty or fifty of them are fit to rank as original communi- 

 cations. The work by which he is best known was that 

 upon the movements of water in plants. Following a 

 suggestion of Prof. A. H. Church, that lithium might 

 prove useful in his researches, he instituted experiments 

 which proved the value of this method, and paved the 

 way for later investigators. McNab's chief claim to dis- 

 tinction lay, however, not in the direction of pure research, 

 but in the fact of his having been the first to introduce to 

 British students the methods of Sachs, now universally 

 adopted. He inaugurated the modern methods of teach- 

 ing botany at Cirencester, in the year 1871, and at Dublin 

 two years later ; and he fully admitted his indebtedness 

 to the first edition of Sachs's celebrated " Lehrbuch der 

 Botanik." Dr. McNab was, at the time of his death, an 

 examiner in botany to the Victoria University, Man- 

 chester. The appointment of Scientific Superintendent 

 of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dubhn, was 

 created for him in 1880, and in connection with this office 

 he issued, five years later, an enlarged and considerably 

 revised Guide-book. He was joint author, with Prof. 

 Alex. Macalister, of a " Guide-book to the County of 

 Dublin," prepared on the occasion of the visit of the 

 British Association to that city. In 1878 he published, in 

 Longmans' "London Science Series," two botanical class- 

 books, entitled "Outlines of Morphology and Physiology," 

 and " Outlines of Classification'' ; and he leaves behind 

 him the first few chapters, and a large amount of manu- 

 script in a nearly completed condition, of a contemplated 

 " Text-book of Botany," which he was to have written for 

 Messrs. C. Griffin and Co. In 1888 he was appointed 

 Swiney Lecturer to the British Museum of Natural 

 History, and in that capacity he has lectured for two 

 sessions. His discourses, which were upon " The 

 Fossil Plants of the Palaeozoic Epoch " and " Ferns 

 and Gymnosperms of the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic 

 Epochs, and dawn of the Angiospermous Flora" re- 

 spectively, were attended with much success. He has 

 left behind him carefully written manuscript lectures, 

 which it is sincerely hoped may be published as a 

 memorial volume. At the time of his decease he was 

 actively engaged upon his intended third course, in which 

 he would have dealt with the Cainozoic flora. He was an 

 excellent teacher, possessed of a natural aptitude for the 

 work ; and his laboratory instruction was characterized 

 by thoroughness and precision. As a lecturer he was 

 fluent and entertaining ; and, in his several capacities, he 

 endeared himself to those with whom he came in contact. 

 Friends, colleagues, and students, alike mourn his loss. 



NOTES. 



The death of Prof. Lorenzo Respighi, Director of the 

 Osservatorio Campidoglio, Rome, which we deeply regret to 

 announce, is a great loss to science. He died on December 10. 



In a recent number we gave some account of a meeting held 

 in Manchester on November 25 for the purpose of preparing the 

 way for the erection of a memorial of James Prescott Joule in 

 that city. It was resolved that the memorial should be 

 in the form of a white marble statue, and a committee was 

 appointed to carry out this resolution. At the first meeting of 

 the committee, on November 29, an executive committee was 



appointed, and the following motion was adopted : — " That the 

 movement be directed to secure, not only a marble statue of the 

 late Dr. James Prescott Joule as a companion to that of the late 

 Dr. Dalton by Sir Francis Chantrey, but also a replica in bronze 

 to occupy some public place in the city, and that the executive 

 committee be instructed to take all needful steps for that 

 purpose." Many subscriptions have been already promised. 



An attempt is being made to secure the erection of an inter- 

 national monument to James Watt at Greenock, his birthplace. 

 It is proposed that the memorial shall be " a large and thoroughly 

 equipped technical school." 



A NEW fortnightly scientific periodical is about to be 

 published in Paris. It will be entitled Revue Generale des 

 Sciences Fures et Appliqtiees, and will deal with the mathe- 

 matical, physical, and natural sciences, and with their appli- 

 ca-tions in geodesy, navigation, engineering, manufactures, 

 agriculture, hygiene, medicine, and surgery. According to the 

 preliminary statement, the new periodical will take as its model 

 the method of exposition adopted in Nature. The editor is 

 M. Louis Olivier, and the list of contributors includes many of 

 the most eminent French men of science. The first number 

 will appear on January 15, 1890. 



The second Report of the Committee appointed by the 

 British Association to inquire into, and report upon, the present 

 methods of teaching chemistry, which was presented at the 

 Newcastle meeting, and to which we called attention in these 

 columns a short time ago, has now been put on sale by the 

 Council. It may be obtained from the office of the Association, 

 22 Albemarle Street, W. 



On Tuesday evening, after the distribution of the prizes and 

 certificates to the students of the City and Guilds of London 

 Institute, at Goldsmiths' Hall, Sir Henry Roscoe congratulated 

 the students of the various schools upon the reports he had 

 heard. He observed that the City Guilds were now engaged 

 separately and collectively in nobly carrying out the work for 

 which they were, to a certain extent, originally founded. The 

 Technical Instruction Bill which was passed in the last session 

 of Parliament had materially changed the whole aspect of aflfairs, 

 and sooner or later a complete scheme for technical education 

 would have to be framed. The beginning of such a scheme had 

 been made by the eftbrts of the City of London Institution, 

 which, with its many branches, was a nucleus of such a system, 

 the importance of which would only be recognized when the 

 history of that important movement came to be written. It was 

 a satisfactory thing to hear that employers of skilled labour were 

 beginning to find out that the men who had been trained at such 

 Colleges as these were of greater value than those who had not 

 received such training. It was not only necessary to educate 

 the craftsman ; the employer needed it equally, if not more. 

 He thought that the Council of the Institute had fully recog- 

 nized that fact at their Central Institution, but a demand for 

 high-class education had yet to be created. 



The British Medical Journal says that owing to the somewhat 

 late period in the year at which the invitation to hold the annual 

 meeting of the British Medical Association in Birmingham was 

 received and accepted, the arrangements are not yet so complete 

 as in former years ; but a large general committee and all the 

 necessary sub-committees have been formed, and the use of the 

 requisite public buildings has been obtained. 



On March i, 1890, a new marine laboratory will be opened at 

 Saint-Wast-la-Hougue. 



We are glad to know that there will soon be well-equipped 

 physical and chemical laboratories at Bedford College, Lon- 

 don. Mr. Tate, who has already given ;^iooo towards the 

 new College buildings, which are on the eve of completion, has 



