374 



NATURE 



{Feb. 20, 1879 



NOTES 



Mr. Preece and Mr. Stroh, who have been working for the 

 past twelve months upon the acoustic properties of the phono- 

 graph, have completed their labours as far as the vowel sounds 

 are concerned, and their paper on the synthetic examination of 

 these sounds will be read before the Royal Society probably on 

 the 27th inst. Several new instruments of great novelty and 

 marvellous ingenuity will be exhibited, including a new phon- 

 autograph, an automatic phonograph, a compoxmd curve-tracer, 

 a new syren, and a new musical instrument. 



We record with deep regret the death, at Luxor, in Egypt, on 

 the 1st inst., of Dr. C. E. Appleton, the founder and editor of 

 The Academy. Dr. Appleton was under forty years of age, and 

 had been in declining health for the past two years. His name 

 will be familiar to many of our readers in connection with the 

 Endowment of Research, on which subject he frequently wrote, 

 and a volimie of essays on which he edited a year or two ago. 

 Dr. Appleton was himself mainly a student in metaphysics, but 

 he clearly perceived the value of physical science, and the 

 immense advantages likely to accrue to its progress, to our 

 universities, and to the country, by the appropriation of part of 

 the great wealth of the universities, and of the funds of the state, 

 to the encouragement of original research. He laboured 

 earnestly to advance these views, believing that it was the 

 country's duty and interest to encourage the discovery of new 

 truths. He will be greatly missed by his many friends. 



We have to record the death of Mr. Bennet Woodcroft, 

 F.R.S., which happened on the 7th inst. at his residence in 

 Brompton. Mr. Woodcroft will be best remembered in connec- 

 tion with the Patent Office, which he may be said to have 

 originated, and the working of which he so ably and zealously 

 superintended firom the time of its establishment down to within 

 the last two years. He was born at Bennet Grange, near 

 Sheffield, in December, 1803, and was consequently in his 

 seventy-seventh year when he died. Early in life he studied 

 science under Dalton, of Manchester, and in course of time 

 joined his father in his business, which was that of a Manchester 

 manufacturer. After a while Mr. Woodcroft came to London, 

 and was appointed Professor of Machinery at University College, 

 London, in 1847 \ ^^ ^eld that appointment until 1851, when he 

 resigned it. Next year witnessed the passing of the Patent Law 

 Amendment Act, and the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Cranworth 

 appointed Mr. Woodcroft as superintendent of the specifications, 

 for which post his great experience in patent matters especially 

 qualified him. He retired from office in March, 1876, and 

 during his administration of affairs he carried out the provisions 

 of the Act with efficiency and liberality. The establishment of 

 the library in connection with the Patent Office was mainly due 

 to Mr. Woodcroft, as was also the formation of the Patent Office 

 Museum at South Kensington, to which he was a very liberal 

 contributor, and which was made a free institution solely through 

 his exertions. Among other mechanical improvements effected 

 by Mr. Woodcroft was that of giving to the screw-propeller what 

 is known as an increasing pitch. He was the means of rescuing 

 from oblivion the first marine steam-engine ever made. Mr. 

 Woodcroft was the author of several scientific treatises, and 

 wrote a series of biographical sketches of inventors. He was 

 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society about twenty years since. 

 An excellent notice of Woodcroft appears in the Engineer of 

 February 14. 



We regret to announce the death at Berlin on January 15 of 

 Prof. Philipp Spiller, one of the most eminent of German philo- 

 sophers. Prof. Spiller was born on September 26, 1800, at 

 Einsiedel, near Reichenberg, in Bohemia, and has enriched 

 scientific literature by many valuable publications. His recent 



work, " Die Urkraft des Weltalls nach ihrem Wesen und Wirken 

 auf alien Naturgebieten " (Berlin : Stuhr, 1876), is a work of the 

 greatest importance and worthy of the attention of all interested 

 in philosophy. 



Russia has lost one more of her mathematicians, Prof. 

 Popoff, of Kazan. His works on the integration of differential 

 equations, on hydrodynamic?, on the waves which arise from the 

 motion of a body, on definite integrals, on the calculus of varia- 

 tions, &c., have given to the late professor an eminent place 

 among mathematicians. 



Mr. Cowper's new "Writing Telegraph" will be brought 

 before the Society of Telegraph Engineers at their next meeting, 

 on the 26th inst., at the Institution of Civil Engineers. 



The Anthropological Institute has just received a legacy of 

 1,000/., bequeathed by the late Mr. Sydney Ellis of Not- 

 tingham. 



M. Chevreul, who although about ninety years of age, en- 

 joying good robust health, has resigned the administration of 

 the Jardin des Plantes. M. Jules Ferry, the new Minister 

 of Public Instruction, has written him a letter eulogistic of his 

 career, and appointing him Honorary Administrator. M. Jules 

 Ferry has appointed to the post, for a term of five years, M. 

 Fremy, the eminent Professor of Chemistry, Director of the 

 Laboratory at the Gardens, the practical School of Chemistry in 

 Paris. 



The people of Penzance have been attempting to celebrate in 

 a mysterious, hole-and-corner way, the centenary of the birth of 

 their great townsman. Sir Humphry Davy, two months after the 

 actual date. What their notion of the "adjacent " world is we 

 do not know, but we doubt if they have any adequate apprecia- 

 tion of the greatness of Davy, whose only merit in their eyes 

 seems to be that he was born in Penzance. Why, if they wanted 

 worthily to honour one of England's greatest scientific worthies, 

 did they not take the Royal and Chemical Societies into their 

 confidence ? or how is it that the Royal Society, being aware of 

 the occurrence of this important centenary (they seem to have 

 contributed to the exhibition), have made no effi>rts to take part 

 in the celebration officially ? We leave it to a foreign nation to 

 honour the memory of one of our greatest explorers, and to a 

 petty provincial town to commemorate the birth of one of our 

 greatest chemists. There are surely several screws loose in our 

 scientific organisation. 



The Russian Physical and Chemical Society is now discussing 

 the means of a thorough study of the surface of the moon, 

 especially by means of spectrum analysis. 



Prof. Famintzin, of St. Petersburg, has been elected 

 member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the place of the 

 late Prof. Geleznoff. 



A meeting of the General Committee of the Hanbury 

 Memorial Fund was held in the rooms of the Pharmaceutic^ 

 Society yesterday. The Sub-Committee reported that the nett 

 proceeds of the one-guinea subscriptions collected from all parts 

 of the world amount, after payment of the cost of the die for 

 the medal, &c., to about 350/. The Sub-Committee have to 

 recommend : — i. That the proceeds be invested in consols ; the 

 interest to be expended in defraying the cost of a gold medal to 

 be awarded biennially (or otherwise) " for high excellence in the 

 prosecution or promotion of original research in the natural 

 history and chemistry of drug?." 2. Tliat trustees be appointed, 

 who, from time to time, shall request the following gentlemen 

 to award the medal : — The presidents for the time being of the 

 Linnean Society, the Chemical Society, the Pharmaceutical 

 Society, and the British Pharmaceutical Conference, and one 

 pharmaceutical chemist, who shall be nominated by the two 

 presidents last-named. 



