590 



NATURE 



\April 24, 1879 



tween the stimulating cause and the height of folly to 

 which the inflation of credit and prices may be carried. 

 A mania is, in short, a kind of explosion of commercial 

 folly followed by the natural collapse. The difficulty is 

 to explain why this collapse so often comes at intervals of 

 ten or eleven years, and I feel sure the explanation will 

 be found in the cessation of demand from India and 

 China occasioned by the failure of harvests there, ulti- 

 mately due to changes of solar activity. Certainly the 

 events of the last few years, as too well known to many 

 sufferers, entirely coincide with this view, which is, never- 

 theless, made the subject of inconsiderate ridicule. 

 Hampstead, April 23 W. Stanley Jevons 



JAMES NICOL, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. 



A NOT HER of the links connecting us with the early 

 ■^^ days of geology has been severed by the death of 

 the Professor of Natural History in the University of 

 Aberdeen. For some years past Prof. Nicol's failing 

 health prevented him from undertaking more work than 

 his college duties required, so that he had somewhat fallen 

 behind the crowd of younger aspirants to scientific repu- 

 tation. It is a pleasant duty to recall his early services 

 to geology. As far back as the year 1 843 we find him 

 contributing to the series of prize essays of the Highland 

 Society a memoir on the geology of his native county, 

 Peebleshire. Devoting himself with energy to the prose- 

 cution of his favourite pursuits, he prepared a useful 

 little Guide to the Geology of Scotland, illustrated with 

 maps and sections, and giving, from his own observations 

 and the researches of previous writers, a corripendious 

 account of Scottish geognosy, so far as then known. 

 Many years afterwards he published another compila- 

 tion of Scottish geology in the form of a Geological 

 Map of that country. He specially took up the mine- 

 ralogical and petrographical department of geology, 

 and showed his capacity for these subjects by pub- 

 lishing a text-book of mineralogy, which has kept its 

 place as a work of reference. Appointed Assistant 

 Secretary of the Geological Society, he in that capacity 

 edited the Society' s Journal, and had an opportunity of 

 coming personally in contact with the foremost geologists 

 of his time. Among those whose friendship he formed, 

 one of the kindest and most serviceable was Murchison. 

 Through the assistance of that active and powerful friend 

 Nicol was appointed to the Chair of Geology at Cork, and 

 a few years afterwards to the more lucrative post at 

 Aberdeen, which he resigned only last year. During 

 these years of official work he found time for a number of 

 original papers chiefly on the geology of different parts of 

 Scotland. Thus he returned once more to the study of 

 the rocks of his own Tweed Valley to which he had been 

 the first definitely to apply the term silurian. In company 

 with his friend and benefactor Murchison, he extended 

 these observations into Ayrshire and the west of Scotland. 

 With the same companion he visited the north-west 

 of Scotland, and after a long journey through these 

 regions produced an independent memoir, in which he 

 suggested that much of the metamorphic rocks of 

 the north-west Highlands consisted of altered Car- 

 boniferous formations. When the fossils found in the 

 Assynt limestones proved to be unquestionably Lower 

 Silurian he was of course compelled to retract his pub- 

 lished suggestion. He then adopted a completely opposite 

 view and endeavoured to prove that the rocks which he 

 had thought might be altered Carboniferous were really 

 the most ancient or fundamental masses of the west coast 

 brought up everywhere to the surface again by a vast 

 dislocation and inversion. In this view, no less than in 

 that for which it was substituted, he was opposed by 

 Murchison, who proved by many sections that the rocks 

 in question really lay upon the fossihferous limestones 



and could not therefore be older than the Lower Silurian 

 period. From the time of this dispute the late professor 

 devoted himself chiefly to his duties at Mareschal College, 

 where his capacity for business made him a most useful 

 colleague. From summer to summer, however, he could 

 resume the hammer and renew his acquaintance with old 

 haunts or make himself familiar with new ones. In these 

 excursions he was sometimes accompanied by an old 

 geological friend to whom he could communicate the 

 views he no longer cared to publish. With a kindly 

 nature he united a certain timidity which made him 

 shrink from publicity and led to his being less widely 

 known than his personal qualities deserved that he 

 should be. 



NOTES 



The International Meteorological Congress was opened at 

 Rome on Tuesday last week, nearly all the Countries of Europe 

 being represented, as well as the United States. Prof. H, P, S. 

 Smith and Mr. Scott represented this country. Prof. Cantoni 

 was elected president, M. Wild, of St. Petersburg, vice-pre- 

 sident. Dr. Hoffmeyer, of Copenhagen, and Mr. Scott, secre- 

 taries. The introductory address was given by M, Depretis, 

 who spoke of the great influence exercised by the physical 

 sciences on the progress of the other sciences, and consequently 

 on the moral and economical development of nations. He 

 referred to the important place of meteorology among the 

 physical sciences, and concluded by welcoming the strangers to 

 Italy. Dr. Buys Ballot was unable to be present, but Prof. 

 Mascart read an address sent by him, full of scientific data and 

 statistics, passing in review all the discoveries recently made in 

 America and Europe in meteorological science. The report on 

 the work of the permanent committea was read by the secretary 

 of the committee, Mr. Scott. The congress then divided into 

 sections for work. 



The annual meeting of the French Societes Savantes com- 

 menced on April 16 at the Sorbonne. The general sessions of 

 the Section of Sciences were held under the presidency of M. 

 Milne Edwards, on April 16, 17, and 18. MM. Faye and 

 Wurtz were vice-presidents, and M. Blanchard the secretary. 

 M. Faye deiivered a lecture on the i8th in the large hall, on the 

 Great Movcr-ents of the Atmosphere. General Nansouty, the 

 Director of the Pic dn Midi Obsevatory, gave an address, in 

 which he complained of the interruptions in the telegraphic com- 

 munications with Toulouse, caused by the snows during 

 winter, and insisted upon the necessity of placing the wire undei 

 ground. M. Ferry, the Minister of Public Instruction, who is 

 president, said that he should take the measures which were 

 asked for by the gallant observer, whose devotion to science was 

 so widely admired in France and abroad. M. Alluard, Director 

 of Pvy de Dome Observatory, presented a series of maps tabu- 

 lating the readings taken at Clermont Ferrand and on the top of 

 the mountain. An intermediate station has been established.. 

 The final meeting of the Congress took place in the large hall of 

 the Sorbonne, under the presidency of M. Ferry, who was 

 assisted by a large number of officials. Five reports were read 

 on the works of the Societes Savantes. The Minister, as usual, 

 delivered a speech stating the projects of his administration. 

 The number of learned societies in France is now 360. He 

 stated that the Government spent 1 1,000,000 frs. in 1870 for the 

 Faculties ; the sum was now 30,000,000 frs. The list of rewards 

 granted was then read over. The four gold medalists in science 

 are M. Combercure, of Montpellier, for mathematical disquisi- 

 tions, M. Dieulafait, of Marseilles, for geology, M. Coquillon, 

 for determining the quantity of inflammable gas contained in the 

 air of coal-mines, and M. Schrader, for explorations in the 

 P)Tenees. 



