262 



NATURE 



[October 20, 192 1 



Liverpool. — The University has been bequeathed 

 the sum of 20,000/. by the late Mr. Richard Braith- 

 waite, of Liverpool. 



Manchester. — Dr. J. K. Charlesworth has re- 

 signed the senior lectureship in geology as from 

 December 25, 1921, upon his appointment to the chair 

 of geology in the University of Belfast. 



Ihe following appointments have been made : — 

 Mr. J. S. Wrigley, assistant lecturer in engineering; 

 Dr. R. A. Webb, demonstrator in pathology ; Mt. 

 J. H. Blackaby, assistant lecturei; in physics; Mr. 

 Arthur Adamson, lecturer in physics in the faculty of 

 technology; and Mr. H. N. Mercer, assistant lecturer 

 in physics in the faculty of technology. 



Oxford. — The following elections and appoint- 

 ments have been made at Balliol College : Dr. J. W. 

 Nicholson, lately professor of mathematics in the 

 University of London, King's College, to a War 

 Memorial Fellowship as tutor in mathematics and 

 physics; Mr. A. O. Ponder, Rhodes Scholar, to a 

 lectureship in chemistry, and Mr. C. R. Morris to a 

 lectureship in philosophy. 



Sheffield. — The following appointments have been 

 made by the Council : Mr. H. P. Lewis, assistant 

 lecturer in geology during the absence of the pro- 

 fessor; Mr. E. H. Eastwood, demonstrator in path- 

 ology and bacteriology in succession to Dr. N. E. 

 Challenger; and Mr. A. J. Chappell to be assistant 

 lecturer in mechanical engineering. 



Mr. L. Bolton, winner of the loooL prize offered 

 by the Scientific American for the best essay on Ein- 

 stein 's theory, will give two lectures on "Relativity " 

 at Birkbeck College, Fetter Lane, E.C.4, on Mondays, 

 October 24 and 31, at 5.30. Admission is free, without 

 ticket. 



L\ connection with the paper-making classes at the 

 Battersea Polytechnic, a film showing "The Manufac- 

 ture of Newspaper in Canada — from Standing Timber 

 to Finished Sheet," will be displayed under the 

 auspices of the Technical Section of the Paper Makers' 

 Association of Great Britain and Ireland on Monday 

 next. October 24, at 7.15 p.m. Admission is free to 

 all interested in the paper trades. 



The first Report of the British Association Com- 

 mittee on Training in Citizenship has been published 

 in pamphlet form, and can be obtained from the 

 Secretary, 10 Moreton Gardens, S.W.5 (single copies, 

 IS. each, 95. per dozen, 3Z. per hundred). The report 

 contains the syllabus of a text-book of civics. Lord 

 Lytton's scheme fqc organising regional study, notes 

 of lessons on regional survey, and schemes for train- 

 ing adopted in some county council schools. 



L\ celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of 

 Cambridge printing a dinner will be given by the 

 Vice-Chancellor and the Sj^ndics of the University 

 Press on November 10 in the hall of Corpus Christi 

 College. It is stated in the University Calendar that 

 the rights of the University in connection with print- 

 ing date from 1534, but the acquisition of the present 

 site of the Press began in 1762 and the erection of 

 the existing buildings in 1804. The building known 

 as the Pitt Press, which faces Trumpington Street, 

 was completed in 1832 from part of the funds raised 

 to establish a memorial to the younger Pitt. With 

 reference to the early date at which the University 

 acquired printing rights, it is interesting to note that 

 it was only in 1476, about sixty years previously, 

 that William Caxton set up the first printing press 

 in England, in the precincts of W'estminster .\bbey. 



NO. 2712, VOL. 108] 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



October 20, 1S96. Frangois Felix Tisserand died.— 



Prominent among French astronomers of last cen- 

 tury for his researches in mathematical astronom\ , 

 Tisserand was called to the Paris Observatory by 

 Leverrier, in 1878 succeeded to Leverrier's chair in 

 the Academy of Sciences, and in 1892 followed 

 Mouchez as director of- the observatory. It has been 

 said his " Traite de Mecanique Celeste" is worthy 

 to stand besicje the " Mecanique Celeste " of Laplace. 



October 20, 1S94. Charles Carpmael died.— A 

 fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and a writer 

 of mathematical papers, Carpmael settled in Toronto 

 in 1872, and became head of the Canadian weather 

 service. In 1885 he was President of the Canadian 

 Royal Society. 



October 21, 1886. Frederick Guthrie died. — Trained 

 in England and Germany as a chemist, Guthrie turned 

 his attention to physics, became professor at the 

 Royal College of Science, and in 1874 took the initia- 

 tive in founding the Physical Society. 



October 22, 1S71. Sir Roderick Impey N^urchison 

 died. — Originally a military officer,- Murchison began 

 his career as a man of science at the age of thirty. 

 A great geological observer, his name is especially 

 associated with the Silurian system, and v^ith the 

 geological survey of Russia. He foreshadowed the 

 discovery of gold in Australia. In 1855 he succeeded 

 De la Beche as director of the Geological Survey of 

 Great Britain, and he was the founder of the chair 

 of geology at Edinburgh. 



October 23, 1841. Johan August Arfvedson died. — 

 A member of the Stockholm Academy of Sciences, 

 Arfvedson wrote much on minerals, and in 1817 dis- 

 covered the metal lithium. 



October 24, 1601. Tycho Brahe died.— Noble by 

 birth and rich bv inheritance, Tycho alienated his 

 family by his devotion to astronomy, but secured the 

 friendship of Frederick, King of Denmark, who gave 

 him the island of Hven, and enabled him to build 

 the most splendid observatory ever seen. Here for 

 twenty years Tycho and his assistants observed the 

 heavens vi'ith an accuracy hitherto unknown. From 

 various causes, in 1597 the observatory was aban- 

 doned, and Tycho migrated to Prague, where Kepler 

 became one of his assistants. 



October 24, 1655. Pierre Gassendi died.— Theo- 

 logian, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, 

 Gassendi was a provost at the cathedral at Digne, and 

 in 1645 accepted the chair of mathematics in the 

 College Royal in Paris, where he enjoyed a European 

 reputation. He was the first to observe a transit of 

 Mercury. 



October 24, 1S73. Frederick Grace Calvert died.- 

 An assistant to Chevreul, and afterwards a manu- 

 facturer in Manchester, Calvert carried out many 

 chemical researches, and to him is mainly due the use 

 of carbolic acid as a disinfectant and for therapeutic 

 purposes. 



October 24, 1892. Robert Grant died. — The author 

 of a valuable historv of physical astronomy. Grant, in 

 1859, succeeded Nichol as professor of astronomy at 

 Glasgow. Among his labours was the compilation 

 of two catalogues of stars, one published in 1883, con- 

 taining 6415 stars, and the second, published in 1892, 

 containing 2156 stars. 



October 25, 1647. Evangelista Torricelli died. — The 

 first to demonstrate the pressure of the atmosphere 

 and the inventor of the barometer, Torricelli after 

 the death of Galileo in 1642 b^'^ame mathematician to 

 the Grand Duke of Tuscany. E. C. S. 



