324 



NATURE 



[November 3, 192 1 



Prof. W. A. Bone will deliver a lecture on "The 

 late W. A. Haward's Experiments upon the Com- 

 bustion of Hydrogen-Carbon Monoxide at High Pres- 

 sures " before the, Roval College of Science Chemical 

 Society on Friday, November ii. The lecture is 

 intended as a memorial to Mr. Haward, who lost 

 his life in December last through an accident while 

 carrying on research on the subject of the lecture. 



The Marouess or Ckewk will preside at the annual 

 dinner of the Old Students' Associations of the Im- 

 perial College of Science and Technology, London, 

 to be held on Thursday, November 24, at the Troca- 

 dero Restaurant, London, W.i. He will be supported 

 by distinguished guests, the governors, and bv past 

 and present professors and staff of the college and 

 its constituent colleges. 



The usual winter courses of the Ecole d'Anthropo- 

 logie will begin at Paris on November 4. The ten 

 professors all continue their teaching on the branches 

 of anthropology with which they are concerned, and 

 their number has been augmented by the appointment 

 tf M. Paul Boncour as professor of criminal anthro- 

 pology. Conferences will be held by M. G. Courtv on 

 the petroglyphs of the region round Paris, by' M. 

 Dubreuil-Chambardel on the geography and anthropo- 

 logical history of the basin of the Loire, and bv M. 

 Saintyves on the origin of contes, and the conies of 

 Perrault considered in the light of anthropologv and 

 ethnography. 



That Battersea Polytechnic, like most other institu- 

 tions for higher education, is hampered by lack of 

 accornmodation is apparent from a perusal of the 

 Principal's report for the session 1920-21. The entries 

 for the day courses are shown for a number of past 

 sessions, of which it is sufiFicient for purposes of com- 

 parison to take the figures for the session 1913-14. 

 An increase of, roughly, 30 per cent, is shown bv the 

 entries for the 1920-21 session, although there are 

 now very few in training who may be regarded as 

 students whose training was interrupted bv war service. 

 Unfortunately, a similar comparison of numbers of 

 evening students is not possible. The figures for 

 J914-15 ^fe. however, given, and an equallv striking 

 increase, in this case of nearly 55 per cent., is shown. 

 These numbers are an ample confirmation of the 

 Principal's plea for increased accommodation. In 

 spite of the strain which this increase of numbers 

 has placed on the teaching staff, a certain amount of 

 research has been undertaken by the Principal and 

 his colleagues, and, in addition, a few research 

 students have been at work in the chemical and 

 engineering departments. 



The Rhodes Trust has issued a statement for the 

 academic year 1Q20-21 dealing with the scholarships 

 it administers. From the pamphlet it appears that 

 no less than 277 Rhodes scholars were in residence 

 during that period, 129 from the L^nited States, and 

 148 from the British Empire; 120 took up their 

 scholarship for the first time during the year. The 

 figures givin£f the distribution accordini? to subjects 

 show that law, with 01 scholars, claimed the greatest 

 number, while natural science, in which medicine is 

 included, came next with 62 ; mathematics - had six 

 Rhodes scholars, forestry three, agriculture and geo- 

 graphy two each, and one took anthropology. The 

 value of the scholarship has now been increased bv 

 SoZ. per annum, but the Trust warns prospective 

 scholars that even thus the emoluments will not 

 ordinarily cover the expenses of a full vear. Appoint- 

 ments will be made to the 1923 scholarships during 

 the course of next year, and further information can 

 be obtained from the Secretary, Sevmour House, 

 Waterloo Place, S.W.i. 



NO. 2714, VOL. 108] 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



November 3, 1643. Habakkuk Guldin died.— A con- 

 vert to the Roman Catholic faith, Guldin, or Guldinus, 

 held the chairs of mathematics in the Jesuit colleges 

 at Rome and Gratz. His " Centrobarytica," 1635-42, 

 contained his well-known theorems. 



November 3, 1832. Sir John Leslie died.— The 

 successor of Playfair in the chairs of mathematics^ 

 and natural philosophy at Edinburgh, Leslie made re- 

 searches in radiation, photometry and hygroscopy in 

 connection with which he devised the differential 

 thermometer. He was the first to fieeze water by 

 rapid evaporation in a vacuum. 



November 4, 1698. Erasme Bartholin died. — Bar- 

 tholin, or Berthelsen, a member of a Danish scientific 

 family, was first professor of mathematics, and then 

 professor of medicine at Copenhagen. He is remem- 

 bered for his discovery in 1669 of the double refraction 

 in Iceland spar. 



November 5, 1879. James Clerk Maxwell died.— 

 Born in Edinburgh in 1831, Maxwell was educated at 

 Edinburgh and Cambridge, and in 1854 was Smith's 

 prizeman. He later held the chairs of natural philo- 

 sophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and King's 

 College, London, and in 187 1 became the first Caven- 

 dish professor of experimental physics at Cambridge, 

 where he died. His principal investigations referred 

 to the kinetic theory of gases, the perception of colour, 

 the theory of the electromagnetic field, and the electro- 

 magnetic theory of light. His great treatise on 

 electricity and magnetism, called the Principia of the 

 nineteenth century, appeared in 1873, and in 1879 

 he published the " Electrical Researches of the Hon. 

 Henry Cavendish." ^Jaxwell was the successor of 

 Faraday, from whom he drew much inspiration, and 

 his electrical work has revolutionised the whole aspect 

 of science. 



November 6, 1777. Bernard de Jussieu died. — The 

 brother of Antoine de Jussieu (16S6-1758), Bernard 

 de Jussieu also was celebrated as a botanist, and for 

 many years was connected with the Jardin du Roi. 

 He was the first to prove that fresh-water polypi are 

 animals and not plants. 



November 6, 1822. Claude Louis Berthollet died. — 

 The contemporary of Lavoisier, de Morveau, and 

 Chaptal, Berthollet contributed greatly to the advance 

 of chemistry, and among his discoveries was that of 

 the bleaching power of chlorine. ' His " Essai de 

 Statique Chimique," the first attempt to deal with 

 chemical physics, apeared in 1803. 



November 7, 1817. Jean Andre Oeluc died. — -A. 

 native of Geneva, Deluc engaged in business for some 

 j-ears, but in 1773 came to England and was made 

 reader to Queen Charlotte. He made valuable ob- 

 servations on meteorology, and to him is due the 

 scientific use of the word geology. 



November 7, 1872. Rudolph Friedrich Alfred Clebsch 

 died. — Professor of mathematics at Karlsruhe, 

 Giessen, and Gottingen, Clebsch wrote on elasticity, 

 Abelian functions, and on binary algebraical forms. 



November 9, 1871. Adolph Strecker died.— Trained 

 under Liebig at Giessen, Strecker was afterwards pro- 

 fessor at Christiania, Tubingen, and \^'urzburg, and 

 was known for his researches in organic cherhistry. 



November 9, 1896. Johan August Hugo Gylden 

 died. — A distinguished Swedish astronomer, Gylden 

 was trained by Hansen, served under Struve at Pul- 

 kowa, and in 1871 became director of the obser\-atory 

 at Stockholm. The theory of the motion of the 

 planets and comets, stellar parallax, proper motions, 

 cosmogonv, and photometry are among the subjects 

 dealt with in his numerous memoirs. E. C. S. 



