484 



NATURE 



[December 8, 192 1 



decisions of the committee will be announced not later 

 than March 15, 1922. 



A LIST of one hundred popular books In science com- 

 piled by a committee of the Washington Academy 

 of Science is published in the Journal of the Academy 

 of September 19 last. The list is strictly tentative, 

 and the Academy invites criticisms and suggestions. 

 The first test for the kind of book desired for the 

 list was : Would the average reader who uses a 

 public library, after beginning to read the book in 

 question, read it through to the end and come back 

 to the librarian for another on the same subject? 

 The second test was that it should have been written 

 by an author who understood his subject thoroughly, 

 and that it should not be so old as to be obsolete in 

 its facts and speculations. The committee points out 

 that though librarians may be able to discover which 

 books are interesting, they have no good way of find- 

 ing out which of these interesting books are trust- 

 worthy and which are not merely unorthodox, but 

 misleading or misinforming. It is here that a scien- 

 tific body such as the Washington Academy is able to 

 help. Ordinary text-books and books written in text- 

 book style are excluded from the list. After each title 

 the committee makes a short statement explaining why 

 the book is recommended and how far more than a 

 rudimentary knowledge of the subject is needed for 

 its full appreciation. Although in a list compiled for 

 American libraries one would expect to find that a 

 majority of the books recommended were by American 

 authors, we observe with satisfaction that no less 

 than 43 out of the 100 books are by British authors. 

 Among these we naturally find Charles Darwin, 

 Francis Galton, and Robert Ball, but we must refrain 

 from giving the complete list. 



Attention is being directed once more in the public 

 T^'-esf? to the scheme for raising University College, 

 Reading, to the status of an independent university. 

 So long ago as 1906 Lord Haldane predicted that 

 within a few vears the college would develop into a 

 universitv, and in 191 1 a committee, appointed in 1909 

 to consider the question, reported in favour of such a 

 proiect, and at the same time, for Its furtherance, an 

 endowment fund of 20o,oooL was presented to the 

 rollegl by the late Mr. G. W. Palmer, the late Lady 

 Wantage, and Mr. Alfred Palmer, the present chair- 

 man of the council. Preparations for applying for a 

 charter as an Indeoendent universitv, interrupted by 

 the war, were finally completed In June. 1920. The 

 arguments relied on by the supporters of the scheme 

 were summarised In an article which appeared In 

 these columns eighteen months ago. Briefly, they are 

 as follows : — Large existing endowments (265,000!.) ; 

 heavy and Increasing enrolment of students (more than 

 1600 In 1920-21, including 549 full-time students); 

 residential accommodation more ample than in any 

 modern English university; adequate equipment for 

 teaching and. In several departments, for research ; a 

 reputation which draws students not only from distant 

 parts of the United Kingdom, but from the Continent 

 and the British Dominions overseas. The Privy 

 Council considered the application sympathetically, but 

 decided against the immediate grant of a charter ; 

 they suggested the renewal of the application, how- 

 ever, when the number of full-time students should 

 have further increased and the income should have 

 been raised to about 8o,oooZ. The council has resolved 

 to apply itself with ardour to the task of fulfilling 

 these conditions. An offer by Messrs. Huntley and 

 Palmer of a donation of io,oooZ. to the college for the 

 purposes of agricultural research has just been an- 

 nounced, one of the conditions being that the college 

 obtains a university charter. 



NO. 2719, VOL. 108] 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



December 8, 1864. George Boole died.— While pro- 

 fessor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork. 

 Boole published his " Differendal Equations " and his 

 "Calculus of Finite Differences," in both of which 

 he employed symbolic methods. His "Laws of 

 Thought " (1854) is one of the first attempts at "the 

 ernployment of symbolic language and notation in a 

 wide generalisation of logical processes." 



December 8, 1894. Pafnutiy Lvovich Chebichev died. 

 — One of the most eminent of Russian mathe- 

 maticians, Chebichev held the chair of mathematics 

 in the University of St. Petersburg from 1859 to 1880, 

 and wrote memoirs on the theory of numbers, the theory 

 of probabilities, quadratic forms, and other subjects. 



December 9, 1891. Sir Andrew Crombie Ramsay 

 died.— The successor in 1871 of Murchison as director 

 of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Ramsav 

 also held the chair of geology at the Royal School 

 of Mines. Accounted the best field geologist in the 

 country, he also contributed to physical and dynamical' 

 geology. 



December 9, 1908. Oliver Waicott Gibbs died.— 



Graduating in medicine at New York, Gibbs studiec 

 under some of the great chemists of Europe, an< 

 afterwards held professorships at New York anc 

 Harvard. He did original work In Inorganic chemis- 

 try and was among the first in the LTnited States t< 

 introduce research as a means of Instruction. 



December 10, 1889. Lorenzo Respighi died. — LIk« 

 his countrymen Secchi and Tacchini, Respighi was 

 devoted to spectroscopy, and added much to the know,^ 

 ledge of solar physics. From 1865 he held a chair ol 

 astronomy at Rome. 



December 12, 1777. Albrecht von Haller died.- 

 Scholar, poet, botanist, anatomist, and physiologist,^ 

 Haller held a chair at Gottingen, where he organised 

 a botanical garden and an anatomical theatre, and 

 helped to found the Academy of Sciences. 



December 13, 1565. Konrad von Gesner died. — One 

 of the "Encyclopaedic " naturalists, Gesner was called 

 by Cuvler "the German Pliny." He was professor of 

 Greek at Lausanne and professor of natural his- 

 tory at Zurich. His " HIstorIa Animallum " (1551- 

 58), designed to contain all then known of every 

 animal, has been referred to as the starting-point of 

 modern zoology. 



. December 13, 1891. Jean Servais Stas died. — After 

 working for a time in conjunction with Dumas at 

 Paris, Stas settled in Brussels and devoted himself 

 mainlv to the precise determination of atomic weights, 

 for which In 1885 he was awarded the Da\y medal of 

 the Royal Society. 



December 14, 1557. Niccolo Tartaglia died. — The 

 contem|X)rary and rival of Cardan, Tartaglia was a 

 self-taught mathematical genius who commenced lec- 

 turing at Verona, and In 1535 was appointed to a 

 chair at Venice. His " Nuova Sclenza " appeared two 

 years later. Cardan published Tartaglla's solution of 

 a cubic equation without authority. 



December 14, 1873. Jean Louis Rudolphe Agassiz 

 died. — -Known first for his epoch-making work on 

 fossil plants and his glacial studies, Agassiz In 1846 

 left Switzerland for the United States, where he after- 

 wards occupied a leading position In the world of 

 science. He held a chair at Harvard, founded the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology, and contributed 

 much to the natural history of both South and North 

 America. He was among those who did not accept 

 the doctrine of evolution. E. C. S. 



