March io, 192 i] 



NATURE 



61 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



March 10, 1810. Henry Cavendish died.— Of noble 

 birth and a natural philosopher in the widest sense 

 of the term, Cavendish spent practically all his life 

 in the pursuit of science, carrying out most of his 

 work in his secluded home at Clapham. His experi- 

 ments on air led to the discovery of the constant 

 quantitative composition of the atmosphere, of the 

 composition of water, and of nitric acid, and paved 

 the wav to the discovery of argon. He measured the 

 density' of the earth, and left a mass of valuable 

 material relating to electricity which was published 

 bv Maxwell. Biot referred to' him as " le plus riche 

 de tous les savants, et probablement aussi le plus savant 

 de tous les riches." He is buried in All Saints' 

 Church, Derby. 



March 10, 1882. Sir Charles Wyviiie Thomson died. 

 —Especially remembered as a student of the bio- 

 logical conditions of the depths of the sea, Thomson 

 took part in the dredging expeditions in the Lightning 

 and Porcupine (i868H5g), and was scientific head of 

 the Challenger Expedition. From 1870 until his 

 death he was professor of natural history in Edin- 

 burgh University. 



March 10, 1900. George James Symons died. — An 

 indefatigable worker in meteorology, Symons pub- 

 lished thirty-nine annual volumes of statistics of 

 British rainfall observations, and was the founder of 

 Symons's Meteorological Magazine. 



March 13, 1845. John Frederic Daniell died. — Pro- 

 fessor of chemistry at King's College, London, 

 Daniell was the inventor of a hygrometer, a pyro- 

 meter, and the electric cell which bears his name. 

 He wrote valuable works on meteorology and chemical 

 philosophy. 



March 14, 1874. Johann Heinrich Madler died. — 

 For many years director of the Dorpat Observatory, 

 Madler with Beer constructed a fine map of the 

 moon. He wrote a history of astronomy, and in 

 1 84 1 pointed out the probability of the existence of a 

 planet exterior to Uranus. 



March 15, 1897. James Joseph Sylvester died. — 

 Holding chairs successively at University College, 

 London, Virginia, Woolwich,^ Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity, and Oxford, Sylvester exerted a pow-erful in- 

 fluence on the study of mathematics both in England 

 and in America. It has been said that in brilliancy of 

 conception, in acuteness of penetration, and in fluency 

 and richness of expression he has had few equals 

 among mathematicians. 



March 15, 1910. Hans Heinrich Landolt died.— The 

 friend and contemporary of Lothar Meyer, Beilstein, 

 and Kekule, Landolt held professorships at Bonn, 

 Aachen, and Berlin, and in 1891 succeeded Rammels- 

 burg as director of the Berlin Chemical Institute. He 

 carried out many investigations in physical chemistry 

 dealing mainly with the chemical composition of sub- 

 stances and their optical properties. 



March 16, 1838. Nathaniel Bowditch died. — At first 

 assistant to a ship-chandler, Bowditch became a 

 supercargo, then a captain, and later actuary to an 

 important American insurance company. Known as 

 a mathematician, he spent nearly twenty years in 

 translating and annotating the " M^canique Celeste " 

 of Laplace. For several years he was president of 

 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 



March 16, 1841. Felix Savart died. — Trained as a 

 doctor, Savart made investigations in molecular 

 physics, and was chosen successor to Ampere in the 

 chair of experimental physics in the College de 

 France. E. C. S. 



NO. 2680, VOL. 107] 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 

 Royal Society, February 24. — Prof. C. S. Sherring- 

 ton, president, in the chair. — Sir E. Ray Lankester : 

 A remarkable flint implement from Selsey Bill. The 

 implement, together with two hammer-stones, was 

 found resting with other large broken flints on a bed 

 of clay underlying "the Coombe rock gravel," and 

 exposed by tidal action on the shore of Selsey Bill, 

 by E. Heron-Allen in 191 1. It is of large size, 

 of rostrate form, with a convex dorsal and flat ven- 

 tral surface, and has been shaped by powerful blows, 

 resulting in coarse flaking of undoubted human work- 

 manship. It belongs to a very early Palaeolithic 

 horizon, probably pre-Chellean. The only flint im- 

 plements of similar weight and size known are two 

 also of very early (viz. Upper Pliocene) age. It is 

 suggested that the race of men who made and used 

 such an implement had larger hands and more power- 

 ful limbs than the more modern races. — Dr. E. J. 

 Allen : Regeneration and reproduction of the Syllid 

 Procerastea. Procerastea halleziana was found living" 

 in membranous tubes on the stems of the hydroid 

 Svncoryne. The worm was observed to feed by pierc- 

 ing the body-wall of the hydranths with its extruded 

 pharynx and pumping out the contents of the gastral 

 cavity of the hydroid. Sexual reproduction occurs, 

 each individual forming a single large stolon which 

 is set free as a male Polybostrichus or a female 

 Sacconereis. Procerastea were also found undergoing 

 rapid multiplication by a process of fragmentation,, 

 followed by the regeneration of anterior and posterior 

 ends. Fragmentation can be induced by artificial 

 means, and takes place in a definite way. The rate 

 of regeneration of the different sections varied accord- 

 ing to the region of the body from which they came, 

 being most rapid in those from the middle region. 

 Regeneration of anterior segments appears to con- 

 tinue until the original segments come to occupy 

 exactlv the same position in the regenerated worm, 

 as they had occupied in the parent. — E. C. Grey and 

 E. G. Yonng : The enzymes of B. coli communis. 

 Part ii. : (a) Anaerobic growth followed by anaerobic 

 and aerobic fermentation, (b) The effects of aeration 

 during the fermentation, (a) Anaerobic fermentation 

 of glucose by an emulsion of B. coli comnfiunis pro- 

 ceeds differently according as the organisms have "been 

 grown previously with or without oxygen. When the 

 immediate past history has been anaerobic, the fer- 

 mentation under anaerobic conditions yields acetic 

 acid in large proportion. Admission of oxygen during 

 the fermentation leads to lactic acid production.. 

 (ft) The effect of introducing oxygen in the fermenta- 

 tion of glucose bv B. coli communis is to increase the 

 lactic, acetic, and succinic acids, and to diminish the 

 hvdrogen, carbon dioxide, and formic acid, but tb 

 leave the alcohol unchanged. Under anaerobic condi- 

 tions greater variations occur in the proportion of 

 alcohol to acetic acid than under aerobic conditions. 

 One effect of the introduction of oxygen during fer- 

 mentation is to inhibit the mechanism of auto-reduc- 

 tion, which is responsible for the variations in alcohol 

 when such occur. The products of aerobic fermenta- 

 tion contain less oxygen than the corresponding pro- 

 ducts of anaerobic fermentation of glucose ; but there 

 is a gain of oxygen m both cases upon the original 

 glucose. If this extra oxygen comes from the water, 

 one effect of the introduction of oxygen is to diminish 

 the part played by water in the reactions. — Dr. A. E. 

 Everest and A. j. Hall : Anthocyanins and antho- 

 cyanidins, part iv. The paper deals with the constitu- 

 tion of the blue anthocyan pigments in flowers and 

 with the manner in which anthocyan pigments are 



