April 28, 192 1] 



NATURE 



2^5 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



April 28, 1842. Sir Charles Beli died.— Famous for 

 his im|X)rtant discoveries in anatomy, Bell in 1807 

 distinguished between the sensory and the motor 

 nerves in the brain. Born in Edinburgh in 1774, his 

 principal appointment was the professorship of 

 anatomy and surgery to the London College of 

 Surgeons. 



April 28, 1858. Johannes Peter Miiller died. — A pro- 

 fessor first at Bonn and then at Berlin, Miiller has 

 been referred to as the founder of modern physiology. 

 He extended the knowledge of the mechanism of 

 voice, speech, and hearing and of the properties of the 

 lymph, chyle, and blood. Helmholtz, Du Bois Rey- 

 mond, and Ludwig were among his pupils. 



April 28, 1903. Jesiah Willard Gibbs died.— Called 

 by Ostwald the founder of chemical energetics, Gibbs 

 enunciated the phase rule and was the first to apply 

 the second law of thermodynamics to the exhaustive 

 discussion of the relation between chemical, electrical, 

 and thermal energy and capacity for external work. 

 For thirty years lie was professor of mathematical 

 physics in Yale University. 



April 30, 1865. Robert Fitzroy died.— The com- 

 mander for eight years of H.M.S. Beagle, in which 

 Darwin sailed as naturalist, Fitzroy in 1854 became 

 the first head of the Meteorological Department of 

 the Board of Trade, where he instituted a system of 

 storm warnings and daily weather forecasts in 1860-61. 



April 30, 1876. Antoine Jerome Balard died. — The 

 discoverer in 1826 of the element bromine, Balard 

 held various appointments at Montpellier, and then 

 succeeded Thenard in the chair of chemistry in the 

 Faculty of Sciences in Paris. 



May 1, 1796. Alexandre Gui Pingre died. — In 1751 

 Pingre became director of the observatory at St. 

 Genevieve in Paris. He travelled abroad to observe 

 the transit of Venus of 1769, verified Lacaille's work 

 on eclipses, and wrote an important book on comets. 



May 1, 1891. Eduard Schonfeld died.— The suc- 

 cessor of Argelander at Bonn, Schonfeld continued 

 the great survey of the heavens and formed a cata- 

 logue of 133,659 stars between 2° and 23° south 

 declination. 



May 2, 1519. Leonardo da Vinci died.— One of the 

 most remarkable and versatile geniuses of any age, 

 Leonardo in turn was painter, sculptor, engineer, and 

 architect, and studied physics, biology, and philo- 

 sophy. As a man of science he was essentially a fore- 

 runner, and anticipated by centuries developments 

 which have but recently been witnessed. 



May 4, 1677. Isaac Barrow died. — The first to 

 hold the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cam- 

 bridge, Barrow relinquished this post in 1669 in favour 

 of his pupil Newton. At the time of his death Barrow 

 was Master of Trinity College. 



May 4, 1827. Mark Beaufov died. — Beaufoy was 

 the first Englishman to climb Mont Blanc, which he 

 did six days after Saussure. As a scientific inves- 

 tigator he made experiments on the form of ships, 

 carried out magnetical observations to determine the 

 law of diurnal variation, and studied fhe eclipses of 

 Jupiter's satellites. 



May 4, 1892. Karl August Dohrn died. — The father 

 of Anton Dohrn, the zoologist, Karl Dohrn was well 

 known for his writings on entomology. He was a 

 merchant in Stettin, where he died. 



May 4, 1916. Prince Boris Galitzin died. — Well 

 known for his inventions and his writings on seismo- 

 logy, Galitzin was professor of physics in the .Academy 

 of Sciences of Petrograd. E. C. S. 



NO. 2687, VOL. 107] 



Societies and Academies. 



Lo.N'DON. 



Royal Society, April 14.— Prof. C. S. Sherrington,, 

 president, in the chair. — Prof. K. Onnes, Sir R, 

 Hadfield, and Dr. H. R. Woltjer : The influence of 

 low temperatures on the magnetic properties of alloys ' 

 of iron with nickel and manganese. A series of iron- 

 manganese and - iron-nickel alloys with a range of 

 percentages of manganese and nickel respectively has 

 been tested in order to investigate the influence of 

 cooling to very low temperatures (liquid hydrogen and 

 liquid helium) on their magnetic properties, especially 

 to ascertain whether the iron-manganese alloys which 

 are non-magnetic at atmospheric temperature become 

 magnetic by so doing. Samples are tested quickly 

 one after another at a temperature of 20° K. The 

 iron-manganese alloys containing the higher per- 

 centages of manganese cannot.be made magnetic at 

 atmospheric temperature by cooling to the boiling 

 point of liquid hydrogen or liquid helium. The exist- 

 ence of one ma-gnetic and one non-magnetic, or at 

 most slightly magnetic, manganese-iron compound is 

 probable, and the non-magnetic properties of the 

 higher manganese-iron alloys may be explained by 

 their means. — C. N. Hinshelwood and E. J. Bowen : 

 The influence of physical conditions on the velocity 

 of decomposition of certain crystalline solids. The 

 velocity of decomposition by heat of potassium per- 

 manganate and ammonium bichromate. For solids 

 the temperature coefticient of the reaction velocity 

 does not allow calculation of a "heat of activation" 

 or "critical increment" of the reacting molecule, 

 according to the method of Trautz, Lewis, and others, 

 for various physical reasons connected \vith the pro- 

 pagation of the reaction from the surface into the 

 interior. The lowering of the velocity of decomposi- 

 tion of potassium permanganate in solid solution in 

 potassium perchlorate indicates that the heat of 

 activation of the permanganate is increased^ by the 

 physical process of solid mixture. By equating this 

 assumed increase in the heat of activation to the 

 observed heat of solid mixture obtained from the 

 calorimetric measurements of Sommerfeld, approxi- 

 mate quantitative agreement is found between the 

 observed rates of decomposition of potassium per- 

 manganate in various solid solutions and those cal- 

 culated.— Prof. H. Briggs: The adsorption of gas by 

 charcoal, silica, and other substances. The method 

 of determining the adsorptive capacity of a substance 

 at liquid-air temperature is described, and results are 

 given of the capacity and manner of preparation or 

 occurrence of thirty-six substances. Charcoal and 

 silica are compared, especially as relates to nitrogen 

 and hvdrogen, to illustrate preferential adsorption; 

 the influence of chemical composition on gas adsorp- 

 tion is discussed. The effect of the compressibility 

 of the initial layer when the density of an adsorbent 

 is determined by the immersion method is considered. 

 An evaluation is made of (a) the volume of solid 

 matter, (b) that of the interstitial space between the 

 granules, and (c) that of the internal gaseous space 

 for silica and coconut charcoal. The density of the 

 nitrogen adsorbed at — 190° C. by silica and charcoal 

 is calculated from experimental data. From these 

 results it is possible to estimate the error aff'ecting 

 the density of charcoal ascertained from water- 

 immersion. The conditions aff'ecting adsorption at 

 low and high saturation are given. The presence of 

 capillaries is not sufficient to account for adsorption. 

 A hlgh-capacitv silica may be deactivated, but remain 

 porous. Graphite, which has no pores, adsorbs eas 

 at — 190° C. The evidence leads to the conclusion 



