May 12, 192 1] 



NATURE 



349 



Whitehead. Faculty of Engineering : Prof. H. C. H. 

 Carpenter. Faculty of Economics : Prof. Graham 

 Wallas. 



Until recently the degrees of Master of Science and 

 Master of Arts were granted to both internal and ex- 

 ternal students of the University on a thesis embody- 

 ing the results of research, but, if thought necessary, 

 an examinational test might also be imposed. Last 

 year, however, the Senate resolved that on the ex- 

 ternal side these degrees should be given in and after 

 1923, not for research, but on the results of an 

 examination. This was felt in many quarters to be a 

 retrograde step, and at the meeting of Convocation 

 held on May 3 Mr, Plymen moved and Major Church 

 seconded the following resolution : — "That in view of 

 the importance of research in the national interests 

 and its value in post-graduate training, it is a matter 

 of deep regret that external students of the University 

 should not be permitted to take the Master's degree 

 by means of research." After an animated discussion 

 the resolution was passed, netnine contradicente, in an 

 unusually large house, only three of those present 

 refraining from voting in its favour. 



Manchester.— The University Court has agreed to 

 the conferment of the following honorarv degrees :— 



Litt.D. — C. H. Haskins, Gurney professor of his- 

 torv and political science, and Dean of the Graduate 

 School, Harvard University; S. Reinach, Membre de 

 rinstitut de France, Conservateur du Musee de Saint 

 Germain, professeur a I'Ecole du Louvre; J. T. Shep- 

 pard, fellow and tutor. Kind's College. Cambridge. 

 D.Sc. — R. Kidston, author of numerous investigations 

 in palaeobotany ; C. S. Sherrington, professor of 

 physiology, Oxford, and president of the Royal 

 Society. 

 The following degrees were conferred on May 7 : — 



Litt.D. — Sir Sydney J. Chapman, formerly Stanley 

 Jev^on^ professor of political economy in the Univer- 

 sity ; Dr. C. H. Herford, professo"- of English litera- 

 ture in the University; Dr. T. W. Rhys Davids, 

 formerly professor of comparative religion in the 

 Universitv-; Dr. G. Elliot Smith, formerly professor of 

 anatomy in the University. D.Sc. — Dr. Horace 

 Lamb, formerly Beyer professor of mathematics . in 

 the University ; Sir Ernest Rutherford, formerly pro- 

 fessor of nhyslcs in the Universitv. Dr. Horace Lamb, 

 Dr. T. W. Rhys Davids, and Sir William Thorburn 

 have been appointed professors emeriti. 



The University of Glasgow is to confer the 

 honorary degree of LL.D. upon Mr. Laurence 

 Binyon, of the British Museum, Sir Dugald Clerk, 

 and Principal J. C. Irvine, of St. Andrews. 



Prof. A. D. Ross, professor of mathematics and 

 physics in the University of Western Australia, Perth, 

 has been elected a member of the governing body of 

 the University. He formerly held otTice as Vice- 

 Chancellor, but resigned from that post some little 

 time ago. 



The Universities Institute and Institute of Lecturers 

 are issuing a periodical, the Platform Review, the first 

 number of which has reached us. The objects of the 

 institute are to foster popular lecturing of an educa- 

 tional nature and to organise courses of such lectures. 

 The first issue of its publication is a special lecturers' 

 number, in which brief paragraphs appear giving 

 accounts of the types of lectures which may be ex- 

 I>ected from a number of men who will be lecturing 

 during the coming winter. .All communications 

 should be addressed to the Editor, 35 Cambridge 

 Road, Seaforth, Liverpool. 



NO. 2689, VOL. 107] 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 

 May 12, 1684. Edme Mariotte died.— An indepen- 

 dent discoverer of Boyle's or Mariotte 's law, Mariotte 

 was prior of St, Martin-sous- Beaune. He was one 

 j of the earliest members of the Paris Academy of 

 j Sciences, and wrote on percussion, heat, colour, and 

 j hydraulics. 



May 12, 1884. Charles Adolphe Wurtz died.— 

 j President of the Paris Academy of Sciences and 

 holding the chair of organic chemistry in the Sor- 

 bonne, Wurtz wrote more than a hundred memoirs, 

 and during 1869-78 published a great dictionary of 

 pure and applied chemistry. 



May 12, 1910. Sir William Muggins died.— The son 

 of a London linendraper, Huggins after a few vears 

 in business retired and built an observatory at Tulse 

 Hill, where he carried out pioneering work in astro- 

 nomical spectroscopy and photography. He received 

 the Rumford and Copley medals, and' in 1900 became 

 president of the Royal Society. Lady Huggins, who 

 was his devoted assistant, died on March 24, 1915, 

 May 13, 1832. Leopold Chretien Frederic Dagobert, 

 Baron Cuvier died. — Foremost among comparative 

 anatomists, Cuvier was born in 1769. In 1795 he 

 ; became a professor in the Jardin des Plantes, and in 

 1803 permanent secretary to the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences. His most famous work, " Le R^gne 

 Animal distribu6 d'apres son Organisation," appeared 

 in 1817. 

 ' May 13, 1878. Joseph Henry died.— An indefatig- 

 ! able experimentalist, Henry made some of the earliest 

 ' discoveries in electro-magnetism and electrical induc- 

 1 tion. He was professor of natural philosophy at 

 : Princeton^ from 1832 to 1846, and then became secre- 

 tary to the Smithsonian Institution, which under his 

 direction became one of the most important scientific 

 institutions in the world. 



May 13, 1891. Alexandre Edmond Becquerel died. — 

 Professor of physics in the Conservatoire des Arts et 

 Metiers and in the Mus^e d'Histoire Naturelle, 

 Becquerel collaborated with his father in much of his 

 work, and made independent researches on phos- 

 phorescence and on the electrical and magnetic pro- 

 perties of substances. 



May 14, 1734. Georg Ernst Stahl died.— After hold- 

 ing the chair of medicine in the University of Halle, 

 Stahl became physician to the King of Prussia. To 

 explain the phenomena of combustion and calcination 

 he formulated the theory of phlogiston. 



May 14, 1893. Ernst Eduard Kummer died. — Born 

 in 18 10, Kummer was professor of mathematics in 

 the University of Berlin. His writings referred 

 mainly to branches of pure mathematics such as the 

 theory of numbers. 



May 14, 1899. Lars Fredrik Nilson died. — While 

 professor of analytical chemistry at Upsala Nilson 

 studied the rare earths, and in 1879 isolated scandium, 

 an element identical with Mendeleeff's hypothetical 

 element ekaboron. 



May 16, 1830. Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier died.— 

 One of the savants who accompanied Bonaparte to 

 Egypt in 1798, Fourier for some years was Prefect of 

 the Department of the Isere. He succeeded Delambre 

 as secretary of the Paris Academy of Sciences. His 

 fame rests chiefly on his "Th^orie Analytique de la 

 Chaleur," containing the well-known Fourier's 'series 

 so constantly used in modern analysis. 



May 17, 1766. Alexis Claude Clairaut died.— .\ 

 writer of mathematical papers at twelve and a 

 member of the Paris Academy of Sciences at eighteen 

 years of age, Clairaut has been called bv Comte the 

 principal constructor of celestial mechanics. 



E. C. S. 



