June 30, 192 1] 



NATURE 



57. 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



June 30, 1817. Abraham Gottlob Werner died.— 



The most renowned geologist of his day, Werner fpr 

 forty years was professor in the Mining School at 

 Freiburg, which became under him '' the European 

 lodestar for the study of mineralogy and geognosy." 



June 30, 1857. Alcide Dessalines d'Orbigny died. — 

 Distinguished in early life for his journeys in South 

 America, d'Orbigny in 1840 began the publication of 

 his great work, " Pal^ontologie Frangaise." In 1853 

 a chair of palaeontology was specially created for 

 him at the IVIusee d'Histoire Naturelle. 



June 30, 1919. John William Strutt, third Baron 

 Rayieigh, died. — Born in 1842, Lord Rayleigh suc- 

 ceeded to the title in 1873. He was educated 

 at Cambridge, succeeded Maxwell in 1879 as 

 Cavendish professor of experimental physics, and 

 in 1887 followed Tyndall as professor of natural 

 philosophy at the Royal Institution — a position 

 he resigned in 1905. His scientific writings em- 

 brace every branch of physics, and are known 

 for their extreme accuracy and definiteness. His 

 name is associated with that of Ramsay in the dis- 

 covery of argon. 



July 1, 1881. Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire-Deville 

 died. — Professor of chemistry at the Ecole Normale 

 and in the Sorbonne, Sainte-Claire-Deville carried out 

 important investigations on dissociation. 



July 1, 1899. Sir William Henry Flower died.— 

 Flower was Hunterian professor of comparative 

 anatomy and physiology, and for fourteen years acted 

 as director of the British Museum (Natural History). 



July 2, 1621. Thomas Harriot died. — The contem- 

 porary of Napier and Briggs, Harriot made important 

 improvements in algebra, and his " Artis Analyticae 

 Praxis," published ten years after his death, did 

 much to bring analvtical methods into general use. 



July 3, 1672. Francis Willughby died.— An original 

 member of the Royal Society, Willughby was the 

 companion of Rav, and wrote on birds and fishes. 



July 4, 1850. William Kirby died.— Rector of Bar- 

 ham, in Suffolk, from 1796 to 1850, Kirby was known 

 for his writings on entomology. 



July 4, 1901. Peter Guthrie Tait died. — Tait suc- 

 ceeded Forbes in the chair of natural philosophy at 

 Edinburgh. He was known for his collaboration with 

 Lord Kelvin, his advocacy of quaternions, and his 

 work on thermodvnamics and other subjects. 



July 4, 1902. Herve Auguste Etienne Alban Faye 

 died. — President of the Bureau des Longitudes from 

 1874 to 1893, Fa3'e in 1884 published his " Sur 

 I'Origine du Monde." 



July 4, 1910. Giovanni Virginia Schiaparelli died.— 

 A great observer of comets, meteors, double stars, and 

 especially, of the planets, Schiaparelli from 1862 to 

 1900 directed the Milan Observatory. 



July 5, 1833. Joseph Nicephore Niepce died. — One 

 of the pioneers in photography, Niepce began his 

 experiments in 1813. He afterwards collaborated with 

 Daguerre. 



July 5, 1859. Baron Charles Cagniard de la Tour 

 died. — Cagniard de la Tour made improvements in 

 mechanical and chemical processes and invented the 

 siren. 



July 5, 1906. Paul Drude died. — A distinguished 

 physical investigator, Drude applied the theory of 

 Maxwell as developed by Hertz to the problem of 

 light. He" edited the Annalen der Physik. 



July 5, 1911. George Johnstone Stoney died. — 

 Stonev held important educational posts in Ireland, 

 and contributed to physical optics and molecular 

 phvsics. To him we owe the term "electron." 



E. C. S. 



NO. 2696, VOL. 107] 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 

 Royal Society, June 23. — Prof, C. S. Sherrington, 

 president, in the chair. — E. F. Armstrong and T. P. 

 Hilditch : A study of catalytic actions at solid surfaces. 

 VI.— Surface area and specific nature of a catalyst : 

 two indef>endent factors controlling the resultant 

 activity. The influence of the surface area of a nickel 

 catalyst on its activity has been traced by examination 

 of the bulk gravity of various types of catalyst : the 

 most efficient catalyst occupies the greatest volume 

 per unit mass. The rate of reduction in hydrogen 

 of nickel oxide prepared in \arious ways has been 

 examined at various temperatures. A light nickel 

 oxide prepared from the precipitated hydroxide gave 

 curves (hydrogen consumption /time) showing faint 

 points of inflexion, which varied with the temperature 

 of reduction ; dense, fused nickel oxide gave a 

 smoother curve, and nickel hydroxide deposited on 

 kieselguhr as a support showed a smooth, continuous 

 curve. The reduction curves are related to the 

 physical conditions rather than to the formation of 

 any definite compounds. When a support (kieselguhr) 

 is overloaded with nickel hydroxide and reduced so 

 that varying proportions of the nickel are in the 

 metallic state, catalytic activity increases rapidly to a 

 maxijmum, which is maintained until all the nickel 

 hydroxide has been reduced to the elementarv state. 

 Catalytic activity is dominated by the condition of the 

 surface layer of reduced nickel. — Sir J. B. Henderson : 

 (i) A contribution to the thermodynamical theory of 

 explosions ; (ii) with Prof. H. R. Hasse. Advances 

 in chemical thermodynamics, dealing with dissocia- 

 tion of gases and variation of their specific heats with 

 temperature, are applied to the science of internal 

 ballistics. Direct experiments on specific heats of 

 gases are limited to temperatures below 1500° C, and 

 extrapolation, based uf>on thermodynamic theory and 

 extending to temperatures of 3500° C. and to pressures 

 of 20 tons per sq. in., tests the theory severely. Part (1) 

 contains the application of these theories to the cal- 

 culation of the explosion-pressure of cordite in closed 

 vessels, and the calculation of the curve of adiabatic 

 expansion of the products of explosion bv considering 

 a series of states of equilibrium and, following there- 

 on, the ideal indicator diagram of a gun. In part (ii) 

 the curve of rise of pressure and the maximum pres- 

 sure allowing for burning of cordite in parallel layers 

 and for varying capacity of chamber during burning, 

 due to movement of the projectile, are calculated. The 

 results enable the indicator diagram of gun, maxi- 

 mum pressure, and muzzle velocity of projectile to 

 be calculated accurately from the chemical composi- 

 tion of explosive used and rate of burning of the cords. 

 They also show the effects produced by variations 

 in initial pressure, densitv of loading, temperature of 

 charge, diameter of cords, etc. The method is also 

 applicable to internal-exolosion engines using gas or 

 oil. — S. Butterworth : Eddv current losses in cylindrical 

 conductors, with special applications to the alternating 

 current resistances of short coils. A general series for 

 the eddv current losses produced in a non-magnetic 

 metallic cylinder when placed in a transverse field of 

 anv forrn is developed. The theorv gives an 

 approximate .solution of the problem of the effective 

 resistance of two equal parallel wires carrying equal 

 currents either in the same or in opposite directions. 

 The "uniform field" theon- is applied to determine 

 the effective resistance of parallel wire systems, and, 

 by calculating the mean square field actine throughout 

 the section of the coil, formulae are obtained for the 

 effective resistances of single- and multi-layer sole- 



