August ii, 192 i] 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



NATURE 



767 



August 11, 1857. Marshall Hall died.— A distin- 

 guished physiologist, Hall while practising in London 

 as a doctor studied the circulation of the blood, and 

 in 1832 made his important discovery of reflex action. 



August 12, 1865. Sir William Jackson Hooker died. 

 — Few men have done more to advance the study of 

 botany than Hooker, who from 1820 to 184 1 held the 

 chair of botany at Glasgow, and from 1841 to 1865 

 was director of the Royal Gardens at Kew. His 

 herbarium — an exceptionally rich one — was bought by 

 the nation. 



August 12, 1896. Hubert Anson Newton died. — 

 Made famous by his study of meteors and his pre- 

 diction of the memorable display of November 13, 

 1866, Newton from 1855 until his death held the chair 

 of mathematics at Yale, and for a time he directed 

 Yale Observatory. 



August 13, 1907. Hermann Karl Vogel died. — One 

 of the pioneers in the application of Doppler's prin- 

 ciple to stellar spectroscopy, Vogel worked with 

 Zollner and Sporer, and from 1882 was director of 

 the Astrophysical Observatory at Potsdam. In 1883 

 he published his first spectroscopic star catalogue. 



August 15, 1758. Pierre Bouguer died. — A Royal 

 professor of hydrography, Bouguer studied naval 

 architecture, and to him we owe the term "meta- 

 centre." He accompanied Godin and La Condamine 

 on the great meridian expedition to South America 

 (1735-45), and is also known as the inventor of a 

 heliometer. 



August 15, 1852. Johann Gadolin died. — An early 

 exponent of Lavoisier's views, Gadolin was one of 

 the most distinguished scientific men of Finland. He 

 was the first to introduce the term "specific heat." 



August 15, 1856. William Buckland died.— The first 

 reader in geology at Oxford, Buckland made many 

 pioneering geological excursions, wrote one of the 

 Bridgewater treatises, and in 1822 received the Copley 

 medal for his discoveries in a cave at Kirkdale. He 

 was for some years Dean of Westminster. 



August 16, 1705. James Bernoulli died. — From 1687 

 until his death James or Jacob Bernoulli held the 

 chair of mathematics at Basle. His lectures of 1691 

 contain the first published attempt to construct an 

 integral calculus. 



August 16, 1899. Robert Wilhelm Bunsen died.— 

 Holding the chair of chemistry at Heidelberg for 

 thirty-seven years, Bunsen, like t.iebig and Hofmann, 

 was a great investigator and an inspiring master. 

 His important work included the studv of gasometric 

 analysis and the chemical action of light, the invention 

 of the Bunsen batterv, the Bunsen burner, a photo- 

 meter, and an ice calorimeter, and with Kirchhoff in 

 1859 he began his epoch-making researches in spec- 

 trum analysis. 



Aue;ust 16, 1920. Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer died. 

 — Originally a clerk in the War Office, Norman 

 Lockyer became famous for his pioneering work in 

 astrophysics. Simultaneously with Janssen in 1868 

 he devised and used a method of viewing the solar 

 prominences in ordinary sunlight, and shortly after- 

 wards discovered helium. Transferred in 1875 to the 

 Science and Art Department, he was from 1885 to 

 1913 director of the Solar Physics Observatory at 

 South Kensington. He was the founder of this | 

 journal, and has been described as "one of the 

 greatest astronomers of all time." 



August 17, 1856. Constant Prevost died. — Known 

 for his geological studies of the Vienna basin and of 

 volcanoes, Prevost in 18^0 with Bou^, Deshaves, and 

 Desnovers founded the Geological Societv of France. 



E. C. S. 

 NO. 2702, VOL. 107] 



Societies and Academies. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, July 25.— M. Georges Lemoine 

 in the chair.— E. Borel : The fundamental hypotheses 

 of physics and geometry. — G. Lemoine : The mutual 

 reaction of oxalic acid and iodic acid, iii. The in- 

 fluence of sunlight. The experimental difficulties are 

 considerable, owing to the rise of temperature which 

 necessarily takes place during the exposure. In round 

 figures, it may be concluded that in sunlight the time 

 of half-decomposition for a given temperature is 04 

 that found in the dark.— E. Haug : The dysharmonic 

 folds in the mountains to the north of Toulon. — L. 

 Joubin : Oceanographic cruises now being carried 

 out. An account of the work allotted to France by 

 the International Commission at Copenhagen and the 

 researches already in hand. — F. Widal, P. Abrami, and 

 E. Brissaud : Experimental researches on auto- 

 colloidoclasia by cold. Experiments on dogs have 

 shown that immersion in cold water (2° to 3° C.) for 

 periods of from fifteen to forty-five minutes produced 

 changes in the blood identical in character with those 

 due to anaphylactic and other forms of shock. The 

 leucocytes were reduced in number, the leucocytic 

 formula was changed, coagulation of the blood oc- 

 curred in a shorter time, and the refractive index of 

 the blood serum was lower. The effect was transi- 

 tory, and the more serious symptoms of anaphylactic 

 or proteid shock were not produced.^ — P. Sabatier and 

 B. Kubota : The catalytic decomposition of allyl 

 alcohol ; action of various oxides. The catah'sts 

 studied were blue tungstic oxide, alumina, thoria, zir- 

 conia, uranous oxide, and manganous oxide. The 

 gases evolved included carbon monoxide, hvdrogen, 

 carbon dioxjde, ethylene, and propylene, the last- 

 named being in the highest proportion. Propanal and 

 acrolein were present in the liquid distillate. — P. 

 Humbert : Formula of multiplication for the Kummer 

 function * (a, 7, x). — S. Carrus : Triple orthogonal 

 systems. — L. Amaduzzi : A new property of feeble 

 electrical conductors. A discussion of the interpreta- 

 tion of an experiment recently described by M. G. 

 Reboul. — E. Dubois : The minimum potential of elec- 

 trical discharge in hydrogen at low pressures. — L. and 



E. Bloch : Critical potentials and band spectra of 

 nitrogen. The negative band spectrum of nitrogen 

 appears at a higher potential than the positive spec- 

 trum, and a little higher than the ionisation potential 

 generally attributed to this gas. It appears natural 

 to attribute the positive band spectrum of nitrogen 

 to the neutral molecule No and the negative band 

 spectrum to the positively charged molecule N;+.— 



F. B. de Lenaizan and L. Maury : The conductivity of 

 the solution of cuprammonium citrate compared with 

 that of copper sulphate. The two salts obey the law 

 of Arrhenius, and the copper ion is free to the same 

 extent in both. — A. Boutaric and M. Vuillaume : The 

 flocculation of colloidal arsenic sulphide. The influence 

 of the dilution and the quantity of the electroh'te. — 

 J. Barlot and J. Pernot : Combinations of the halogen 

 derivatives of mercury and thallium.- — A. de G. 

 Rocasolano : The variations produced by stabilisers in 

 the catalytic power of electroplatinosols. Sodium 

 protalbinate, sodium lysalbinate, gum arable, and 

 gelatine were the stabilisers used in these experi- 

 ments ; in all cases the catalytic power, as measured 

 by the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide, was 

 reduced. — G. Andoyer : An apparatus for the technical 

 analysis of gases. — V. Auger and Mile. M. Vary : 

 Sulphonations in the presence of iodine. The results 

 obtained by the sulphonation of benzoic acid and PJTO- 

 catechol in presence of iodine are not in agreement 

 with the experiments of J. N. Ray and M. Lac Dev 



