788 



NATURE 



[August i8, 192 i 



commission has therefore enlarged its jurisdic- 

 tion, and will publish the constants of atomic 

 weights, isotopy, ar^d radio-activity; moreover, 

 instead of being composed almost exclusively ol 

 analysts of exceptional ingenuity and manipulative 

 skill, it will include recognised experts on iso- 

 topes and atomic pedigrees. 



The questions of international nomenclature, 

 contractions, abstracts, and standards were dis- 

 cussed and reports adopted, but the main work 

 on most of these topics is still to be done, and the 

 various committees appointed to consider these 

 matters have a huge mass of detailed investigation 

 before them. In connection with abbreviations in 

 chemical literature Dr. Pondal made the gratifying 

 announcement that the Argentine Chemical Society 

 would bear the necessary expenses. 



A list of pure research chemicals manufactured 

 in Great Britain was submitted by the Association 

 of British Chemical Manufacturers, and a further 

 list containing many additional products is in 

 course of preparation. M. Marie, whose name is 

 well known in connection with tables of con- 

 stants, submitted a report on this subject. 



A commission was appointed to consider inter- 

 national patents, and its work is not yet com- 

 pleted. It appears that a considerable mass of 

 evidence is necessary before a report can be 

 drafted, and it is hoped that those who have given 

 consideration to this problem will communicate 



with the Federal Council for Pure and Applied 

 Chemistry at the offices of the Chemical Society 

 at Burlington House. 



The questign of industrial hygiene is coming 

 into prominence, and a commission was appointed 

 to deal with this subject. During recent months 

 papers on industrial hygiene have been read before 

 the Society of Chemical Industry, the Royal Society 

 of Arts, the British Medical Association, and other 

 societies, and the hygiene section of the Inter- 

 national Labour Office constituted by the Treaty 

 of Versailles has undertaken an immense task in 

 relation to diseases of occupation. It is time the 

 whole question was examined scientifically and 

 carefully, but the problem is one of considerable 

 complexity. Very few of the medical experts have 

 accurate knowledge of the chemical and engineer- 

 ing factors involved, and but few of the manufac- 

 turers or employees most concerned are able tq 

 form a sound judgment from a perusal of the 

 pamphlets written by experts maintaining with no 

 little heat their various opinions. If the inter- 

 national commission can study the problem so far 

 as it concerns industrial chemistry, it will perform 

 a most useful and timely service. 



It has been decided to hold the next conference 

 of the International Union in France, and there 

 is a suggestion to have the meeting at Lyons, 

 which will be a very convenient locality for most 

 of the countries concerned. 



Obituary. 



Prof. G. Lippmann, For.Mem.R.S. 



FRENCH science has suffered a very great loss 

 in the person of Prof. Gabriel Lippmann, 

 who died at sea on July 13 while returning from 

 Canada, where he had taken part in the mission of 

 Marshal FayoUe. Prof. Lippmann was born in 1845 

 at HoUerich, in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, 

 of French parents, who soon after his birth settled 

 in Paris. He passed through the higher normal 

 school, and devoted his life to teaching and 

 research. He became professor of physics at the 

 Faculty of Sciences in Paris in 1878 and director 

 of the laboratory for physical research at the Sor- 

 bonne in 1886, and was elected a member of the 

 Paris Academy of Sciences in the same year. Of an 

 original and independent mind. Prof. Lippmann 

 left his personal mark on all questions he touched. 

 The philosophical and general side of scientific con- 

 ceptions claimed his attention particularly, and he 

 saw clearly the connecting links between differing 

 phenomena. His work on electro-capillarity dates 

 from the time when electricians began to see the 

 power and flexibility of the new instrument. He 

 saw at a glance the future of electricity. Every 

 physicist knows his capillary electrometer and the 

 connection he established between the constant of 

 Laplace's formula and the potential difference : 

 but he showed as well how mechanical work could 

 be obtained from an electro-capillary motor. At 

 the time he made these discoveries and stated the 

 principle of the conservation of electricity he pub- 



NO. 2703, VOL. 107] 



lished other work in which he played the role of 

 pioneer. In his note in the Comptes rendus 

 of the Paris Academy of Sciences for 1875 on 

 the properties of an electrified water surface, 

 he earthed a mass of water by a wire ending 

 in a Wollaston electrode, and showed that if a 

 stick of rubbed resin was brought near, oxygen 

 was set free at the electrode, while hydrogen 

 remained in solution. Ostwald, in his " General 

 Chemistry," begins his treatment of ionic theory 

 with a description of this experiment. On the 

 publication of Rowland's discovery Prof. 

 Lippmann showed, in June, 1879, that the 

 phenomena ought to be reversible and that elec- 

 tricity ought to have inertia. This idea of 

 reversibility was a frequent subject of his thoughts, 

 and he often reverts to it in his celebrated treatise 

 on thermodynamics. Prof. Lippmann also pub- 

 lished in 1889 some calculations on induction in 

 resistance free circuits, which twenty jears after 

 were confirmed by the experimerits of Prof. 

 Kamerlingh Onnes. In 1891 he communicated to 

 the Academy of Sciences the principles of the dis- 

 covery with which his name is immediately asso-^ 

 ciated : that is, colour photography by interfer- 

 ence. The accurate solution of the problem of 

 the reproduction of colour is thus obtained from 

 the thin laminae which had such an attraction for 

 the mind of Newton. Prof. Lippmann was a man 

 of few words. So long as he was unable to give 

 to a problem a form which would lead him to a 



