September 2, 1920] 



NATURE 



21 



that a similar proposal was about the same time 

 laid before Mr. Alexander MacmiUan, head of the 

 publishing firm, by Profs. Huxley, Balfour 

 Stewart, and Roscoe. It was finally arranged 

 that the scheme of these eminent professors 

 should be adopted, and that Lockyer and 1 should 

 contribute to it. In this way arose the series of 

 elementary text-books or Primers, of which 

 millions of copies have been sold, some of them 

 having been translated into most of the languages 

 of Europe and into some of those of Asia. 



Sir Norman's energy also led him to project a 

 weekly journal entirely devoted to science. He 

 convinced the same enterprising publisher that 

 such a journal would be of much value in 

 chronicling for the general public the progress of 

 scientific opinion and discovery. Thus the 

 present publication came into existence. Lockyer 

 was, of course, its editor, and he continued to 

 fill the editorial chair with amazing industry and 

 success for fifty years. It would be ditlicult lo 

 appraise the value of this service to the cause of 

 science. But the historian of the future, when 

 he comes to describe the various influences which 

 have fostered that cause in this country since 

 1870, will not forget to include Sir Norman and 

 Nature. 



My old friend's enthusiasm spurred him to take 

 part in a long successi'jn of solar eclipse expedi- 

 tions, which took him into remate parts of the 

 world, and sometimes involved no little risk. 

 These foreign journeys he continued to undertake 

 until he was not far from seventy years of age. 



Sir Norman Lockyer's many communications 

 to the Royal Society and other learned bodies, and 

 also the array of his separately published volumes, 

 form the best monument of his life-work. Those 

 who knew him best often wondered how, with 

 only one serviceable eye, he could get through 

 the amount of telescopic and spectroscopic work 

 which he accomplished. His personal charm was 

 great. The kindly nature, ready helpfulness, and 

 infectious enthusiasm that were so characteristic 

 of him endeared him to those who had the privi- 

 lege of his friendship, and who feel that he leaves 

 a vacant place among the men of science in this 

 country which it will be hard to fill as he filled it. 



Arch. Geikie. 



With the death, at an advanced age, of 

 Joseph Norman Lockyer, a remarkable and in 

 Some respects unique personality passes away 

 fr()m the English .scientific world. It would be 

 unnecessary for me, even if I were competent, to 

 describe the progress and achievements of his 

 work in science ; that has been done already in 

 these pages; nor need I dwell on merely bio- 

 graphical detail. I have been invited to write an 

 appreciation of Lockyer. I can only respond by 

 giving my impression of the man drawn from 

 tolerably close intimacy in an acquaintanceship 

 extending over half a century. .Some biographical 

 detail is a hecessary framework. 

 NO. 2653, VOL. 106] 



Lockyer's education, though doubtless suflicient, 

 seems to have been unsystematic ; part was ob- 

 tained on the Continent, where he attended lec- 

 tures at the Sorbonne. He did not receive the 

 training either of a public school or of a uni- 

 versity ; he started in life unhampered by any 

 educational shibboleths or the acquirement of 

 academic status. This was amply made up to him 

 in after-life, for it is more than doubtful if any 

 contemporary man of science had more honorary 

 degrees showered upon him. Lockyer's father 

 was a man of scientific occupation and probably 

 of some attainment ; the son evidently received 

 from him an impulse towards science which no 

 schooling in the early half of the last century 

 could have supplied. 



At thp age of twenty-one Lockyer was appointed 

 to a clerkship in the War Office ; there he re- 

 mained for thirteen years. Hundreds of young 

 men in such a position have merely matured or 

 withered towards a f>ension. Erom that fate he 

 was preserved by the tumultuous energy which 

 characterised him all through life. In the face of 

 opposition he carried out internal administrative 

 reforms in the Office, and had his reward in 1865 

 in being appointed by Lord de Grey editor of 

 the .\rmy Regulations. I remember his telling me 

 that their codification cost him two years' work, 

 and that the strain of having to carry in his head 

 for the purpose a vast mass of detail almost broke 

 him down. It seems almost incredible that, apart 

 from bis official life, he was able to carry on suc- 

 cessful astronomical research. He was elected to 

 the Royal .'Vstronomical .Society in i860, and in 

 1866 devised a method of observing the solar 

 prominences without an eclipse ; this was after- 

 wards applied by Janssen and himself, and com- 

 memorated in a medal by the Erench Government. 

 In i8()8 he discovered in the sun helium, then 

 unknown as a terrestrial element. In 1869, while 

 still in the War Office, he was elected into the 

 Royal Society. 



With such a record of administrative and scien- 

 tific ability it is not surprising to find Lockyer in 

 the following year appointed secretary of the 

 Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction. .\t its 

 conclusion Disraeli transferred him to the Science 

 and Art Department, for which he organised the 

 extremely successful Loan Exhibition of Scientific 

 Apparatus opened by Queen Victoria in 1876. 

 In 188 1 he became professor of astronomical 

 physics in the Royal College of Science. Research 

 into solar phenomena now became the dominant 

 purpose of his life; it led him into fertile specula- 

 tions in various directions. They engaged him t6 

 the last, and but a year ago he contributed a 

 paper to this journal. The earliest was the cor- 

 relation between climate and solar activity. I 

 well remember the cold douche he administered 

 when he pointed out to me that its effect, far from 

 being direct, might be the reverse. The import- 

 ance of this principle, which at the time seemed 

 paradoxical, has now become fundamental in 

 meteorological research ; regions are now known 

 to be aflfected oppositely by changes in the sun's 



