24 



NATURE 



[September 2, 1920 



the total solar eclipse of August 29, 188G, when 

 we were generally more fortunate, good observa- 

 tions being made by the late Father Ferry, S.J., 

 at Carriacou, Prof. Turner, Savilian professor at 

 Oxford, Sir Arthur Schuster, and Major Darwin. 

 Lockyer was not in good health at the time, and 

 appeared to suffer from the heat and humidity of 

 the climate. 



On my translation to the Normal School of 

 Science, South Kensington, as successor to Sir 

 Edward Frankland, I became closely associated 

 with Lockyer as a member of the teaching staff. 

 He lectured on solar physics, and directed the 

 observatory then standing near the western side 

 of Exhibition Road. His laboratory and private 

 room were in the main building close to the 

 chemical laboratories, and I naturally saw much 

 of him at this period. He was an indefatigable 

 experimenter, and I was not infrequently called 

 upon to see his results. He was always ready to 

 discuss his work with anybody who showed an 

 interest in it, and never made the slightest secret 

 of what he was doing and why he was doing it. 

 He was fertile in ideas and prolific in working 

 hypotheses, which were discarded as readily as 

 they were formed if found barren of results. No 

 man ever made a greater scientific use of the 

 imagination, and at times, in the course of con- 

 versation, he seemed to give the loosest possible 

 rein to his fancy. Much of his routine observa- 

 tory work was, of course, done by assistants, by 

 whom he was well served. But he took a very 

 active part in the work of the laboratory, and 

 generally made the crucial observations himself, 

 or assured himself of their validity by repetition. 

 He was an excellent teacher, with a remarkable 

 gift of exposition. He spoke fluently, with a ready 

 command of apt expression and telling phrase, and 

 he had no difliculty in retaining the attention of 

 any audience he addressed. At one period of his 

 career he was in great request as a popular lec- 

 turer, and undoubtedly did much to arouse interest 

 and disseminate information concerning celestial 

 phenomena, especially in connection with solar 

 chemistry and physics. He had little opportunity 

 of creating a "school." The primary duty of the 

 Normal School of Science, or, as it was after- 

 wards called, the Royal College of Science, was 

 to train science-teachers, and the subjects of his 

 chair offered little promise of a lucrative career. 



He was a loyal colleague, and, under Huxley's 

 wise direction as Dean, took his fair share in dis- 

 cussion and advice. Of his many social gifts 

 others will no doubt be able to testify. He was 

 fond of the society of His fellows, a genial host, 

 entertaining and hospitable, an excellent conversa- 

 tionalist, with a nimble wit, and an unfailing power 

 of ready repartee. There must be very many who 

 have the pleasantest recollections of the delightful 

 dinner parties in his town house in Penywern 

 Road, and of the conversaziones which usually 

 followed them. 



Lockyer early enlisted me into the service of 

 Nature, and I became a frequent contributor to 

 the journal which, under his judicious and en- 

 NO. 2653, VOL. 106} 



lightened direction, has done so much to foster 

 and advance the interests of science in this 

 country. My relations with him as the Editor were 

 of the most cordial character, and I collaborated 

 with him occasionally in. the production of a lead- 

 ing article. Such work when done in common 

 with him in his sanctum, frequently late at night, 

 necessarily took up much time when protracted, 

 as was usual, by his too ready flow of ideas, which 

 needed a certain power of compression to get them 

 into literary form ; and at times it was only in the 

 small hours of the morning that I was able to 

 wend my way home — a not infrequent experience, 

 however, of leader-writers. 



It cannot, of course, be maintained that all that 

 Lockyer has published has withstood the test of 

 time.' Some of his experimental evidence, and 

 certain of his deductions and generalisations, were 

 hotly challenged at about the time he' made them 

 known. But when all is said that can be said in 

 the way of criticism and detraction, it may be con- 

 fidently asserted that he has left an indelible im- 

 press on the scientific history of his epoch. His 

 memory will be cherished by all who have come 

 under his influence, or have learned to appre- 

 ciate his many excellent qualities of head and 

 heart, and have knowledge of his untiring efforts 

 to serve the highest interests of science. 



T. E. Thorpe. 



I FIRST made the acquaintance of Lockyer in 

 Clifton, where 1 met him at dinner at the house 

 of the late William Lant Carpenter in or about 

 1874. Lockyer had come to give a popular lecture 

 in Bristol on his own and other recent discoveries 

 in celestial spectroscopy, and he was full of his 

 new ideas about the origin and nature of the 

 elements. I remember his asking me whether I 

 considered calcium to be an element, and, having 

 been brought up in the then prevalent view of 

 the permanence of the chemical elements, I 

 replied that I should certainly so regard it. The 

 periodic scheme of Mendeleeff was comparatively 

 new, and Mendeleeff himself did not encourage 

 the notion that it involved the question of the 

 origin of the elements. Lockyer was the first to 

 pursue the subject systematically, and much of his 

 astrophysical research was directed towards estab- 

 lishing his ideas as to the dissociation of the ter- 

 restrial elements in the hottest of the stars. 



I also remember coming into contact with 

 Lockyer at the time when he was secretary of the 

 Duke of Devonshire's Commission on Scientific 

 Instruction, in the operations of which I was, of 

 course, deeply interested, owing to the position 

 I held as senior science master in Clifton College. 

 I never at that time could have expected to be 

 thrown into daily communication with him, as I 

 was twenty years later, owing to an arrangement 

 with Frankland, then professor of chemistry in 

 the Roval College of Science at South Kensing- 

 ton. Frankland and Lockyer had in 1869 been 

 engaged in joint researches on the "Physical Con- 

 stitution of the Sun." and when in 1881 Lockyer 

 became professor of astrophysics at the Royal 



