October 28, 1920] 



NATURE 



287 



juxtaposition. The situation would be unstable, 

 and in passing- from this unstable situation to 

 a stable one the p>otential energy would be re- 

 duced, part of it being converted into the kinetic 

 energ-v of the ensuing "storm." This paper con- 

 tains the germ of the theory of line squalls, of the 

 development of cyclones, of polar fronts, and so 

 forth. It includes computations of the horizontal 

 velocities which would result from various dis- 

 tributions of pressure and temperature, and 

 shows that actual distributions would lead to 

 velocities of 50 miles an hour. Margules summed 

 up his conclusions in the sentence : " So far as I 

 can see, the source of storms is to be sought 

 only in the potential energy of position." 



Margules retired from active participation in 

 the work of the Austrian Meteorological Service 

 during the directorship of the late Prof. Pernter, 

 and applied himself to the study of chemistry. 

 He fitted up a small laboratory in his own house, 

 where he lived in comparative retirement. The 

 present writer was saddened to see him there in 

 igog entirely divorced from the subject of which 

 he had made himself a master. Meteorology lost 

 him some fifteen years ago, and is for ever the 

 poorer for a loss which one feels might and ought 

 to have been prevented. E. Gold. 



The Engineer for October 22 records the death 

 of Mr. C. J. BowEN Cooke on October 18 in his 

 sixty-second year. Mr. Bowen Cooke was 

 educated at King's College School, London, and 

 on the Continent, and thereafter spent the whole 

 of his life in the service of the London and North- 

 Western Railway. After serving a pupilage under 

 the late Mr. F. W. Webb, he was appointed 

 assistant in the running department, and rose to 

 be its superintendent. In 1909 he was appointed 

 chief mechanical engineer, and thereafter was 

 responsible for the design of several important 

 types of locomotive engines. The chief of these 

 was a non-compound superheater engine weigh- 

 ing 116 tons and having four cylinders; this 

 engine was fitted with Walschaert's valve gear. 

 -Mr. Bowen Cooke took a very active part in the 

 development of the manufacture of munitions of 

 war in railway workshops, and was made C.B.E. 

 in 1918. He was a member of both the Institu- 

 tions of Civil and Mechanical Engineers, a Justice 

 of the Peace and County Councillor for Cheshire, 

 and a major in the Engineer and Railway Staff 

 Corps. He was the author of two books on loco- 

 motives, and also of a paper on the mechanical 

 handling of coal for British locomotives, read at 

 the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1912. 



Prof. Hans Pedr. Steensby, whose death at 

 the early age of forty-five is announced by the 

 Times, was professor of geography in the Uni- 

 versity of Copcnhagfcn. He was chiefly known 

 for his researches on the Eskimo in relation fo 

 their environment, most of which appeared in 

 NO. 2661, VOL. Io6l 



Meddelelser om Gr<f>nland, and included "Con- 

 tributions to the Ethnology and Anthropo- 

 geography of the Polar Eskimos" (1910) and 

 "An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin 

 of Eskimo Culture" (1917). Prof. Steensby came 

 to the conclusion that the Eskimo were originally 

 an inland people dwelling in the tundra, probably 

 in the vicinity of the Great Slave Land and 

 Coronation Gulf, and that their culture was origin- 

 ally an Indian hunting culture adapted later to 

 the conditions of the Arctic shores. He also wrote 

 on the early voyages of the Norsemen, and was 

 returning from America, where he had been in 

 connection with his investigations into this 

 subject, when his sudden death at sea occurred. 



Science announces that Prof. Samuel Mills 

 Tracy, agronomist of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, died at Laurel, Miss., on 

 September 5, aged seventy-three years. Prof. 

 Tracy was born at Hartford, Vermont, and 

 graduated from Michigan State Agricultural Col- 

 lege in 1868. Erom 1877 to 1887 he was pro- 

 fessor of botany and agriculture at the University 

 of Missouri, and from 1887 to 1897 director 

 of the Mississippi Agricultural Experiment 

 Station. Since that time he had been attached 

 to the United States Department of Agriculture. 

 He was a fellow of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, in the work of which 

 he took an active part, and a member of the New 

 Orleans Academy of Science and of the Botanical 

 Society of America. Among Prof. Tracy's works 

 are "The Flora of Missouri," "The Flora of 

 Southern United States," and numerous bulletins 

 issued by the Mississippi Expyeriment Station and 

 the United States Department of Agriculture. 



Sir Cornelius Neale Dalton, whose death 

 occurred on October 19 at seventy-eight years of 

 age, was Comptroller-General of Patents from 

 1897 to 1909. When, in 1901, the Committee 

 appointed by the Board of Trade to inquire into • 

 the working of the Patent Acts reported in favour 

 of an examination for novelty, within certain 

 limits, being undertaken by the office. Sir C. N. 

 Dalton laid down the lines on which the examina- 

 tion has since been conducted, and recommended 

 and carried out the necessary scheme of reorgan- 

 isation. His strength lay in his tact, energy, and 

 power of organisation, and these enabled him to 

 carry out alterations in the law and practice of 

 patents, though it may be doubted whetVier the 

 changes were to the advantage of the inventor. 

 He was hon. D.C.L. of Oxford, was created 

 K.C.M.G. in 1908, and was chairman of the 

 council of the East London College. 



The death of Dr. Antom Weichselbaum, pro- 

 fessor of pathological anatomy at Vienna Uni- 

 versity, at the age of seventy-five years, occurred 

 on Friday, October 22. 



