December 2, 1920] 



NATURE 



453 



the whole income from the Messel bequest were used 

 to defray the cost of publications, there would still be 

 a deficit. The annual subscription of fellows has 

 been raised and steps have been taken to retluce 

 expenditure wherever possible, yet the situation is 

 still serious, and furthi-r financial provision must be 

 secured if the society is to maintain its activities. 



Presidential Address. 



In his presidential address Sir Joseph Thomson 

 referred to distinguished achievements of fellows of 

 the society lost by death during the year, and to the 

 admission of the Prince of Wales as fellow on 

 January 22 last. He directed attention to the large 

 increase in the cost of publishing the Proceedings and 

 Transactions, and suggested that something might 

 be done to make the papers published by a society as 

 accessible to the scientific public as those published 

 in other ways. " I think," he added, "some improve- 

 ment in our sales might possibly be effected and 

 science benefited if there were some organisation, 

 private or otherwise, for the sale of separate papers. 

 The formation of a library, to include all papers on 

 one of the great branches of science, such as physics, 

 requires a longer purse and more bookshelves than 

 most are able to afford. But there are many, I think, 

 who would like, and could afford, to form a fairly 

 complete collection of the literature of one or more 

 of tne subdivisions of the subject in which they are 

 especially interested^say, for example, electrical 

 waves or low-temperature research. As lists of the 

 papers in these subdivisions are published at regular 

 intervals by various agencies, it ought not to be 

 difficult to arrange for the distribution of the separate 

 papers if these could be obtained from the societies." 



The Medallists. 



The Copley medal is awarded to Dr. Horace T. 

 Brown in recognition of his w-ork on the chemistry 

 of carbohydrates, on the assimilation of atmospheric 

 carbon dioxide by leaves, and on gaseous diffusion 

 through small apertures. As was the case with 

 Pasteur, so with fforace Brown, problems and diffi- 

 culties arising out of a branch of the fermentation 

 industry supplied the incentive to investigations which 

 are of fundamental importance in chemistry and 

 botany. His work began in 187 1 with the investiga- 

 tion of one of the diseases of beer, and includes an 

 exhaustive study of the chemistry of starch, the 

 germination of the barley grain, and the changes 

 ncrurrinu in the green leaf during photosynthesis. 

 The Rumford medal is awarded to Lord ftAvi-FicH, 

 who is distinguished for his researches into the pro^ 

 perties of gases at high vacua, and whose work has 

 opened the wav to many valuable investigations. 

 Some years ago Lord Rayleigh made a number of 

 interesting observations on the afterglow in various 

 gases noticeable after the cessation of an electric dis- 

 charge, and these led in iqii to his Bakerian lecture 

 on "The Afterglow of Nitrogen." The investigation 

 thus started has proved the subject of much of his 

 recent work, and in a series of most valuable papers 

 he has sfudietl the propeitics of the gas in which this 

 afterglow is visible. 



A Roval medal is awarded (■ Godfrfy 



Harold Habdy. who is well known nmh in this 

 , countrv and on the Contin-nt for his researches in 

 pure malhemntics. parlirularlv in the analytic theory of 

 numbers and allietl subiert'i. Immedi.Tlely after taking 

 Ills <lcgr"e at Cambridge Prof. Hardy engaged in a 

 series of researches on the theory of functions of a 

 real variable, from which results of the greatest im- 

 portance and f-neralily were obtained, at first bv 



NO. 2666, VOT.. 106] 



himself alone and later in collaboration with Mr. 

 J. E. Littlewood. .\mong the more important re- 

 searches of which Prof. Hardy is sole author may be 

 mentioned papers on Dirichlot's divisor problem, on 

 the representation of numbers as, the sum of n 

 squares, on the roots of the Kiemann ^-function, and 

 on non-differentiable functions. 



A Royal medal is awarded to Dr. William 

 Batkson, who is universally recognised as a leading 

 authority on genetics, and has done more than any- 

 one else to put that branch of inquiry on a scientific 

 basis. The work that stands to his name is, how- 

 ever, but a fraction of that which he has inspired 

 wherever biological research is prosecuted. In con- 

 junction with Prof. Punnett he w'orked out in detail 

 one of the earliest cases of sex-linked inheritance. 

 Peculiar association of genetic factors in gameto- 

 genesis had previously been discovered by the same 

 authors and described under the terms "coupling" 

 and "repulsion." In 191 1 they publishe<l two papers 

 which proved that these phenomena are part of a 

 more general phenomenon of linkage, the orderly 

 nature of which was pointed out. Since these papers 

 appeared the phenomenon has been shown by various 

 workers to be widespread in both animals arid plants. 

 Three papers by Bateson and C. Pellew record a 

 discovery of high interest and importance, viz. that 

 the germ-cells of the same plant may vary in their 

 genetic properties. It is further pointed out that the 

 variation proceeds in an orderly way from the base 

 of the plant to the apex. The conception is a novel 

 one, and is bound to have great influence on the 

 development of genetical theory. 



The Davy medal is awarded to Mr. Charle,s 

 Thomas Hevcock, who, in collaboration with the 

 late Mr. F. H. Neville, published a remarkable series 

 of papers, all characterised alike by great experi- 

 mental skill and originality, as well as by precise, vet 

 simple, mathematical treatment. The molecular 

 complexity of metals when dissolved in other metals, 

 the composition and constitution of binary and 

 ternary alloys, and the part which the eutectics play 

 during the cooling of a complex alloy were clearly 

 revealed, not only by freezing-point methods, but also 

 bv a most ingenious method of chilling, as well as bv 

 etching by means of many new reagents. These re- 

 searches have not only added very greatly to our 

 theoretical knowledge and conceptions, but have also 

 been of the greatest importance to industrial metal- 

 lurjjv in many directions. 



The Darwin medal is awarded to Prof. Roland 

 Harry Biffen. who has worked out the inheritance 

 of practically all the obvious characters of wheat and 

 barlev. Perhaps his best-known work is that on the 

 inheritance of strength in wheat and on the inherit- 

 ance of susceptibility and resistance to yellow rust in 

 wheat. Biffen's activitv is not by nnv means to be 

 measured by his published work. Two of his new 

 wheats — Little Joss, which owes its value to its 

 immunity from rust, and Yeoman, which combines 

 high yield with first-class baking quality — are among 

 the most popular wheats in the country, and together 

 account for something like a third, or even a half, 

 of the wheat crop of Fncland. 



The Hutrhes medal is awarded to Prof. Owbn 

 Williams RiniARnsov for his researches on the pas- 

 sage of electricity throuch rases, and especially for 

 those relatint* to the emission of electrons from hot 

 bodies a siibiect which Prof. Kirhnrdson has made 

 his own ami christened " thermionics." The suhjert 

 is of great industrial as well as of scientific import- 

 ance. 



The anniversary dinn*^ of thp socictv wa« field on 

 Tiie<iday at the Royal Palace Hotel, Kensington. 



