650 



NATURE 



[January 13, 1921 



who fell at Magersfontein on December ii, 1899. The 

 prize is 100/., and it will be awarded every two years 

 for the best essay on a subject dealing with ophthalmo- 

 logy and involving^ original work. The competition 

 will be open to all British subjects holding a medical 

 qualification. A committee nominated biennially by 

 the Medical Board of the Royal London Ophthalmic 

 Hospital will have the adjudication of the prize. 



Two Theresa Seessel research fellowships, each of 

 the yearly value of 300?., are being offered in con- 

 nection with Yale University for the promotion of 

 original research in biological studies. Preference 

 will be given to candidates who have obtained their 

 doctorate and demonstrate<l bv their work their fitness 

 for carrying out successfully' original research w^ork. 

 .\pplications for the fellowships, with reprints of 

 scientific publications, letters of recommendation, and 

 particulars as to the problems proposed by the candi- 

 dates, must be sent before May i next to the Dean 

 of the Graduate School, New Haven, Conn., U.S..\. 



Rf.ference was made in these columns some time 

 ago to the Imperial College War Memorial and 

 Athletic Ground scheme. It now appears from papers 

 issued recently that the enterprise has received a large 

 measure of support from friends and old students of 

 the college and its constituent parts, the City and 

 Guilds Engineering College, the Royal College of 

 Science, and the Royal School of Mines. Up to the 

 middle of November' a sum of more than 6300/. had 

 been subscribed, and the earlv resoonse to the appeal 

 has been sufficiently satisfactory to enable the com- 

 mittee not only to proceed with the erection of the 

 memorial tablets in the college buildings, but also to 

 complete the purchase of a sports field at North 

 Wembley, over which an option had been secured. 

 Some of the college clubs are already utilising the 

 ground for the purposes of football and hockev. The 

 further sum immediately required to cover outlay on 

 the memorial tablets, the ourchase of the fronnd,' and 

 necessary expenses, including payment of the mort- 

 gage, is about 2500^., and the committee is appealing 

 to all friends and old students who have not yet con- 

 tributed to take a hand in bringing the undertairing 

 to a completely successful issue. 



A PROGRAMME of University extension lectures for 

 the coming term has been i'ssued by the University 

 of London. Courses of lectures will be delivered at 

 about seventy local centres in different parts of 

 London and the surrounding district. The subjects 

 treated cover a wide range, and courses in literature, 

 history, art, architecture, and economics are included 

 in the list; in the direction of teaching of a non- 

 vocational character important work is being done by 

 the Board. When, however, we remember that the 

 report of Sir J. J. Thomson's Committee on the position 

 of natural science in our educational system emphasised 

 the value of lectures which bring hoine to the general 

 public the meaning of science and its importance in 

 the life of the nation, it is astonishing to note that 

 only two courses of the ninetv-nine which are adver- 

 tised—one by Prof. J. Cox on "The Bases and Fron- 

 tiers of Physical Science " and the other bv Mr. L. 

 Tayler on "Human Biology and Welfare Problems" 

 — are in any way related to natural science. Prof. 

 Cox's course of thirteen lectures will be delivered 

 weekly, starting on January 14, at Gresham College, 

 Basinghall Street, E.C.2; Mr. Tayler's course, con- 

 sisting of twenty-four lectures, will be given on 

 Mondays at the Technical Institute, .\delaide Road. 

 I^yton. Particulars of the courses can be obtained 

 from the Registrar, University Extension Board, Uni- 

 versity of London, South Kensington, S.W.7. 



NO. 2672, VOL. 106] 



Calendar of Scientific Pioneers. 



January 14, 1742. Edmund Halley died.— The son 



of a rich London soapniakir, llallcv licgan his astro- 

 nomical work at Queen's College, Oxford, at the age 

 of seventeen, and continued it until his death at the 

 age of eighty-five. The friend of Newton, he sue. 

 ceeded Wallis as Savilian professor of geometry-, 

 Flamsteed as .\stronomer-Royal, and Hans Sloane as 

 secretary of the Royal Society. His name is asso- 

 ciated with the study of the trade winds, the variation 

 of the compass, Halley's comet, and many funda- 

 mental points in astronomy. To his " great zeal, able 

 management, unwearied perseverance, scientific at- 

 tainments, and disinterested generosity " was largely 

 due the publication of Newton's " Principia." Hallev 

 is buried at Lee, near Greenwich, in the same tomb 

 as Pond, .Astronomer-Royal from 181 1 to 1835. 



January 14, 1874. Philipp Reis died. While teach- 

 ing at Friedrichsdorf, near Hamburg, Reis in 1861 

 constructed a telephone which was used with good 

 results by Hughes in 1865, but Reis died when forty 

 years of age, poor and almost unknown. 



January 14, 1890. Gustave Adolohe Hirn died. 

 \n engineer and ph\sicist of Alsace, Hirn was ;i 

 pioneer in the scientific testing of steam-engines. 



January 14, 1905. Ernst Abbe died. — Born in i84(>, 

 -Abbe, while a professor at Jena in 1866, joined Carl 

 Zeiss and devoted himself to the theoretical investiga- 

 tion of optical instruments. His report on the South 

 Kensington Loan Collection of Scientific .Apparatus of 

 1876 led to the co-operation of the glass-maker. Otto 

 Schott, and "Jena" glass became famous the world 

 over. 



January 14, 1906. Hermann Johann Philipp Sprengel 

 died. — Trained as a chemist in Germany, Sprengel 

 settled in England. He made notable advances in 

 explosives, and by his invention of the mercurial air- 

 pump rendered possible the Swan and Edison glow- 

 lamps, Crookes's radiometer, and the Rontgen X-ray 

 tube. 



January 16, 1806. Nicolas Leblanc died. -The dis- 

 covery of how to make sotla from salt was, by J. B. 

 Dumas, compared in importance with the improve- 

 ment of the steam-engine by Watt. Leblanc made 

 the discovery in 1787, and his patron, the Duke of 

 Orleans, erected a factory for him. In 1793 the duke 

 was guillotined, the factory confiscated, and Leblanc 's 

 patent cancelled. After years of poverty Leblanc's 

 mind gave way and he shot himself. \ statue of him 

 now stands in the Conservatoire des .\rts et Metiers. 



January 17, 1910. Friedrich Kohtrausch died.— The 

 successor in 1895 of Helmholtz at the Physikalisch 

 Technische Reichsanstalt. Kohlrausch was an authority 

 in the field of accurate physical mensuri ment. 



January 18, 1878. Antoine Cesar Becquerel died.— 

 Becquerel served in the French .Army until the peace 

 of 1815, and then gave himself up to scientific pur- 

 suits. A voluminous writer, he was a founder of 

 electro-chemistry, for his work on which he received 

 in 1837 the Copley medal of the Royal Society. His 

 statue stands at his birthplace, Chatillon-sur-Loing. 



January 19, 1878. Henri Victor Regnault died.— Dis- 

 tinguished alike as a chemist and physicist, Regnault's 

 great researches on the expansion of gases were m.ade 

 at the Sevres porcelain factory, of which he was 

 director, but much of his later work was destroyed 

 during the Franco-,German War. E. C. S. 



Erratum.— In last week's. Calendar the year of 

 Galileo's birth should have been 1564, and not 1571. 

 which was the year Kepler was born. 



