January 5, 1922] 



NATURE 



29 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers. 



L„, „ ,„ ^ _ ^ 



^^Hlong American locomotive engineers, Allen visited 



I^TOe Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1828, and 

 afterwards conveyed to the United States the loco- 

 motive '"The Stourbridge Lion," In 1871-73 he 

 served as president of the American Society of Civil 

 Engineers. 



January 2, 1875. Eber Brock Ward died.— In 1864 

 Ward erected an experimental steel plant at Wyandotte, 

 Michigan, where the first Bessemer steel made in 

 the United States was produced. He was among the 

 earliest to erect a works laboratory and to employ 

 a works chemist. He also did important work in 

 Kxinection with water and rail transf>ort. 



January 3, 1795. Josiah Wedgwood died The 



friend of Watt, Erasmus Darwin, and Priestley, and 

 a fellow of the Royal Society, Wedgwood by his ex- 

 periments added several new species of pottery ware 

 to English manufacture and turned the current of 

 importation of the finer earthenwares into that of 

 exportation. " He was the most successful and 

 original potter the world has ever seen." 



January 5, 1887. Sir Francis Bolton died The in- 

 ventor of a system of signalling for the Army and 

 Navy, Bolton was widely known for his electrical 

 work, and he took a prominent part in founding the 

 Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians, now 

 the Institution of Electrical Engineers. 



January 6, 1911. Sir John Aird died For sixty 



years Aird was engaged on important engineering 

 schemes, his crowning work being the famous Assuan 

 dam on the Nile built for the Egyptian Government 

 in 1898-1902. The dam is 2200 yards long, it has 



; x8o sluice-gates, and contains more than 1,000,000 



;' tons of masonry. 



January 6, 1886. Alhemar Jean Claude Barri de 

 Saint Yenant died. — Engaged for many years on prac- 

 tical work as an inginieur des ponts et chaussies, 

 Saint Venant was an eminent elastician, contributing 

 much to the study of the strength of structures. 



January 8, 1861*. Samuel Clegg died A pupil of 



Dalton, Clegg while an apprentice at Birmingham 

 witnessed Murdoch's experiments on gas lighting 

 and himself became one of the pioneers of the gas 

 industry. 



January 8, 1825. Eli Whitney died Holding a pre- 

 eminent place among the early inventors of America, 

 Whitney, though originally a blacksmith, graduated 

 at Yale, and while a private tutor in 1793 produced 

 his cotton gin. This enabled one man to clean a 

 thousand pounds of cotton a day instead of five or 

 six [X)unds. In twelve years the export of cotton rose 

 from 189,000 lb. to 4,000,000 lb. per annum. 



January 9, 1843. William Medley died With 



Trevithick, Stephenson, Blenkinsop, and Hackworth, 

 Hedley was one of the pioneers of the locomotive. 

 In 1813 at Wylam Colliery, near Newcastle, he built 

 the "Puffing Billy," the first practical and efficient 

 locomotive ever constructed. This engine is now in 



; the Science Museum at South Kensington. 



\ January 9, 1862, Samuel Colt died In 1835, at 



the age of twenty, Colt patented his rep>eating pistol 

 or revolver, for the manufacture of which he built 

 a factory where automatic and semi-automatic 



,^ machinery was used. 



January 11, 1877. Alfred Smee died — Surgeon to 

 the Bank of England, Smee was best known for his 

 work on electricity. The Smee battery was devised 

 by him, and he did pioneering work in electric metal- 

 lurgy, including the art of electrotyping. E. C. S. 

 NO. 2723, VOL. 109] , 



Societies and Academies. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, December 19, 192 1. — M. Georges 

 Lemoine in the chair. — The president announced the 

 death of M. Henry Parenty, correspondant for the 

 section of mechanics.— E. Borel : The theory of games 

 of chance and integral equations with symmetrical 

 nucleus. — P. Termier and L. Joleaud : Summary of 

 our knowledge of the Suzette layer (exact age, con- 

 stitution, and extent) : the question of its origin. 

 This layer came from the Alps in the Aquitanian 

 period, and is exclusively formed of Triassic elements. 

 — C. Richet : The psychological unity of time. — G. 

 Gouy : The surface tension of electrified electrolytes. 

 In a recent communication M. P^lix Michaud has 

 proved that the surface tension of an electrolyte is 

 not changed by the electrification of the surface, and 

 hence raises an objection to the ionic hypothesis, since 

 the ions, by accumulating at the electrified surface, 

 should modify the capillary forces. The author states 

 that it is not' the ionic theory that is at fault, but the 

 view that the charge is constituted by the ions accu- 

 mulated at the surface. The latter hypothesis is in- 

 admissible, since a small charge does not diminish the 

 osmotic pressure in the interior of the electrolyte nor 

 the total number of ions per unit of volume. — G. 

 Friedel and L. Royer : Mixtures of anisotropic liquids 

 and the identity of the stratified liquids of Grandjean 

 with liquids of the azoxyphenetol type.— R. Lagrange : 

 The absolute differential' calculus.— J. Wolff : The series 



^-^* . — A. Denjoy : Quasi-analytical functions with 



real variable. — E. Delassus : Closed articulated chains. 

 — H. Abraham and R. Planiol : An astronomical 

 chronograph of precision. An auxiliary electrical 

 clock, controlled by an astronomical clock, beats 

 tenths and twentieths of a second, and these are 

 marked on a smoked strip by a recording galvano- 

 meter ; the same instrument records the observed 

 times on the same strip, and an accuracy of 001 sec. 

 (or greater if required) is readily attained by a direct 

 reading without a micrometer. — J, P. Lagrula : The 

 principle and scheme of a recording chronograph with 

 geometrical synchronisation. — J. Guillaume : Observa- 

 tions of the " sun made at the Lyons Observatory 

 during the third quarter of 192 1. Ninety days' ob- 

 servations are summarised in three tables, showing 

 the number of spots, their distribution in latitude, 

 and the distribution of the faculae in latitude.— E. 

 Esclangon : The relativity of time. — J. Le Roux : 

 Interference and reflection in a mobile system. — J. 

 Chappuis and M. Hubert-Desprez : Electrolysis by stray 

 currents. Two metal plates forming the electrodes were 

 placed in sawdust or earth moistened with an elec- 

 trolyte contained in a wooden box. The course of the 

 corrosion was followed continuously by X-ray photo- 

 graphs.— M. TafiBn : The measurement of double re- 

 fraction in tempered glass. — M. Siegbahn : New 

 measurements of precision in the X-ray spectrum. A 

 description of an improved instrument of a type 

 described in 1918, capable of measuring a wave-length 

 with an accuracy of 0002 per cent. — A. Sellerlo : 

 Analogies and differences between the total galvano- 

 magnetic effect and its correlative thermomagnetic 

 effect. — J. Duclaux : The mechanism of continuous- 

 light radiation. — B. Bogitch : The expansions of some 

 refractory materials at high temperatures. Refractory 

 bricks of silica, bauxite, clay, chromite, and magnesia 

 and their expansions were studied up to 1500° C. 

 Bauxite bricks had the lowest coefficient of ex- 

 pansion. Silica gave an irregular curve and lost 



