212 



NATURE 



[February i6, 1922 



between North America and Eurasia. He has 

 correlated the tu'o continents by using" for 

 the four years 19 16-19 19 the flowering date 

 of hawthorn, Crataegus oxyacantha, at our 

 station of Tenbury, Worcestershire, with the 

 date for the leafing of the hickory, Carya 

 alba, at his own station of Kanawha Farm, 

 West Virginia, adopted as base for intercontinen- 

 tal correlations. Working from the latter, he 

 found the closest agreement with our 25-year 

 mean ; less divergent, he considers, than errors of 

 observation. 



In order to test his calculation, and again 

 starting from his U.S.A. base, Prof. Hopkins 

 worked out the theoretical means for the eleven 

 British meteorological districts. Scotland N. 

 and Ireland S. differed by 11 days, Scotland W. 

 by 5. These three districts are our worst, from 

 paucity of observers. But this year we have 



completed (see Q.J. Roy. Met. Soc. for October 

 last) the 30-year mean values, worked out 

 entirely afresh and carefully weighted for 

 defective records. Compared with these far 

 more trustworthy figures, the discrepancies 

 found by Prof. Hopkins are reduced to three, 

 one, and four days respectively, the eight 

 other districts also giving closer agreements. 

 Thus, though as yet unknown to Prof. Hopkins, 

 his results are well confirmed. 



The success obtained seems to imply that from 

 absolutely trustworthy phenological records of 

 seasonal changes for a single station in the 

 northern hemisphere for one single plant, the 

 whole seasonal phenology for any other plant or 

 crop can be postulated for any other spot in North 

 America, Europe or Asia. The publication of this 

 paper should be an important step in this branch 

 of applied science. 



Obituary. 



Dr. James Francis Bottomley. 



BY the death of Dr. Frank Bottomley — due 

 to pneumonia following influenza — which 

 occurred on January 16 at the early age of forty- 

 seven, the country has lost the services of a chemist, 

 physicist, technician, negotiator, and manager of 

 men of quite exceptional ability and integrity. 



Heredity and environment conspired to make Dr. 

 Bottomley a man of science. His great-grandfather 

 was- Dr. James Thomson, professor of mathematics 

 in Glasgow University ; his great-uncles were Lord 

 Kelvin and James Thomson, F.R.S., professor of 

 engineering in Queen's College, Belfast, and 

 Glasgow University ; while his father was the 

 present Dr. James Thomson Bottomley, F.R.S., of 

 Glasgow University. His mother died when he was 

 three years old, but five years later his father 

 married the widowed sister of Lord Kelvin, and 

 between the boy and his stepmother there arose an 

 attachment which deeply influenced his character. 



From eight to thirteen years of age Dr. Bottomley 

 was educated at Bloxham, near Banbury, where he 

 became interested in science, but his school career 

 was cut short 'by influenza in the epidemic of 1888. 

 After a long period of convalescence he entered the 

 University of Glasgow — first as a non-matriculated, 

 and afterwards as a matriculated, student — under 

 Prof. Ferguson, Lord Kelvin, and Prof. Jack. In 

 his second year he was laid up with scarlet fever 

 and so lost the chance of taking his degree. In 

 1894, at nineteen years of age, he went to Germany, 

 and, after about six months with a German family, 

 entered the University of Heidelberg. Here he 

 came under the influence of Victor Meyer and Prof. 

 Gattermann, and also studied physics under Prof. 

 Quincke, mathematics under Prof. Konigsberg, and 

 mineralogy under Prof. Rosenbusch. In 1897 he 

 obtained the Ph.D. degree " multa cum laude," 

 and returned to Glasgow, where he entered the 

 university chemical laboratory and physical labora- 

 tory. 



NO. 2729, VOL. 109*] 



In 1898 Dr. Bottomley was awarded a research 

 studentship for three years, the first of which he 

 spent at Glasgow, the second at Owens College, 

 Manchester — where he was elected research student 

 and afterwards research fellow under Prof. W. H. 

 Perkin — and the third at University College, 

 London, under Sir William Ramsay. Here, accord- 

 ing to Ramsay, he showed " manipulative skill of 

 the highest order," and proved himself " an accom- 

 plished chemist and a courteous gentleman." In 

 1901 he joined the standardising laboratory of 

 Kelvin and James White, and a year later was 

 associated with the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Electric 

 Supply Co., and became also chemical expert to 

 the firm of Merz and McLellan (then C. H. Merz), 

 consulting electrical engineers. 



In 1902 Dr. Bottomley began his great work on 

 silica fusion on a commercial scale by means of the 

 electric furnace. The research was carried out at 

 Wallsend, and by skilful and systematic experiment 

 he eventually solved the many technical difficulties 

 which had defeated prior experimenters, and, as 

 managing director of the Thermal Syndicate, Ltd., 

 became responsible for the commercial, as w^ell as 

 for the scientific and technical, development of the 

 work. In 19 10 his company received the gold 

 medal for its exhibit of fused silica ware (vitre- 

 osil) at the Brussels Exhibition, and the gold medal 

 for a similar exhibit at Turin in 191 1. 



In 1 914 the process, which was by this time well 

 established, afforded almost the only material then 

 manufactured in the United Kingdom in which 

 acids could be concentrated for the manufacture of 

 explosives. The output of the works was increased 

 tenfold, and the burden of designing and super- 

 vising the necessary extensions and of the technical 

 management fell, for the most part, on Dr. 

 Bottomley. So successful was he as a manager that 

 throughout the war and up to the time of his death 

 the works were entirely free from labour troubles. 

 After the armistice he was mainly occupied in 



