214 



NATURE 



[February i6, r 



will always live in the hearts of those who were 

 privileged to be with him for a time at his little 

 shooting cottage near the Laguna de la Janda. His 

 kindness, knowledge, and interest in everything were 

 especially noticeable, but at the same time his 

 soldierlike love of order was never absent. Woe 

 betide the guest who returned the salt- jar to the 



place where the pepper-pot should h^ve been ! 11 n 

 Army has lost a competent officer who continued to 

 work for it in many ways after being physically 

 incapacitated during the South African War from 

 active service ; science has lost an earnest follower \ 

 but, above all, some of us have lost a real friend. 



M. C. BURKITT. 



Current Topics and Events. 



Sir Francis Galton was born on February i6, 

 1822, in the same year as Mendel. The Eugenics 

 Education Society is celebrating the anniversary in 

 a dignified way with addresses on Galton 's contribu- 

 tions, not only to eugenics, the cause that was nearest 

 his heart, but to statistics and geography as well. 

 Galton was in more than one striking way the com- 

 plement of his cousin, Charles Darwin, but especially 

 in this respect : that his imagination was fired with 

 the idea of man's evolution going on. Darwin 

 thought more perhaps of the descent of man, Galton 

 of the ascent ; but it is very interesting that the doyen 

 among eugenists should be Darwin's own son. The 

 Eugenics Education Society has been fortunate in 

 having had Major Leonard Darwin for many years 

 at its helm. Of course, Charles Darwin and Francis 

 Galton were entirely at one, though the angle from 

 which they regarded man was a little different. What 

 Galton grasped so firmly was the idea of man evolving, 

 and that no longer mysteriously, but under the in- 

 fluence of factors which are discoverable by, and 

 amenable to, scientific methods. He had the vision 

 of the control of life, of applying our knowledge' of 

 the factors in evolution to the guidance and accelera- 

 tion of that evolution. This was to him, as he said, 

 "a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing 

 to many of the noblest feelings of our nature." In 

 celebrating the anniversary there is reason for con- 

 gratulation and encouragement, for Galton 's doctrines 

 have made rapid headway. It must be confessed, 

 however, that the need for more enthusiasm is great. 

 Thus we see from Prof. Karl Pearson's letter to the 

 Times of January 18 that although the Galton Labora- 

 tory is nobly housed, its undertakings — especially in 

 the way of publication — are sadly hampered by lack 

 of funds. The same hindrance affects the Eugenics 

 Education Society, and it is plainly a matter for regret 

 that new knowledge of high importance should be 

 lying unpublished and that educational efforts to 

 diffuse the "virile creed " should have to be slackened 

 when they are so urgently needed. 



On February 19 occurs the tercentenary of the 

 death of Sir Henry Savile, to whom Oxford owes 

 the foundation of the Savilian professorships of geo- 

 inetry and astronomy. Accounted by his contem- 

 poraries — among whom were Casaubon and Scaliger — 

 " a man of admirable skill in the Greek and Latin 

 languages and a laborious searcher and generous pub- 

 lisher of the remains of venerable antiquity," Savile^ 

 was one of the first scholars of the age. Born near 

 Bradley, Yorkshire, in 1549, he matriculated at 

 Brasenose College, became a fellow of Merton 

 NO. 2729, VOL. 109] 



College, was elected a proctor of the University, and 

 at one time taught Greek to Queen Elizabeth. From 

 1585 he was Warden of Merton, and from 1596 

 Provost of Eton, holding both positions until his 

 death, which took place at Eton. The chairs of geo- 

 metry and astronomy were founded by him in 1619, 

 Briggs being appointed to the former and Bainbridge 

 to the latter. Among the distinguished men who have 

 held one or the other have been Halley, Sir Christopher 

 Wren, Bradley, Baden-Powell, Pritchard, H. J. S. 

 Smith, and Sylvester. Before Briggs took over the 

 duties of the chair of geometry Savile himself 

 delivered thirteen lectures upon the first eight pro- 

 {X)sitions of Euclid's "Elements," and these were pub- 

 lished in 1620. Though Savile 's contemporary. Sir 

 Henry BUlIngsley, sheriff and Lord Mayor of London, 

 had published the first English translation of Euclid's 

 "Elements" In 1570, and the chair of geometry at 

 Gresham College had been founded in 1596, the 

 preamble to the deed of foundation of the Savilian 

 professorships stated that "geometry is almost totally 

 unknown and abandoned in England." 



A Bill was Introduced In Parliament on February 8 

 providing that summer time should begin on the last 

 Saturday In March (or, If that is Easter Eve, on the 

 preceding Saturday) and end on the first Sunday in 

 October. These dates have been fixed in agreement 

 with France and Belgium, as a difference in the dates 

 causes confusion in through services. Many astro- 

 nomers suffer some inconvenience from the use of 

 summer time, but probably most of them would make 

 little of this If they were persuaded that the majority of 

 the community recognised it as a boon. All must 

 agree that, if used, it is well to have its beginning 

 and end fixed in a regular manner. On theoretical 

 grounds, of course, the principle of summer time 

 does not differ from that accepted long ago, when 

 Greenwich time was introduced for the whole of 

 Great Britain. This involved the use of a standard 

 meridian, differing for some places 7° from the local 

 one, and the increase from 7° to 22° is a matter of 

 convention ; the first has no more basis in theory 

 than the second. On scientific grounds the main 

 objection to summer time is the confusion due to the 

 varying standard, and the measure now proposed 

 should do something to remove the difficulties thus 

 caused. 



On January 24 Mr. T. East Lones, of the Patent 

 Office, read a paper before the Newcomen Society on 

 " Mechanics and Engineering from the Time of Aris- 

 totle to that of Archimedes." Aristotle contains little 

 of interest to engineers, but it was the extraordinary 



