March 2, 1922] 



NATURE 



289 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers. 



March 2, 1892. Sir John Coode died. — A pupil of 

 J. 'SI. Rendcl, Coode became resident engineer, and 

 then engineer-in-chief, of the Portland breakwater, 

 completed in 1872, and afterwards rose to be the most 

 distinguished harbour engineer of his time. Among 

 his greatest works were those at Cape Town, Fre- 

 mantle, and Colombo. From i88g to 1891 he served 

 as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers. 



March 3, 1895. Alfred Giles died. March 4, 1847. 

 Francis Giles died. — Both the Giles, father and son, 

 were successful civil engineers. Francis Giles was 

 employed under Rennie, and later carried out various 

 important harbour and canal works ; while his son 

 was largely concerned with railway projects in Den- 

 mark, France, Canada, GaUcia, and other countries. 

 In 1893 Alfred Giles was president of the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers. 



March 4, 1902. Bryan Donkin died. — The grandson 

 of Bryan Donkin (i 768-1855), known for his pioneer- 

 ing work in paper-making machinery, Donkin suc- 

 ceeded to the business founded by his grandfather. 

 He was, however, best known for his study of thermo- 

 dynamics and the scientific testing of steam engines, 

 liis investigation of steam jacketing and condensation, 

 and his work on gas and oil engines. 



March 6, 1900. Gottlieb Daimler died. — ^A native of 

 Wurtemberg, Daimler became a practical engineer, 

 worked in England under Whitworth, and about 1870 

 became associated with the gas-engine pioneer Nicolas 

 Otto. In the 'eighties he constructed small internal- 

 combustion engines, one of which he fitted to a 

 bicycle, and in 1890 he founded the Daimler Motoren- 

 gesellschaft at Cannstadt, where he died. 



March 7, 1809. Frangois Blanchard died. — One of 

 the most celebrated of the early aeronauts and a 

 reputed inventor of the parachute, Blanchard made 

 some sixty ascents. On January 7, 1785, with Dr. 

 John Jeffries, he was the first to cross the Channel 

 in a balloon. His wife, Sophie Armant, was also an 

 intrepid aeronaut, and perished in a balloon accident 

 in 1819. 



March 8, 1803. Francis Egerton, Duke of Bridge- 

 water, died.— The Duke of Bridgewater has been called 

 the founder of British inland navigation. Succeeding 

 to the family estates at an early age, he settled in 

 Lancashire, and to develop his collieries engaged 

 Brindley to construct the canal from Worsley to 

 Manchester and that from Manchester to the Mersey, 

 the first English canals. 



March 8, 1887. James Buchanan Eads died.— Bom 

 in Indiana in 1820, Eads's whole fife was bound up with 

 the Mississippi. He made a fortune by raising steam- 

 boats sunk in the river, achieved a great reputation 

 during the Civil War by the rapid construction of 

 gunboats for its defence, in 1867-74 constructed the 

 great steel arch bridge which spans it at St. Louis, 

 and later originated the jetties at its mouth for im- 

 proving the channel. He was the first American to be 

 awarded the Albert medal of the Royal Society of 



March 8, 1889. John Ericsson died. — A fertile in- 

 \entor, a noted engineer, and one of the foremost 

 constructors of warships, Ericsson was a native of 

 Sweden. From 1826 to 1839 he was in England, 

 where he produced the first steam fire-engine, con- 

 structed the locomotive " Novelty," and built the 

 screw-driven vessel Robert F. Stockton. The re- 

 mainder of his life was spent in America, where 

 during the Civil War he inaugurated the era of the 

 armoured turret battleship. The great fight between 

 Ericsson's Monitor and the Merrimac took place on 

 March 9, 1862. E. C. S. 



NO. 2731, VOL. 109] 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 



Royal Society, February 23. — Sir Charles Sherring- 

 ton, president, in the chair. — C. D. Ellis : /3-Ray 

 spectra and their meaning. A method of finding the 

 wave-lengths of 7-rays of too high a frequency to be 

 measured by the crystal method depends on the fact 

 that 7-rays are converted into /3-rays according to 

 the quantum relation. If the energies of the groups 

 of electrons ejected by 7-rays be added to the work 

 done in removing the electron from inside the atom 

 to the surface, hv is obtained. The work is found 

 from observations of the energies of corresponding 

 groups excited in different substances, and the method 

 is applied to find the wave-lengths of the 7-rays 

 emitted by radium B, radium C, and thorium D. 

 The energies of the j3-ray groups of thorium D have 

 been measured for this purpose. The 7-rays are 

 emitted from the nucleus and the numerical values 

 of the wave-lengths suggest that the quantum 

 dynamics appUes to the nucleus and that part of the 

 structure can be expressed in terms of stationary 

 states. Suggestions for the energy of these stationary 

 states in radium B and thorium D nuclei are given. — 

 A. E. Conrady: A study of the balance. The first 

 weighings by the Gaussian method of exchange made 

 with an inexpensive analytical balance gave a prob- 

 able error of only 0-004 mg. A constructional fault 

 in the suspensions was remedied and the probable 

 error fell to 0-0013 mg. A further systematic error, 

 depending on the sequence of pointer readings in 

 successive exchanges was attributed to imperfect 

 elasticity and irregular curvature of knife-edges. A 

 method of double exchange of loads which, by close 

 adjustment of a fight rider, caused all readings to 

 fall on two alternating positions of rest, brought the 

 probable error to 0-0008 mg., and it seemed now 

 largely due to irregular air-currents. Arrangements 

 allowing manipulation of loads without opening of 

 balance case reduced the probable error to an average 

 value of 0-0004 i^g- If ■tli^ centre of gravity of the 

 moving parts falls in the supporting fine of the central 

 knife-edge (" autostatic " state), the reading of the 

 pointer becomes independent of levelling of the 

 balance case, and highly accurate results can be 

 obtained on very infirm supports. — J. S. Owens: 

 Suspended impurity in the air. The essential part of 

 a new instrument for measuring impurities is a fine 

 jet of air which strikes a glass surface with high 

 velocity, depositing its dust thereon. The velocity 

 of jet affects the operation of the instrument. The 

 adhesion of dust to the glass has suggested appUca- 

 tions which indicated (a) that visibiUty is usually a 

 function of amount of suspended impurity ; (6) that 

 suspended dust travels over great distances ; records 

 being described of dust from the Continent ; (c) that 

 the microscopical examination of such records in- 

 dicates differences depending upon wind direction. — 

 R. V. Southwell : On the free transverse vibrations 

 of a uniform circular disc clamped at its centre ; and 

 on the efl[ects of rotation. An analysis of the in- 

 fluence of rotation upon the normal modes and fre- 

 quencies of free transverse vibration in a uniform 

 circular disc, complete freedom from constraint being 

 assumed, is extended to cover the effects of constraints 

 which prevent, along a small circle concentric with 

 the free edge, the occurrence either of finite trans- 

 verse displacement w, or of finite slope Swidr. The 

 constraints are assumed to have no effect upon the 

 centrifugal stress-system. Clamping a non-rotating 

 disc along a small circle produces only sUght changes 

 of frequency in modes characterised by two or more 



