March i6, 1922' 



NATURE 



349 



M. Camille Jordan. 



By the recently announced death of Camille Jordan 

 the mathematical world has sustained the loss of 

 one of its greater modern analysts. Born in 1838 

 Jordan succeeded Chasles (1881) in the geometrical sec- 

 ion of the Paris Academy of Sciences. Later he was 

 ^iven the chair of mathematical analysis at the ^^cole 

 I'olytechnique, from which he retired a few years ago. 

 In the earlier part of his career Jordan's mathe- 

 tical work was mainly geometrical. An important 

 oir is concerned with polyhedra and the attendant 

 metry of position. In another paper he obtained 

 the condition that two flexible and extensible surfaces 

 should be applicable to one another without tearing 

 or doubling over. His work on symmetry and dis- 

 placement-groups anticipated later research on trans- 

 formation-groups^ and has been used in theoretical 

 ! ystallography. 



^^aati( 



j Jordan left his deepest impression, however, by his 

 j work on substitutions and algebraic equations. In his 

 " Traite des Substitutions " he followed up Galois' 

 ideas, obtaining fundamental results on primitive, 

 transitive, and composite groups, and on the com- 

 position-factors of a group. These investigations 

 enabled him to settle a question proposed by Abel, 

 viz. to decide whether a given algebraic equation is 

 soluble by radicals or not. Other work of Jordan's 

 is concerned with algebraic forms and linear groups of 

 finite order, with their applications to algebraic in- 

 tegrals of linear differential equations. 



Some of Jordan's more recent work was on the 

 theory of functions of a real variable. His name will 

 be remembered as the discoverer of Jordan curves, the 

 most general curves which cut a plane into two distinct 

 portions. W. E. H. B. 



Current Topics and Events. 



The call for economy in the Civil Service has 

 produced a number of letters in the correspondence 

 columns of State Technology, the journal of the 

 Institution of Professional Civil Servants, from 

 members who do not belong to the administrative 

 section of the service or to the clerical section from 

 which the administrative is recruited. The object 

 of these letters is to show that great saving might 

 be effected by making better use of the professional, 

 scientific, and technical officers of the service. At 

 present it often happens that progressive scientific 

 development is hampered by the existence of a 

 control without knowledge of the scientific work on 

 which the professional members are engaged. Such 

 a control tends towards a stereotyped system in 

 which each member of the service becomes a mere 

 machine without inspiration or initiative, and to the 

 promotion of clerks into secretaries, deputy secretaries, 

 assistant secretaries, etc., at salaries out of all pro- 

 portion to the value of their services to the State. 

 From letters in the February number of the journal 

 it appears probable that some of these facts are to 

 be discussed in the daily press in the near future. 



The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 

 announces several collecting Expeditions. Mineral- 

 ogists will visit the gem-producing and the gold- and 

 copper-producing districts of Brazil, the silver- and 

 copper - producing districts of Peru and BoUvia, 

 and the nitrate and vanadium deposits of Chile. 

 Fossil vertebrates will be sought in Patagonia, 

 northern Argentine, and Brazil. Zoologists and 

 botanists will be associated in the Sierras of Central 

 '<ru and round the sources of the Amazon. Archaeo- 

 ijists will visit the Isthmus of Panama, the State 

 t Colombia, and the Colorado Desert. Dr. Fay- 

 ooper Cole is to study the races of the Malay Penin- 

 sula and to explore the interior of Borneo. Dr. 

 Berthold Laufer proposes to study the aboriginals 

 of Hai-nan, and to make archaeological collections 

 in Fu-kien and Manchuria. 



NO. 2733, VOL. 109] 



A VIOLENT gale traversed the southern portion of 

 England during the night of March 7 and the fore- 

 noon of March 8. The storm arrived from the 

 Atlantic and was first experienced on our south-west 

 coasts, whence it travelled across the south and eas!: 

 of England to the North Sea. In the English Channel 

 and at the southern English stations the south- 

 westerly and westerly winds attained hurricane 

 force. At Scilly the wind blew with the velocity of 

 108 miles an hour at 4 a.m., a speed which has only 

 once previously been exceeded in the United Kingdom, 

 the wind in a gale on January 27, 1920, registering 

 no miles an hour in Co. Clare, Ireland. The storm 

 was accompanied in most parts by heavy rains, and 

 the violence of the wind occasioned a large amount 

 of damage. 



Under the title " Research Laboratories in In- 

 dustrial Estabhshments of the United States, includ- 

 ing Consulting Research Laboratories," a Bulletin 

 of the U.S. National Research Council (1921, vol. 3, 

 Part I., pp. 135) has recently been issued. The 

 report gives an alphabetical hst of 526 industrial 

 estabhshments in the U.S.A. having research labora- 

 tories, the name of the chief worker, the number of 

 the staff, the nature of the work, and the special 

 equipment, together with a subject classification and 

 index, and a hst of the directors of research with 

 addresses. It is a most interesting compilation, 

 furnishing useful details not only of the enonnous 

 staffs of such companies as E.I. du Pont de Nemours, 

 Eastman Kodak, Goodyear Tyre, General Electric, 

 and Western Electric, but even of the small labora- 

 tories with only one or two workers. It is very 

 plain, however, that the term " Research " has been 

 generously appUed, for the vast majority of the 

 laboratories would be modestly referred to in this 

 country as " works laboratories." The equipment 

 catalogued is also quite conventional in most cases, 

 but it is amusing to read that the Edison laboratory 

 has a " large scrap heap from which to rob to build 



