April 8, 1922] 



NATURE 



461 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers. 



April 7, 1898. Otto Baensch died, — For nearly fifty 



rears Baensch was in the State service of Germany 



id did important work in connection with the 



ivigation of the Elbe, the Upper Rhine, and the 



lous Kaiser-Wilhelm or Kiel Ship Canal. 



April 8, 1893. Vice-Admiral E. Paris died. — Joining 

 le French Navy in 1822, Paris was one of the first 

 naval officers in France to study steam navigation. He 

 wrote manuals on mechanics and a treatise on screw 

 propulsion, and contributed papers to the Institution 

 of Naval Architects, of which he was elected an 

 J honorary associate. 



I April 9, 1870. Thomas Joseph Ditchburn died. — A 

 ioneer builder of iron ships, Ditchburn received his 

 raining in Chatham Dockyard and assisted Sir 

 lobert Seppings in some of his experiments. He 

 fterwards was manager for Fletcher and Fearnall, 

 nd then with Mare estabUshed the first iron ship- 

 uilding yard on the Thames. In 1846 he built the, 

 nly iron saiUng man-of-war ever in H.M. Navy, 

 ri.M.S. Recruit. Ditchburn later on founded the 

 famous Thames Iron Works at Blackwall, where 

 during ten years he constructed some 400 vessels. 



April 9, 1877. William Gossage died. — A great 

 industrial chemist and inventor, Gossage began life as 

 a druggist's assistant. In 1 830 he assisted to found an 

 alkah works at Stoke Prior, Worcestershire, and six 

 years later he patented his well-known condensing 

 tower which prevents the escape of hydrochloric acid 

 gas ; an invention " which saved from extinction a 

 trade, the growth of which has contributed to the 

 nation's prosperity." Gossage engaged in copper 

 smelting and other enterprises and also became the 

 largest manufacturer of soap in the world. 



April 10, 1903. Horace Bell died. — Entering the 

 public works department of India in 1862, Bell rose 

 to be Engineer-in-chief of the Survey of the Great 

 Western Railway of India and consulting engineer for 

 the State railways. 



April II, 1822. Ralph Dodd died. — The projector 

 of a tunnel beneath the Thames between Tilbury and 

 Gravesend, Dodd was a civil engineer and was known 

 for his writings on canals and on the water supply and 

 docks of London ; he was also a promoter of steam 

 navigation. He died just a hundred years ago from 

 injuries sustained by a boiler exploding. 



April II, 1847. Charles Holtzapffel died. — ^The son 

 of a German toolmaker who settled in London in 1787, 

 Holtzapffel became an expert mechanician, and in 

 1843 pubUshed a valuable work entitled " Turning and 

 Mechanical Manipulation." He was a member of the 

 Council of the Institute of Civil Engineers. 



April 12, 1840. Franz Anton von Gerstner died. — 

 Like his father a mathematician and engineer, Gerstner 

 from 1 81 8 to 1825 was professor of practical geometry 

 in the polytechnic in Vienna, and was one of the 

 earliest continental railway engineers. He con- 

 structed the railway from Budweis to Linz, and in 

 1834 built the first Russian fine, that from St. Peters- 

 burg to Czarskoeselo. He died in Philadelphia, 

 whither he had gone to study the railways of America. 



April 12, 1898. Aime Claude Alfred Girard died.— 

 A distinguished French chemist, and a member of the 

 Institute, Girard in 1871 succeeded Payen in the 

 chair of,industrial chemistry in the Conservatoire des 

 Arts et Metiers. E. C. S. 



Societies and Academies. 



London 



Royal Society, March 23. — Sir Charles Sherrington, 

 president, in the chair. — Sir Richard Glazebrook : 

 Specific heats of air, steam, and carbon dioxide. The 

 values for the specific heats of these gases below 

 1000° C. given recently by Womersley are higher by 

 5-10 per cent, than those which follow from the results 

 given by Holbom and Henning. — A. E. H. Tutton : 

 (r) Monoclinic double selenates of the manganese 

 group. The manganese group of double selenates of 

 the isomorphous series R2Mn(Se04)2 • 6H2O includes 

 only three salts, those in which R is rubidium, caesium, 

 and ammonium. Optically these salts are precisely 

 in line with those for analogous salts of other groups, 

 so that if the potassium salt could be obtained, it 

 woiild be the first member of a progressive series, and 

 the general law of progression of the crystallographic 

 properties with the atomic number of the alkali metal 

 would be obeyed rigidly. The volume and edge- 

 dimensions of the space-lattice cells of the crystal 

 structures of ammonium manganous selenate hexa- 

 hydrate and rubidium manganous selenate are nearly 

 identical. Similar facts obtain for all analogous 

 ammonium and rubidium salts throughout the whole 

 isomorphous series, as well as for the rhombic simple 

 sulphates themselves. (2) MonocUnic double selen- 

 ates of the cadmium group. Crystals of the am- 

 monium' salt, (NH4)2Cd {Se04)2 • 6H2O, which were 

 sufficiently transparent in parts for optical use were 

 obtained on very keen frosty nights. The potassium 

 salt appears to be incapable of existence, its limit being 

 probably below 0° C. Crystals of the rubidium or 

 caesium salt were obtained during the coldest nights 

 of January, but they were quite opaque, so that only 

 goniometrical measurements were possible. The 

 results are in complete accord with those from other, 

 complete groups. — F. A. Freeth : The system : 

 NajO— CO,— NaCl— H2O. The system is arbitrarily 

 considered as composed of two four-component 

 systems, namely : — NajCOg — NaHCOj — NaCl— H2O, 

 and NajCOg- NaOH — NaCl— H2O. Determinations 

 have been made at 0°, 15°, 20°, 25°, 30°, 35°, 45°, and 

 60° C. A general treatment is given showing how the 

 composition and quantities of the stable phases from 

 any mixtures of the components may be deduced. — 

 M. A. Catalin : Series and other regularities in the 

 spectrum of manganese. Flame-arc, arc and spark 

 spectra of manganese have been observed and new 

 series lines traced. Series belonging to the spectrum 

 of the neutral atom are (a) a system of triplet series ; 

 (6) a system consisting of narrow triplets ; and (c) a 

 system of narrower triplet series running parallel to 

 the preceding system. Intercombination lines be- 

 tween the two first systems appear as two lines very 

 prominent at low temperatures. The calculated 

 ionisation and resonance potentials of manganese are 

 7-4 volts and 2-3 volts. Diffuse triplets in the 

 spectrum of the ionised atom are composed of nine 

 lines. At different temperatures, groups of lines of 

 the same character and related by very exact 

 numerical separations (" multiplets ") have been 

 identified. The neutral atom of manganese probably 

 has two electrons in the outermost ring, and when it 

 loses one electron and becomes ionised, another 

 electron comes out to the ring. Thus, the spectra of 

 neutral and ionised atoms would be similarly con- 

 stituted in accordance with observations. — D. W. 

 Dye : Calculation of a standard of mutual inductance 

 and comparison of it with the similar laboratory 

 standard. The windings of the primary helices and 

 the secondary overwound coil of a Campbell type of 

 mutual inductance standard were measured in terms 



NO. 2736, VOL. 109] 



