April 4, 1901] 



NA TURE 



545 



empowered to take the requisite steps to afford the many 

 friends and admirers of the late Prof. Fitzgerald an opportunity 

 of forwarding the^object in view. 



M. Sabatier, professor of chemistry in the University of 

 Toulouse, has been elected a member of the section of chemistry 

 of the Paris Academy of Sciences, in succession to M. Haller, 

 who has been elected a member of the Academy. Prof. 

 Davidson, of the University of California, has been elected a 

 correspondant of the section of geography and navigation. 



The American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected the 

 following foreign honorary members at the last meeting : — Prof. 

 J. H. Poincare, Paris (Mathematics and Astronomy); Prof. 

 Henrich Muller-Breslau, Berlin (Technology and Engineering) ; 

 Prof. H. Kronecker, Bern (Zoology and Physiology) ; Prof. R.* 

 Koch, Berlin (Medicine and Surgery) ; Sir T. Lauder Brunton, 

 London (Medicine and Surgery); Prof. A. V. Dicey, Oxford 

 (Philosophy and Jurisprudence) ; Mr. W. E. Hearn, Melbourne 

 (Philosophy and Jurisprudence) ; and Dr. Henry Jackson, 

 Cambridge (Philosophy and Archaeology). 



The ninth James Forrest lecture of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers will be delivered by Dr. Frank Clowes on April 25.^ 

 The subject will be " Chemistry in its Relations to Engineering.',' 



The Frankfurter Zeitung announces the death, at Waib- 

 lingen, Wurtemberg, from malaria, of Dr. Schlichter, the well- 

 known African traveller and geographer. ' 



. The death is announced of Mr. W. Hodgson, who for more 

 thsin half a century devoted his leisure to the collection of facts 

 relating to the flora of his native county, Cumberland. lie was 

 the author of a " Flora of Cumberland," which was published 

 about two years ago. 



The Athenaeum announces the death of Dr. Franz Melde, 

 professor of astronomy and physics and director of the mathe- 

 matical and physical institute of the University of Marburg, on 

 March 17, at the age of sixty-nine. Dr. Melde distinguished 

 himself in every branch of experimental physics, notably in his 

 special subject acoustics, and his book on " Zeitbestimmungen' " 

 proved a valuable contribution to astronomy. 



Reutkr's Agency is informed that the whaler America, which 

 has been bought by Mr. Evelyn B. Baldwin, the American 

 explorer, for his forthcoming journey to the North Pole, will 

 sail from Dundee on June 18, by which date Mr. Baldwin 

 expects to arrive from the United States. The America will 

 proceed direct to Norway, where she will join the two other 

 ships which are to form part of the expedition, and, after 

 taking on board stores and equipment, will procee for the 

 North. 



The ship which has been built for the German Antarctic 

 Expedition was launched at Kiel on Tuesday. The Berlin 

 correspondent of the Times states that among those who were 

 present at the ceremony were Count Posadowsky, the Secretary 

 of State for Home Affairs, Prof, von Drygalski, who will have 

 charge of the expedition, and representatives of the Foreign 

 Office, the Admiralty, and the local authorities. The vessel 

 was christened the Gauss by Prof. Baron von Richthofen, who 

 the course of a short speech said that the German nation 

 would follow the fortunes of the expedition with hope and with 

 anxiety. The name Gauss was selected by order of the Emperor 

 in honour of the Gottingen professor, the late Karl Friedrich 

 Gauss, who did much to stimulate Antarctic research. A tele- 

 gram was received from Count von Biilow cordially wishing the 

 expedition every success. 



- The following are among the lecture arrangements at the 

 Royal Institution, after Easter :— Dr. Allan Macfadyen, six 

 NO. T64O, VOL. 63] 



lectures on cellular physiology, with special reference to the 

 enzymes and ferments ; Mr. Roger Fry, two lectures on 

 naturalism in Italian painting ; Prof. Dewar, three lectures on 

 the chemistry of carbon ; Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie, three - 

 lectures on the rise of civilisation in Egypt ; Prof. J. B. Farmer, 

 two lectures on the biological characters of epiphytic plants ; 

 Mr. J. Y. Buchanan, three lectures on climate : its causes and 

 effects. The Friday evening meetings will be resumed on 

 April 19, when a discourse will be delivered by Prof. J. J. 

 Thomson on the existence of bodies smaller than atoms. Suc- 

 ceeding discourses will probably be given by Dr. Hans Gadow, 

 Mr. Charles Mercier, Prof. J. Chunder Bose, Mr. R. T. Glaze- 

 brook, Mr. A. Henry Savage Landor, and other gentlemen. 



The annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute will be 

 held in London on May 8 and 9. As a tribute of respect to the 

 memory of her late Majesty the Queen, it has been decided 

 that the usual annual dinner shall not be held this year. 

 At the opening meeting on May 8 the retiring president. Sir 

 William Roberts- Austen, K.C.B., will induct into the chair the 

 president-elect, Mr. William Whitwell. The Bessemer Gold 

 Medal for 1901 will be presented to Mr. J. E. Stead. Among 

 the papers that are expected to be submitted to the meeting. are 

 the following : — On the properties of steel castings, by Prof. 

 J. O. Arnold ; on the physical properties of steel, by Mr. J. A. 

 Brinell ; on the heat of formation of carbides and silicides of 

 iron, by. Mr. E. D. Campbell ; on the use of hydraulic pow.er 

 in the manufacture of iron and steel, by Mr. R. M. Daelen 

 (Dusseldorf) ; on dust in blast-furnace gas, by Mr. A. Greiner ; 

 on the economical significance of high silicon in pig iron for the 

 acid steel processes, by Mr. Axel Sahlin ; on crystals of carbo- 

 silicide of manganese and iron from a blast-furnace burden, by 

 Mr. J. E. Stead ; on the effect of copper in steel rails and plates, 

 by Messrs. J. E. Stead and John Evans (Middlesbrough) ; on 

 the measurement of Young's modulus for iron rods by tension 

 and by bending, by Mr. H. E. Wimperis. The autumn meeting 

 of the Institute will be held in Glasgow, on September 3 and 

 following days, simultaneously with the holding of the Inter- 

 national Engineering Congress, of section V. (Iron and Steel), 

 of which the Iron and Steel Institute has undertaken to take 

 charge. 



The annual general meeting of the Chemical Society was' 

 held on Thursday, March 28. Dr. T. E. Thorpe, who occp- 

 pied the chair, referred to the death of her late Majesty Queen 

 Victoria, and said he was proud to think that the Chemical 

 Society, in so far as it had ministered to the progress, of 

 chemistry, contributed in some measure to the lustre of a reign ' 

 so pre-eminently associated with the development and spread, 

 of science in this country, and with the extension of those arts^ 

 which rest upon chemistry. During the past year the publica- 

 tions of the Society were exceptionally full and valuable. The . 

 volume of Transactions for 1900 contained no less than four 

 memorial lectures, giving an account of the life-work of Victor 

 Meyer, Bunsen, Friedel and Nilson. The council had deter-' 

 mined to issue those memorial lectures which had appeared up 

 to the end of igcx) in a separate form. Acting upon the result 

 of the voting of the Fellows on the question of the day and 

 hour of meeting, the council had decided that the suggested 

 change should be provisionally tried during the coming session. 

 The ordinary meetings of next session would therefore be held 

 on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, at 5.30 p.m. 

 A reference was made to the movement for a uniform system of 

 atomic weights, and it was announced that a committee of 

 the Society had decided to recommend (i) that 0= 16 be taken 

 as the basis of calculation of atomic weights ; (2) that in assign- 

 ing a number as the atomic weight of any element only so many 

 figures should be en)ployed that the last may be regarded as 



