362 



NATURE 



[July ii, 1918 



sake the Dean. He shared with his friend Fitz- 

 gerald an Irishman's love of the whimsical and 

 his fondness for paradox. Imagination is an 

 excellent quality in a man of science, but it needs 

 to be disciplined, and it must be admitted that 

 Ramsay's, like the Laird of Dumbiedike's " will- 

 yard powny," occasionally ran away with him. 

 But men of his temperament are to be judged not 

 so much by what they say as by what they print, 

 and although there are, no doubt, occasional 

 lapses, there is but little in Ramsay's published 

 scientific work that will not stand the test of time. 



It is perhaps useless to speculate on the influ- 

 ences whith led Ramsay to adopt a career in 

 science. He himself was inclined to attribute his 

 calling to heredity ; many of his forbears for 

 generations on his father's side had been dyers, 

 whilst on his mother's side they were physicians. 

 It must have needed some strong predisposing 

 cause of this kind, as there was little or nothing 

 in the circumstances of his school or college life to 

 determine it. The teaching of chemistry was on 

 a low plane in Glasgow in those days, and mainly 

 as part of the medical curriculum. The University 

 as a school of research lived on the traditions 

 created by Thomas Thomson. Ramsay received 

 little regular instruction in theoretical " chemistry 

 in his youth, but he learned to use his fingers in 

 Mr. Tatlock's laboratory. It was only when he 

 went to Tubingen to study under Fittig that he 

 gained some insight into systematic chemistry. 

 Not that Fittig was a particularly inspiring 

 teacher. At all events he seems to have exercised 

 no permanent influence on Ramsay, for the disser- 

 tation on toluic and nitrotoluic acids which he 

 presented for his degree is one of his very few 

 papers on organic chemistry. 



Nor was he more fortunate in his first appoint- 

 ment as assistant in the newly created department 

 of chemital technology in Anderson's College, 

 where he had few opportunities for research and 

 none for being generally useful. On his removal 

 to the univ^sity^ as a demonstrator under the 

 late Prof. Ferguson, he had more scope, and 

 availing himself of a Collection of Anderson's 

 preparations of bone-oil products, he attacked the 

 chemistry of the pyridine series. 



As in the case of other chemists who, in the 

 past, have risen to eminence, it thus happened that 

 Ramsay was largely self-taught. What he became 

 was due almost wholly to his own exertions. The 

 habit of self-reliance thus engendered served to 

 strengthen his independent character and to develop 

 his mental vigour. That with such a training he 

 should have reached the position in the world of 

 science to which he ultimately attained is perhaps 

 the strongest testimony that could be adduced to 

 his innate power and capacity. 



On his appointment to University College, 

 Bristol, and especially after his election to the 

 principalship, Ramsay began to take an active 

 part in the educational movements of the time, 

 and he was concerned, with* others, in securing 

 some measure of State aid for the poorly endowed 

 and struggling provincial colleges. He held very 

 NO. 2541, VOL. lOl] 



strong views on university policy and on its 

 relations to original inquiry, and his contempt for 

 the examination system, which a certain section 

 of the governing body in the University of 

 London seems to worship like a fetish, became at 

 length almost an obsession, and occasionally 

 brought him into collision with colleagues who, 

 whatever their private opinions might be, felt 

 themselves bound in loyalty to make the best of 

 a system which had been deliberately sanctioned 

 by those who were ultimately responsible. 



Sir William Tilden, with the aid of Lady Ram- 

 say and of many friends, to whom he makes 

 graceful acknowledgment, has put together an 

 eminently readable book, in which he has 

 handled his material with tact and discretion. He 

 has evidently been in thorough sympathy with his 

 subject, and has thus succeeded in presenting a 

 particularly pleasing pen-portrait of his friend, 

 for which those who knew and admired Ramsay 

 will be grateful to him. We trace in his book the 

 lineaments of one who has shed lustre on British 

 science, whose happy life was rich in achievements 

 which will hand down his name to remotest time, 

 who was wholly unspoiled by success, but con- 

 tinued to the end to be the same generous, active- 

 minded man which those who knew him best knew 

 him to be. T. E. Thorpe. 



ARTIFICIAL SEASONING OF WOOD. 

 The Kiln-drying of Lumber. A Practical and 

 Theoretical Treatise. By H. D. Tiemann. 

 Pp. ix + 316. (Philadelphia and London: J. B. 

 Lippincott Co., 1917.) Price i8s. net. 



THE true technique of the artificial seasoning 

 of timber will depend upon a number of 

 factors, as yet unknown, concerning the rate of 

 passage of water in the walls of the constituerjts 

 in different directions and under various condi- 

 tions of dryness, also concerning the influence of 

 stresses and rate of drying upon the shrinkage of 

 the constituents and the wood itself. Our know- 

 ledge of these fundamental facts is, however, in 

 an embryonic stage, and up to the present 

 only certain elementary facts bearing on these 

 problems have been discovered and partially 

 elucidated. To their discovery Mr. Tiemann has 

 contributed by years of research. 



In the work under review, by reference to 

 modern practice in kiln-drying and by discussions 

 of the defects induced by inappropriate methods, 

 conclusions are drawn as to the immediate causes of 

 such defects as case-hardening (in which the ex- 

 ternal wood, shrinking under tension exerted by 

 the internal wood, acquires a permanent set), lack 

 of strength, brittleness, longitudinal furrowing and 

 collapse, and splits induced by differential shrink- 

 age or "explosion." These phenomena at the 

 same time serve as means of partially gauging the 

 efficiency of the precise treatment adopted. The 

 differences in the treatments to be adopted in con- 

 nection with various kinds of timber are in some 

 cases correlated with marked structural features, 

 as in the case of the oak, but in other cases are 



