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NATURE 



[January 31, 19 18 



College of Bihar and Orissa, but still retained his post 

 as economic botanist. His chief work was on 

 problems connected with economic botany, but he also 

 undertook some work on economic entomology, and 

 successfully demonstrated a method of reducing the 

 attacks of surface caterpillars on a very large scale 

 and of reducing the attacks of potato moths in 

 Bengal. At the outbreak of the war he was a captain 

 in the Bihar Light Horse, and in February, 191*5, 

 joined the Indian Army Reserve of Officers. In July 

 of that year he went to France, where he carried on 

 with his usual energy. Lieut. Woodhouse was a 

 capable worker, and won the good opinion of all who 

 came in contact with hnn. 



It is with regret that we have to record the passing 

 of another veteran from the ranks of the great 

 engineers of the Victorian era. Sir Alexander Meadows 

 Rendel has just died at the ripe age of eighty-eight. His 

 death recalls the construction, rather more than sixty 

 years ago, of the Royal Victoria Dock and of the Shad- 

 well Basin, London Docks, when he acted as engineer 

 to the London Dock Company. Sir Alexander had 

 then just succeeded to the practice of his father, Mr. 

 James M. Rendel, ' F.R.S. The family was, in fact, 

 devoted to engineering work, both by tradition and 

 natural inclination. All four of Mr. Rendel's sons 

 attained distinction and repute, three of them, includ- 

 ing Lord Rendel, in connection with the great firm at 

 Elswick, of which Lord Armstrong was the head. It 

 was fitting, therefore, and almost inevitable, that, on 

 the completion of his academic training at Camoridge, 

 where he was a scholar of Trinity, the eldest son 

 should pass into the office of his father. In a'ddition 

 to the docks mentioned above, Sir Alexander was re- 

 sponsible for the Albert and Edinburgh Docks at Leith. 

 But it is principally in connection with India that his 

 name will be remembered. He was consulting engineer 

 to the India Office and to many of the Indian railway 

 companies. He designed and constructed a very large 

 number of bridges, of which the most important were 

 the Lansdowne Bridge over the Indus at Sukkur, 

 opened in 1889, and the Hardinge Bridge, over the 

 Ganges at Sara, completed in 1915. He paid a number 

 of visits to India, and so close was his association with 

 Indian affairs that it is not too much to say that over a 

 period dating from days before the Indian Mutiny he 

 exercised a very considerable influence, not only in 

 strictly engineering matters, but on the general policy 

 and administration of the Indian railway system. 



The death, about three months ago, of Dr. Maryan 

 Smoluchowski de Smolan, professor of physics at the 

 University of Cracow, Poland, at forty-five years of 

 age, deprives the scientific world of a pioneer in the 

 field of modern thermodynamics and the kinetic theory 

 of matter. Smoluchowski 's chief investigations, already 

 crowned with notable success and full of promise for 

 the future, centred round the problems of the so-called 

 fluctuations about the average, normal state, of statis- 

 tical equilibrium. The most prominent example of his 

 researches of this kind is his famous explanation of 

 the opalescence of gases at or near the critical state. 

 Most of Smoluchowski 's papers were published in the 

 Transactions and the Bulletin of the Academy of 

 Sciences of Cracow. A good summary of his own 

 work and of the problems, that most interested him 

 will be found in his report in the Physikcdische Zeit- 

 schriff, vol. xiii. (1912), p. 1069. The non-specialist 

 will find an easily accessible description of some of his 

 researches in Perrin's attractive book " Les Atomes." 

 Smoluchowski 's scientific attitude and tendencies, 

 however, are best characterised in his address given 

 at the University of Gottingen, " On the Limits of 

 Validity of the Second Law of Heat Theory " (c/. 



NO. 2518, VOL. 100] 



"Vortrage iib. d. kinet. Theorie d. Materie u. d. Elek- 

 trizitat von Planck, Debye, Nernst, Smoluchowski, 

 Sommerfeld u. Lorentz"; Leipzig: Teubner, 1914, 

 pp. 89-121). This admirable lecture will be found to 

 contain not only a clear explanation of the famous 

 difficulties connected with Boltzmann's H-theorem, but 

 also a fascinating description of the rdle of fluctuations 

 as restrictors of the validity of the second law of 

 thermodynamics, increasing at the same time the true 

 value of that law, and p«-^senting it in an interesting 

 light. 



Very soon after the commencement of the war the 

 Government of this country was made to realise that 

 the services of chemists, as distinguished from phar- 

 macists, are really of essential national importance. 

 The special position as regards recruiting for the 

 Army, into which chemists of high qualification were 

 placed, is evidence of this recognition. Even yet, how- 

 ever, a large proportion of the general public is un- 

 aware of the importance of the chemist in industry, 

 one of the causes of this being the fact that, unlike 

 the French and the Germans, we do not in general 

 distinguish between "chemists" and "pharmacists"; 

 in fact, the term "chemist" is legally confined to com- 

 pounders and vendors of medicine. Recognition by 

 public opinion of the importance of the chemist is 

 necessary in order to secure his adequate remuneration, 

 and until this is secured there will be an insufticiency 

 of chemists, and therefore no chemical industry worthy 

 of the name. Recently, however, signs have not been 

 wanting that the condition of the chemical industry 

 and the position of the chemist are beginning, and 

 likely to continue, to improve. The latest sign is the 

 alteration in character of the Journal of the Society 

 of Chemical Industry, upon which we venture to con- 

 gratulate both the society and the review editor. The 

 Journal has always been an exceedingly valuable one, 

 but until recently it was rather machine-like, and the 

 human element was chiefly conspicuous by its absence. 

 In it one sought the abstracts under the heading of 

 particular interest to oneself, and glanced at the titles 

 of the papers to discover one of interest — and that was 

 all. Now, however, that there is a review section, in- 

 cluding articles of general interest, trade reports. Par- 

 liamentary and legal news, signed reviews of chemical 

 books, reports of meetings of the different sections, 

 and of those of other societies, almost every chemist 

 will be able to pick up the Journal with the practical 

 certainty of finding something of interest. Further, 

 the Journal now has a better chance of appealing to 

 those who are not chemists, and so helping to educate 

 the public as to what a chemist really is. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death, 

 on January 23, of the veteran alienist, Dr. Henry 

 Maudsley. He was born near Settle, in Yorkshire, in 

 1835, and he graduated from University College Hos- 

 pital as M.D. of London in 1857. Through a busy 

 professional life as superintendent of Manchester 

 Asylum, physician at the West London Hospital, pro- 

 fessor of medical jurisprudence at University College, 

 and so on, he kept up a strong interest in psychological 

 and philosophical problems, and he was for many 

 years editor of the Journal of Mental Science. 

 A keen intellectual combatant, absolutely sincere and 

 fearless, he played a notable part among notable men 

 at a time of great scientific activity — the last quarter 

 of the nineteenth century. It was apparently under 

 the influence of Herbert Spencer that Dr. Maudsley 

 was early in the field in applying evolutionist concep- 

 tions to psychology. His " Responsibility in Mental 

 Disease " appeared in 1874, and was the first of many 

 works, such as " Physiology of Mind," " Pathology of 

 Mind," " Body and Will," which did useful service to 



