23 B 



NATURE 



[April 22, 1920 



The work terminated in April, 1919, and an 

 interesting body of scientific workers was disem- 

 bodied, disbanded, or demobilised. The more 

 irnportant practical results of their work are being 

 recorded for the iase of the military authorities': 

 the methods adopted, however, and many of the 

 observations, calculations, and speculations, the 



personalities of the men themselves, their various 

 homes and adventures, the help (and the hindrance) 

 they received from various people and officials, 

 would provide material for a fascinating history of 

 some "applications of physics to war problems " 

 ■ — a history, however, which will probably never be 

 written. 



Obituary. 



Prof. J. A. McClelland, F.R.S. 



JOHN ALEXANDER McCLELLAND was born 

 J at Coleraine in 1870. Leaving the High School, 

 he studied in University (then Queen's) College, 

 Galway, and after a distinguished course he 

 obtained a junior fellowship of the Royal Univer- 

 sity. Proceeding to Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 he worked under Sir J. J. Thomson, and was one 

 of the brilliant band of investigators who made 

 history in those days in the Cavendish Laboratory, 

 being contemporary with Sir Ernest Rutherford,. 

 Prof. Townsend, and others. In succession to the 

 late Prof. Preston he became professor of experi- 

 mental physics in University College, Dublin, and 

 quickly began his famous researches on secondary 

 radio-activity. 



Shortly after becoming a fellow of the Royal 

 Society, the National University was founded, and 

 McClelland was appointed a member of the senate 

 and of the governing body of University College, 

 Dublin, positions which he held until his death. 

 He at once devoted himself to the planning of 

 the physical laboratory of the college. His efforts 

 were highly successful, and a very efficient 

 research department quickly sprang up, which 

 accomplished wonders, considering the resources 

 at its disposal. The number of students in the 

 college in the beginning was 550, and at the 

 present moment it is 1350, and the task of keeping 

 pace with such rapid growth might easily have 

 absorbed all the time of a lesser man ; but 

 McClelland had many other spheres of activity — 

 secretary to the Royal Irish Academy, member of 

 the Board of National Education, member of the 

 council of the Royal Dublin Society, and governor 

 of St. Andrew's College — yet he undertook a still 

 more onerous task. He became a member of the 

 Privy Council Committee on Scientific and Indus- 

 trial Research, which necessitated frequent 

 journeys from Dublin to London, and this during 

 the war, when, apart from the great discomforts 

 of travelling in those times, every crossing of the 

 Irish Sea was a gamble with death. The constant 

 strain was too much for him, and oftentimes his 

 friends urged him to take a long rest. His sense 

 of duty, however, prevented him from paying 

 attention to his bodily weakness, and when at 

 last the college authorities persuaded him to take 

 a six months' rest, it was too late. 



As a man of science the outlook of McClelland 

 and his method of exposition had all the clarity 

 NO. 2634, VOL. IO5I 



of Faraday. Although, unlike Faraday, he had a 

 sound mathematical training, his mind worked in 

 the direction of a "common-sense " explanation of 

 the most complicated phenomena. This made him 

 especially valuable as a teacher, whether for 

 advanced or elementary work. It has been the 

 privilege of the writer to sit with him on many 

 boards, and this same faculty of cutting away the 

 unessentials of a question, and presenting it in 

 its reality, rendered him a valued colleague in 

 many matters far removed from the world of 

 science. A Presbyterian in religion, he was fol- 

 lowed to his grave by men of every shade of 

 thought. It is a commonplace almost devoid of 

 ijieaning to speak of a loss as irreparable, but in 

 his college and in the wider public life of Ireland 

 everyone who knew him feels that a man has 

 gone from amongst us whose place it will be 

 impossible to fill. A. W. C. 



Dr. J. G. Bartholomew. 



Geographers throughout the world will recog- 

 nise that scientific geography has sustained a 

 grave loss through the death suddenly at Cintra 

 about midnight on April 13 of Dr. Bartholomew, 

 the head of the cartographical firm which has 

 been known since 1889 as the Edinburgh Geo- 

 graphical Institute. 



Dr. Bartholomew was a native of Edinburgh, 

 where he was born on March 22, i860, and where 

 he was educated at the High School and the 

 University. As a young man he entered the busi- 

 ness founded by his grandfather. From the age 

 of twenty-two he took an active part in its 

 management, and at twenty-nine he succeeded his 

 father in the supreme control. By this time he 

 had devised the method of representing topo- 

 graphical features by the system known as layer- 

 ing, which has made the Edinburgh Geographical 

 Institute celebrated throughout the world, and is 

 now copied in all other cartographical establish- 

 ments. Like many other novel ideas, it may seem 

 very obvious once it has been introduced. It 

 merely consists in the spreading of distinctive 

 colours, tints, or shades between successive con- 

 tours on a contoured map. It accordingly gives 

 no information as to the physical features addi- 

 tional to that furnished by the contours ; but it 



