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1869-1919. 



JUBILEE ISSUE. 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1919. 



VALEDICTORY MEMORIES. 



Bv Sir Norman Lockyer, K.C.B., F.R.S. 



TT has been suggested to me that some remin- 

 ■^ iscences relating to the circumstances which 

 led to the establishment of Nature would be of 

 interest, and I am glad to be able to contribute 

 them to this jubilee issue. It is a great satis- 

 faction to me again to have the opportunity of 

 expressing my best thanks to the many Mends 

 whose knowledge has always been placed freely 

 at my disposal, and to know that the vitality 

 of the journal is now as strong as ever it 

 was. 



At the time when Nature first made its appear- 

 ance, just fifty years ago, scientific progress was 

 commanding increasecf attention from the public 

 mind, and British workers were experiencing the 

 need for an organ devoted to their common activi- 

 ties and interests. In 1858 a fortnightly column 

 of scientific notes was started in the Saturday 

 Revieu.', and two years later Huxley became the 

 chief editor of the Natural History Revieiv, with 

 the intention of providing a quarterly which 

 would deal with scientific matters systematically 

 and thoroughly. He ceased to contribute to that 

 magazine, however, in 1863, and became asso- 

 ciated with the Reader, a weekly journal of which 

 I was the science editor. 



My first literary work arose from observations 

 of a transit of the shadow of Titan across 

 Saturn's disc. I sent an account of these 

 observations to the London Review, and it 

 appeared in the issue of May 10, 1862. 

 This communication brought me two letters 

 — one from Mr. W. R. Dawes, who was 

 at that time recognised as one of the keenest 

 astronomical observers in England, and the other 

 from Mr. W. Little asking me to send astro- 

 NO. 2610, VOL. 104] 



nomical notes from time to time to the London 

 Review, together with an article each month on 

 the "face of the sky." 



I was then living at Wirnbledon, and was 

 honorary secretary of the Wimbledon Village 

 Club, on the committee of which were Thomas 

 Hughes, J. M. Ludlow, and George Pollock. It 

 was this connection that led to my appointment 

 as science editor of the Reader, when it was 

 established with Hughes and Ludlow among the 

 proprietors. My astronomical work thus led me 

 into literature, and the subject with which I was 

 particularly concerned — astronomy — was also the 

 product of my Wimbledon environment. 



When the Reader ceased publication the 

 idea occurred to me of starting a general 

 scientific journal of a more comprehensive scope 

 than the Natural History Review, which, like 

 other specialised scientific periodicals, had failed 

 for want of circulation. On discussing the matter 

 with my friends, I found that they were favour- 

 able to the idea ; and one of them, Mr. .A.lexander 

 Macmillan, greatly encouraged me to develop it. 

 It was in consequence of his sympathy and 

 enthusiastic assistance that the journal was 

 started. He was unwavering in his support of 

 the belief that British science would be advanced 

 by a periodical devoted to its interests — a point 

 on which I had always laid stress as the result 

 of experience up to that time. It was the hope 

 that a more favourable condition for the advance- 

 ment of science might be thereby secured that led 

 Mr. Alexander Macmillan to enter warmly into 

 the establishment of Nature in 1869. He enlisted 

 the interest of Sir Joseph Hooker and other of 

 his scientific friends, and before the journal had 

 started I was assured of the support of Huxley, 

 Tyndall, and practically all the other leading 

 workers in science of the time. 



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