October 13, 1898] 



NATURE 



581 



been noted by various observers that the water of certain lakes 

 usually green becomes occasionally absolutely colourless, and 

 this he showed was due to the washing into the lakes of a fine 

 mud of a reddish tint due to oxide of iron, which neutralises 

 the green colour of the water, rendering it for the time being 

 perfectly colourless. In connection with the Congress, inter- 

 esting excursions were made to visit the bathing establishments, 

 and to inspect the sanitary arrangements of Ostend and Middle- 

 kerke. Spa, Chandfontaine, and Aix-le-Bains. The Sanitary 

 Institute was represented by Dr. Corfield, the Professor of 

 Hygiene and Public Health at University College, London, 

 who was elected an Honorary Vice-President of the Congress, 

 and was also appointed the English Member of an International 

 Committee which was formed for the purpose of inquiring 

 into the means to be adopted for the preservation of the purity 

 of the sources of natural mineral waters. 



A COMPLIMENTARY dinner was given to Prof. Virchow at the 

 Hotel Metropole on Wednesday in last week. The chair was 

 occupied by Lord Lister, and more than two hundred repre- 

 sentatives of medical science and practice were present. Lord 

 Lister, in proposing the toast of the evening, dwelt upon the 

 versatility of the genius of the distinguished guest, his eminence 

 as a pathologist being equalled by his reputation as an anthro- 

 pologist and antiquarian. He referred particularly to Virchow's 

 " Cellularpathologie," which work, he remarked, " swept away 

 the false and barren theory of a structureless blastema, and 

 established the true and fertile doctrine that every morbid 

 structure consists of cells which have been derived from pre. 

 existing cells as a progeny. Cellular pathology is now uni- 

 versally recognised as a truth. Even those morbid structures 

 which deviate most from the normal structure are known to be 

 derived as a progeny from normal tissue — from normal cells, 

 driven to abnormal development by injurious agencies." In 

 acknowledging the toast. Prof. Virchow made allusion to 

 Huxley and his work in these words : " I have been touched 

 by the confidence you have placed in me in choosing me to renew 

 the remembrance of the great investigator whose commemoration 

 we have just been celebrating. My task the other day demanded 

 that I should demonstrate Huxley's influence upon the develop- 

 ment of medical science. To-day I wish to emphasise that his 

 merits in anthropological and ethnological respects are so great 

 in the eyes of German investigators that they alone would suffice 

 to procure immortal reverence for his name. We shall not cease 

 to follow in his footsteps and to defend the place which he has 

 assigned to man in nature. Together with you we will try to 

 clear up in every direction the biological history of man. May this 

 task still further confirm and strengthen the solid union of 

 English and German science. May the corporations of Great 

 Britain and Ireland, which form a bulwark of medical science 

 and practice that has remained unshaken for centuries, continue 

 to give the world by teaching and example a guarantee that the 

 results of our science may benefit mankind in an ever increasing 

 degree." 



Inoculation against plague has been accomplished on a 

 very large scale at Hubli. The present population of Hubli is 

 about 40,000, and a correspondent of the Times of India reports 

 that up to September 7, 35,000 had been inoculated as a pro- 

 tection against plague, while about two-thirds of this number 

 had been inoculated twice. Out of the whole proportion, there- 

 fore, there only remained atout 5000 people who had not been 

 inoculated at all ; and by far the greater number of deaths which 

 occurred were amongst these people. The returns for the first 

 week in September show amongst 32,000 inoculated persons 69 

 attacks, and amongst 8500 uninoculated 417 attacks, which facts 

 speak for themselves. The chief medical oflScer, Dr. Leumann, 

 is writing a report on the results which he has obtained from 

 NO. 151 I, VOL. 58] 



inoculation, and this ought to prove most interesting not only to 

 those who are connected with plague, but to all the races who 

 live in India. It is to be hoped that the report will be widely 

 distributed, in order that the practical proofs which have been 

 obtained may become the means of giving confidence to the 

 wavering, and to those who at present regard the system of 

 inoculation with fear, and are disposed to treat it with 

 resistance. 



A TRIBUTE to the genius of Lord Kelvin is paid by Prof. 

 Oliver Lodge in the form of an article in the Liverpool Daily 

 Post (October 4). After describing some of the ingenious 

 devices and instruments which have made Lord Kelvin's name 

 known to the* public. Prof. Lodge refers to his more purely 

 scientific work in the following terms: — "The modern theory 

 of electricity, developed so brilliantly by Clerk Maxwell, was 

 begun by him. The science of thermodynamics owes much to 

 him ; the theoretical laws of thermoelectricity were wholly 

 worked out by him ; and to him long ago is due the theory of 

 those electric oscillations which were elaborated practically by 

 Hertz, and have recently been exciting some popular interest as 

 affording a method of wireless telegraphy. In the higher regions 

 of optics also he has worked much, and in his Baltimore Lectures 

 and elsewhere has striven to unveil themystery of the connection 

 between ether and matter, as revealed in the facts of radiation, 

 fluorescence, phosphorescence, selective absorption, and dis- 

 persion. The definition and the experimental determination 

 of the absolute zero of temperature are both due to him. The 

 vortex theory of matter constitutes one of his most brilliant but 

 incompletely worked out speculations. The kinetic theory of 

 its elasticity and rigidity is a definite contribution to that view 

 of the physical universe which seeks to resolve the whole of 

 merely material existence into the two fundamental entities — 

 ether and motion. Let any one ask what is the size of an atom, 

 and he is referred to Lord Kelvin. Let him ask what is the 

 age of the earth, and if he mean anything definite by this 

 question — if he mean, for instance, what time has elapsed since 

 the earth was a molten mass beginning to cool, it is again to 

 Lord Kelvin that he must go. And then the tides ; all the 

 higher mathematical work on the tides, with their various causes 

 and perturbations, is based on Kelvin's pioneering work, and to 

 him all writers on this abstruse subject look up and defer as 

 their master." The words in which Prof. Lodge concludes 

 his article glow with appreciation. They are : — *' Happy in the 

 circumstances of his education, pertinacious in his unwearying 

 industry, and undistracted by other interests from a constant 

 devotion to definite dynamical science, narrow perhaps in some 

 of its aspects, but all the more intense for that, he stands before 

 us now a monument of human power and influence, one of the 

 benefactors of the human species, one who has been happily 

 preserved with hardly diminished energy for nearly sixty years of 

 peaceful epoch-making work, one on whom posterity will heap 

 high honours, and will regard with feelings of envy us of the 

 present generation who are still illuminated by his living 

 presence." 



On account of its practical importance, the influence of the 

 chemical composition of a glass upon its coefficient of expansion 

 has attracted the attention of several workers, more especially 

 Fizeau, Schott, Chatenet, and Grenet. In the current number 

 of the Moniieur Scientijique is an interesting rhumS, by M. A. 

 Granger, of the results obtained up to the present in this very 

 complicated field. The simple rule tentatively proposed 

 by Schott, that the expansion follows an additive law, 

 is only approximately followed in a few cases, as quite a con- 

 siderable number of substances, such as the oxides of lead, 

 calcium, manganese, aluminium, and boron, possess the 

 property of lowering the dilatation when added in small 



