112 



NATURE 



[December 3, 1891 



his investigation, and which will be found in the Proceedings of 

 the Physical Society, is a most valuable contribution to the 

 theory of direct-current dynamos and motors. 



"Prof. Riicker has, with the co-operation of Prof Thorpe, 

 completed a magnetic survey of the British Isles (1884-89), 

 which, independently of its great value in investigations of the 

 distribution of the earth's magnetism, and the changes to which 

 it is subject, is specially remarkable for the exhaustive discussion 

 of the observations in reference to regions of local magnetic 

 disturbance, and their relation to the geological constitution of 

 the earth's crust in the neighbourhood. Prof. Riicker has 

 followed up this discussion by a paper on ' The Relation 

 between the Magnetic Permeability of Rocks and Regional 

 Magnetic Disturbances,' read before the Royal Society. The 

 high estimate that has been formed of the value of this mag- 

 netic survey is perhaps most easily appreciated from the very 

 large sums that the Government Grant Committee have recom- 

 mended should be contributed to aid in the completion of this 

 work of international importance. 



Prof. Victor Meyer {Davy Medal). 



" Prof. Victor Meyer, formerly the successor of Wohler at 

 Gottingen, and who now occupies the chair of Bunsen at 

 Heidelberg, is eminent as an original worker and discoverer in 

 almost every branch of chemical science. His methods of 

 determining the vapour-densities of substances have been of the 

 greatest service to chemists, not only as convenient and generally 

 applicable modes of ascertaining atomic and molecular weights, 

 but also as serving to throw light on the molecular con- 

 stitution of elements and compounds under ^varying conditions 

 of temperature and pressure. A striking example of the value 

 of these methods is seen in their application by their author to 

 the study of the molecular dissociation of the element iodine — 

 one of the most masterly investigations of recent years, and 

 which is universally recognized as of the very highest signifi- 

 cance and importance. Not less noteworthy are Victor Meyer's 

 services to organic chemistry. His work on the nitroso-bodies, 

 and his brilliant discovery of thiophene, the initial member of a 

 class of substances hitherto unknown, his subsequent synthetical 

 formation of it, and the remarkable series of researches on its 

 derivatives, in part carried out with the aid of his pupils, stamp 

 him as an investigator of exceptional power and distinction." 



The Society next proceeded to elect the Officers and 

 Council for the ensuing year. The following is a list 

 of those elected :— President : Sir William Thomson. 

 Treasurer : John Evans. Secretaries : Prof. Michael 

 Foster, The Lord Rayleigh. Foreign Secretary : Sir 

 Archibald Geikie. Other Members of the Council : 

 Captain William de Wiveleslie Abney, William Thomas 

 Blanford, Prof. Alexander Crum Brown, Prof. George 

 Carey Foster, James Whitbread Lee Glaisher, Frederick 

 Ducane Godman, John Hopkinson, Prof. George Downing 

 Liveing, Prof. Joseph Norman Lockyer, Prof. Arthur 

 Milnes Marshall, PhiHp Henry Pye-Smith, William 

 Chandler Roberts-Austen, Prof. Edward Albert Schafer, 

 Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Bart, Prof. Sydney Howard 

 Vines, General James Thomas Walker. 



In the evening the Fellows and their friends dined 

 together at the Whitehall Rooms, Hotel Mdtropole. The 

 company numbered over 230. The chair was occupied 

 by the President. 



After the loyal toasts, Dr. John Evans proposed " Her 

 Majesty's Ministers and the Members of the Legislature," 

 a toast to which Sir J. Fergusson responded. 



In response to " The Royal Society," proposed by Mr. 

 Forwood, M.P. (who referred to the fact that Sir William 

 Thomson's discoveries " had rendered it possible to steer 

 vessels on our fog-bound coast with an accuracy never 

 before attained to "), the President said that the Royal 

 Society had always been distinguished for the promotion 

 of investigations leading to such results as Mr. Forwood 

 had named. In illustrating this, he spoke of the history 

 of the construction of the sextant and the development 

 of the dynamical theory of the trade winds. A curious 

 interest attached to some of the earlier Transactions of 

 the Society, such as a paper which attributed the trade 

 NO. II 5 3, VOL. 45] 



winds to the breathing of a certain plant, which turned 

 to the sun and blew its breath after it. The earlier pages 

 of the Transactions were full of chronometers and of the 

 work leading up to the invention which gained the reward 

 of i^ 1 0,000. Excellent work was done with the grant of 

 £4000 administered by this and allied Societies ; and he 

 beheved its future achievements would at least equal' 

 those of the past. The next fifty years would probably 

 produce, in the science of dead matter, and in the science 

 of living matter too, discoveries compared with which 

 those of the last 300 years would ultimately appear to be 

 small indeed. 



The President proposed the health of " The Medal- 

 lists," and spoke in eulogistic terms of the services in 

 respect of which the medals had been awarded. 



The Italian Ambassador briefly responded in the name 

 of Prof. Stanislao Cannizzaro. 



Prof. Riicker, in responding for the other medallists,, 

 said : — 



Islanders as we were, the Royal Society prided itself on the 

 fact that some of its medals could be awarded to distinguished 

 scientific workers outside these islands. This year no less than 

 four foreign Fellowships and two medals testified to our respect 

 and esteem for colleagues abroad. We respected them for many 

 things — for the thoroughness with which they grasped all that 

 the scientific movement meant and involved ; for the foresight 

 and courage with which — beginning at the beginning — they had 

 provided for their students laboratories and workshops such as 

 no English lad could enter at home. We respected them for 

 the sound educational methods which had led them to use these 

 appliances, so as to point the student to the research laboratory 

 rather than to the examination room as the goal of his ambition. 

 We respected them because these methods have produced their 

 natural results, and year by year a crop of new scientific facts 

 was reaped not only from the laboratories of their Colleges, but 

 from the workshops of their manufacturers. We respected and 

 esteemed most of all the men who had thus led or who were thus 

 leading their countrymen aright — veterans, such as Cannizzaro, 

 who, amid the turmoil in which the foundations of modern 

 Italy _ were laid, found time to lay the foundations of 

 chemistry anew ; investigators, such as Victor Meyer, who, 

 when Bunsen retired from the laboratory where so many 

 English chemists learnt or perfected their art, was judged 

 by all to be a worthy successor to Bunsen himself. While 

 fully admitting that we had something to learn from the 

 work and methods of our foreign colleagues, we might claim 

 that our progress had lately quickened where at one time we 

 notoriously lagged behind. In the multiplication of centres of 

 scientific work, Scotland was formerly the only part of these 

 islands which compared with Germany. This was no longer so. 

 Every large town in England and Wales and the chief towns of 

 Ireland had now University Colleges. Their scale was modest 

 indeed when compared with what a paternal Government was 

 providing for Strasburg, or a democracy for ZUrich ; but they 

 were full of intellectual energy and of scientific work. Hardly 

 a month passed without the publication of papers on researches 

 conducted in the laboratories of some of them. Almost every 

 year they were represented in the list of Fellows newly elected 

 into the Society. Out of the last eight recipients of the Royal 

 Medals, five had, either as learners or as teachers, or, in turn, 

 in both capacities, spent many years within the walls of one or 

 other of our provincial Colleges. But he must not be understood 

 as claiming for English science only that it was making good 

 confessed educational deficiencies. There were sciences which, 

 either in their origin or their development, were peculiarly our 

 own. One of these was geology. Crowded up between our four 

 seas was an epitome of the past history of the world such as he 

 believed no other country possessed in an equally small area. 

 Thus geologists were a natural product of our soil. But 

 there was one particular in which he thought the President, more 

 than most, would appreciate Prof. Lapworth's audacity and suc- 

 cess. Though a Southerner, he had made a foray into Scotland, 

 and had returned laden with spoil. It was true that he, too, 

 had crossed the border, and he deeply regretted that he must 

 confess that his track was marked by disturbances : but speaking 

 for Prof. Lapworth and on his behalf — though without consult- 

 ing him — he must admit that his offences were venial and that he 

 was most to blame. He turned the most fundamental institution 



