July io, 1919] 



NATURE 



367 



Taylor. The same year, he obtained the first 

 Smith's prize, and in 1866 became a fellow of his 

 college. He married Evelyn, daughter of Mr. 

 James Maitland Balfour, of Whittingehame, and 

 sister of Mr. A. J. Balfour, the Foreign Secretary. 

 Of his four sons two survive him — Robert, now 

 professor of physics in the Imperial College of 

 Technology, who succeeds to the title ; and 

 Arthur, who for a great part of the war was 

 iiavigating officer on the flagship of the ist Battle 

 Squadron. They, with their mother, were present 

 at their father's funeral, which took place at 

 Terling on Friday last. 



For some years after his marriage Lord 

 Rayleigh lived at Terling. During this period he 

 wrote a number of papers, which at once secured 

 for him a jX)sition as a leader in physical science. 



The Cavendish professorship of physics 

 was established in 1871, and Maxwell became 

 the first professor. On Maxwell's death in 

 1879 Lord Rayleigh was invited to return 

 to Cambridge as professor and carry on the 

 work of equipping the Cavendish laboratory, 

 which had been built and fitted by the gene- 

 rosity of the seventh Duke of Devonshire, then 

 Chancellor, and of establishing a school of physics 

 in the University. He had served as examiner 

 in the Mathematical Tripos of 1876, and had been 

 in touch with the developments then proceeding 

 in Cambridge. He retained the professorship 

 until 1884, when he resigned, and was succeeded 

 by Sir J. J. Thomson. The same year he visited 

 Montreal as president of the British Association 

 (Ml the occasion of its first meeting outside the 

 British Isles. From 1887 to 1905 he was pro- 

 fessor of natural philosophy in the Royal Institu- 

 tion, and from 1887 to 1896 secretary of the 

 Royal Society. He held the office of president 

 from 1905 to 1908, and in the latter year suc- 

 ceeded the late (eighth) Duke of Devonshire as 

 Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, an 

 ofiice he retained until his death. 



In 1896 he became scientific adviser to the 

 Trinity House. About the same time, as the 

 result, in great measure, of discussions at the 

 British Association meetings at Ipswich (1895) ^nd 

 Liverpool (1896), a scheme for a National Physical 

 Laboratory took form, and Lord Rayleigh became 

 chairman of a Treasury Committee appointed by 

 tht late Lord wSalisbury to consider and report on 

 the question. The Committee reported in 1898 in 

 favour of establishing the laboratory as a " public 

 institution for standardising and verifying instru- 

 merrts, for testing materials, and for the deter- 

 mination of physical constants." Lord Rayleigh 

 was appointed by the Royal Society as chairman 

 of the executive committee to which the manage- 

 ment of the laboratory was entrusted, and retained 

 the office until a few weeks ago, when failing 

 health compelled him to resign. 



Ln 1908 an important International Conference 

 on Electrical Units was held in London, and Lord 

 Rayleigh presided over its deliberations, which 

 have since had very important results. 



About the same time the importance of research 

 NO. 2593, VOL. 103] 



in aeronautics began to be realised, and he was 

 consulted by Mr. Haldane, then Secretary of State 

 for War, as to the best method of enlisting the 

 help of men of science in promoting flight. The 

 appointment of the .\dvisory Committee for Aero- 

 nautics was the result ; Lord Rayleigh became its 

 first president in 1909, and continued to hold the 

 office until very shortly before his death. 



His advice was sought by successive Govern- 

 ments on very various scientific matters. He was 

 for some time a member of the Explosives Com- 

 mittee ; he also held the appointment of gas referee 

 for the metrop>olis. The Department of vScientific 

 and Industrial Research was established in 1917, 

 and Lord Rayleigh became one of the first mem- 

 bers of the Advisory Council appointed to advise 

 the Minister in charge of the Department on 

 scientific and technical questions. His work was 

 recognised by his contemporaries both at home 

 and abroad. He was one of the first members 

 of the Order of Merit and a Privy Councillor. 



In 1904 he was awarded the Nobel prize. From 

 the Royal Society he received the Copley, the 

 Royal, and the Rumford medals ; he was an 

 honorary fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 a doctor of science of many universities, an 

 Officer of the Legion of Honour, foreign member 

 of the Institute of France, and an honorary or 

 corresp>onding member of numerous other learned 

 societies both at home and abroad. 



Such is the very brief record of the life of a 

 great Englishman, by whose death, at the ripe 

 age of seventy-six, the world has lost 

 immensely. His earlier papers were published at 

 the beginning of the seventies of last century ; 

 the Philosophical Magazine for May, 1919, con- 

 tains what is probably his last paper — " On the 

 Resultant of a Number of L^nit Vibrations over a 

 Range not Limited to an Integral Number of 

 Periods." 



For some fifty years Lord Rayleigh worked 

 and added to the sum of human knowledge, 

 and though he had passed the allotted span 

 of life and was approaching the age of four- 

 score years, yet was his strength then not 

 labour and sorrow, for he retained to the 

 full the power of clear thinking, the firm grasp of 

 first principles, and the ability to appreciate almost 

 at first sight the essentials of any problem that 

 appealed to him which had made him great 

 " The works of the Lord are great, sought out of 

 all them that have pleasure therein," is the motto 

 he prefixed to his five volumes of collected papers. 

 Few men have done more to seek out and make 

 clear the laws of Nature ; few have taken more 

 pleasure in their task or helped more wisely to 

 smooth, the path of those who follow in the search. 



This is not the opportunity to give any 

 detailed account of that work ; perhaps it 

 is scarcely necessary. Lord Rayleigh 's papers 

 up to i-gio have been collected by the Cam- 

 bridge University Press and issued undier his 

 own editorship in five volumes. It is to be 

 hoped another volume may be added to com*- 

 plete the work up to the present day. This is all 



