430 



NATURE 



[July 31, 1919 



intensity of the field, at the point marked, in 

 hundreds of gausses; R21, for example, refers 

 to a field-strength of 2100 gausses. V similarly 

 means that the violet n component is transmitted, 

 indicating an opposite polarity. 



It has been found that the preceding members 

 of bi-polar groups in the northern and southern 

 hemispheres . are of opposite polarity, indicating 

 opposite directions of the whirling motion, as in 

 the case of cyclones in our own atmosphere. There 

 was a reversal of the polarities of the preceding 

 members of the groups in the two hemispheres 

 after the sun-spot minimum of 191 2, and the 

 polarities of spots would therefore seem to be 

 connected intimately with the underlying cause of 

 the sun-spot cycle (Proc. Roy. Soc, A, vol. xcv., 



P- 235)- 



Fig. 5 represents the successive appearances of 

 a group of spots at intervals of two days, as it 

 passed from near the central meridian towards 

 the western limb. These photographs show a 

 •striking resemblance to Langley's drawings of 

 sun-spots and the photosphere, and Prof. Hale 

 considers that the resemblance can scarcely be 

 devoid of significance, though the small hydrogen 

 flocculi are somewhat larger than the minute 

 grains of the photosphere. At some distance from 

 the spot group it will be seen that the granules are 

 replaced by slender filaments extending towards 

 the axis of the group, recalling the penumbral 

 filaments as they extend towards the umbra in 

 the case of a sun-spot. These filaments stop 

 abruptly at the edge of a bright region of honey- 

 comb structure, from the middle of which the long, 

 dark flocculus is seen to rise as a high ridge when 

 viewed in the stereoscope. The dark flocculus 

 itself appeared as a bright prominence when it 

 was brought to the limb by the sun's rotation. 



While the principal features shown in the photo- 

 graphs obtained with the spectroheliograph may 

 now be considered to have received a satisfactory 

 interpretation, it will be evident that the photo- 

 graphs include a vast amount of material for 

 further research on such questions as those refer- 

 ring to the dimensions of the columns of ascend- 

 ing gases, and the movements of the vapours 

 around and above the sun-spots. 



PROF. EMIL FISCHER, FOR.MEM.R.S. 

 nPHE death of Emil Fischer will be deeply re- 

 -L gretted throughout the world of chemists; 

 his achievements alone suffice to belie the attempts 

 too frequently made of late years, during the 

 war, by speakers in no proper way conversant 

 with the subject, to belittle German scientific per- 

 formance and originality. No act is so dangerous 

 as that of underrating the intelligence of an 

 enemy : but this we persistently did in the past, 

 notwithstanding the warnings that were given 

 by those few who were alive to the facts; and 

 this we are boastfully doing at the present, 

 before \ye have made any effective progress in 

 overcoming the difficulties by which we were 

 NO. 2596, VOL. 103] 



hampered in the past and while we are still 

 almost leaderless and unorganised. 



Emil Fischer was one of Germany's great 

 academic experts — a man who was listened to and 

 used by his Government and supported in every 

 necessary way ; he was simply worshipped by 

 industry. We can but envy the position he 

 enjoyed. Our Government has still no use for 

 the expert; indeed, the Board of Trade has 

 oflScially declined, only recently, to give academic 

 chemical science any voice in connection with so 

 ultra-chemical a subject as the dyestuff industry 

 — an industry which is simply the laboratory writ 

 large; and the industrial worker still too often 

 scoffs at the academic worker instead of treating 

 j him as his boon companion — perhaps sometimes 

 with show of reason, as the latter is apt to get on 

 stilts. 



When the present writer first met Fischer in 

 Strasburg in January, 1882, he all but fell in love 

 with him on the spot. A Rhinelander, tall, well- 

 built and well-dressed, with eyes of wonderful' 

 brightness and manners of most engaging frank- 

 ness and courtesy, Fischer had scarcely any of the 

 attributes of the pedagogue, although, as years 

 went on and he grew in importance, his impa- 

 tience with those who ventured to question his 

 opinion became more obvious — but no German 

 can escape from this. If not the prototype of a 

 I new academic genus, Fischer was certainly a 

 j mutant of the original German species. A far 

 greater chemist than his predecessor, Hofmann, 

 he lacked Hofmann 's diplomatic qualities and love 

 of influence ; and though he filled his office with 

 dignity and distinction, he in no way courted 

 publicity ; indeed, for the most part he lived the 

 I austere life of the recluse, spending his time, other 

 [ than that given to necessary oflficial duties, en- 

 I tirely either in his laboratory or in his study. He 

 i systematically overworked himself and there is 

 I little doubt that his frequent complaints of his 

 I health — of his Magen particularly — were largely 

 I conditioned by overwork. No chemist has secured 

 j success to a greater extent through constantly 

 ' enforced intellectual effort and the determination, 

 ; having once conceived an object, to win through. 

 He was a striking contrast, in this respect, to his 

 wonderfully alert contemporary, Victor Meyer, in 

 I whom the faculty of immediately seeing and seiz- 

 j ing an opportunity was perhaps more highly 

 j developed, though he had neither the fixity of 

 I purpose nor the patience of his colleague; but 

 \ Meyer was a Jew, hence the difference. The two 

 men made parallel discoveries, almost at the same 

 time, the one by developing the use of phenyl- 

 hydrazine, the other that of hydroxylamine, as 

 I differential analytical agents : but phenylhydr^zine 

 ' became the Rosetta stone with the aid of which 

 , Fischer unlocked the story of the sugars and justl- 

 I fied Pasteur's prediction that life is an asymmetric 

 I process. 



j It is impossible to overrate the value of the 



three great series of investigations which are 



I inseparably linked with Fischer's name, as, by his 



I work on the Sugars, on the Proteins and on Uric 



