432 



NATURE 



[July 31, 1919 



Leyden, After graduaiing there in 1871 he worked 

 with Kekuld at Bonn ana with Wurtz at Paris, and 

 was appointed in 1874 professor of organic chemistry 

 in his native town. During forty years he trained 

 many Dutch organic cliemists, and on his retirement 

 in 1914 chairs in the other three Dutch universities 

 were in the occupation of his pupils. Besides being 

 an enthusiastic teacher, Franchimont was an ' in- 

 defatigable investigator. His principal work was con- 

 cerned with the nitro-amides, which he discovered in 

 1883, and the aliphatic nitramines (R.NH.NO2). For 

 the preparation of these compounds, often highly 

 explosive, he introduced the use of pure ("real") nitric 

 acid, prepared by distilling a mixture of nitric and 

 sulphuric acids in vacuo. The use of sulphuric acid 

 and of zinc chloride as catalysts in acetylation is also 

 due to him. Although some of his results ("acetyl- 

 cellulose, pure nitric acid) found technical application, 

 he derived no material gain from them. Of an un- 

 W'orldly and retiring disposition, Franchimont did not 

 often frequent scientific congresses, but those who met 

 him at the Cambridge meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion in 1904, or visited him at Leyden, will cherish the 

 memory of a kindly man who lived for his science 

 and for his pupils. His family associations gave 

 Franchimont a command of the French language, and 

 he was one of the founders, in 1883, of the Recueil 

 des Travaux chimiques des Pays-Bas, in which journal 

 nearlv all his subsequent w'ork was published. Out- 

 side his native country his merits were recognised by 

 his election to the honorary membership of the 

 Chemical Societv and by his appointment to the 

 Legion of Honour. 



On Wednesday, July 23, Mr. F. H. Carr, at a 

 meeting of the British Pharmaceutical Conference, 

 delivered a memorial lecture on the late Lt.-Col. E. F. 

 Harrison, whose invaluable work on the developrtient 

 of the anti-gas respirator has lately been the subject 

 of so much eulogy. No more fitting place could have 

 been chosen for the lecture than the buildings of the 

 Pharmaceutical Society in which Harrison received his 

 training in the profession he had selected, and with 

 which he was afterwards so intimately associated, nor 

 could the delivery of a lecture in his memory have 

 been entrusted to a better or more capable man than 

 Mr. Carr. Most of the audience had been personal 

 friends of Harrison's, some of them for upwards of 

 twenty years, and they knew that the testimony that 

 Mr. Carr bore to his sterling qualities, his upright 

 nature, his sincerity, and the fearless manner in which 

 he grappled with difificult problems, was only too 

 well deserved. The details which Mr. Carr gave of 

 Harrison's early life, his tenacity of purpose and 

 remarkable self-denial, were interesting in the extreme, 

 and went far to explain a certain austerity in his 

 nature. The part which Harrison played in the final 

 phase of his life, the development of the box-respira- 

 tor, bv which so many lives were saved and which 

 contributed so largely to the victorious issue of the 

 war, occupied the latter part of the lecture, which 

 will long remain in the memory of those who were 

 fortunate enough to hear it. 



At the meeting of the British Association in 1914 

 a wish was expressed for some organisation by which 

 the breeders of plants and animals and those engaged 

 in genetical research might be brought into closer 

 contact with one another. The advent of war pre- 

 vented the immediate realisation of these "hopes, but 

 in the present year, largely through the energy of 

 Miss E. R. Saunders, the Genetical Societv has come 

 into being under the presidency of the Right Hon. 

 A. J. Balfour. It is expected that the society will be 

 mainly peripatetic, holding meetings on convenient 



NO. 2596, VOL. 103] 



dates at places where breeding work of interest is in 

 progress, whether at scientihc institutions or plant 

 nurseries or stock-raising centres. Open-air demon- 

 strations oti'er considerable difficulties in the case of 

 large parties, and for this reason it was held advisable 

 to limit the number of members of the society to 120, 

 and to impose certain qualifications for membership. 

 Candidates for admission must either be, or have 

 been, engaged in genetical research, in the teaching 

 of genetics, or in the practical breeding of plants or 

 animals. It is proposed also to hold meetings from 

 time to time for the reading of papers and the dis- 

 cussion of results. It was appropriate that the society 

 should enter upon its active existence with a visit to 

 Cambridge, the cradle of modern genetic studies. 

 Between thirty and forty members attended the 

 meeting on July 12, at which Miss Saunders gave a 

 lucid and interesting account of the present state of 

 knowledge of the genetics of stocks. The members 

 present visited the garden where these experiments 

 have been in continuous progress since the end of 

 last century. Prof. Punnett gave an account of some 

 experiments with sweet peas designed to test the 

 validity, of the chromosome hypothesis of hereditv, and 

 Prof. Biffen demonstrated wheat material in connec- 

 tion with the inheritance of immunity and susceptibilitv 

 to rust. Mr. J. B. S. Haldane also described some 

 experiments with two new colour varieties of rats 

 which have recently come into existence, illustrating 

 his account with living examples. The secretaries of 

 the society are Miss C. Pellew, The John Innes Hc^rti- 

 cultural Institution, Merton, S.W.19, and Prof. 

 Punnett, Whittingehame Lodge, Cambridge, from 

 either of whom further information may be olatained. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death 

 at Naini Tal, in his sixty-first year, of Prof. A. W. 

 Ward, professor of physics at the Canning College, 

 Lucknow. From a short obituary notice in the Times we 

 learn that Prof. Ward was educated at Liverpool College 

 and Institute, and at St. John's College, Cambridge, 

 where he held a scholarship, graduating in 1882. After 

 lecturing at the Borough Road Training College and 

 working in the Cavendish Laboratory, he went out to 

 Southern India in 1885 as lecturer on physical science 

 at the Kumbakonam College, but was soon invalided 

 home. He returned to India in 1889 to take up his 

 Lucknow appointment.' He was a prominent figure 

 in all matters connected with the University of Allaha- 

 bad as a member both of the Senate and of the Syndi- 

 cate, and was its representative on the United Pro- 

 vinces legislature. Prof. Ward contributed a number 

 of scientific papers to the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society and to the Philosophical Magazine. 



In the South African Journal of Science for 191S 

 (vol. XV., No. 6) the Rev. J. R. L. Kingon discusses 

 "Cattle as a Factor in the Economic Development of 

 South Africa." He considers the cattle question in 

 relation to the Portuguese voyagers ; the aborigines, 

 including Bushmen, Hottentots, and Bantus ; the 

 Dutch ; and the first British occupation, and shows 

 that much of the history of the country is focused 

 in its cattle. He leaves untold the story from the 

 time of the second British occupation down to the 

 present day, during which period the question has 

 been of no less importance. 



Seldom has a more elaborate monograph descrip- 

 tive of a group of people numbering fifty-seven souls 

 been prepared than that issued as vol. xlii., part i., 

 of the Journal of the College of Science, Imperial 

 University of Tokvo (R. Torii, "Etudes Arch^o- 

 logiques et Ethnologiques : Les Ainou des lies 

 Kouriles "). The author remarks that in all the 



