April 14, 1910] 



NATURE 



195 



He was engaged during the last twenty years of 

 his life on the fundamental problem as to whether a 

 change of mass during a chemical action can be 

 effected by the ether possibly taking part, as it might 

 be conceived to do by the appearance or disappearance 

 of electrons or by the disintegration of atoms. The 

 final result of these experiments, which demanded 

 on the part of the manipulator the exercise of extreme 

 patience, and involved the most exact measurement, 

 was a confirmation of the law of the conservation of 

 mass. 



It may be added that Landolt's " Optisches 



Drehungsvermogen organischer Substanzen und 



fl'-^-en praktische Anwendungen " and his " Physik- 



h-chemische Tabellen " (with Bornstein) are 



— ical works of reference. 



In a land where men of science are held in honour, 

 it was natural that Landolt's services as a teacher 

 and investigator should be appreciated to the full. 

 Although he himself was the most unassuming of 

 men, and although his work was not of the kind to 

 bring him into the glamour of the footlights, it fell 

 to his lot to receive an unusual number of high dis- 

 tinctions. He was held in esteem and affection by all 

 who had the privilege of his acquaintance. 



Alex. McKenzie. 



?ROF. R. ABEGG. 



PROF. RICHARD ABEGG, whose untimely death, 

 in his forty-second year, was referred to in these 

 columns on April 7, was one of the most distin- 

 guished representatives of the second generation of 

 physical chemists. It w'as at the end of a ballooning 

 expedition on April 3 that, whilst attempting to land, 

 the balloon in which Prof. Abegg had journeyed from 

 Breslau to Koslin caught in some bushes and tilted, 

 with the result that he was thrown out and sustained 

 a fracture of the skull, from which he expired in the 

 early morning of April 4. 



Abegg studied chemistry at Kiel, Tubingen, and 

 Berlin, and devoted himself at first to organic 

 nistry. He took his degree, as a student of A. W. 

 Hofmann, in 189 1, with a dissertation on amido- 

 cmysene, but the far-reaching results then recentlv 

 jachieved in the field of physical chemistn,^ attracted 

 ^'"'\ and led him into post-graduate work in the 

 ratories of Ostwald, Arrhenius, and Nernst. 

 - assistant to Nernst in Gottingen from 1894 to 

 .Abegg devoted himself to most of the problems 

 hysical chemistry. The action of kathode rays 

 irious salts, the silver germ theor}- of the latent 

 -;e, measurements of the depression of freezing 

 ■juiius and the osmotic pressure of concentrated solu- 

 ti< VIS, and electrochemical problems in turn claimed 

 ittention, but his theory of electro-afiinity, which 

 formulated along with Bodlander, marks his 

 test achievement at this stage of his career. In 

 J Abegg went to Breslau University, where he 

 A - soon made an extraordinary professor. Here he 

 -ontinued his work, but a good deal of his time was 

 absorbed by editorial duties. The theory of electro- 

 affinity led to much work on complex ions, which was 

 ■'t'-ried out in conjunction with pupils from all parts 

 rhe world, including England, Russia, Japan, 

 rica, and Australia, and this work in turn led 

 le formulation of his theory of valencv; 

 Ggg acted as editor of the Zeitschrift fiir Electro- 

 ■'lie, and at the time of his death had edited 

 it half of a " Handbuch der anorganischen 

 nie." It is to be hoped that the work in connec- 

 with this Handbuch is so far advanced as to 

 insure its completion. In connection with analytical 



! NO. 21 1 1, VOL. 83] 



chemistry, along with Prof. Herz, Abegg published 

 his '* Chemisches Praktikum," which marks an initial 

 step in the application of the ionic theory to the early 

 stages of qualitative analysis, a step which had been 

 indicated by Ostwald in his " Wissenschaftliche 

 Grundlagen der analytischen Chemie." 



At the London International Congress of Applied 

 Chemistry, Abegg was appointed on a committee tc 

 consider the annual publication of tables of physico- 

 chemical constants, and he attended a meeting of 

 this committee held in Paris last October. Last 

 October Abegg was appointed director of the Physic(v 

 Chemical Institute at the new Technische Hochschule 

 at Breslau, which is to be opened next October in the 

 presence of the Emperor. 



Finally, a word as to Abegg 's genial personality. 

 He made his students feel like colleagues, and was 

 always available with suggestive advice. If we place 

 Abegg in the second generation of physical chemists, 

 he has done his duty by the third generation, and 

 his death will be mourned as a personal loss in all 

 parts of the world. 



SIR WILLIAM BOUSFIELD. 

 A LL friends of education will deeply deplore the 

 ■^*- loss of Sir William Bousfield, who died on 

 April 7, in his sixty-eighth year. Although he had 

 received the ordinary Oxford education. Sir William 

 Bousfield's wide culture and sound judgment enabled 

 him to see the growing .importance of practical and 

 scientific education, and to form correct conclusions on 

 the advice, which he eagerly sought and acted upon, 

 of scientific men. Elected to the London School 

 Board, of which he was a member for six vears, in 

 1882, he took the deepest interest in all problems con- 

 nected with the improvement of elementary education, 

 and. during his membership, he was chairman of the 

 special committee which was appointed to consider the 

 question of manual training. That committee took 

 evidence from a number of experts, and it was mainlv 

 owing to its recommendations that the City and 

 Guilds of London Institute and the Drapers' Com- 

 pany subsequently provided funds for a great 

 educational experiment in the provision of manual 

 instruction in a certain number of schools under the 

 direction of the Board, which resulted, not onlv in 

 the general adoption of handicraft instruction for boys, 

 but also of domestic teaching in all girls' schools. The 

 success of this experiment was largely due to the 

 efforts of Sir William Bousfield, who, when he ceased 

 to be a member of the School Board, became vice- 

 chairman of a joint committee, under whose direction 

 these important experiments were successfully car- 

 ried out. 



Associated with the Worshipful Company of Cloth- 

 workers by family tradition, he was appointed, in the 

 year 1887, a representative of that company- on the 

 council of the City and Guilds of London Institute. 

 Although the Institute was exclusively concerned with 

 the development of scientific and technical instruction, 

 Sir William Bousfield's advice proved of the greatest 

 possible service to the several committees of the Insti- 

 tute charged with the different branches of its work. 

 It is, however, in connection with its technology 

 committee — of which he was, for many years, first 

 vice-chairman and subsequently chairman — that his 

 loss will be most felt. In the solution of the many 

 difficult problems with which the department of 

 technology has had to deal. Sir William was able to 

 render great assistance, and, of recent years, as chair- 

 man of the board of examinations of that deoartment, 

 which was charged with the preparation of schemes 

 of instruction in every branch of Icc'nnolog)-, his help 



