456 



NATURE 



[Sei'Temker 6 1900 



regard Carnot's principle, which includes the law of uniformity 

 of temperature and is the basis of the whole theory, as- a pro- 

 perty of statistical type confined to stable or permanent aggre- 

 gations of matter. Thus no dynamical proof from molecular 

 considerations could be regarded as valid unless it explicitly 

 restricted the argument to permanent systems ; yet the condi- 

 tions of permanency are unknown except in the simpler cases. 

 The only mode of discussion that is yet possible is the method 

 of dynamical statistics of molecules introduced by Maxwell. 

 Now statistics is a method of arrangement rather than of demon- 

 stration. Every statistical argument requires to be verified by 

 comparison with the facts, because it is of the essence of this 

 method to take things as fortuitously distributed except in so 

 far as we know the contrary ; and we simply may not know 

 essential facts to the contrary. For example, if the interaction 

 of the aether or other cause produces no influence to the con- 

 trary, the presumption would be that the kinetic energy ac- 

 quired by a molecule is, on the average, equally distributed 

 among its various independent modes of motion, whether vi- 

 brational or translational. Assuming this type of distribution 

 to lie once established in a gaseous system, the dynamics of 

 Rollzmann and Maxwell show that it must be permanent. But 

 its assuinption in the first instance is a result rather of the 

 absence than of the presence of knowledge of the circumstances, 

 and can be accepted only so far as it agrees with the facts ; our 

 knowledge of the facts of specific heat shows that it must be 

 restricted to modes of motion that are homologous. In the 

 words of Maxwell, when he first discovered in i860, to his 

 great surprise, that in a system of colliding rigid atoms the 

 energy would always be equally divided between translatory and 

 rotatory motions, it is only necessary to assume, in order to 

 evade this unwelcome conclusion, that " something essential to 

 the complete statement of the physical theory of molecular 

 encounters must have hitherto escaped us." 



Our survey thus tends to the result, that as regards the simple 

 jind uniform phenomena which involve activity of finite regions 

 of the universal tether, theoretical physics can lay claim to con- 

 .structive functions, and can build up a definite scheme ; but in 

 the domain of matter the most that it can do is to accept the 

 existence of such permanent molecular systems as present them- 

 selves to our notice, and fit together an outline plan of the more 

 general and universal features in their activity. Our well-founded 

 i)eliefin the rationality of natural processes asserts the possi- 

 bility of this, while admitting that the intimate details of atomic 

 constitution are beyond our scrutiny and provide plenty of room 

 for processes that transcend finite dynamical correlation. 



NOTES. 

 M. Faye has been elected a Foreign Member of the Reale 

 Accademia dei Lincei of Rome. 



Dr. Oustalet has been appointed professor of zoology in 

 the Paris Natural History Museum, in succession to the late 

 Prof. Milne-Edwards. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death of Mr. 

 Henry Sidgwick, late professor of moral philosophy at 

 Cambridge. 



Sir John B. Lawes, Bart., F.R.S., whose agricultural 

 experiments at Rothamsted are of world-wide renown, died on 

 Friday last, at eighty-six years of age. 



The announcement in Science that Prof. J. E. Keeler. director 

 of the Lick Observatory, and the author of many important papers 

 on astrophysics, died in San Francisco on August 12, from the 

 effects of heart disease, will be received by astronomers with 

 much regret. Prof. Keeler was only forty-three years of age. 



It has been officially notified that a death which occurred 

 in hospital at Glasgow on Monday in last week was due to true 

 bubonic plague. The presence of the disease is suspected in 

 several cases of illness under treatment. 



The Committee on Water-tube Boilers in the Navy has now 

 been completed by the selection of Dr. John Inglis, lately 

 NO. 161O, VOL. 62] 



president of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in 

 Scotland, and vice-president of the Institution of Naval 

 Architects. 



The Melbourne correspondent of the Times states that, ir> 

 compliance with a request of the Royal Geographical Society 

 and other British scientific bodies. Prof. Baldwin Spencer has 

 received leave of absence from the Melbourne University for 

 one year, to enable him to study the customs and beliefs of the 

 natives of the northern portion of South Australia. 



The Berlin Academy of Sciences has made the following 

 grants, in addition to those already announced (p. 394) -. Dr. 

 Holtermann, Berlin, for a botanical expedition to Ceylon, 4000 

 marks ; Prof. Ludolf Krehl, Greifswald, for experiments on 

 respiration, 1500 marks; Prof. Julius Tafel, Wlkzburg, for the 

 continuation of his work on electrolysis, 100 marks; Dr. Benno 

 Wandolleck, Dresden, for the investigation of the morphology 

 of diptera, 800 marks. 



The names of one hundred eminent Americans no longer 

 living are to be engraved in the Hall of Fame of the New York 

 University. Science states that the following names of men of 

 science have been proposed : John Adams Audubon, Spencer 

 F. Baird, Alexander D. Bache, Nathaniel Bowditch, William 

 Chauvenet, Henry Draper, James P. Espy, Asa Gray, Robert 

 Hare, Joseph Henry, Edward Hitchcock, Isaac Lea, Matthew 

 Fontaine Maury, Marie Mitchell, Benjamin Peirce, David 

 Rittenhouse, Benjam.in Silliman, Benjamin Thompson, John 

 Torrey. 



The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company have contracted 

 to supply the Admiralty with Marconi apparatus for thirty-two 

 ships and stations. The test of efficiency which has to be 

 satisfied is that the instruments shall enable communication to 

 be carried on between a fitted ship in Portsmouth Harbour and 

 a fitted ship at Portland, a distance of about sixty-five miles, 

 with a good deal of land between, including the Dorsetshire 

 Hills, making it about ninety miles by sea. A trial set of the 

 apparatus successfully fulfilled the conditions a few days ago. 



The death is announced of Dr. W. H. Lowe, formerly 

 president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 

 Dr. Lowe held several important positions in Edinburgh, among 

 others those of president of the Royal Medical Society, and 

 vice-president, subsequently president, of the Royal B:)tanic 

 Society. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of 

 Physicians of Edinburgh in 1846, and president of that college 

 in 1873. At t^he meeting of the British Medical Association ir> 

 Edinburgh in 1875 he presided over the section of psychology, 

 and delivered the address before that section. 



The eleventh annual general meeting of the members of the 

 Institution of Mining Engineers will be held at Bristol on Tues- 

 day, September 18. Among the papers to be read, or taken as 

 read, are the following : — The geological features of the Somerset 

 and Bristol coal-field, with special reference to the physical 

 geology of the Somersetshire Basin, by Mr. James McMurtrie ; 

 methods of working the thin coal-seams of the Bristol and 

 Somerset coal-field, by Mr. George E. J. McMurtrie ; the 

 analogy between the gold "cintas" of Columbia and the auri- 

 ferous gravels of California, by Mr. Edward Gledhill ; the 

 theory of the equivalent orifice treated graphically, by Mr. 

 H. W. Halbaum ; development and working of minerals in the 

 Leon district, Spain, by Mr. J. A. Jones ; and the geological 

 age of the gold-deposits of Victoria, Australia, by Mr. Tames. 

 Stirling. 



The programme of the meeting of the Iron and Steel 

 Institute, to be held in Paris on September 18-21, under the 

 presidency of Sir William Roberts- Austen, has iust been issued. 



