May 7, 1891] 



NATURE 



THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH IN 

 FRANCE. 



AT the meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences on 

 April 27, the Secretary read the following extract 

 from the will of the late M. Cahours : — 



"I have frequently had the opportunity of observing, in the 

 course of my scientific career, that many young men, distin- 

 guished and endowed with real talent for science, saw themselves 

 obliged to abandon it because at the beginning they found no 

 efficacious help which provided them with the first necessities 

 of life and allowed them to devote themselves excluwvely to 

 scientific studies. 



"With the object of encouraging such young workers, who for 

 the want of sufficient resources find themselves powerless to 

 finish works in course of execution, and in remembrance of my 

 beloved children, who also would walk in a scientific path at the 

 moment when death takes me from them, I bequeath to the 

 Academy of Sciences, which has done me the honour to admit 

 me into its fraternity, a sum of one hundred thousand francs. 



"I desire that the interest of this sum may be distributed 

 every year by way of encouragement to any young men who 

 have made themselves known by some interesting works, and 

 more particularly by chemical researches. 



" In order to assure this preference, independently of the 

 express recommendation that I make here to my successors, I 

 wish that, during at least twenty- five years after the commence- 

 ment of the interest payable to the Academy, three members at 

 least of the Chemistry Section may take part each year in a 

 Commission of five members charged by the Academy to distri- 

 bute the prizes. I express further the formal desire that this 

 choice should fall, as far as possible, on young men without 

 fortune not having salaried offices, and who, from the want of a 

 sufficient situation, would find themselves without the possibility 

 of following up their researches. 



"These pecuniary encouragements ought to be given during 

 several years to the same young men, if the Commission thinks 

 that their productions have a value which permits such a favour, 



"Nevertheless, in order that the largest number of young 

 workers may participate in the legacy I institute, I desire that 

 the encouragements may cease at the time when the young 

 savants who have enjoyed them obtain sufficiently remunerative 

 positions." 



M. Janssen then made the following remarks : — 



"The legacy which has been made to the Academy, by our 

 very eminent and very regretted covficre, appears to me to have 

 considerable import not only by its importance, but especially by 

 the way that it opens, and the example that it affords, to all those 

 w^o hereafter may de->ire to encourage the sciences by their 

 liberality. 



"M. Cahours, whose sure judgment and long experience 

 enabled him to know the most urgent necessities of science, 

 had, like most of us, become convinced of the necessity of 

 introducing a new form in the institution of scientific re- 

 compenses. 



" Our prizes will always continue to meet a great and noble 

 necessity ; their value, the difficulty of obtaining them, and the 

 eclat they take from the illustriousness of the body which 

 awards them, will make them always the highest and most 

 envied of recompenses. 



"But the value, also, of the works it is necessary to produce 

 in order to lay claim to them prohibits the research to begin- 

 ners. It is a field that is only accessible to matured talents. 



" But, besides those savants who have already an assured 

 career, there are many young men endowed with precious apti- 

 tudes, and directed by their inclination to pure science, but 

 turned very often from this envied career by the difficulties of 

 existence, and taking with regret a direction giving more imme- 

 diate results. And yet, how many among them possess talents 

 which, if well cultiva'ed, might do honour and good to 

 science ! 



"We must say, however, that it is in leaving their studies 

 that those who wish to devote themselves to pure science 

 experience the most difficult trials, and these difficulties are in- 

 creased every day by the very rapid advance of the exigencies 

 of life. 



"We must find a prompt remedy for this state of things if 

 we do not wish to see the end of the recruitment of science. 



" This tnith, however, is beginning to be generally felt. The 

 Government has already created institutions, scholarships, and en- 

 couragements, which partly meet the necessity. Some generous 

 donors are also working in this manner. I will mention espe- 

 cially the roble foundation of Mdlle. Dosne, in accordance with 

 whose intentions a hall is at this moment being built, where 

 young men, having shown distinguished aptitudes for high ad- 

 ministration, the bar, or history, will receive for three years all 

 the means of carrying on high and peaceful studies. 



" Let us yay, then, plainly, and in speaking thus we only 

 feebly echo the expressions of the most illustrious members of 

 the Academy, that it is by following the way so nobly opened 

 by Cahours that the interests and prospects of science will be 

 most efficaciously served." 



NOTES. 

 A SPECIAL meeting of the Physical Society of London will be 

 held at Cambridge on Saturday, May 9. The members will 

 leave Liverpool Street at 11 a.m., and on arrival at Cambridge 

 will become the guests of the Cambiidge members. The 

 meeting will be held in the Cavendish Laboratory at 2.30. 

 The following communications will be read : some experi- 

 ments on the electric discharge in vacuum-tubes, by Prof 

 J. J. Thomson, F.R. S. ; some experiments on ionic velocilier^ 

 by Mr. W. C. D. Whetham ; on the resistance of some mercury 

 standards, by Mr. R. T. Glazebrook, F.R.S. ; on an apparatus for 

 measuring the compressibility of liquids, by Mr. S. Skinner ; 

 some measurements with the pneumatic bridge, by Mr. W. N. 

 Shaw. After the meeting members will have an opportunity 

 of seeing the Cavendish Laboratory and other University 

 Laboratories. 



The annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute began 

 yesterday, and will continue to-day and to-morrow. It is being 

 held as usual at the Institution of Civil Engineers in Great 

 George Street. 



A VALUABLE bequest has been made to the Department of 

 Science and Art by the late 'Miss Marshall, of 92 Warwick 

 Gardens, Kensington. In addition to a large number of scien- 

 tific books and instruments which are left for the use of students, 

 a sum of ;^looo is bequeathed for the founding of scholarships, 

 or for application in any other way that may be considered bes^t 

 for the advancement of biological science. 



The Queen has approved the appointment of Lord Derby to 

 be Chancellor of the University of London, in the room of the 

 late Lord Granville. 



The death of Prof. Joseph Leidy, in his sixty-eighth year, is 

 announced. He was Professor of Anatomy in the University of 

 Pennsylvania and of Natural History in Swarthmore College ; 

 President of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia ; 

 and Director of the Department of Biology in the University. 

 In a future number we shall give some account of his services 

 to science. 



A Reuter's telegram from New York, dated May i, announces 

 the death, at Berkeley, California, of Prof. John Le Conte, 

 brother of Mr. Joseph Le Conte, formerly professor of geology 

 and natural history in the University of California. 



We regret to have to announce the death of Captain Cecilio- 

 Pujazon, the Director of the Marine Observatory of San Fer- 

 nando, near Cadiz. He died on April 15, in his fifty-seventh 

 year. Captain Pujazou was well known to the members of the 

 Eclipse Expedition of 1870, who formed the Cadiz party. He 

 came to London to the Conference on Marine Meteorology iiv 

 1874. 



In answer to a question put by Mr. H. Fowler in the House 

 of Commons on Monday, Sir W. Hart Dyke said that from the 

 returns already received, in answer to a circular issued by the 



NO. 112^. VOL. 



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