302 



NATURE 



[January 30, 1896 



DEATH OF MR. ALEXANDER 

 MACMILLAN. 



"\X7'E much regret to record the death of Mr. 

 Alexander Macmillan, one of the founders 

 of this journal. This is not the place to give a long 

 account of his career. We may limit ourselves 

 to the statement that outside the field of scientific 

 workers there were few who possessed a greater 

 sympathy with scientific aims, few who had a 

 keener insight as to the place science should 

 occupy in our national life and in our educational 

 systems. It was the hope that a more favourable 

 condition for the progress of science might be 

 thereby secured that led him to enter warmly 

 into the establishment of this journal in 1869. 

 Mr. Macmillan was born in 1818, and died on 

 Saturday last, at his residence in Portland Place. 



NOTES. 



M. Maurice Lcewy, the distinguished French astronomer, 

 has been elected a corresponding member of the Berlin 

 Academy of Sciences. 



Elon College, of North Carolina, has received an endow- 

 ment of 100,000 dollars from a resident of New York City. 

 The faculty will not reveal his name. 



Mme. W. Huber has presented a sum of 20,000 francs to the 

 Paris Geographical Society, in remembrance of her husband. The 

 Society has made the donor a life member, and has devoted the 

 money to establish, under the name " Prix William Huber," a 

 silver medal to be awarded annually to the author of the best 

 work on the structure of mountains and valleys, or on glaciers 

 and mountain lakes. 



According to the New York Nation, Portugal is about to 

 follow the example of some greater Powers, and celebrate a 

 quater-centenary of its own. At the request of the Geograph- 

 ical Society of Lisbon, the Government has just determined to 

 celebrate, with much pomp, in 1897, the four-hundredth anni- 

 versary of the expedition which, on July 8, 1497, set out, under 

 the command of Vasco da Gama, for the discovery of the route 

 to India round the Cape of Good Hope. Few details of the 

 celebration have as yet been settled upon, but it is expected that 

 special expositions will be opened at Lisbon, and many scientific 

 congresses held, to which the world will be invited. 



We have already referred to some of the honours given in 

 commemoration of the centenary of the French Institute. How 

 freely France distributes her decorations to men of science will 

 be seen from the following list, given in the Revue Ghiirale des 

 Sciences, of the recent nominations to, and promotions in, the 

 Order of the Legion of Honour. Grand Officer : M. J. Bertrand, 

 Secretaire Perpetuel of the Academy of Sciences. Commanders : 

 MM. C. J. Bouchard, P. E. Duclaux, M. Loewy, E. J. Marey, 

 Members of the Academy of Sciences. Officers : MM. P. 

 Appell, A. d'Arsonval, F. A. Fouque, A. Gautier, E. Grimaux, 

 H. Leaute, H. Moissan, E. Perrier, Members of the Academy 

 of Sciences, and MM. A. Houzeau, R. Lepine, F. Raoult and E. 

 Stephan, Correspondants of the same Academy. Chevaliers : 

 MM. R. Blondlot, I'abbe A. David and G. E. Sire, Corre- 

 spondants of the Academy of Sciences ; and MM. Chappuis and 

 Guillaume, of the Bureau international des Poids et Mesures. 

 NO. 1370, VOL. 53] 



We have on several occasions called attention to the blunders 

 which are made, and the disputes in which the country is in- 

 volved from time to time, because of the unintelligent way in 

 which the work of various Government departments is carried 

 on. Each branch of the public service, instead of being advised 

 by a scientific staff, is controlled by an officialdom which believes 

 in its own omniscience ; a condition of things as deplorable as it 

 is derogatory to national honour and advancement. As we have 

 before pointed out. administrators of departments in which 

 questions involving scientific knowledge continuously arise are, 

 to put the point mildly, not chosen on account of their scientific 

 qualifications, and they have to pick up their information as best 

 they can, the result being that they arrive at unsound decisions, 

 and create dissatisfaction everywhere. The Engineer of 

 January 17 has something to say which strongly supports our 

 complaint of the neglect of scientific knowledge in the public 

 service. Referring to Admiralty contracts, our contemporary 

 says: "The duty of the Admiralty is to obtain the best 

 possible ships, engines, guns, &c. , that can be had ; and that 

 those who have to consider the tenders ought to know when 

 a tender is too high or too low. In a word, they ought to know 

 the value of what they propose to buy. Whether the knowledge 

 does or does not exist in the Controller's department, we are 

 unable to say ; apparently it does not. The actual method of 

 obtaining ships is strictly analogous to that adopted by a man 

 who, totally ignorant of what a dwelling-house ought to cost, 

 first gets drawings from an architect, and then advertises for 

 tenders. Having obtained them, he proceeds to pit the 

 tenderers against each other, assuming that in this way he will 

 get the best value for his money. The mere mention of this 

 method of doing business will be enough to condemn it in the 

 eyes of our readers. But there is ample evidence available that 

 the Whitehall people do not know what is the proper price to 

 pay for work or materials, and to this ignorance on the one 

 hand, and on the other to a fear of being cheated based on that 

 Ignorance, is no doubt due the bargaining and bartering which, 

 during the last few years, have gone on at Whitehall, and have 

 at last become so vexatious that it is matter of common talk 

 among those firms who have laid themselves out to execute 

 Admiralty orders." It is clear that if the relations between the 

 Admiralty and the shipbuilding and engineering firms of the 

 country are to be of a cordial description, the present system of 

 conducting business will have to be greatly altered, and the 

 sooner the alteration comes the better it will be for the country's 

 welfare. 



Mr. F. E. Willey, of the Royal Gardens, Kew, has been 

 appointed Curator of the newly-founded Botanic Station at 

 Sierra Leone. Mr. J. M. Henry has retired from the post of 

 Superintendent of the Baroda State Gardens. He was sent out 

 from Kew in 1867, and after twelve years' service in Madras and 

 Bengal was appointed to Baroda in November 1879. 



Dr. John S. Billings, Director of the Department of 

 Hygiene in the Pennsylvania University, has been elected 

 librarian of the new consolidated libraries of New York, 

 representing the Lennox library, the Astor library, and the 

 Tilden bequest. Dr. Billing's Index Medicus, and the Index 

 Catalogue of the Surgeon-General's Library at Washington, 

 furnish stupendous evidence of his capacity for cataloguing, 

 and, with his experience in other directions, make him eminently 

 fitted for the responsible post he has taken. 



Mr. a. G. Chari.eton presided on Friday, the 24th inst., 

 at the Criterion Restaurant, over the twenty-third annual dinner 

 of the old students of the Royal School of Mines. About a 

 hundred and twenty guests were present, amongst these being 

 the professors at the School and several distinguished visitors. 

 In proposing the toast of " The Mining and Metallurgical Indus- 



