62 



KNOWLEDGE, 



[Makch, 1903. 



of his College in the same year, and held the Fellowship 

 until 1857, when he vacated it on his marriage to Mary, 

 daughter of the Rev. T. R. Robinson, d.d., Director of 

 Armagh Observatory. He was reinstated in the Fellow- 

 ship when the new statutes of the College rendered this 

 possible. He was appointed in 1849 Ijucasiau Professor 

 of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge, the chair 

 held one hundred and eighty years earlier by Sir Isaac 

 Newton. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 

 18.51, became its Secretary in 1851, and its President from 

 1885 to 1890. From this Society he received theRumford 

 and the Copley Medal ; the former in 1852 in recognition 

 of his investigations regarding the refrangibility of light, 

 the latter in 1893. In 1869 he presided over the British 

 Association at its meeting in Exeter. He was elected as 

 one of the Members for the University in Parliament from 

 1887 to 1892, and was created a baronet in 1889. 



The above brief list may serve to give some little idea 

 of the honours to which he so deservedly attained. Of the 

 work which he performed it is impossible to give any 

 adequate idea; it can only be fully appreciated by those 

 to whom he had been as intellectual parent. We can, 

 perhaps, best summarize his scientific career and work in 

 the concluding words of an article written by Prof. J. J. 

 Thompson for the Camhridge Bevimv of 1899, June 1st, 

 in connection with the celebration of the Jubilee of Sir 

 George Stokes as Lucasian Professor : — " By his researches 

 on hydrodynamics he has founded a new liranch of the 

 science; in optics he has, to use the words of Lord Kelvin, 

 been the teacher and guide of his contemporaries ; he was 

 the first to enunciate in his lectures the principles on which 

 spectrum analysis is founded ; he unravelled the laws of 

 fluorescence ; he investigated the variation of gravity over 

 the surface of the earth; he solved jiroblems of the greatest 

 difficulty in pure mathematics ; whilst the latest of his 

 long series of researches is his remarkable paper on the 

 nature of Routgen rays. His papers are the classics of 

 science ; they are remarkable, not only for the results 

 obtained, but alsp for their perfect clearness of e.x:pression 

 and thought, for the elegance of the mathematical methods, 

 for their maturity of judgment, and for that care and 

 finish on which so much of the impressiveuess of a paper 

 depends. 



These researches show the combination of supreme 

 mathematical and experimental j)0\ver ; with simple 

 apparatus and without the ajjpliances which are now at 

 the command of physicists, he has made experiments 

 which have settled some of the most crucial points iu 

 optics, and which will be quoted as long as science exists. 

 The rooms iu Pembroke, where he made many of his 

 experimeuts, wiU in the history of science and of the 

 University be associated with tho.se in the old court of 

 Tj'inity, where Newton made the prism reveal the nature 

 of white light. And, indeed, there are many points of 

 resemblance between the careers of Newton and of Stokes : 

 both held the Lucasian Professorship, both were Presidents 

 of the Royal Society, both represented the University in 

 Parliament; and the resemblance is not confined to the 

 offices they held, it extends to their type of mind. Often, 

 in reading Stokes's papers, we feel this is just how Newton 

 would have treated this point, these are the deductions 

 which Newton would have drawn." 



Entomological. — Prof. W. N. Wheeler continues his 

 studies of North American ants, that have been previously 

 mentioned in these columns. In the American Naturalist , 

 Vol. XXXVI., 1902, pp. 88-100, he describes Poyo/joTOi!/r»;e.T; 

 imherhiculus, a new " Agricultural " Ant, from Texas. 



Incidentally he refutes the popular and widely-diffused 

 notion that some ants of this genus cultivate a particular 

 kind of grass — the "ant rice" — protecting, weeding, and 

 reaping their crops. These ants feed largely on grass seeds, 

 and when some of the seeds that they have brought into 

 their minute storehouses sprout so far as to become unfit 

 for food, the ants carry them out to a kind of rubbish 

 heap, which often forms a circle around their nests. These 

 seeds may then germinate and grow u]j, forming an im- 

 perfect ring of grass, but, as Prof. Wheelei- remarks, to 

 state that the ants " sow this cereal for the sake of 

 garnering its grain, is as absurd as to say that the family 

 cook is planting an orchard when some of the peach 

 stones which she has carelessly thrown into the back-yard 

 chance to grow into peach trees." — G. H. C. 



Geogkaphical. — Dr. Carl Lumholtz, who spent five 

 years, between 1890 and 1898, in North-western Mexico, 

 recently read a very interesting paper on his explorations 

 and researches before the Royal Geographical Society (see 

 the Geographical Journal, February, 190o). Dr. Lum- 

 holtz lived for a considerable time alone with various 

 Indian tribes in the western Sierra Madre Dr. Lum- 

 holtz's ethnological researches and collections are of great 

 interest and importance. Speaking of the endurance of 

 the members of a tribe called the Tarahumare, tlie author 

 mentions that these people will easily run one hundred 

 and seventy miles without stopping. They have regular 

 races as a test of endurance rather than speed. As a 

 proof of their insensibility to jiain. Dr. Lumholtz once 

 witnessed twenty-three hairs pulled out in one stroke from 

 the head of a sleeping child, who merely scratched its 

 head a little and slept on. Many of the Indians of the 

 Sierra Madre are very musical, and Dr. Lumholtz, who 

 has learned their songs, gave examples of them iu the 

 course of his pajJer. Most of these tribes are deeply 

 religious, and Dr. Lumholtz has studied particularly their 

 symbolism. Every little detail and ornament bears not 

 only a religious significance, but often forms an actual 

 prayer. The author referred to certain species of cacti, 

 which are worshijjped by two tribes of Indians, a regular 

 cult being instituted, whose main purpose is to promote 

 the health of the tribe as well as to bring rain. The plant 

 is supposed to talk and sing, and to feel joy and pain. It 

 has great exhilarating properties, and allays all feelings of 

 hunger and thirst, and does away w'ith all exhaustion. It 

 also produces colour-visions. A great feast, elaborate and 

 lengthy preparations for which are made, is held at certain 

 times, at which the plant is eaten. The main feature of 

 the feast is a peculiar kind of dancing by men and women, 

 whose faces are painted with various designs with a 

 symbolic meaning. 



Zoological. — The Society for the Protection of Birds 

 held a very successful and well-attended annual meeting 

 on February 10th, under the chairmanship of the Duke of 

 Bedford. During the year 1902 the Society made distinct 

 advances in several directions. A short Bill, framed by 

 the Committee of the Society, was passed through the 

 Houses of Parliament. It provides for the confiscation of 

 any bird unlawfully killed or cajitured, or any egg un- 

 lawfully taken. Formerlj' the specimens illegally secured 

 were often of more value than the fine imposed. The 

 Society may be congratulated, too, on having been the 

 means of inducing the authorities in British India to 

 prohibit the exportation of bird skins and feathers (except 

 ostrich feathers and boiiii fide specimens " illustrative of 

 natural history ") from that country. The Society are 

 doing good work, too, in encouraging the young to take 

 an intellisjent interest in bird-life. 



