350 



DISCOVERY 



Sir, 



DRAKE 

 To the Editor of Discovery 



With reference to Mr. Geoffrey Callendcr's article 

 as to whether Drake could be justly accused of murder or 

 not, I would like to state that, according to documentary 

 evidence of his Portuguese pilot, Nufla da Silva, discovered 

 in Mexican Archives by Mrs. Nuttall, Drake, when 

 challenged by Thomas Doughty to show his authority 

 empowering him to order the execution of his friend, 

 produced some papers and handed them round for 

 inspection. 



It would appear to be a difficult task to acquit Drake 

 of the charge of murder merely on the assumption that 

 there are no incontrovertible facts to show that he possessed 

 the verj' necessary delegation of authority from Elizabeth, 

 and one would be perfectly justified in assuming such 

 papers to be false, inasmuch as he did not originally sail 

 from Plymouth for the purpose of getting a cargo of 

 currants from Egypt, but, in realit)', to visit once more 

 the West Indies to obtain vengeance for his old shipmates 

 who had been murdered. 



Until such evidence is forthcoming to prove the above- 

 mentioned papers to be absolutely in order, it is rather 

 premature to ask the public as a grand jury to acquit him 

 of the charge of murder, although it originated from 

 obscure Spanish sources. 



I should be glad if you would inform me whether there 

 is in existence, to this date, evidence to show that the 

 authority that Drake claimed as legal was legal. 



Victor H. Standford. 



3 Lower Lemon Villas, 

 Truro. 



October 12, 1920. 



Reviews of Books 



The Memorial Book of William Sutherland. A Bio- 

 graphy. By Prof. W. A. Osborne. (Lothian 

 Book Publishing Co., Melbourne, ys. 6d. net.) 



The little book before us, beautifully printed and neatly 

 bound, is a tribute from Australian friends to a Melbourne 

 scientist who lived a happy life. 



William Sutherland (1859-1911) was a Dumbarton 

 boy who, when very young, went with his parents to live 

 in Melbourne. After taking a good degree in science 

 at the University there, he sailed for London, took another 

 one, returned and settled down in Melbourne for good. 

 The rest of his life was calm, peaceful, happy. He lived 

 at home, he never married ; nothing excited or worried 

 him. He had no regular job except the thing he lived 

 for — the advancement of scientific knowledge. Every- 

 thing was subordinated to that. He worked on physical 

 problems wholly from the theoretical point of view. I 

 mean he worked with pen and paper in his room at home, 

 not in a laboratory at the works or at a University. His 

 financial needs were never great, and these he satisfied 

 by doing examining for Melbourne University and by 

 occasional coaching ; but this kind of thing was looked 

 upon merely as a necessary evil to keep the pot boiling. 



and resorted to solely when the pot or the fire required 

 attention. 



To Sutherland, Science was a much bigger thing and 

 the things of this world were much smaller things than 

 they are to most of us. He sold all he had and gave it 

 and himself to Science. During his lifetime he published 

 no less than sixty-nine papers ; most of these deal with 

 molecular physics, and most were published in the Philo- 

 sophical Magazine. His work reaJly wjis of importance, 

 but he was not a genius. He was too happy a man to 

 be that. But it is a pity he did not collect his work in 

 book form and bring it more prominently before the world. 

 A little advertising might have helped him greatly. 

 Melbourne is a long way off from London, and an occasional 

 blast on the horn would not have deafened anybody. 

 But he never did this, and he was averse to popularising 

 science. 



His work was often very theoretical, and too technical, 

 on the whole, to be described here. His chief success was 

 the working out in 1893 of a relation connecting the 

 viscosity of a gas and the temperature, which has been 

 amply confirmed by subsequent work. But he had large 

 and generous ideas on a great number of problems — the 

 law of attraction between molecules, the nature of emul- 

 sions, and the application of electro-chemical ideas to the 

 properties of matter. 



Yet with due deference to Sutherland and his point of 

 view, I think this quiet, home-keeping, apparently un- 

 worldly life of his was hardly the fullest. He seems to 

 have had an aversion to taking up the work of a University 

 teacher. He hated drudgery. But that is hardly a 

 valid reason for avoiding it. A University would have 

 given him a bigger stimulus ; it would have given him a 

 laboratory, led him into experimental work, brought co- 

 workers to him. Probably he would not have been 

 so happy, but happiness is not the only thing. I think 

 his lack of experience in experimental research was a 

 serious one. It is hardly a man's job working up and 

 theorising on the experimental work of others. But 

 there is room for difference of opinion here. Early in 

 life he found the bent of his inclinations and abilities, and 

 this he tried to follow out with his whole soul. That is 

 a very great deal. He was an interesting and original 

 man, quiet, hard-working, many-sided, perhaps a httle, 

 at times, " agin' the government." His outlook on life 

 was something like Thoreau's. 



I am glad this book has been written. 



A. S. R. 



(Continued from p. 334) 

 G. Pellissier, Le Realismc du Romanttsme . Paris, 1912. 

 G. A. Borgese. SIpria delta critica romanttca in Italia. 2nd 



edition. Naples, 1920. 

 N. Busetto, // Romanticismo e it carattere nazionale delta tettera- 



tiira ilaliana. Campobasso, 1919- 

 G. Martegiani, // Romanticismo iiatiano non esiste. Florence, 



1908. 

 O. Ewald, Die Probleme der Romantik als Grund/ragen d*r 



Gegenwart. Berlin, 1905. 

 M. Joachimi, Die WeUanschauung der Romantik. Jena, I905- 

 li. Kirchcr, Phttosophie der Romantik. Jena, 1906. 

 O. Walzel. Deutsche Romantik. 4th edition. Leipzig, 1916. 



