1^5 



KDomledge & Seientifie Hems 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



Conducted by MAJOR B. BADEN-POWELL, F.R.A.S., and E. S. GREW, M.A. 



CONTENTS AND NOTICES.— See page V. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



MEETING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



Professor George Howard Darwin, who, on August 15, 

 at Cape Town, will be installed President of the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, in succes- 

 sion to the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P.,isthe second 

 son of the late Charles 

 Robert Darwin, the eminent 

 naturalist — the " Copernicus 

 of biology." Born in 1845, 

 at Down, the Kentish home 

 of the Darwins, he entered 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 and in 1S6S he graduated 

 as Second Wrangler and 

 Second Smiih's Prizeman. 

 In the same year he was 

 elected Fellow of his College, 

 and in 1883 was elected to 

 the Plumian Professorship of 

 Astronomy and Experimen- 

 tal Philosophy in the Univer- 

 sity of Cambridge, vacant by 

 the dea'h of the Rev. James 

 Challis, M.A.,F.R.S., a posi- 

 tion which he still holds. 



One of the earliest of Pro- 

 fessor Darwin's contributions 

 to science appeared in the 

 "Philosophical Transactions" 

 entitled " On the Influence of 

 Geological Changes on the 

 Earth's Axis of Rotation " ; 

 his most recent was read 



before the Royal Society on May 18 — " On Lesage's 

 Theory of Gravitation and the Repulsion of Light." In 

 a series of papers he has dealt exhaustively with the 

 theory and prediction of the tides, especially with refer- 



his studies will, however, be manifest in his Presidential 

 Address. This will discuss the general principles in- 

 volved in theories of evolution, with special reference to 

 the world of inanimate matter, and will be illustrated by 

 means of various theories 

 of the intimate constitution 

 of matter and of cosmical 

 evolution. 



Professor Darwin has been 

 honoured by many scien- 

 tific societies both at home 

 and abroad. In 1879 he was 

 elected a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society, receiving in 1S84 

 the Royal medal of that body, 

 the grounds of the award 

 being his mathematical in- 

 vestigations of the secular 

 changes in the relative mo- 

 tions of the earth, moon, and 

 sun, due to interna! consump- 

 tion of energy ; and for 

 work on the harmonic 

 analysis of tidal observations. 

 He is a Foreign Member of 

 the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences, and of 

 the Reale Accademia dei 

 Lincei, Rome ; and an Hon- 

 orary Member of the Uni- 

 versity of Padua. The latest 

 recognition of his position 

 in the world of science was that afforded by the confer- 

 ment of the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, 

 at the Encffinia, Oxford University, on June 28 last, 

 when he was admitted with the significant salutation, 



DARWIN, LL.D., r.R.S., 



ence to Indian tidal observational work. The trend of " Docta docti progenies patris." 



