May 23, 1895] 



NA TURE 



81 



with curly, not really woolly, hair are occasionally to be seen ; 

 but I venture to think that such occasional freaks are casual, anci 

 wholly without significance ; although they were regarded as 

 evidence of a Negroid element in the population by the late Sir 

 George Campbell. 



As, in consequence of the statements and theories of M. 

 Quatrefages, the idea is already spreading that traces of pygmy 

 Negrito races are Ko be found in these parts of India, I contem- 

 jilate on a suitable occasion, ere long, publishing some notes, made 

 at the time, on the tribes I met with in my travels in the wild regions 

 referred to. I shall therefore say no more at jiresent, save that 

 the evidence culled by M. (Quatrefages out of General Dalton's 

 lithographed groups — one of a girl with her hair trapped ^oxi, 

 and another of two somewhat curly-headed Sonthals — in support 

 ■'f his theory, is not merely feeble, lait is liable to mislead. 



Sir Wni. Flower has referred to the use by M. Quatrefages of 

 the term Mincopie for the Andamanese. As he points out, there 

 is in reality no such term. How it originated, though long 

 imknown, has been suggested by Mr. Man. Its derivation 

 foiled even the acute research of Sir Henry Yule. Its first use 

 was by Lieut. Colebrooke in the year 1 795, but it has not been 

 recognised in any Indian dialect, and does not seem to have 

 ever been in vise among Anglo-Indians, any more than is the 

 name Zebu, which is used in some European languages for the 

 humped cattle of India. Such names, and there are a few- 

 others, not being current in the country itself, have to be for- 

 gotten by those who visit India. I well remember being not 

 understood when I used the term Zebu on my first arrival in 

 Calcutta some thirty years ago. V, Ball. 



Dublin, May 13. 



Epping Forest: an Explanation. 

 Some years ago you were good enough to publish a paper of 

 mine on the conservation of the Forest from the naturalists' 

 point of view (vol. xxvii. p. 447). That paper was written 

 soon after the Forest was taken over by the Corporation 

 of Londitn, when some unpleasant signs of artificial treat- 

 ment had become manifest, and more especially with 

 reference to certain railway schemes which, in the in- 

 terest of naturalists, we of the Esse.x Field Club felt it our 

 duty to oppose. It is a matter of ancient history that our 

 opposition was successful. My object in entering the lists again 

 is to assure your readers, as representing the scientific public, 

 that the controversy which is now going on concerning the 

 management of the Forest has nothing whatever to do with the 

 agitation about the railway scheme of 1SS3. This statement may 

 appear sujierfluous, but I am compelled to trespass upon your 

 space because certain unscrupulous critics are in the habit of 

 misleading the public by quoting from that paper published 

 twelve years ago, without giving date or context, and without a 

 single word of explanation as to its object. Moreo\-cr, the 

 critics in <juestion have endeavoured, by a metho<l which in other 

 controversial spheres would be called by a ver)' strong name, to 

 make it appear that some of the views put forward in 1883 are 

 opposed to the attitude which, it is well known, I now hold in 

 the present controversies. So far as naturalists are concerned, 

 they may rest assured that nothing that is now being done 

 is in the way of injury' to the I'orcst ; far from this, there are 

 signs of marked improvement The ]iolicy of the Conservators is 

 to restore the Forest to a natural condition by thinning out over- 

 crowded pollards which are now beginning to injure one another, 

 and to kill off the varied undergrowth which is such a relief to 

 the gloomy liarrenness of an unnaturally dense growth of trees. I 

 may jxiint out that the overcrowding is due to two opposite 

 causes, viz. to entire neglect in some parts, and to too much 

 attention in others. The latter cases refer to those parts in which 

 in i>ast times the rights of loijjiing were severely exercised. 

 Here of course, now that the (Conservators have extinguished 

 these rights, the jiollards are throwing up straight and lanky 

 branches of a most unsightly character. In those very limited 

 parts which were not formerly pollarded, and which consist of 

 groves of spear trees, no attempt at sjTitematic thinning had been 

 made before the present Conservancy, and here also there is an 

 overcrowding necessitating woodcraft. Within the last few years 

 all that h.as been done has been dime with care, skill, and fore- 

 thought. I rejoice to !)e able to bear testimony on this point, 

 and to reassure those who may have been misled from a want of 

 personal knowledge of the nature and history of the district, into 

 giving credence to the intemjierate correspondence in the news- 

 papers. R. Meldola. 

 M.ay 21. 



NO. 1334, VOL. 52] 



PROFESSOR LOTHAR MEYER. 



Gestern Abend 1 1 Uhr entschlief plotzlich sanft und schmerzlos 

 im 65. Lebensjahre mein lieber Mann 



Dr. Lothar Meyer 

 ord. Professor der Chemie an der Universitat Tubingen. 



Johanna Meyer geb. Volkmann 

 mit ihren Kindem. 

 Tiibingen, den 12. April iS95t 



WE were thankful his "falling on sleep" was "sudden, 

 gentle, and without pain"; but we grieved he 

 should have left us so soon. 



Julius Lothar Meyer was born at Varel in Oldenburg, 

 on August 19, 1830. After completing his school course 

 in the Gymnasium, he studied in the University of Zurich 

 from 1851 to 1853, then at Wiirzburg from 1853 to 1854 ; 

 from Wurzburg he went to Heidelberg, where he remained 

 till the autumn of 1856, and from thence he migrated 

 to Konigsberg, where he remained until Easter 1858. 

 Meyers original intention was to devote himself to 

 medicine, and he graduated as Doctor in Medicine at 

 Wurzburg on Februaiy 24, 1854. At Heidelberg he 

 came under the influence of Bunsen, and his work became 

 more and more chemical. .-Xt Konigsberg his studies 

 were devoted mainly to mathematical physics, under the 

 guidance of F. Neumann. In 1858 he took the degree of 

 Ph.D. at Breslau ; and on F'ebruary 21, 1859, he re- 

 ceived leave to teach chemistry and physics. From 1859 

 to 1866 Meyer was in charge of the chemical laboratory 

 of the Physiological Institute at Breslau. In 1866 he was 

 called to the Royal Prussian Forstakademic at Eberswalde, 

 where he remained until 1868, when he went to the 

 Polytccknikuin at Carlsruhe. In 1876 Prof Fittig was 

 called from Tiibingen to the University of Strassburg, 

 and Lothar Meyer was appointed to fill the vacancy at 

 Tiibingen. 



He had nearly completed twenty years' work at 

 Tiibingen when the summons came. Cerebral apoplexy 

 stopped his labours, on April \ i of this year ; and, 

 pidtzlicli, sanft, und schmerzlos, he passed. 



It was while teaching chemistry and physics at Breslau 

 that Meyer published the first edition of the work on 

 which his reputation as a philosophical chemist chiefly 

 rests. "Die Modernen Theorien der Chemie" appeared 

 in 1864. \ second edition was published in 1872 ; and 

 since that time have appeared a third, fourth, and fifth 

 edition. At the time of his death Meyer was engaged in 

 the preparation of a sixth edition, which he intended to 

 publish in three, more or less independent, parts. .\n 

 F^nglish translation of the fifth edition, by Messrs. Bedson 

 and Williams, appeared in 1888. In 1883 Profs. Meyer 

 and Seubcrt recalculated the atomic weights of the 

 elements from the original data, and laid all chemists 

 under a debt of gratitude by publishing their results, under 

 the title " Die Atomgewichtc der Elemente aus den 

 Originalzahlcn neu bcrcchnet." 



Lothar Meyer was one of the earliest investigators of 

 the relations between the properties and the atomic 

 weights of the elements. In the first edition of his 

 " Modernen Theorien " (published in 1864) he traced 

 relations between the atomic weights and the chemical 

 values of the elements : and in December 1869 appeared 

 a memoir by him entitled "Die Natur der chemischen 

 Elemente als Funktion ihrer .•\tomgewichte,'' wherein he 

 arranged the elements in order of atomic weights, in a 

 single table, and indicated the periodic character of the 

 dependence of properties on atomic weights. 



The clear enunciation, and the application in' detail, 

 of the most far-reaching generalisation that has been 

 made in chemistry since the work of Dalton, must, un- 

 doubtedly, be credited to that great chemist Mendeleeff 



