March 8, 1894] 



NATURE 



443 



The formula of the base itself must consequently be 

 CioHJoOH. 

 The reaction for its formation from iodosobenzene may be most 

 simply stated thus : — 



2C6H5 . 10 = If QH J + O. 

 \OH 



It may also be expressed so as to account for the action of the 

 sulphuric acid as follows, starting with the sulphate of iodoso- 

 benzene : — 



HIOH 



CfiHgl : ISO4 + 



HCfiHi . 10 



/CgHj 

 if CgHJ + H2SO4 + O. 

 \0H 



The chloride, CioHjJoCl, is a white curdy precipitate much 

 resemblirg silver chlon'de. It crystallises from warm acetic 

 acid, but the crystals are most readily obtained by mixing the 

 aqueous solution of the free base with cold acetyl chloride, and 

 boiling the resulting precipitate in the liquid for a short time ; 

 the clear solution deposits white rosettes of needles on cooling. 

 The crystals melt at aco^-aoi", decomposing into chlorbenzenes 

 like the iodide. 



The bromide, CjoHgloBr, is a pale yellow precipitate similar 

 to silver bromide ; it melts at i67°-i68° with similar decomposi- 

 tion. The melting point of the iodide is 144°. 



The nitrate was obtained from the sulphuric acid solution by 

 the addition of nitric acid, in the form of a white semi-solid 

 precipitate, which changes into a mass of crystals upon agitation 

 with ether. It dissolves in hot water. 



The sulphate is readily soluble in water, as is evident from 

 the mode of preparation ; it dries to a solid, which has not yet 

 been crystallised. 



Concerning the second member of the series, I^CgHj, it is 



\OH 

 stated that it has been obtained from its iodide by the action of 

 moist silver oxide, and that it is likewise a strongly alkaline 

 substance readily soluble in water. The iodide, a polymer of 

 iodobenzene, passes completely into the latter substance upon 

 dry distillation. 



If CfiHg = aCfiHgl. 

 \I 



Further details of these interesting compounds, which must of 

 necessity considerably modify our conception of the nature of 

 iodine, are promised for the next number of the Berichte. 



A. E. TUTTON. 



PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR. 



T^HE Royal Geographical Society held a special meeting on 

 March 5, to celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of the 

 birth of Prince Henry the Navigator, the real initiator of modern 

 maritime exploration. H. R. H. the Duke of York and the 

 Portuguese Minister were present amongst the large audience, 

 and appropriate addresses, illustrated by reproductions of early 

 charts and historical portraits, were given by Mr. Clements R. 

 Markham, F.R.S., President of the Society, Sir George 

 Taubman-Goldie, Captain Wharton, F.R.S., Hydrographer, 

 Mr. Beazley, Mr. H. Yule Oldham, Lecturer on Geography at 

 Cambridge, and the Portuguese Minister. The anniversary 

 was celebrated on a large scale with considerable pomp at 

 Oporto, the ceremonies occupying three days. 



If the formal celebration of the lives of the initiators of great 

 movements in history and in science is a privilege of which 

 their successors do well to avail themselves, the ceremonies 

 observed at Oporto and in London, on March 4 and 5, were 

 grateful acts. Prince Henry, distinguished from all his name- 

 sakes by his inseparable surname "the Navigator," was born 

 on March 4, 1394, the son of King John I. of Portugal, and of 

 Philippa, daughter of the Duke of Lancaster. From his early 

 years he showed himself exceptionally studious, and when taking 

 part in the siege of Ceuta, in 141 5, he undoubtedly learned much 

 of the interior trade of Africa, which supplemented the know- 

 ledge derived from the Arab geographers. But it is probable 

 that the main incentive in his life-long effort to promote naviga- 



NO. I 27 I, VOL. 49] 



tion and maritime discovery was the prospect of achieving the 

 sea-route to India, and of making his country the first mercan- 

 tile power in Europe. At the age of twenty-four he had 

 definitely made up his mind on the subject of his life-work, and 

 chose as his residence Sagres, at the extreme south-western 

 corner of the Iberian peninsula facing the unknown ocean. 

 The Prince made himself a master of the mathematics and 

 astronomy of the day, and strove to induce mariners to follow 

 his example and make use of the astrolabe in navigation. Obser- 

 vations at sea with an instrument so crude were necessarily very 

 unsatisfactory, and, like their predecessors, the sailors of that 

 day kept prudently within sight of land. Aided by the funds of 

 the Order of Christ, Prince Henry fitted out expedition after 

 expedition to trace out the African coast to the southward past 

 Cape Nun. Inducements to trade were held out to adven- 

 turous merchant seamen of all nations, but these were insufficient 

 as long as the explorers ventured no further than Cape Boja- 

 dor. In 1434 Gil Eannes rounded that Cape, but the barren 

 coast of the Sahara still met his eyes. In 1443 Antonio Gon- 

 salvez crossed the Tropic of Cancer, reached and passed Cape 

 Blanco, and brought home gold and slaves. From this time 

 advance was more rapid, the inducements of commerce brought 

 more volunteers to the work, and in three years the fertile coasts 

 beyond Cape Verde were reached, and before the death of the 

 Prince, in 1460, his efforts were rewarded by the rolling back of 

 the cloud of absolute ignorance from over 15C0 miles of hitherto 

 unknown coast. The enterprise thus inaugurated went on with 

 increasing success until Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 

 i486, and Vasco da Gama fulfilled the life's ambition of Prince 

 Henry by reaching India in 1497, and raising Portugal to the 

 height of its short-lived fame. 



Prince Henry emphatically lived for his work, pursuing it 

 without intermission in spite of the vast weight of prejudice and 

 indifference against which he had to fight, and theresult of that 

 work is his best monument. He, if any one man, was the first 

 to stir into strength the movement toward maritime exploration, 

 which not only revealed the true form and extent of the most 

 ancient continent, but in direct succession led to the discovery 

 by Cabral of the new world, a discovery in no way brought 

 about by the earlier voyages of Columbus, although these in a 

 sense were the outcome of the same original impulse. It is 

 through Ca da Mosto, a Venetian sailor engaged in African dis- 

 covery for the Prince, that the best account of him as a man, 

 and of his methods as a patron of exploration, are handed 

 down. In his words — "He was the noblest Prince of his age, 

 a man whose smallest virtue would sufiice to immortalise him." 



SCIENCE IN THE MAGAZINES. 



SCIENCE makes a good show in the March magazines. Sir 

 Robert Ball, F.R.S., contributes to the Fortnightly an 

 article on "The Significance of Carbon in the Universe." 

 The object of the article is to call attention to an investiga- 

 tion carried out by Dr. G. Johnstone Stoney, F.R.S., nearly 

 thirty years ago, but the significance of which has not been 

 widely recognised. From the tenor of the article we presume 

 that the author refers to Dr. Stoney's paper " On the Physical 

 Constitution of the Sun and Stars," read before the Royal 

 Society in 1867. The paper is well known to workers in astro- 

 nomical physics, though Sir Robert laments that some eminent 

 physicists whom he questioned were unaware of its existence. 

 Dr. Stoney gave evidence to show that the photospheric clouds 

 on the sun were composed of carbon. In his words^" We 

 have strong reasons for suspecting that the luminous clouds con- 

 sist, like nearly all the sources of artificial light, of minutely di- 

 vided carbon ; and that the clouds themselves lie at a very short 

 distance above the situation in which the heat is so fierce that 

 carbon, in spite of its want of volatility, and of the enormous 

 pressure to which it is there subjected, boils." {Roy. Soc. 

 Proc. vol. xvi. p. 29, 1867-8.) Sir Robert Ball has taken 

 the result contained in this conclusion, and expanded it 

 into a lucid article containing much that is interesting. Dr. 

 T. W. Gregory describes his adventurous journey to Mount 

 Kenya. It is impossible not to admire the indomitable spirit 

 he displayed throughout the whole expedition. He went to 

 Africa to obtain information upon certain points, and though 

 he found himself stranded at Mombasa before anything had 

 be en done, he got together a party of forty Zanzibaris, marched 

 into the interior, accomplished his task, and returned to. the 



