646 



NATURE 



[October 30, 1890 



dicated was impossible ; and there was no evidence 

 that any white traveller had ever seen them. The prob- 

 ability is that these lakes and rivers were put down from 

 the reports of natives who had communications with the 

 interior. Much of the existing geography of Africa 

 rests on no better foundation ; but then we know 

 better how to sift native reports now than our pre- 

 decessors did 200 years ago. At all events, as some 

 of us who were at school then may remember, the 

 map of Africa, in 1856, had the word "Unexplored" 

 spread all over its centre. As has been said, Krapf and 

 Rebmann, the missionaries, who had seen Kilimanjaro, 

 and thought they got a glimpse of Mount Kenia afar off, 

 had heard of great lakes in the heart of Africa. It was to 

 seek these lakes that Burton, accompanied by Captain 

 Speke, set out from Zanzibar in June 1857. The expedition 

 was under the auspices of the Government and of the 

 Royal Geographical Society. Before leaving Zanzibar 

 Burton wrote home that he was about to set out in 

 search of " the Great Lake." His eyes were gladdened 

 by the sight of the waters of Tanganyika, at 

 Ujiji, on February 14, 1858. It is scarcely pos- 

 sible for us to realize what this meant at the 

 time. The route, now so well known, from Zanzibar to 

 Ujiji had never before been trodden by the feet of white 

 men. The difficulties which beset this pioneer expedition 

 were disheartening. Before it set out, there was no Tan- 

 ganyika, no Victoria Nyanza, no Albert Nyanza, no 

 Bangweolo on the map, and only the lower 200 miles of 

 the. Congo. Burton's discovery of Lake Tanganyika 

 may be regarded as the centre from which all suc- 

 ceeding discoveries in Central Africa have radiated. 

 It is the great central lake round which all others are 

 grouped. Indeed Burton's companion, Speke, as we 

 know, made a run to the north on the homeward route, 

 and discovered that other great lake, the Victoria Nyanza, 

 which he rightly surmised to be the source of the White 

 Nile. Of the unhappy relations between Burton and 

 Speke this is not the place to write, even if we had any 

 inclination to revive a bitter controversy that ought to be 

 allowed to lie in the grave where it was placed many 

 years ago. That Burton's bitterness against Speke 

 blinded him to the importance of his companion's dis- 

 covery all will admit. That Burton was of a rough tvpe, 

 given, like other great and successful men, to carrying 

 out his purposes at any cost to themselves and others, 

 there can be no doubt. The big things in the world have 

 generally been accomplished by such men. 



Burton's discovery gained him the medal of the Royal 

 Geographical Society, but hardly anything else. After a 

 run to America, he, in 1861, with his newly-married wife, 

 went as Consul to the White Man's Grave— Fernando 

 Po. From here he explored the Cameroons, the Gorilla 

 country, and Dahomey. A few years later a Consulate 

 in Brazil gave him the opportunity of exploring the high- 

 lands of that country. After a short stay at Damascus, 

 '"urton was appointed Consul at Trieste in 1872, and there 

 he was allowed to vegetate till his death, with no greater 

 reward for all his valuable services to science than a 

 K.C.M.G., given him four years ago. Visits to Iceland, 

 to Midian, and to the Gold Coast, produced several volumes 

 to add to the many he had already published ; probably 

 no traveller has ever been so prolific in books. It says 

 little for the intelligence and enterprise of a Government 

 that could find no better use for the services of a man of 

 such power as Richard Burton than to give him the 

 charge of a third-rate Consulate. Of Burton's versatile 

 scholarship and its published results we need not speak in 

 detail. He was one of the few survivors of the old type 

 of adventurer of which our country has been so prolific- 

 men who have been the makers of our Empire and the 

 founders of modern knowledge. Science is bound to 

 remember him as one of her pioneers into the great 

 unknown. j^^ 



NO. 1096, VOL. 42] 



PROFESSOR HEINRICH WILL. 

 T^ HE sad announcement of the death of this well-known 

 chemist from heart disease, on the 15th of this 

 month, IS made m the Chemiker Zeihenq; of the 22nd 

 mst. Dr. Will was for thirty years Professor of Chemis- 

 try and Director of the Laboratories at the University of 

 Giessen. He was born on December 8 in the memorable 

 year 181 2, at Weinheim, where his father held an im- 

 portant official position. After completing his studies at 

 the High School of his native town, he devoted himself 

 for a time to pharmacy. But in 1834 he entered the 

 University of Heidelberg, and in the same year under- 

 took the position of assistant in the laboratory under 

 Prof. Geiger, and after that eminent chemist's decease, in 

 1836, under the celebrated Prof L. Gmelin. In 1837, at 

 the request of Prof, von Liebig, he removed to Giessen, 

 where he occupied the position of assistant until his 

 graduation as Doctor in 1839. He then habilitated him- 

 self at the University as Privat-docent of Chemistry, his 

 dissertation consisting of a description of his " Investiga- 

 tion of the Constitution of the Ethereal Oil of Black 

 Mustard." In 1842, Dr. Will undertook the direction of 

 the newly-founded Filialslaboratorium, and in 1846 he 

 received a call to the then recently inaugurated laboratory 

 of the College of Chemistry in London. He, however, 

 declined the offer, and was shortly afterwards appointed 

 extraordinary Professor in the University of Giessen. 

 After Prof, von Liebig's departure for Munich, in 1852, 

 Dr. Will became ordinary Professor of Chemistry and 

 Director of the Chemical Laboratories of the University. 

 During the session 1869-70, Prof. Will occupied the dis- 

 tinguished post of Rector of the University, and his in- 

 augural address was a memorable one, treating of the 

 relations between matter and force considered from the 

 chemical standpoint. After forty years' unceasing labour 

 as a teacher and an investigator he retired, at his own 

 request, in October 1882. 



As an original investigator Prof. Will was character- 

 ized by his precision and the acutenessof his observation. 

 He_was also a most excellent teacher, understanding as 

 few others of his time the art of explaining to students that 

 which was so clear to himself What, however, most struck 

 those who had the good fortune to listen to his lectures,, 

 was the deep earnestness which he threw into his subject, 

 and the manner in which he used to carry his students 

 along with him through the most intricate branches of 

 chemistry. His powerfully energetic character was even 

 more apparent if possible in the laboratory, as he passed 

 from student to student, speaking the right word of 

 help and encouragement to each, and inculcating habits 

 of work and thought which raised many of those students 

 to positions of honour and usefulness in the chemical 

 world. His especial fitness for the leadership of a 

 laboratory is very manifest from a perusal of his text- 

 book, " Anleitung zur chemischen Analyse," which ap- 

 peared in its twelfth edition in 1883, and has been 

 translated into several languages. A. E. T. 



NOTES. 



The Queen has been pleased to command that the Govern- 

 ment institution nov^r known as the Normal School of Science 

 and Royal School of Mines shall in future be called the Royal-'^ 

 College of Science, London. "^ 



The President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and ' 

 Mrs. John Hopkinson will give a conversazione in the galleries- 

 of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours on Wed- 

 nesday evening, November 19. 



The death of Robert M'Cormick, F.R.C.S., R.N., Deputy , 

 Inspector- General of Hospitals and Fleets, is announced. He [ ■, 

 was one of the oldest and most eminent officers of the medical * 



