498 



NATURE 



[March 22, 1900 



advancement of natural knowledge, we owe it to you more than 

 to any man living. 



We beg you to believe that we are grateful, and we shall 

 rejoice if we can in any way prove our sincerity. 



We can ill afford to lose either the weight of your name or 

 your guidance at our councils ; we can indeed hardly imagine a 

 greater misfortune than the breaking of the bond between you 

 and us. But we cannot complain if, after many years of service, 

 you have found it necessary to loosen your official ties to the 

 University. We regret that yout enlarged liberty has not come 

 to you in a form which would have marked our sense of what we 

 owe to you. But we rejoice that an arrangement has been 

 arrived at which will allow your interests still to centre in Cam- 

 bridge, giving you, at the same time, the opportunity of working 

 in a wider field, where you may do for England what you have 

 already done for Cambridge, and where your services to learning 

 may benefit, not only England, but the whole English-speaking 

 race. 



We are proud to sign ourselves 



Your friends and pupils. 



H. K. Anderson. 

 Francis Darwin. 

 A. G. Dew-Smtth. 

 Walter Gardiner. 

 W. H. Gaskell. 

 Alfred C. Haddon. 

 W. B. Hardy. 

 S. F. Harmer. 

 , Walter Heape. 

 March g, 1900. 



J. N. Langley. 

 A. Sheridan Lea. 

 J. J. Lister. 

 A. Sedgwick. 

 A. C. Seward. 

 Arthur E. Shipley. 

 L. E. Shore. 

 H. Marshall Ward. 



NO TES. 



The preliminary programme of the meeting of the British 

 Association to be opened at Bradford, on September 5, has now 

 been drawn up. The new president is Sir William Turner, 

 F.R.S., and the sectional presidents will be as follows :— Mathe- 

 matical and Physical Science, Dr. J. Larmor, F.R.S. ; 

 Chemistry, Prof. W. PL Perkin, F.R.S. ; Geology, Prof. W. 

 G. Sollas, F.R.S. ; Zoology (and Physiology), Dr. R. H. 

 Traquair, F.R.S.; Geography, Sir George S. Robertson; 

 Economic Science and Statistics, Major P. G. Craigie ; 

 Mechanical Science, Sir Alexander R. Binnie ; Anthropology, 

 Prof. John Rhys; Botany, Prof. Sydney H. Vines, F.R.S.; 

 and Corresponding Societies, Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S. 

 There will be a separate department of astronomy in Section A, 

 with Dr. A. A. Common, F.R.S., as chairman. The two 

 evening discourses will be delivered by Prof. Gotch, F.R.S., on 

 "Animal Electricity," and Prof. W.Stroud, on "Range Finders." 

 The lecture to working men will be delivered by Prof. S. P. 

 Thompson, F.R S., but the subject has not yet been announced. 



At the anniversary meeting of the Royal Irish Academy, on 

 March 16, the following were elected honorary members of the 

 Academy in the section of science : — Aleksandr O. Kovalevskij, 

 St. Petersburg ; J. A. Gaudry, Paris ; P. G. Tait, Edinburgh • 

 J. H. van t' Hoff, Berlin ; J. J. Thomson, Cambridge. 



Attention has several times been drawn in these columns 

 to the remarkable properties of Becquerel rays, and, in par- 

 ticular, of those rays emanating from radium. The theory that 

 the radiations consist of material particles is supported by M. 

 Becquerel's recent observations on the action of screens in 

 cutting off the radiations deviated by a magnetic field. From 

 the Revue G^nirale des Sciences for March 15, we learn that a 

 decisive experiment has been performed on this point. It has 

 been established beyond doubt that the emanations from radium 

 communicate a negative charge to bodies on which they fall, 

 while the radium itself becomes charged negatively, and it is 

 inferred that the emanations from radium, or, at any rate, a 

 portion of them, consist of material particles carrying negative 

 charges. 



NO. 1 566, VOL. 61] 



It will be remembered that the work of the Ben Nevis 

 Observatories would have been brought to an abrupt conclusion 

 in 1898, had not Mr, J. Mackay Bernard come forward with a 

 donation of 500/., which secured its continuance for another 

 year. In 1899, he gave another donation of 500/., under which 

 the directors are now carrying on their important work. The 

 following extract from the report of the Council of the Scottish 

 Meteorological Society, read at the annual general meeting on 

 Monday, shows the present position of the Observatories : — 

 "The position of matters was taken into serious consideration 

 by the council at their meeting on Monday, March 12, when 

 Mr. xMackay Bernard, with a generosity which it is difficult to 

 describe, intimated his wish of making a third donation of 500/. 

 to complete the observations in the way desired by the directors 

 in their previous report, and so covering the whole of a sun-spot 

 period of eleven years, and securing at the same time good aver- 

 ages of the meteorological elements for the highest position in 

 the British Islands, and an adjoining Sea- level Observatory at 

 Fort-William. The Ben Nevis work has thus been singularly 

 fortunate in securing very large support from a gentleman, 

 moved by patriotism as well as by a love of knowledge, and 

 the completion of the experiment is secured. This statement 

 does not imply that the council does not continue to be 

 strongly of opinion that the Observatories should not be con- 

 tinued permanently as a national institution, and they are 

 strengthened in this opinion by the character of the results 

 already obtained. The council have now to intimate that 

 another gentleman has offered further support of a very sub- 

 stantial character. In August last, he wrote ' offering help to 

 the extent, if necessary, of 300/., and the council are now 

 in communication with him in regard to this most liberal 

 offer." 



We learn from the British Medical Journal that Dr. W. Osier, 

 F.R.S., professor of medicine in Johns Hopkins University, 

 Baltimore, has sent in an application for the vacant chair of the 

 practice of physic in the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Osier 

 is a graduate of McGill University, Montreal. The other candi- 

 dates are all graduates of the University of Edinburgh, and in 

 order of seniority are as follows : — Dr. John Wyllie, Dr. Byrom 

 Bramwell, Dr. Alexander James and Dr. G. A. Gibson. Dr. 

 Osier is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 

 while the other candidates are all Fellows of the Royal College 

 of Physicians of Edinburgh. 



The second malaria expedition of the Liverpool School of 

 Tropical Medicine, composed of Drs. Annett, Dutton and 

 Elliott, started yesterday for Nigeria, where they will remain 

 for some time studying malaria and health problems. 



The annual general meeting of the Chemical Society will be 

 held on Thursday, March 29, at 3 p.m. At this meeting the 

 Longstaff Medal will be presented to Prof. W. H. Perken, 

 Junr., F.R.S. In the evening the Bunsen Memorial Lecture 

 will be delivered by Sir Henry E. Roscoe, F.R.S. 



Science has to regret the loss of another of its eminent votaries. 

 Dr. E. J. Lowe, F.R.S., who died on the loth mst. at Shire- 

 newton Hall, Chepstow, was best known by his indefatigable 

 labours for the determination of the climate of Nottingham, at 

 which place he was born, in November 1825. His meteoro- 

 logical observations began in 1840, and were continued there until 

 1882, when he removed from Highfield House to Shirenewton 

 Hall. The results of this long series of observations were pub- 

 lished in several valuable works, including " The Climate of 

 Nottinghamshire." He also published many other treatises, e.g. 

 "Barometrical Tables," as early as 1857, "Weather Prog- 

 nostics," and the "Natural Phenomena of the Seasons." 



