io4 



NA TURE 



[December 4, 1902 



two true Leonids and one slow, " stray, "spent-looking shooting- 

 star — in the strong moonlight, I should say that had the shower 

 been in any force I should have seen more, and that therefore 

 it must be taken to have been weak and to have gone past us 

 inside the earth's orbit, as it did, presumably, in the past year 

 or two. The radiant point was not determined, but it seemed 

 to be in the usual position." 



ing Fellows were elected the first members of the 

 council of the Academy :— Sir W. R. Anson, the Right 

 Hon. James Bryce, Prof. I. Byvvater, Prof. T. W. Rhys 

 Davids, the Rev. Prof. S. R. Driver, the Rev. Principal 

 Fairbairn, Sir C. P. Ilbert, K.C.S.I., Sir R. C. Jebb, the 

 Rev. Prof. J. E. B. Mayor, Dr. J. A. H. Murray, Prof. 



Date, 1902. 



Number of 



Other 

 meteors. 



Remarks. 

 (* Local Times about 25m. slow on Greenwich Time.) 



Clear horizon-belt in E. and S. ; cloudy alterwards. 

 Cloudy throughout. 



Clear : moonlight \ (2"d magn.tude meteor ; very 

 & ( slow.) 



Totals 



To complete the partial record which these notes supply of 

 the shower's apparent strength this year, at somewhat near its 

 time of greatest brightness, it may be hoped that more favour- 

 ably observed particulars of the appearance of the Leonids may 

 reach us yet from foreign places, and it might earnestly be 

 wished, as well, that notes of the number of shooting-stars 

 observed may have been kept at any distant station on the globe 

 where possibly some sensible ramification and dense clustering 

 of cometary dust along the wake of the departing meteor-stream 

 may have happened to produce a fairly bright and numerous 

 display of what it now appears probable may have to be known 

 for some time to come, if not perhaps for all coming time, as 

 the traditijnally splendid ceUstial spectacle of the November 

 Leonids. A. S. Herschei.. 



Observatory House, Slough, November 26. 



Vitality and Low Temperatures 



The remarkable results of the experiments of Prof. Macfadyen 

 and others, on the effects of low temperatures on organic life, 

 render it highly desirable to ascertain how long vitality can be 

 retained under such conditions, and with liquid air now avail- 

 able it becomes possible to extend the inquiry for an indefinite 

 number of years — a generation if necessary. 



The fact that organisms, after having been maintained for 

 six months at temperatures far below those at which vital 

 activities are possible, have retained their vitality practically 

 unimpaired, profoundly modifies the conception hitherto attached 

 to the word " life," and if it can be shown that vitality can 

 survive for a piotracted period in these circumstances, the 

 conclusion that it is a molecular function seems inevitable. 



If such an experimental result were obtained, it would 

 strengthen the possibility of Lord Kelvin's speculation that the 

 origin of life on the earth may have been ultra-tenestrial, and 

 this implies that the ultimate source would probably have to be 

 looked for under conditions not common to, posssibly transcend- 

 ing, our experience. W. J. Cai.der. 



Stellenbosch, South Africa. 



THE BRITISH ACADEMY. 



AT a general meeting of the Fellows of the British 

 Academy, held on November 19, the Right Hon. 

 Lord Reay, G.C.S.I., president of the Institute of Inter- 

 national Law and president of the Royal Asiatic Society, 

 was elected first president of the Academy. 



At the same meeting, the limes announces, the follow- 



67] 



Cloudy. 



Clear space around Leo. 



Cloudy throughout. 



Clear. 



No watch kept. 

 Clear. 



H. F. Pelham, the Rev. Prof. W. W. Skeat, Sir E" 

 Maunde Thompson, K.C.B., Dr. A. W. Ward, Prof- 

 James Ward. 



At a meeting of the council, held on November 26, 

 Mr. I. Gollancz, Fellow of the Academy, University 

 lecturer in English at Cambridge, was appointed secretary 

 of the Academy. 



In the report of the anniversary meeting of the Royal 

 Society, printed elsewhere in this issue, the position taken 

 by the Royal Society in connection with the constitution 

 of the British Academy is described. By its action, the 

 Society limits its sphere of activity to that of the experi- 

 mental sciences, and dissociates itself from the scientific 

 study of archaeology, philology, philosophy, political 

 economy and similar branches of knowledge. Its scope 

 is thus to be that of the Paris Academie des Sciences — 

 one of the five academies which constitute the Institute 

 of France — and the British Academy will correspond 

 very nearly to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles- 

 Lettres and the Academie des Sciences morales et 

 politiques. Many men of science regret that the Royal 

 Society has thus ceased to represent the totality of 

 British scientific work, as it formerly did, and has limited 

 its scope to certain branches. 



ANOTHER HO DG KINS COLD MEDAL 

 A WARDED. 



IN March last, Dr. S. P. Langley, secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, appointed a committee to 

 consider whether any discovery had been made since the 

 award of the first Hodgkins gold medal in 1899, under 

 the general terms of the gift, "the increase and diffusion 

 of more exact knowledge in regard to the nature and pro- 

 perties of atmospheric air in connection with the welfare 

 of man," which would render it proper that such a medal 

 should be again awarded. This committee consisted of 

 the following distinguished men of science : — Mr. 

 Richard Rathbun, assistant secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, chairman ; Dr. A. Graham Bell, for elec- 

 tricity ; Dr. Ira Remsen, for chemistry ; Dr. Charles D. 

 Walcott, for geology ; Prof. E. C. Pickering, for as- 

 tronomy ; Dr. Theodore N. Gill, for biology ; Prof. 



NO. 172 7, VOL 



