I IO 



NA TURE 



[December 4, 1902 



The work of the two philosophers was, in fact, complementary, 

 and the extraordinary development in recent years of physical 

 chemistry must be attributed to the cooperative influence of 

 their concurrent views. 



Darwin Medal. 



Mr. Francis Gallon, F.R.S. 



The Darwin Medal is conferred upon Mr. Francis Galton 

 for his numerous contributions to the exact study of heredity 

 and variation contained in "Hereditary Genius,'' "Natural 

 Inheritance/' and other writings. 



The work of Mr. Galton has long occupied a unique position 

 in evolutionary studies. His treatise on " Hereditary Genius" 

 (1869) was not only what it claimed to be, the first attempt to 

 investigate the special subject of the inheritance of human 

 faculty in a statistical manner and to arrive at numerical results, 

 but in it exact methods were, for the first time, applied to the 

 general problem of heredity on a comprehensive scale. 



The work thus begun was continued and extended in a long 

 series of publications (see bibliography in "Natural Inheritance," 

 pp 219-20), conspicuously in " Natural Inheritance " (1S89), a 

 publication which marks a distinct advance in these studies, both 

 by definition of the problems of variation and heredity and by 

 the introduction of novel methods. Subsequently Mr. Galton, 

 with a greater emphasis, enunciated (Roy. Soc. Proc, vol. lxi., 

 1897, p. 401) the central conclusion to which his long investiga- 

 tions had led him, in the form universally familiar to biologists 

 as " Galton's Law of Heredity," a principle now recognised as 

 of wide application in nature. 



Contributing to the total of Mr. Galton's work, numerous 

 other subjects might be mentioned, which he has elucidated with 

 a genius peculiarly Darwinian. In all his researches he has 

 been a pioneer, and indeed, with the single exception of 

 Ouetelet, we may almost say that no one preceded him. His 

 work is generally acknowledged to constitute a new departure 

 in biology, and to form a natural continuation of Darwin's 

 labours. Besides their intrinsic value, the special charm of his 

 writings has exercised a notable influence on the minds of others, 

 stimulating them to work in the same fields. It may safely be 

 declared that no one living has contributed more definitely to 

 the progress of evolutionary study, whether by actual discovery 

 or by the fruitful direction of thought, than Mr. Galton. 



Buchanan Medal. 

 Dr. Sydney A. Monckton Copeman. 



The Buchanan Medal, awarded every five years for distin- 

 guished services to hygienic science or practice, is given to 

 Dr. Sydney A. Monckton Copeman for his experimental 

 investigations into the bacteriology and comparative pathology 

 of vaccination. 



Dr. Copeman is well known, both in this country and abroad, 

 for his contributions to the scientific basis and practice of pre- 

 ventive medicine. His earliest work in this field was an inves- 

 tigation into lead poisoning from drinking water in Yorkshire. 

 The importance and value of his " Report to the British 

 Medical Association " was such as to at once attract the notice 

 of the late Sir George Buchanan, and he was shortly after ap- 

 pointed one of Her Majesty's Inspectors on the Local Govern- 

 ment Board. Then he commenced, and in such leisure time as 

 official duties have left him has continuously prosecuted with re- 

 markable success, important researches into the nature of 

 the vaccine virur, and on the contaminations, bacterial and 

 other, of vaccine lymph. His work has, besides re- 

 sults of theoretic importance, brought practical results in 

 the form of great improvements in the storage and preservation 

 of lymph used in this country. He has also shown the possi- 

 bility of obtaining useful vaccine lymph by passage through 

 animals other than the calf. It may also be added that he has 

 contributed a considerable amount of knowledge to the physio- 

 logical chemistry of animal pigments, and has elaborated a test 

 for distinguishing between the blood pigment of man and that 

 of other mammals, a test which is practicable for medico-legal 

 inquiries. 



Hughes Medal. 



Prof. Joseph John Thomson, F.R.S. 



The Hughes Medal is awarded to Prof. Joseph John Thomson 

 in recognition of his contributions to the advancement of electrical 



NO. I727, VOL. 67] 



science, especially in connection with the phenomena of electric 

 discharge through rarefied gases. 



The explanation of the brilliant and remarkable phenomena 

 attending electric discharge through highly rarefied gas has long 

 remained an enigma, though it was early recognised by Maxwell 

 and other philosophers that the simplicity of the conditions that 

 must prevail in rarefied matter would probably some day furnish 

 the key to much that is fundamental in electrical action. 

 Following at a considerable interval the earlier work of Pliicker 

 and Hittorf, the improvement in the production and regula- 

 tion of high vacua led Crookes into the exploration of a new 

 and very striking class of phenomena, those grouped around 

 the kathode rays, and he adduced much evidence, backet) 

 by the authority of Sir George Stokes, to show that these 

 rays consist of streams of electrified particles projected 

 from the kathode to the electric current. The nature and 

 origin of these torrents of particles remained an unsolved 

 question. Though Schuster showed that some kind of sub- 

 permanent dissociation of electrolytic character accompanied the 

 electric discharge, his admirably planned attempt to determine 

 the relation between the charges and masses of the kathode 

 particles did not lead to decisive results ; while the advances 

 made by Goldstein, Hertz and others in Germany were dominated 

 by the view that the phenomena were due to disturbances pro- 

 pagated in the ether rather than to projected particles. When, in 

 1889, Prof. J. J. Thomson announced, as the result of his 

 measurements of the magnetic deflection of the kathode rays, 

 their relation to the rays of Lenard, and other properties, that 

 each kathode particle carried the normal electrolytic molecular 

 charge and moved with a velocity which was a considerable 

 fraction of that of radiation, and more especially that the mass 

 of the particles was only about the thousandth part of the mass 

 of the chemical atom, it was felt that, if these conclusions were 

 confirmed, experiment had forced a way into the very ulti- 

 mate foundations of physical phenomena, into regions which 

 might fairly have been thought to be beyond human 

 scrutiny. Weighty evidence had indeed already been 

 adduced on theoretical grounds that any complete and 

 consistent rationale of the known electrical laws almost 

 demanded that electricity should be of an atomic character, like 

 matter itself; and the magnetic action in spectra, discovered by 

 Zeeman, illustrated and directed attention to this result ; but no 

 presumption was anywhere entertained that the electrical atom 

 could so soon become the subject of direct experiment. By 

 virtue of Prof. Thomson's own investigations, and of many 

 others inspired and stimulated by him, this new field of know- 

 ledge has been widely extended. It is now known that the 

 conductivities induced in gases by the Rontgen radiation, by 

 chemical action, by radio-active substances, even by a hot wire, 

 are closely connected in character and all take place by electric 

 convection of such ultimate atomic charges. 



It can hardly be doubted that the progress of this new depart- 

 ment of knowledge will gradually enable us to see one whole 

 stage deeper into the sources of physical phenomena. 



NOTES. 



At the meeting of the Royal Society on November 27, the 

 following were elected by ballot foreign members of the 

 Society : — Prof. Waldemar Christofer Brogger, Prof. Gaston 

 Darboux, Prof. Ewald Hering, Mr. George William Hill, Prof. 

 Albert Abraham Michelson, Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen, 

 Graf H. zu Solms-Laubach, and Prof. Julius Thomsen. 



The Emperor of Germany never neglects an opportunity 

 of expressing his appreciation of the important part which 

 science plays in national progress, and his remarks are not only 

 encouraging to workers in all departments of natural knowledge, 

 but also of value in determining the attitude of the public to- 

 wards scientific work. In a speech at Aix-la-Chapelle in June 

 last, he described the German Empire as mainly intellectual and 

 scientific, and on November 28 he alluded to the same point in 

 the course of a speech delivered at Gorlitz, where a "hall of 

 fame " has been erected. From a translation of the text of his 



