JuLy 23, 1914] 
NATURE 
535 
many students—Beilstein, Baeyer, Landolt, L. 
Meyer, and Roscoe—who were destined later to 
become distinguished in the science of chemistry. 
After taking his doctorate in 1856, he left 
Heidelberg, and studied for a time in Paris. On 
the recommendation of Dumas he entered the 
alkali works of Kuhlmann in Lille; but industrial 
chemistry had no attractions for him, and in 1859 
he was back again in Vienna in Schr6tter’s labora- 
tory, where he remained until 1861. In 1862 he 
made a second visit to Paris, where he met Can- 
nizzaro, who offered him a post in the laboratory 
at Palermo, where he ultimately became profes- 
sor. In 1867 he was elected to the chair of 
chemistry at Turin, and remained there until 1871, 
when he was appointed to a professorship at 
Prague. in 1875, on the death of Rochleder, he 
was called to fill one of the two recently created 
chairs at the new University Institute at Vienna, 
where he remained for thirty years, actively en- 
gaged in teaching and research, until his failing 
health obliged hin: to retire. He is described as a 
lucid lecturer and brilliant experimenter, and his 
lectures were largely attended by students, many 
of whom later became secondary-school teachers 
or obtained important positions in various chemi- 
cal industries. 
.The esteem in which Lieben was held by them 
and by his colleagues is shown by the celebrations 
which attended his fiftieth jubilee and seventieth 
anniversary in 1906, and by the numerous honours 
‘and distinctions which were conferred upon him 
in his later years. His researches cover a wide 
field, and include important investigations in in- 
organic and physical chemistry; but his principal 
contributions lie in the domain of organic chem- 
istry. He was among the earliest investigators to 
adopt Kekulé’s new structural formule. 
One of his first researches was carried out in 
Wurtz’s laboratory in Paris (1856-1859) on the 
action of chlorine on acetaldehyde, alcohol, and 
ether, which led to the discovery of the chloro- 
acetals and dichloro-ethers ; but his most produc- 
tive period was during the time he held the chairs 
at Turin and Vienna, where he became associated 
with Rossi and later with Zeisel and with Hai- 
tinger. In Turin he began his investigations on 
the synthesis of the alcohols by the method of 
Piria and Limpricht by heating the calcium salts 
of the fatty acids with calcium formate, and thus 
obtaining aldehydes which on reduction yielded 
the alcohols. In this way he prepared a series of 
alcohols from methyl alcohol to hexyl alcohol. 
This was followed by a study of the aldol and 
crotonic aldehyde condensation, which he applied 
to.a variety of aldehydes, and obtained by reduc- 
tion new glycols and alcohols. It was at this time 
that he discovered the iodoform reaction for ethyl 
alcohol which goes by his name. But one of his 
most interesting contributions which he carried 
out with Haitinger during 1883-85 is on the 
structure of chelidonic acid (a constituent of the 
yellow juice of the greater celandine), which was 
recognised as a pyrone derivative, and was con- 
verted into a hydroxypyridine carboxylic acid by 
the action of ammonia. 
NG. 2334, VOL. .93)| 
Lieben also interested himself in what is now 
termed biochemistry. By the aid of the iodoform 
reaction he was able to detect small quantities of 
alcohol in urine, and also gave some attention to 
the reduction products of carbon dioxide under 
the influence of light in an attempt to elucidate 
the process of plant assimilation. }. Bee 
THE REV. OSMOND FISHER. 
ULL of years, but with interests unabated and 
working until within a few days of the end, 
the veteran geologist, Osmond Fisher, passed 
away on July 12, at the age of ninety-six. 
He was born on November 17, 1817, at Os- 
mington, in Dorset, of which place his father, the 
Rev. (afterwards the Ven.) John Fisher, was 
vicar. Educated at Eton under Dr. Keate and at 
King’s College, London, he proceeded in 1836 to 
Jesus College, Cambridge, from which he gradu- 
ated as eighteenth wrangler in 1841, the year in 
which Stokes was senior. He was ordained 
deacon in 1844, and priest the following year. 
After a short period of clerical work at Writhling- 
ton, near Radstock, and Dorchester, he returned 
to Cambridge in 1853 as tutor of Jesus College, 
but left after four years’ work on his presentation 
to the college living of Elmstead, near Colchester. 
In this year, also, he married Maria Louisa, 
daughter of Mr. Hastings N. Middleton, of Ilsing- 
ton House, near Dorchester. In 1867 he was 
presented to another college living, that of Harl- 
ton, near Cambridge, and here he resided until his 
retirement in 1go6. The last eight years of his 
life were spent in the home of his eldest son, the 
rector of Graveley, near Huntingdon. He lies 
buried in the quiet Harlton churchyard, within 
sight of his forty years’ home. 
From his childhood, Mr. Fisher was a geolo- 
gist. Fossils collected from the Coral Rag before 
he was fifteen are now in the Sedgwick Museum. 
His contributions to pure geology relate to beds 
of Cretaceous or more recent date. Among them 
may be mentioned his papers on the Bracklesham 
beds, the phosphatic deposits of the Cambridge 
Greensand, and the mammaliferous deposits of 
Barrington, as well as those on the “trail”? and 
the denudations of Norfolk. 
It is, however, as a physical geologist that 
Mr. Fisher is most widely known. His originality 
in this branch of geology is shown by the facts 
that in 1841 the contraction theory of mountain- 
formation occurred to him, and that in 1855 he 
attributed the Visp earthquake of that year to the 
growth of a fault. That he was by no means a 
slave to his own theories is equally manifest, for 
| by 1873 he had abandoned the contraction theory, 
believing the cause invoked to be incapable of 
producing the known inequalities of the earth’s 
surface. With the contraction theory went also 
his belief in the practical solidity of the earth’s 
interior, and from this time dates his champion- 
ship of the hypothesis of a liquid substratum be- 
tween the solid crust and core of the earth, and 
of the well-known theory of mountain-building 
with which his name will always be connected. It 
