36 



A^A TURE 



[November io, 1904 



J. N. Langley, Mr. J. E. Marr, Sir William D. Niven, 

 K.C.B., Prof. W. H. Perkin, jun., Prof. J. Perry, Mr. A. 

 Sedgwick, Dr. W. N. Shaw, Prof. \V. A. Tilden, Rear- 

 Admiral Sir William Wharton, K.C.B. 



We announce with deep regret that Dr. Frank McClean, 

 F.R.S., died at Brussels on Tuesday morning in his sixty- 

 seventh year. 



Mr. J.^mes Cosmo Melvill has presented his general 

 herbarium to the Manchester Museum of the Victoria Uni- 

 versity. The herbarium has taken nearly forty years to 

 collect, and it was formally opened in its new quarters by 

 Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, K.C.M.G., on October 31. 



The portraits of Prof. Osborne Reynolds and Prof. A. S. 

 Wilkins, by the Hon. John Collier, will be formally presented 

 to the Victoria University of Manchester on Friday, 

 November 18. Dr. A. W. Ward, the master of Peterhouse, 

 Cambridge, formerly principal of the Owens College, and 

 Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University, will make the 

 presentation on behalf of the subscribers. 



A Christmas course of lectures, adapted to a juvenile 

 auditory, will be delivered by Mr. Henry Cunynghame, 

 C.B., at the Royal Institution, on " Ancient and Modern 

 Methods of Measuring Time." 



An inaugural dinner of Royal School of Mines men resi- 

 dent in South Africa was held at Johannesburg on Saturday, 

 October 8. The chair was taken by Mr. A. R. Sawyer, 

 president of the Geological Society of South Africa, and 

 many old students of the school were present. 



The Times correspondent at Tokio reports that a serious 

 earthquake occurred in Formosa at 4.30 a.m. on Sunday, 

 November 5. The centre of the disturbance was at Kia-yih, 

 where 150 houses were overthrown and 33 damaged, 78 

 persons killed, and 23 injured. 



The deaths are announced of Forstmeister Schering, 

 formerly professor of mathematics and geodesy in the School 

 of Forestry at Munich ; Clemens .\lexander Winkler, pro- 

 fessor at Freiberg ; and Dr. Francesco Chizzoni, professor 

 of geometry at Modena. 



The Society of Arts will commence its fourth half-century 

 on November 16, when Sir William Abney, as chairman of 

 the society's council, will open the isist session with an 

 address. The subjects on which papers will be read at the 

 meetings before Christmas include British trade, canals, 

 the St. Louis Exhibition, patent law, Burma, and street 

 architecture. There will also be a course of lectures on wind 

 instruments, with musical illustrations. 



The Times correspondent at Copenhagen announces that 

 Mr. Mylius-Erichsen's expedition returned there from 

 Greenland on November 6, having been absent two years 

 and a half. Mr. Mylius-Erichsen was accompanied by Mr. 

 Knud Rasmussen and Count Harald de Moltke, a well 

 known painter. The expedition travelled along the west 

 coast, and drove round Melville Bay on sledges. During 

 the whole time the explorers lived with the natives, learning 

 their language, and studving their mahners and customs of 

 life. 



It was decided early last year, soon alter the death of 

 Mr. F. C. Penrose, to commemorate his work in Athens by 

 building on to the Students' Hostel of the British School 

 in Athens a library to bear his name. Mr. Penrose was the 

 first director of the school in Athens, and was called on 

 more than once by the Athenian authorities to advise as to 

 the preservation of the Parthenon. The total cost of the 

 NO. 1828, VOL. 71] 



building and fittings will be about 1150!., and so far 400I. 

 has been received in subscriptions toward this object. The 

 school can, if necessary, afford out of its own resources the 

 sum of 600!., but no more, so it seems that at least 150!. 

 should be raised by subscription if the building is to be 

 opened free of debt during the archaeological congress in 

 .\thens next spring. The committee will have, it is to be 

 hoped, no difilculty in securing this further sum of money. 

 Subscriptions may be sent to Mr. George Macmillan, St. 

 Martin's Street, London, or may be paid into the account 

 of the Penrose Memorial Fund at the London and County 

 Banking Company, Ltd., Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, 

 W.C. 



Mr. J. Fletcher Moulton, F.R.S., gave an address on 

 the " Trend of Invention in Chemical Industry " before the 

 Society of Chemical Industry on Monday. In the course of 

 his remarks he said that there are two departments of great 

 interest at the moment from the inventive development they 

 are manifesting in their products. The first is that of 

 pharmaceutical products. Physiologists are beginning to 

 associate specific effects on the human organism with 

 specific chemical groups. These groups appear in count- 

 less combinations, and their effect may be masked or 

 hindered by the setting in which they are placed. It may 

 thus be that many of the forms in which these effective 

 groups have up to now been administered have influenced 

 and distorted their normal action, and a line of genuine 

 research and invention is now being pressed forward seek- 

 ing practical solutions of the problem of the best way to 

 use these operative groups. The second department concerns 

 food-stuffs. A vast waste of nutritious matter is going on 

 all round us. A substantial part of the ability now devoted 

 to the practical solution of difficult chemical questions in 

 existing industries could be usefully applied to the pre- 

 servation of food-stuffs. The main trend of invention 

 in chemical industry is rendering certain and com- 

 plete in their action processes formerly unmanageable or 

 unprofitable by reason of the uncertainty of the reactions 

 that actually and locally took place. The realisation of the 

 necessity of uniformity of conditions in order to obtain full 

 yield manifests itself not only in the efforts to improve old 

 processes, but also in the choice of new ones ; that process 

 is a good one which permits the necessary conditions to be 

 secured at every point and at every moment. 



A list of awards to exhibitors from Great Britain and 

 Ireland at the St. Louis International Exhibition has been 

 received from the secretary of the Royal Commission 

 appointed for the exhibition. The number of grand prizes 

 gained by Great Britain is 121, while 238 gold medals, 162 

 silver medals, and 132 bronze medals have been awarded 

 to British exhibitors, making a total of 653. It is therefore 

 only possible here to mention a few of the awards to men 

 of science and scientific bodies. Among these awards are 

 the following : — Department of Liberal Arts : photography, 

 grand prize, Sir W. de W. Abney, K.C.B. , F.R.S. ; the 

 Royal Observatory, Greenwich ; the Royal Photographic 

 Society ; the Solar Physics Observatory ; and Sir Benjamin 

 Stone ; gold medal, the Geological Photographs Committee 

 of the British Association ; the Cretan Exploration Fund ; 

 and the Survey of India. Maps and apparatus for geography, 

 grand prize, Board of .Vgriculture and Fisheries ; Ordnance 

 Survey of Great Britain and Ireland ; Royal Geographical 

 Society ; Admiralty (Hydrographical Department) ; the 

 Survey of India ; Palestine Exploration Fund. Chemical 

 and pharmaceutical arts, grand prize, low temperature re- 

 search exhibit of the British Royal Commission ; Sir 



