I04 



NA TURE 



[December i, 1904 



1 



chain of islands appear to be rising from a position of 

 depression, the line of the great Chilian valley is prob- 

 ably still sinking, for near the head of the Gulf of 

 Penas, and south of the isthmus of Ofqui, that con- 

 nects the peninsula of Taitao with the mainland, are 

 found forests so recently submerged as to render it 

 necessary to be cautious in steering amongst the tree 

 tops. Future generations of mankind, the author 

 thinks, may see the isthmus submerged beneath the 

 ocean, above which it is even now but slightly raised. 



Part of this isthmus is occupied by Lake San Rafael, 

 which is remarkable as the " terminus of an enormous 

 glacier that scatters huge icebergs about its waters." 

 " Is there any other glacier," the author asks, "de- 

 scending to sea level in latitude 47° either N. or S. ? " 

 \\'e know of none ; but however that may be there are 

 several that reach the sea between this point and the 

 Straits of Magellan ; and yet southern Patagonia is 

 a land of luxuriant vegetation, at least on its western 

 coasts. " Forest was everywhere about us, dense, 

 shadowy, dark and generally dripping. The long lines 

 of the higher sierra were thick with it up to the point 

 where the granite cliffs polished and smoothed by ice- 

 cap and glacier gave foothold to vegetation only on 

 their flat ledges. The little islets that seemed to chase 

 one another through the streaky grey sea were rounded 

 and packed with it." In the Ultima Esperanza dis- 

 trict in latitude 52° there are grazing grounds where 

 the sheep fatten quickly on the tufted grass of the 

 country, and are left to find their own shelter, while 

 in the neighbouring woods the puma waits his oppor- 

 tunity as he does in the tropical forests of Brazil. 

 And over the whole country, mountains, valleys, and 

 pampas alike, blow untiringly the strenuous western 

 winds, for the most part in blustering gales thai 

 succeed one another in quick succession. " In 

 no country in the world," remarks our author, 

 " must ' weather ' and climate be so differentiated as 

 in Patagonia. The weather is bad as bad can be 

 — wild and boisterous, bursting into fury, breaking 

 into sunshine, freezing the blood in one's veins with a 

 biting blizzard, or suffocating the system with the 

 still steady glare of a noonday sun, and it may do all 

 this and more in the course of a few hours' interval; 

 but whether storming or shining, tearing one's tent 

 to rags or bathing the landscape in sunshine, who can 

 describe the life-giving, purifying, sweetening, 

 strengthening effects of the climate." 



Such is Patagonia, a land that seems destined to 

 nourish a hardy race woven of many strands, among 

 which the sturdy Welsh colonists of the i6th of 

 October Valley, of whom the author has much to 

 tell us, will not be least important. To the man of 

 science it is a land of striking illustrations of long 

 established principles and of problems that will require 

 many years of research to solve, for of the story of 

 its making scarcely the first chapter — a chapter of 

 which Darwin wrote the opening pages — is yet 

 complete. J. W. E. 



LORD KELVIN AND GLASGOW 

 UNIVERSITY. 



'T* HE installation of Lord Kelvin as Chancellor of 

 •^ Glasgow University, which took place in the 

 Bute Hall on Tuesday, is an event which has few, 

 if, indeed, it has any, precedents in the recent annals 

 of our universities. The Chancellor is the head of the 

 whole university, but in practice he is rarely present 

 except on ceremonial occasions, and a great part of 

 the work which he has had to do officially is done for 

 him in .Scotland, as it is at Oxford, Cambridge, 

 London, or in the newer English universities, by the 



NO. 18.31, VOL. 71] 



^'ice-Chancellor. Many occasions arise, however, when 

 it is of importance to the universities concerned that 

 statesmen, such as the Prime Minister, who is Chan- 

 cellor of Edinburgh, .Mr. Chamberlain, who is Chan- 

 cellor of Birmingham, Lord Rosebery, who is 

 Chancellor of London, and Lord Spencer, who is 

 Chancellor of Manchester, should represent their 

 universities in Parliament or elsewhere, and such men 

 have usually been elected not so much on account of 

 their own connection with the universities they pre- 

 side over as of the eminent place they have taken in 

 the State, and the weight which must on all occasions 

 be attached to their considered opinions. Lord Kelvin 

 has been connected with the L'niversity of Glasgow 

 since his early boyhood, he has spent his life within 

 her walls, and he built up his enduring fame during 

 the fifty-three years when he was professor of natural 

 philosophy in the university. 



Lord Kelvin's father was a north of Ireland man, 

 preparing for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church. 

 In his day, and until the foundation of the Queen's 

 Colleges in Ireland, Glasgow was the university to 

 which many north of Ireland men resorted, and Lord 

 Kelvin's father was a distinguished student in 

 Glasgow, gaining prizes in many classes more than 

 ninety years since, .\bout eighty years ago he gave 

 up his studies for the ministr}- and became professor 

 of mathematics in the Belfast .Academical Institution. 

 Eight years later — in 1832 — he was elected to the 

 chair of mathematics in Glasgow, which he filled for 

 si.xteen years with eminent success. There were no 

 better text-books anywhere than those which he pub- 

 lished on the subjects of his chair, and the small 

 number of his students who remember him can 

 testify that they never met a clearer or better teacher 

 of mathematics. Prof. James Thomson had a genius 

 for teaching other things besides mathematics, and 

 both Lord Kelvin and his elder brother, who was pro- 

 fessor of engineering first in Belfast and afterwards 

 in Glasgow, owed the best of their education to their 

 father. Lord Kelvin was only twenty-two years old when 

 the university had the courage to elect him to the 

 chair of natural philosophy, on the strength 6f his 

 quite exceptional brilliancy as a student first in 

 Glasgow and afterwards in Cambridge. How he has 

 discharged the duties of his chair and how wide and 

 fruitful have been his conception of its duties is known 

 to the whole world of science. 



On Tuesday, after Lord Kelvin had been formally 

 installed as Chancellor of the L'niversity, he proceeded 

 to confer the following honorary degrees of LL.D. on 

 the recommendation of the Senate. 



Princess Louise (Duchess of Argyll), who was presi- 

 dent of Queen Margaret College until the college 

 was incorporated with the university in 1S93. The 

 Marquess of .\ilsa, who has taken a great interest in 

 naval architecture, and in its practical application to 

 the building of yachts and other vessels. Dr. J. T. 

 Bottomley, F.R.S. ; Dr. James Donaldson, principal of 

 the Universitv of St. .\ndrews ; .\dmiral .Sir John 

 Charles Dalry'mple Hay, G.C.B., F.R.S. ; Dr. J. M. 

 Lang, principal of the L'niversity of .Aberdeen ; Mr. 

 G. Slarconi ; Mr. Andrew Graham Murray, M.P., 

 Secretarv for Scotland ; the Hon. C. A. Parsons, 

 F.R.S. ; and the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir John 

 L're Primrose, Bart. 



.After conferring these degrees Lord Kelvin delivered 

 an address, in the course of which he spoke as 

 follows : — 



To be Chancellor of one of the universities of our country 

 is indeed a distinguished honour. For me to be Chancellor 

 of this my beloved University of Glasgow is more than an 

 honour. I am a child of the University of Glasgow. I. 

 lived in it sixty-seven years (1832 to 1899). But my vener- 

 ation for the ancient Scottish university, then practically 



