May 12, 1904] 



NA TURE 



55 



published elsewhere. " L'Hygiene sociale " embodies 

 a series of lectures given ai the Ecole des hautes Etudes 

 sociales, in which he points out forcibly that the 

 ■development of our knowledge regarding the causation 

 of disease has devolved upon us new responsibiliities as 

 individual citizens, and in which he advocates an in- 

 telligent propagandism rather than legal insistence. 



On one occasion Duclaux felt himself constrained to 

 leave the peaceful search after truth which he had been 

 pursuing all his life in his laboratories, and to enter 

 upon the turmoil of the public platform. This was on 

 the occasion of the Dreyfus case, when, thinking the 

 cause of truth was imperilled, he, with complete disre- 

 gard of all personal considerations, and, as it happened, 

 with most disastrous consequences to his health, threw 

 himself into that fierce struggle with invincible ardour. 

 He, with Zola, Grimau.x, and some other intellectiteh, 

 founded the Ligue des Droits de I'Homme, and it was 

 whilst addressing a meeting of this League that he was 

 seized with an attack of apoplexy. He made a slow 

 recovery, and regained sufficient health to resume his 

 work at the Institute, but has now succumbed to a 

 second seizure from which he never regained conscious- 

 j ness. 



Owing to the versatility of his genius and the wide 

 field of scientific subjects which occupied his attention 

 during a ver\- active life, it is difficult to form an ade- 

 quate estimate of the importance of his scientific work. 

 It will be, perhaps, on account of his researches into the 

 ferments and the chemical processes associated with the 

 life and activities of micro-organisms that he will be 

 best remembered by the world of science ; but for those 

 who have had the privilege of being his pupils and 

 associates it will be the memory of the kindly guide 

 and critic, whose enthusiasm was a continual spur to 

 effort, and whose ideas were ungrudgingly at the dis- 

 posal of every -disinterested inquirer into truth, that will 

 ■remain for ever foremost. Ch.arles J. Martin. 



SIR H. M. STAXLEV. 



THE death of .Sir H. M. .Stanley on Tuesday, at 

 sixtv-three vears of age, deprives the world of a 

 man of action, and geography of one of its greatest 

 pioneer explorers. It can truly be said that he changed 

 the map of .\frica by the results of his expeditions, and 

 his picturesque narratives created public interest in the 

 problems of .\frican exploration. 



Stanley's adventures in Central .\frica while engaged 

 in the search for Livingstone attracted great attention, 

 and his famous book, " How I Found Livingstone," 

 in which the expedition is described, has become a 

 classic work of travel. Commissioned to find Living- 

 stone, of whom nothing had been heard for two years, 

 Stanley reached Zanzibar in January, 1871, and on 

 November 10 of the same year met the explorer at 

 L'jiji, on Lake Tanganyika, where Livingstone had 

 iu>t arrived from Xvangwe. The two travellers ex- 

 plored together the north end of Tanganyika, and 

 proved conclusivelv that the river Rusizi flowed into and 

 not out of the lake, and that Tanganyil-ca had no con- 

 nection with the Nile system. In February, 187;^, 

 Livingstone started on the journey from which he never 

 returned, and Stanley made his way back to Europe. 



In 1874, Stanlev left England for the expedition to 

 Central .Africa which has immortalised him. The writer 

 of the obituary notice in the Times, from which some 

 of the particulars here given have been derived, points 

 out that little more than the position of Victoria Nyanza 

 was then known ; its shape was all wrong ; our know- 

 ledge of .Albert Nyanza was incomplete ; Lake Tangan- 

 yika was imperfectly defined ; and nothing was known 

 of the region that lies between Lakes .Albert and Tan- 

 ganvika. Stanley's expedition changed all that. He 



NO. t802, VOL. 70] 



proceeded from Bagamoyo west and north to A'ictoria 

 Nyanza, tracing a river which he believed (erroneously, 

 we now know) was the remote source of the Nile. He 

 circumnavigated the lake, and for the first time proved 

 to satisfaction that it was one great lake and not a group 

 of small lakes, and that its shape was very different 

 from that laid down in Livingstone's map. Westwards 

 to Muta Nzige, as Lake .Albert is called by the natives, 

 Stanley and his great following marched. They struck 

 a bav (Beatrice Gulf), which is now recognised as part 

 of a southern lake, afterwards named by Stanley Lake 

 Albert Edward. Important rectifications and additions 

 were made in the country lying between Victoria 

 Nyanza and the lakes to the west, and thence south to 

 Ujiji. Stanley circumnavigated Tanganyika, rectify- 

 ing its contour, and proving conclusively that the lake 

 had an outlet in the river Lukuga. 



Leaving Nyangwe in November, 1876, Stanley 

 reached Boma, near the mouth of the Congo, in 

 August, 1877. This journey across .Africa lasted two 

 vears and nine months. The results to geography were 

 certainlv immense ; it is doubtful if on any other single 

 expedition so much had been done to fill up the great 

 blank in the map of .Africa. The narrative of this ex- 

 pedition was given by Stanley in " Through the Dark 

 Continent." 



The magnitude of Stanley's discovery we are only 

 now realising, when the multitude of mighty tributaries 

 north and south are being opened up, and we are able 

 to form an estimate of the vast basin of the Congo. 



Stanley had scarcelv landed in Europe, in 1878, when 

 the King of the Belgians solicited his aid in the opening 

 up of the Congo. In the following year he returned to 

 the Congo ; and this was the beginning of what really 

 soon became the Congo Free State, under the sove- 

 reigntv of the King of the Belgians. 



In 1887, Stanley went again to Africa— this tune m 

 search of Emin Pasha. Emin was found, but the ex- 

 pedition met with several disasters. Finally, marchmg 

 through new country, exploring the Semliki River, 

 Mount Ruwenzori, and Lake Albert Edward, Stanley 

 and his followers made their way by the south of the 

 Victoria Nyanza to the coast, he reaching Zanzibar on 

 December 6, 1888, leaving Emin behind on the main- 

 land. 



On this expedition Stanley succeeded in solving some 

 important problems in the hydrography of Africa and 

 adding much to our knowledge of its geography 

 Among the geographical results were the discovery ot 

 the Semliki River, which issues from Lake A bert 

 Edward and enters the south end of Lake Albert 

 Nvan/a, the Ruwenzori range between these two lakes, 

 aiid the south-western extension of Lake Victoria. I he 

 results of this expedition are described in the volume 

 " In Darkest Africa." . r ^f■ 



Stanlev has been termed " the Bismark of African 

 exploration," and in many respects the comparison is 

 not inappropriate ; for the work he accomplished united 

 into one great whole the disjecta membra of African ex- 

 ploration, and it was carried out with firm nerve and 

 unflinching will. 



INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF 



ACADEMIES. 

 HE following is a list of the delegates who, accord- 

 ing to the'latest advices, will attend the General 

 .Assembly of the International Association of Academies, 

 to be held at the Royal Society's Rooms at Whitsun- 

 tide :— 



/linsterdam.— Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 

 Prof. H. G. van de Sande Bakhuvzen and Prof. M. J. 

 de Goeie. Berlin.— Kg\. Preussische Akademie der Wissen- 

 schaften. Prof. H. Diels, Prof. \V. Waldeyer, Prof. \V. 

 von Bezold and Prof. R. Pischel. Brussels.— .Xcadimie 



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