July 28, 1904J 



NA TURE 



^o■■ 



ha\e had the g^reatest attraction for him. Finally, 

 whrn he settled down to the continuous study of 

 astronomy and procured a powerful reflector suitable 

 for his purpose, he introduced many small conveniences 

 to assist the work, which no doubt contributed in a 

 lartje measure to his ultimate success ; for at the 

 time he began his work astronomers had not recog- 

 nised with the keenness they do now the necessity of 

 controlled driving clocks to equatorials, and other 

 happy suggestions for lightening the labour or the 

 irksomeness of prolonged exposure in photographic 

 work. This was the direction in which Dr. Roberts 

 chose to work, and in which he earned a well merited 

 renutation. It may be said of his early photographs 

 that they were a revelation, and they are still worthy 

 of profound study, though others working- with more 

 powerful instruments, and guided, it may be, by his 

 earlv experience, have equalled and possibly surpassed 

 them in the amount of detail shown. Two handsome 

 volumes containing photographs of nebulae and star 

 clusters, which r)r. Roberts published at his own 

 expense and widely distributed, speak to his industry 

 and liberality, and his mechanical genius found another 

 outlet by constructing- a machine for the ready copy- 

 ing or transference of the positions of the stars photo- 

 gr.-iphed, to copper plates, from which they could be 

 readilv printed. How far this device has been used 

 is uncertain : probablv mechanical photographic pro- 

 cesses have supplanted it. 



.Another feature in Dr. Roberts's methods which was 

 eminently practical and worthy of imitation was the 

 care he displayed in selecting a site for his observ- 

 atory. His desire was to secure a good observing- 

 atmosphere and the greatest freedom from clouds, and 

 manv and minute were his inquiries, both at home 

 and abroad, before he settled on Crowborough Hill, 

 where his observatory was finally situated. Even 

 shortly before his death he visited Las Palmas for the 

 purpose of making- some observations which required 

 good observing conditions, and it will be to the regret 

 of many friends that his activity and his energy are 

 lost to us while he was still eager and capable of 

 pursuing his favourite study. 



The deceased astronomer, w'ho had been elected a 

 fellow of the Royal Society and many other learned 

 bodies, was in his seventy-fifth year. He was twice 

 married, on the second occasion to Miss Dorothea 

 Klumpke, whose name and reputation are known 

 throughout Europe, and to whom the deepest sympathy 

 will be tendered. 



NOTES. 

 We regret to have to record the death, at the age of 

 v?ighty-two, of .Sir John Simon, K.C.B., F.R.S., which took 

 place on Saturday last. 



The death is announced of Prof. Trasbot, formerly 

 •director of the .Alfort School, at the age of seventy-two 

 years. He had been a member of the Paris Academy of 

 Medicine since iS86, and was the author of many works 

 relating to pathology, epidemic diseases, and sanitary 

 administration. 



The death is announced also of Dr. J. Bell Hatcher, 

 ■curator of vertebrate zoology at the Carnegie Museum, Pitts- 

 ■biirg, at the age of forty-six years. 



The Berlin correspondent of the Lancet states that Prof. 

 Koch will vacate his position as chief of the Royal Institu- 

 tion for Infectious Diseases on October i, in order that he 

 may have more time for scientific research. He will, how- 

 ever, continue to be connected with the institution, and, by 

 special order of the Government, will have on the premises 



NO. 18 I 3, VOL. 70] 



a laboratory furnished at the public expense, and the clinical 

 material of the institution will be placed at his disposal. 

 We learn also from the same source that Prof. Koch is to 

 succeed Prof. Virchow in the membership of the Royal 

 Academy, Berlin, and that his successor as chief of the 

 Institution for Infectious Diseases will be Prof. Gaffky, 

 now of the University of Giessen. Prof. Gaffky 's acceptance 

 of Prof. Koch's chair in the University of Berlin was 

 announced in our issue of July 14. 



It is announced in Science that Mr. H. C. Russell, 

 Government Astronomer of New South Wales, is to retire 

 at the end of the present year, after forty-six years' service. 



The seventy-second annual meeting of the British Medical 

 Association was opened at Oxford on Tuesday last, when 

 the president. Dr. Collier, delivered his address. In the 

 evening a reception was held in the Sheldonian Theatre, and 

 the Middlemore prize for the best original work on 

 ophthalmology brought out during the past three years was 

 awarded to Mr. J. Herbert Parsons. 



The Lord Provost of Glasgow opened on Thursday last 

 the health exhibition which has been organised in connection 

 with the twenty-ninth autumn congress of the Sanitary 

 Institute now in session at Glasgow. The exhibition is 

 divided into colonial, niunicipal, and educational sections, 

 and among the exhibits are a model hospital and a model 

 one-house dwelling. 



The congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health at 

 Folkestone was opened on Thursday last and closed on 

 Tuesday. 



An intercolonial agricultural conference was opened in 

 Pretoria on Monday last, and the delegates will discuss, 

 among other subjects, the formation of a Central South 

 African Agricultural Union, African coast fever, the native 

 question, irrigation, and fruit and cotton growing. 



The sixth centenary of the birth of Petrarch opened at 

 .Arezzo on July 20. The Count of Turin represented the 

 King of Italy, and Signer Orlendo, Minister for Public 

 Instruction, represented the Italian Government. An 

 artistic tablet was unveiled at the house in the Via dell' Orto 

 in which Petrarch was born, and later there was a memorial 

 ceremony in the Politeama Aretino. The festivities lasted 

 until July 25. 



The new hall of the Royal Horticultural Society in 

 Vincent Square, Westminster, was opened by His Majesty 

 the King on Friday last. The building, which includes a 

 library, offices, council chambers, and a lecture room, in 

 addition to the large hall in which the society will hold its 

 fortnightly exhibitions, has been built to celebrate the 

 centenary of the society. In the address which Sir Trevor 

 Lawrence read to the King and Queen the work of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society was reviewed, and in regard 

 to the efforts of the collectors sent out by the society in the 

 nineteenth century, it was said, in the words of Mr. Andrew 

 Murray, that " the results have affected the appearance of 

 all England. Nowhere can a day's ride now be taken where 

 the landscape is not beautified by some of the introductions 

 of the Royal Horticultural Society." Perhaps nothing 

 indicates more clearly the way in which the society has 

 promoted the science and art of horticulture than the fact 

 that whereas there were one thousand three hundred fellows 

 in 1887, there are now eight thousand, one hundred and fifty. 

 Baron Sir Henry Schroeder presented the report of the 

 building and appeal committees, in which it was stated that 

 twenty-six thousand pounds had been subscribed towards 

 the cost of the hall, which will amount in the end to forty 



