| 
NoveMBER 6, 1913] 
NATURE 
393 
terms of a percentage of the average of mean daily 
areas are given as follows :— 
Period 13% months. Percentage 13-6 
al at 
”? “2 ” ” 9 
s 65 sa ie 10°I 
Mr. Royds concludes by adding that other inde- 
pendent. prominence data which are sufficiently com- 
plete and continuous are, however, highly desirable 
in order to establish firmly the reality of these periods. 
PRESENTATION OF BUST OF LORD 
KELVIN. 
Ae the general statutory meeting of the Royal 
Society of Edinburgh, held on October 27, a 
marble bust of the late Lord Kelvin, by Mr. A. M’Far- 
lane Shannan, which had been given by Lady Kelvin 
Marble bust of Lord Kelvin. 
to the society, was formally presented and received. 
Sir William Turner, the retiring president, occupied 
the chair, and there was a large and representative 
gathering of the fellows and the general public. Prof. 
Crum Brown made the presentation in the name of 
Lady Kelvin. After referring to Lady Kelvin’s 
thoughtful kindness in giving this beautiful bust as a 
permanent possession of the Royal Society of Edin- 
burgh, and to his own lifelong friendship with Lord 
Kelvin, Prof. Crum Brown referred especially to Lord 
Kelvin’s “‘supreme love of truth and of his intense 
interest in everything, however apparently trivial, 
connected with the constitution or with the working 
NO. 2297, VOL. 92| 
| know something of the tree from its fruit. 
| same spirit. 
of the physical universe. These were the prime 
motives to his work, and he carried it out in the 
Having formulated a problem, he fol- 
lowed the straightest course to its solution. Of course, 
he encountered difficulties; these he did not evade, he 
surmounted them. Todosohe had often to invent and 
construct special instruments of wholly novel type. . . 
Lord Kelvin was a great mathematician. He was 
never at a loss to find the mathematical key... . 
Lord Kelvin was no intellectual miser. When in the 
course of his scientific work he came across something 
which could be so applied as to be of practical use, he 
developed this application, and thus became the in- 
ventor of instruments, truly scientific instruments, 
differing in character from those he made for purely 
scientific purposes only in this, that they were also 
used and very highly prized by those who were not 
necessarily scientific, who perhaps did not care about 
the dissipation of energy or vortex motion. These 
practical men, by using Lord Kelvin’s inventions, came 
to see that pure science was not vain; they came to 
Lord 
Kelvin was quite free from selfishness or jealousy. 
| He rejoiced in his own work and discoveries; he also 
| rejoiced in the discoveries of others. 
In questions of 
first importance to man, where science gave no help, 
Lord Kelvin was a humble and devout disciple. In 
Lady Kelvin’s name I hand over to the Royal Society 
| of Edinburgh, through you, sir, as president, this 
| beautiful work of art and striking likeness of Lord 
| Kelvin, one of the greatest discoverers in pure science, 
a true benefactor of mankind, our honoured president 
and dear friend.” 
In accepting the bust in the name of the society, 
Sir William Turner referred more particularly to Lord 
Kelvin as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
He joined the society in 1847, and continued so to be 
for the remaining sixty years of his life. His early 
communications were on the theory of heat, and their 
Transactions contained a valuable record of that bril- 
liant work. Numerous communications followed, and 
his last paper was communicated in 1906, just a year 
before his death. This was upon the initiation of 
deep-sea waves, and, as all knew, the sea and the 
deep-sea formed important features in his practical 
career. Lord Kelvin occupied the presidential chair 
for three different periods, from 1873 to 1878, from 
1886 to 1890, and from 1895 to his death in 1907. The 
second period was only for four years, the council of 
the society relieving him from the full five years at 
that time in order that he might be able to accept 
the invitation of the Royal Society of London to act as 
their president, an arrangement which was carried 
| out by mutual understanding between the two councils. 
| He asked Prof. Crum Brown to be good enough to 
| convey to Lady Kelvin their most devoted and hearty 
thanks for that admirable bust of her late husband, 
which would be one of their precious possessions. 
ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES. 
O the Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou for 1912 Prof. 
P. P. Suschkin contributes an article of more than 
200 pages on the bird-fauna of the Minussinsk district 
of the Upper Yenisei, the Sahan Mountains, and the 
Urhanchen country, an area of special interest on 
account of being the meeting-place of several sections 
of the Eastern Holarctic fauna. To the north and 
east, for instance, is the realm of the East Siberian 
fauna, while on the west we enter the great plain of 
western Siberia, with a fauna differing but slightly 
from that of Europe. To the southward is the fauna 
of Central Asia, and, finally, to the south-west that of 
Turkestan. 
