612 
NATURE 
[JANUARY 29, I914 
necessitating the reduction and collation of many 
series of observations of zenith distance, and 
that it was pursued with unswerving determina- 
tion is the more meritorious as previous com- 
puters, misled by Euler’s investigation of the 
behaviour of an absolutely rigid earth, had de- 
cided that no term of a periodic character could 
be detected. Undismayed by this negative result, 
Chandler, putting aside all suggestive hypotheses, 
based his inquiry solely on the observations them- 
selves, and accepted the results these offered. 
He was thus driven to the inevitable conclusion, 
first, that the latitude variation had a period of 
428 days, a decision that was subsequently modi- 
fied by showing that the complicated motion could 
be best explained by the superposition of two 
variations, one in fourteen, and the other in 
twelve months. 
These valuable investigations merit in the 
highest degree the attention not only of those who 
are especially devoted to astronomical and mathe- 
matical researches, but also of that large and 
ever-increasing class which is anxious for general 
knowledge with regard to the physical phenomena 
of our globe. This work merited and ob- 
tained the recognition of the Royal Astronomical 
Society, which awarded Dr. Chandler the gold 
medal. It was his greatest achievement, but there 
are other grounds on which he merits the gratitude 
of astronomers, who will regret the loss of one 
who equally adorned the threefold divisions of 
computational, observational, and instrumental 
astronomy. ‘ W. E. P. 
NOTES. 
We announce with profound regret the death on 
Saturday, January 24, in his seventy-first year, of Sir 
David Gill, K.C.B., F.R.S., formerly H.M. Astro- 
nomer at the Cape of Good Hope. 
Brrore Lord Strathcona was carried to his grave in 
Highgate Cemetery on Monday, there was an impres- 
sive memorial service at Westminster Abbey, at which 
the King and Queen and Queen Alexandra were repre- 
sented. The ten pall-bearers, selected on account of 
their special connection with Canada, or personal 
relationship with Lord Strathcona, were :—Lord Aber- 
deen, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Lichfield, the Very Rev. 
George Adam Smith (Principal of Aberdeen Univer- 
sity), Mr. W. L. Griffith (secretary of the Canadian 
High Commissioner’s Office), the Duke of Argyll, the 
Lord Mayor, Mr. Harcourt (Colonial Secretary), Sir 
William Osler (regius professor of medicine, Oxford), 
and Sir Thomas Skinner (deputy-governor of the 
Hudson’s Bay Company). A large number of distin- 
guished people were present at the Abbey service, 
including representatives of many scientific societies 
and similar bodies. Among these were Sir William 
Crookes and Sir Archibald Geikie (Royal Society), 
the President of Magdalen (the University of Oxford), 
the Master of Downing (the University of Cambridge), 
Mr. J. G. Colmer. (Canada Club), Sir William Ram- 
say, Sir Boverton Redwood, and Lady Lockyer 
NO. 2309, VOL. 92] 
(British Science Guild), Sir Frederick Macmillan 
(National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy, of 
which-Lord Strathcona was president), Sir Francis 
Champneys, Sir Henry Morris, and Mr. J. Y. W- 
MacAlister (Royal Society of Medicine), Colonel Sir 
T. H. Holdich (Royal Geographical Society), Dr. I. H. 
Tudsbery (Institution of Civil Engineers), and Sir 
Charles Lyall and Prof. Ernest Gardner (League of 
the Empire). Lord Strathcona was one of the trustees 
of the British Science Guild, and took a practical 
interest in developments of scientific and educational 
work. His benefactions to McGill University, Mon- 
treal, exceeded a quarter of a million; he gave 25,oool. 
to Marischal College, Aberdeen, and endowed a chair 
of agriculture in Aberdeen University. He also estab- 
lished and endowed the Royal Victoria College for 
Women at Montreal, and made many _ other 
generous gifts to higher education. The Toronto 
correspondent of The Times reports that at 
a memorial service held on Monday at McGill 
University in honour of Lord Strathcona, Prin- 
cipal Peterson said :—‘‘ The late Chancellor’s contribu- 
tion to education constituted no mere stereotyped or 
conventional form of benevolence. In scientific, medi- 
cal, and higher education for women he was a pioneer 
with a marked power of initiative which had been felt 
all over Canada.” 
Tue wife of Dr. Weir Mitchell survived him 
only a few days. She became ill shortly after his 
funeral, and died of pneumonia on January 15. Mrs. 
Mitchell was in her seventy-ninth year. 
Pror. D. H. TENNENT, of Bryn Mawr, has com- 
pleted a biological investigation he has been conduct- 
ing in Thursday Island in connection with the Car- 
negie research fund. , 
Pror. W. M. Davis, the Harvard geologist, is about 
to carry out an exploration of some of the coral 
islands in the Pacific. He is so arranging his tour as 
to be able to attend the meetings of the British 
Association in Australia. 
Dr. E. C. Spirzka, a former editor of The American 
Journal of Neurology, has died in New York in his 
sixty-second year. From 1885 to 1887 he was pro- 
fessor of medical jurisprudence and neurology at the 
New York Post-Graduate Medical College. 
Tue death is reported, in his sixty-ninth year, of 
Dr. G. W. Peckham, a former president of the Wis- 
consin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, and 
librarian of the Milwaukee public library. He was 
distinguished by his studies in entomology, and had 
collaborated with his wife in writing numerous works 
on that subject. 
Tue death is reported, in his sixtieth year, of Dr. 
B. O. Peirce, who had held the Hollis chair of mathe- 
matics and natural philosophy at Harvard since 1888. 
He was the author of ‘‘Experiments in Magnetism,” 
“Theory of the Newtonian Potential Function,’’ and 
“Table of Integrals,” besides numerous papers on 
mathematics and physics. 
On Thursday next, February 5, Sir Thomas H. 
Holland will begin a course of two lectures at the 
