February 15, 1906] 



NA TURE 



>7i 



Sir William Crookes has been elected a corresponding 

 member of the physical section of the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences in succession to the late M. Bichat. 



The second congress of the German Rdntgen Society 

 ■will be held at Berlin on April 1-2 , under the presidency 

 ■of Prof. Eberlein. 



The largest steel ingot ever made was cast at Man- 

 chester on February 1. It weighed no less than 120 tons, 

 and was cast on the Whitworth system of fluid com- 

 pression. The 120 tons of molten steel were subjected to 

 a pressure of 12,000 tons in order to make the ingot 

 homogeneous and sound throughout. 



In order to lessen the smoke and soot nuisance in the 

 town of Helsingfors, the municipal authorities have 

 appointed an engineer, Mr. Ed. Cedercreutz, first to ex- 

 amine and test the boiler and furnace installations in the 

 town, and then to propose suitable means for diminishing 

 the above mentioned source of annoyance. 



In honour of the late Prof. Edouard Grimaux, who by 

 reason of his numerous chemical researches, and par- 

 ticularly his contributions on the atomic theory, has taken 

 a high place among French men of science, it is proposed 

 to erect some form of memorial in his native town of 

 Rochefort-sur-Mer. Contributions to the memorial fund 

 are to be addressed to the Mayor of Rochefort, M. E. 

 Marianelli. 



The Society of German Portland Cement Manufacturers 

 will hold its twenty-ninth general meeting in Berlin on 

 February 16-17. On the agenda list are the following 

 papers, amongst others : — Report from the society's labor- 

 atory, Dr. Framm, of Karlshorst ; report of the sea-water 

 commission, Dr. Eng. Rudolf Dyckerhoff, of Amdneburg ; 

 report of the committee for examining the change of 

 volume and the time of binding of Portland cement, Dr. 

 Miiller, of Riidersdorf ; hydraulic binding appliances, 

 Dr. Goslich, of Zullchow; rotating furnaces, Dr. 

 Michaelis, sen., of Berlin ; the acidity of water and its 

 removal, Mr. H. Wehner, of Kissingen. 



On January 28, at Stensjoholm, near Ryssby, in Sweden, 

 the agricultural chemist Prof. Alexander MCiller died in 

 his seventy-eighth year. A native-born German, Miiller 

 received his early education in Chemnitz and Freiburg, and 

 at the University of Leipzig. In 185 1 he was appointed 

 lecturer in chemistry at the Trade School in Chemnitz ; 

 from (here, in 1856, he was appointed director of the 

 agricultural experimental section of the Landbruks 

 Academy in Stockholm, and consulting agricultural adviser 

 for Sweden and Norway. In this capacity Miiller dis- 

 played great ingenuity in conducting numerous practical 

 experimental investigations for the welfare of Scandinavian 

 agriculture. The earliest of his published researches dealt 

 chiefly with dairy methods, hygienic questions, and the 

 proper working of various soils. In later years he 

 occupied himself mainly with questions relating to the 

 cleansing of towns, and, indeed, published a number of 

 papers on this subject. 



By the death on January 13, at the early age of forty- 

 six, of Prof. A. S. Popow, physical science in general, and 

 Russian science in particular, has lost one of the pioneer 

 band of physicists in the field of wireless telegraphy. 

 After studying at the St. Petersburg University from 1877 

 to 1883, Prof. Popow was appointed first an assistant, and 

 later professor of physics in the Mining School for Officers 

 at Kronstadt, whilst he also delivered lectures at the 



NO. 1894, VOL J?)] 



Technical High School for the Russian Marine from 1890 

 to 1901. His zeal for work was extraordinary; although 

 he devoted himself strenuously to experimental work in 

 different branches of electrotechnics, he also found time to 

 superintend the electrical station at Nijni Novgorod, 

 whither he betook himself each summer. His work in 

 1895 was particularly rich in results, for in the summer 

 of that year he succeeded in signalling over long distances 

 bv means of electromagnetic waves, and also invented an 

 apparatus for graphically indicating and recording storms, 

 which in 1896 was introduced into the meteorological 

 observatory of the St. Petersburg Forest Academy, whilst 

 the Parisian firm of Dacretoit constructed a receiving 

 station for wireless telegraphy according to Popow's plans, 

 which have been taken as a model for the installation 

 throughout the Russian Marine. In 1905 Popow was 

 appointed professor of physics at the electrochemical insti- 

 tute in St. Petersburg, and on September 2S, 1905, on the 

 declaration of the academic freedom of Russian universities, 

 he was elected director of the institute. Popow's intel- 

 lectual gifts, his attachment to scientific research, and 

 geniality of intercourse at all times, secured for him the 

 warmest sympathy and respect from both colleagues and 

 students. 



In reply to the request made by Prof. S. P. Thompson 

 in last week's Nature (p. 340) for the dates of birth and 

 death of William Nicol, the inventor of the Nicol prism, 

 two correspondents state that Nicol was born about 1768 

 and died in 1851 at Edinburgh, where he was a teacher 

 of physics. (See the " Century Cyclopedia of Names " 

 published by the Times, p. 737.) 



It is announced by Science that there is a movement 

 being started to present to the City of Philadelphia a 

 statue of Dr. Joseph Leidy. Dr. Leidy, who was born in 

 that city in 1823, and died there in 1891, added much to 

 its scientific eminence, and as president of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences, professor of human and comparative 

 anatomy and zoology in the University of Pennsylvania, 

 and president of the Wagner Free Institute of Science, 

 accomplished much for these institutions. 



The Cairo correspondent of the Times states that Mr. 

 T. Barron, the geological surveyor to the Anglo-Sudan 

 Administration, died on January 31 at El Koweit. While 

 in the Survey Department of the Public Works Ministry 

 in Cairo, Mr. Barron rendered excellent services in revising 

 the geology of the country between Cairo and Suez. In 

 1904 Mr. Barron's services were lent to the Sudan Govern- 

 ment, and part of the work with which he was then 

 entrusted included the investigation of the lignite deposits 

 of Tchelga, in north-west Abyssinia. He eventually joined 

 the Sudan service. 



Dr. C. G. Seligmann, Hunterian professor for 1906, 

 delivered the first of his three lectures on Monday in the 

 theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons, and took as 

 his subject the " Physical Anthropology and Ethnology of 

 British New Guinea." After directing attention to the 

 general features of New Guinea, Dr. Seligmann proceeded 

 to classify the natives of British New Guinea into four 

 main stocks, Papuo-Melanesian in the south-east, Motuan 

 around Port Moresby, Eastern Papuan in the hinterland 

 or mountainous region, and West Papuan in the large 

 western area, much of which is still unknown. The 

 lecturer pointed out that there were linguistic and other 

 resemblances between his Papuo-Melanesian stock and the 

 island Melanesians, particularly those of the Solomon 

 Islands. There is an area of brachycephaly on the west 



