April 19, 1883 | 
NATURE 
587 
NOTES 
THE Queen has been pleased to confer the honour of Knight- 
hood upon Dr, C, W. Siemens, F.R.S. 
M. Wo rF has been nominated Member of the Academy of 
Sciences by 32 votes against 21 given to M. Bouquet de la Grye. 
At Monday’s meeting M. Jordan pronounced the 4oge of Prof- 
Henry Smith, and M. Bertrand gave an explanation on the 
double prize, to which we referred last week. He stated 
that the Commission was aware of the existence of the paper of 
Prof. Henry Smith, and that it was to oblige Prof. Smith to 
publish his valuable secret that the prize-subject was selected. 
Up to the present date, we understand, there have been 
-eceived in answer to the official letter of inquiry to the Members 
of the British Association, as to whether they intended to go to 
Montreal or not, replies in the affirmative from 340. Among 
these are a good many who may be said to be really representa- 
tive of English science, but as might be expected the younger 
men are present in a larger proportion than the older. 
THE Annual Meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute will take 
place at the Institution of Civil Engineers, 25, Great George 
Street, Westminster, on Wednesday, May gth, and two follow- 
ing days. On Wednesday, May 9g, the Bessemer Gold Medals 
for 1883 will be presented to Mr. George J. Snelus and Mr, 
Sidney Gilchrist Thomas. During the meeting the following 
papers will be read :—On the Value of Successive Additions to 
the Temperature of the Air used in Smelting Iron, by Mr. I. 
Lowthian Bell, D.L., F.R.S., Middlesborough ; Comparison 
of the Working of a Blast Furnace with Blast varying in Tem- 
perature from 990° F. to 1414° F., by Mr. William Hawdon, 
Middlesborough ; on American Anthracite Blast Furnace Prac- 
tice, by Mr. Thomas Hartman, Philadelphia; on the North- 
ampton Iron Ore District, by Mr. W. H. Butlin, Northampton ; 
on Steel Castings for Marine Purposes, by Mr. William Parker, 
of Lloyds ; on the Separation and Utilisation of Tar, &c., from 
Gas in Siemens’ Gas Producers, by Mr. W. S. Sutherland, 
Birmingham; on Improvements in Railway and Tramway 
Plant, by M. Albert Riche, London; on the Estimation of 
Minute Quantities of Carbon by a New Colour Method, by Mr. 
J. E. Stead, Middlesborough ; on the Tin-plate Manufacture, by 
Mr. Emest Trubshaw, Llanelly, South Wales; on the Coal- 
washing Machinery used at Bochum, in Westphalia, by Mr, 
Fritz Baare, Bochum. 
WE regret to announce that Dr. William Farr, C.B., formerly 
Superintendent of the Statistical Department of the Registrar- 
General’s Office, died on Saturday night. He was born in 1807, 
at Kenley, in Shropshire, was educated at Shrewsbury, and 
afterwards proceeded to the Universities of Paris and London. 
After discharging the duties of house-surgeon of the Infirmary 
at Shrewsbury for a short time, he continued the practice and 
teaching of medicine in London, editing the Afedical Annual 
and the British Annals of Medicine. In 1838 he was appointed 
Compiler of Abstracts in the Registrar-General’s Office, where 
he organised the stati-tical department, of which he was made 
superintendent. In this capacity he as-isted in taking the 
census in 1851, 1861, and 1871. He was author of a large 
number of articles, contributions to medical journals and papers 
relaiing to statistics of health and kindred subjects. He wrote 
many official reports on Public Health, on the Cholera Epidemic 
of 1849, and on the Census; and he constructed the English 
Life Tables, with values of annuities. Dr, Farr was Corre- 
sponding Member of the French Institute. It may be remem- 
bered that a few years ago considerable disappointment was felt 
that, when a vacancy occurred in the office of Registrar-General, 
Dr, Farr was not appointed to the post, with the work of which 
he had so long been credited. 
Major-GENERAL H. G, D. Scort, C.B., F.R.S., late Royal 
Engineers, died on Monday morning at his residence, Silverdale, 
Sydenham, aged 61. He was educated at the Royal Military 
Academy, Woolwich, and entered the Royal Engineers in 1840, 
He acted as instructor in surveying and practical astronomy at 
Chatham, and also as examiner of military topography for the 
Military Education Department at the War Office. He retired 
from the army in 1871 as major-general, and became Director of 
Buildings at South Kensington, acting as architect to the Royal 
Albert Halland Science Schools. He was secretary to the Royal 
Commissioners of the 1851 Exhibition. He has just finished 
Superintending the construction of the Great International 
Fisheries Exhibition. 
ProF,. FRANcis Marcet, who died a few days ago in London 
at an advanced age, though English by birth, was a Swiss by 
adoption and family connection, and spent the greater part of 
his long life in Geneva. Marcet’s achievements in science were 
numerous and noteworthy, and procured for him the Fellowship 
of the Royal Society. Some of his discoveries, especially those 
concerning the boiling point of water, the determination, by 
freezing, of the specific heat of solids, and, above all, his obser- 
vations at Pregny on the increase of temperature of artesian 
wells, are recognised as important. Several of these observa- 
tions were made in collaboration with his friend, Auguste de la 
Rive, In conjunction with De Candolle he made a series of 
researches in vegetable physiology and the action of poison on 
plants, and his ‘‘ Manuel de Physique élémentaire,” albeit now 
out of date, ranked forty years ago as the best scientific text- 
book of the period. 
‘THE French Government are steadily continuing their excel- 
lent work of deep-sea investigation. Their vessel, the Za/isman, 
is now being equipped and fitted out with the most improved 
machinery and apparatus, and will leave on June 15 for 
Morocco, the Canaries, Cape Verd Islands, Azores, and the 
Sea of Sargasso. Our last expedition of this kind, in the 
Challenger, although highly successful considering the great 
extent of area traversed by it, might be considered in one 
respect tentative, and ought to have led to further results, Our 
own seas have never been sufficiently investigated, while the 
Americans, Norwegians, Germans, French, and Italians have, 
especially cf late years, been indefatigable in thoroughly 
exploring their parts of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. 
FroM Monday’s debate it is evident that the new Patent Bill 
will not satisfy everybody, which was just what might be ex- 
pected. It is certainly a great improvement on the existing 
law. The provision with regard to the Patent Museum seems 
to us a step in the right direction, The Bill provides that the 
control and management of the existing Patent Museum and its 
contents shall be transferred to and vested in the Department of 
Science and Art, subject to such directions as Her Majesty in 
Council may see fit to give. The Department of Science and 
Art, moreover, may at any time require a patentee to furnish a 
a model of his invention for deposit in the Patent Museum on 
payment to the patentee of the cost of the manufacture of the 
model. Another commendable provision is that the Comptroller 
shall cause to be issued periodically an illustrated journal of 
patented inventions, as well as reports of patent cases decided 
by courts of law, and any other information that the Comptroller 
may deem generally u-eful or important. 
THE Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical Society 
has established a ‘‘ Sociological Section,” for the study of Mr. 
Herbert Spencer’s system of philosophy, The section originated 
in a wish to unite, for the purpose of mutual help, those who 
were already students of Mr. Herbert Spencer's system, but were 
unknown to each other, and to introduce to the synthetic philo- 
sophy those already engaged in some special biological study, 
