Dr. C. P. Gorrz. 
R. CARL PAUL GOERZ, the founder of the well- 
known optical and instrument-making firm of 
C. P. Goerz, died at his home in the Griinewald, Berlin, 
on January 14, at the age of sixty-nine years. The 
record of his life is a remarkable one of industry and 
_ perseverance successfully exercised in the creation of 
a great establishment for the production of scientific 
_ apparatus of precision. 
_ Although Dr. Goerz, to whom the honour of Doctor 
Ing. honoris causa was accorded by the Technical 
High School of Charlottenburg, had received no special 
academic scientific training, he realised the vital need 
for the exercise of scientific knowledge and research 
in such work as that to which he was devoted. His 
success is attributable to his commercial capacity, 
to his power of appreciating the value of the leaven 
of science in industry, and to his ability to utilise and 
- encourdge the efforts of those with whom he associated 
himself. 
_ Towards the end of 1886 Dr. Goerz commenced 
business in Berlin as a small retailer of mathematical 
instruments, and later of photographic apparatus. 
In 1887 he engaged his first employee, the number of 
whom increased to many thousands during the recent 
war. The present firm dates nominally from 1888, 
when a small and simply equipped workshop was 
established in Berlin for the manufacture principally 
of photographic cameras. For the optical computation 
of the objectives he was fortunate in engaging the 
services of Carl Moser, who died in 1892. 
Further progress resulted from the association of 
Paul Goerz with Ottomar Anschiitz, whose pioneer 
work in the instantaneous photography of animal 
action had attracted much public attention. But 
the greatest advance in the fortunes of the firm is 
attributable to the introduction of the Goerz double 
anastigmat, designed by a casual applicant for scien- 
tific employment, Emil von Héegh. 
Thereafter the progress was rapid. The present 
headquarters and well-equipped workshops were com- 
_-menced in 1894. Numerous branches were estab- 
lished in foreign countries, and during the war a large 
_ mass-production factory was erected in the suburb of 
Zehlendorf. A separate works was devoted to the pro- 
_ duction of photographic film and kindred chemical work. 
Realising the need for unrestricted supplies of 
optical glass, Dr. Goerz established on ground adjacent 
to his mass-production works at Zehlendorf the Send- 
linger optical glass works, the origin of which can be 
_ traced through the laboratories of Steinheil at Send- 
linger near Munich to the original glass works of 
Fraunhofer. 
Dr. Goerz is survived by his second wife and by a 
daughter and two sons, the children of his first wife 
who died in 1897. 
Through his death the German optical industry has 
lost a vigorous leader of striking personality, respected 
by all who were associated with him, and particularly 
by his many employees, in whose welfare he always 
exercised an active interest. TeV 
NO. 2783, VOL. 111 | 
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oe * — ° 
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| Marcu 3, 1923] NATURE : 297 
: Obituary. 
Tur Hon. R. C. Parsons. 
Reapers of NATurRE will have learned with regret of 
the death of the Hon. Richard Clere Parsons in London 
on January 26, in his seventy-second year. After a 
brilliant career at Trinity College, Dublin, where Mr. 
Parsons graduated in honours at twenty-two years of 
age, he was apprenticed to Messrs. Easton and Anderson, 
and it was during this period that his love of hydraulics 
developed and became the dominant factor in his life’s 
work. In January 1875 he was asked by Mr. Anderson 
to make experiments upon centrifugal pumps, and the 
work culminated in the reading of a paper, entitled 
“The Theory of Centrifugal Pumps as supported by 
Experiments,” before the Institution of Civil Engineers 
—a paper which gained him the Miller Prize. This 
was his first-fruits, and in his later work, both scientific 
and practical, he continued to be principally concerned 
with water-flow. Mr. Parsons read many other papers 
before the Institution, from which he received the 
Telford gold medal, the Manby premium, and the George 
Stephenson medal. His first important post was that 
of resident engineer of the South Hants Water Works ; 
in 1880 he became a partner in the firm of Messrs. 
Kitson and Co., Leeds ; seven years later he entered 
into partnership with the late J. F. La Trobe Bateman, 
F.R.S., and so commenced the consulting practice 
which he continued until his death. 
Much of Mr. Parsons’s work was carried out abroad ; 
for example, the water supply and drainage of the city 
of Buenos Ayres, and the scheme which he prepared for 
the drainage of Petrograd. He held many important 
consultative appointments, and it was while acting in 
the capacity of engineer for the Water Works Company 
of Rosario that his inventive faculty exerted itself in 
producing an apparatus for automatically adding a 
coagulant to a water supply before filtration. To this 
he gave the name Tiltometer. It was followed by 
another invention called the Senfrot, for adding salt 
to water when under pressure. 
Perhaps Mr. Parsons’s most important invention was 
the Stereophagus pump introduced by him in rorr, and 
used for the pumping of sewage or water containing 
solid matter. In this, use is made of revolving blades, 
which cut up any solids, and thus prevent the possibility 
of choking. The description of this pump, and also of 
another, known as the Flexala, which was designed for 
dealing with fluids containing erosive substances, was 
given in a paper read before the Institution of Civil 
Engineers in 1919 entitled “ Centrifugal Pumps for 
dealing with Liquids containing Solid, Fibrous or 
Erosive Matters.” 
Mention should be made of the interest which Mr. 
Parsons took in educational work. During his stay in 
Leeds he was connected with the development of the 
Yorkshire College, now the University of Leeds, and he 
was for thirty-three years connected with King’s College, 
London, of which he was treasurer and vice-chairman, 
He was also, on the nomination of the University of 
London, a governor of the Imperial College of Science 
and Technology, and was a vice-president and manager 
of the Royal Institution. 
