134 



NA rURE 



[December 3, 1908 



undemarcatcd except by nature) with Afghanistan? 

 It is defined by the main water parting of the Hindu 

 Kush. Which is to be the main water parting? 



One more small criticism must be permitted ere we 

 close a sketchy notice of a work so valuable as to 

 require serious and well-considered analysis. The 

 use of a publication of this sort to the ordinary 

 traveller is largely limited by its portability. In 

 its present form it would hardly serve the purpose of 

 the mountaineer, who must before all things consider 

 size, weight, and general handiness ; and yet it is 

 specially written for the mountaineer. Most of the 

 illustrations (which probably govern the size of the 

 issue) could be reduced to one-quarter their present 

 size, and the rest could be folded in a separate pocket. 

 It is much to be hoped that this treatise will have a 

 wide circulation, but there is too much of the regular 

 official " .Survey of India " type of publication about 

 it for general use in its present form. T. H. W. 



Jl 



.4A'A7r£JV.'?/lKF MEETING OF THE ROYAL 

 SOCIETY. 



'HE anniversary meeting of the Roval .Society was 

 held as usual on St. Andrew's Day, November 

 ;,o, at Burlington House. The report of the council 

 was presented, in which reference was made to the 

 chief subjects to which attention had been given during 

 the vear. .'\s Lord Rayleigh expressed the desire to 

 resign the presidency, the council submitted the name 

 of Sir .Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., for election into the 

 office of president. To fill the vacancy thus created it 

 was proposed to transfer the foreign secretary, Prof. 

 J. R. Bradford, into the oflice of principal secretary, 

 and to elect Sir William Crookes as foreign secretary. 

 The officers, and also the other members of the council 

 whose names were given in Nature of November 5 

 (p. 15), were elected at the annual meeting. .Among 

 other matters mentioned in the report of the council 

 of the Society we notice the following : — 



Two volumes have been issued descriptive of the physical 

 work of the National Antarctic Expedition. During the 

 expedition a large number of photographs were taken of 

 the scenery and physical features, partly also of the biology 

 of the regions visited, while .Mr. E. A. Wilson made many 

 careful drawings of the various coast-lines that were 

 passed. .Although certain of these photographs have 

 already been reproduced in some of the reports and other 

 works descriptive of the expedition, it was decided to 

 publish an ample and thoroughly illustrative series of both 

 the photographs and the sketches, accompanied with maps 

 which should show the precise position of each spot from 

 which a panoramic photograph or sketch had been taken. 

 Future explorers will thus be helped to note any changes 

 which may affect the snow-fields, glaciers, ice-barriers, or 

 other features, while the general public will be put in 

 possession of a remarkably striking series of views of 

 .Antarctic scenery and life. Accordingly, an Antarctic 

 album and portfolio have been prepared by Mr. Wilson 

 under the supervision of the committee, and are now nearly 

 ready for publication. 



Within the last few weeks Dr. Mond has directed the 

 attention of the officers of the society to the desirability of 

 further acceleration of the catalogue of scientific papers. 

 .\s the result of conferences with the officers and the 

 director of the catalogue, he has undertaken to increase 

 his previous generous subventions by a sum of 2000I. on 

 condition that the society fall in with his suggestion that 

 additional expert assistance be employed to deal with the 

 arrangement of the material for the subject indexes, and an 

 effort be thus made to finish the index volumes for mech- 

 anics, physics, and chemistry within two or three years. 



In .April a letter was received from the Home Oflice on 

 the subject of the disease known as glass-workers' cataract, 

 inquiring whether elucidation of the c^use of the disease 

 and its remedy, in the light of the physical and physio- 



NO. 2040, VOL. 79] 



logical problems involved, could be made the subject of an 

 inquiry by a committee of the Royal Society. After full 

 consideration the council appointed a committee to inquire 

 into and report on this subject. 



Changes have been made in the regulations as to grants 

 for scientific investigations. In order that applicants may 

 be informed earlier in the year of the decisions of the 

 Government Grant Committee with regard to grants, the 

 regulations now provide that applications shall be received 

 not later than January i, and it is therefore hoped that it 

 may be possible for the general committee to meet at 

 some time before the end of March instead of in Mav. 



In 1870 the society placed in the hands of Sir William 

 Huggins, on loan, an equatorial mounting and twin tele- 

 scopes, purchased by means of the Olivcira bequest, which 

 was to be expended on a telescope. As was announced in 

 last week's Nature (p. 114), Sir William Huggins is un- 

 able now to make such use of the instruments as would 

 justify him in retaining them. .A new home for the 

 instruments has been found, therefore, at the University 

 of Cambridge. 



At the end of last year a letter was received from th(_ 

 Colonial Office asking the society to advise in detail as 

 to means for carrying out the further researches recom- 

 mended by the tropical diseases committee, as specified 

 in the last report to the council. .At the invitation of the 

 committee Colonel Sir David Bruce has undertaken the 

 supervision of further investigations in Uganda, and sailed 

 in September last. 



The scheme for the establishment of an International 

 Central Bureau in connection with sleeping sickness, re- 

 ferred to in the last report, having fallen through, H.M. 

 Government decided to establish a National Bureau in 

 London, to be administered on similar lines, the cost 

 being defrayed from Imperial funds, including a contribu- 

 tion from the Sudan. The bureau was definitely estab- 

 lished in June last, one of the society's rooms being placed 

 at its disposal at the request of the Colonial Office. 



In his presidential address Lord Ravleigh referred to 

 the heavy losses by death sustained bv the Societv 

 among its fellows and foreign members. Particular 

 reference was made to Lord Kelvin, Sir Richard 

 .Strachey, Dr. .Sorby, -and Sir John Evans as having 

 passed away since the last anniversary meeting. These 

 and other main subjects of the address are here 

 summarised : — 



We are fortunate in having secured for our Proceedings 

 a review of Kelvin's life and work, written by one who 

 is especially well qualified for the difficult task. I do not 

 doubt that Prof. Larmor is right in placing in the fore- 

 front of that work those fundamental advances in thermo- 

 dynamics which date from the middle of the last century. 

 It was Kelvin who first grasped the full scope of the prin- 

 ciple known as the second law, a law which may indeed 

 well be considered to stand first in order of importance, 

 regarded from the point of view of man's needs and oppor- 

 tunities. 



My acquaintance with Kelvin was limited, until about 

 1880, a time when I was occupied with measurements 

 relating to the electrical units, and received much appre- 

 ciated encouragement. From then onwards until his death 

 I enjoyed the privilege of intimacy and, needless to say, 

 profited continually from his conversation, as I ha(J done 

 before from his writings. 



Dr. Sorby belonged to a class on whom England has 

 special reason to congratulate herself, men who pursue 

 science unprofessionally. The names of Cavendish, Young, 

 Joule, and Darwin at once suggest themselves. It is to 

 be feared that specialisation and the increasing cost and 

 complication of experimental appliances are having a pre- 

 judicial effect in this regard. On the other hand, the 

 amateur is not without advantages which compensate to 

 some extent. Certainly, no one who has the root of the 

 matter in him should be deterred by fears of such diflicul- 

 ties, and the example of Sorby suffices to show how much 

 is open to ingenuity unaided by elaborate appliances. 



On the foreign list also the losses are heavy. We have 

 especially to condole with our colleagues in France upon 

 the havoc caused by death within the last year or two. 

 Janssen and Mascart, who was much missed at the recent 



