1^,6 



NA TURE 



[December 3, 1908 



tific Papers" has advanced a definit' .-tage during the 

 year through the publication, by the Cambridge University 

 Press, of the index volume of pure mathematics for the 

 nineteenth century. Owing to the magnitude of the 

 material to be indexed in the several sciences, it has been 

 necessary to adopt drastic measures of compression, and 

 the 40,000 entries involved in the present section have thus 

 been condensed into one royal octavo volume of some yot^ 

 pages. 



Through the kindness of Dr. Schuster I had the oppor- 

 tunity of submitting to the council, before the e.xpiry of 

 my term of office, a generous proposal which he makes 

 for instituting a fund of 1500/., the interest of which is 

 to be applied to pay the travelling expenses of delegates 

 of the society to the International Association of Academies. 

 Dr. Schuster felt that the absence of such a provision 

 laid a burden upon delegates, and might operate to limit 

 the choice of the society. I was empowered by the council 

 to convey their cordial thanks to Dr. Schuster, and I 

 have now the pleasure of making his benefaction known 

 to the society at large. 



MEDALLISTS, 1908. 

 Copley Medal. 



The Copley medal is awarded to Dr. .Alfred Russel 

 Wallace, F.R.S. 



It is now sixty years since this distinguished naturalist 

 began his scientific career. During this long period he 

 has been unceasingly active in the prosecution of natural- 

 history studies. So "far back as 1848 he accompanied the 

 late Henry Walter Bates to the region of the Amazon, 

 and remained four years there, greatly enriching zoology 

 and botany, and laying at the same time the basis of that 

 wide range of biological acquirement by which all his 

 writings have been characterised. From South America 

 he passed to the Malay Archipelago, and spent there some 

 eight fruitful years. It was during his stay in that region 

 that he matured those broad views regarding the geo- 

 graphical distribution of plants and animals which on his 

 return to this country he was able to elaborate in his 

 well-known classic volumes on that subject. It was there, 

 too, amid the problems presented by the infinite variety 

 of tropical life, that he independently conceived the idea 

 of the theory of the origin of species by natural selection 

 which Charles Darwin had already been working out for 

 years before. His claims to the admiration of all men 

 of science were recognised by the Royal Society forty 

 years ago, when, in 1868, a Royal medal was awarded to 

 him. Again, when in 1890 the Darwin medal was 

 founded, he was chosen as its first recipient. 



RuMFORD Medal. 



The Rumford medal is awarded to Prof. Hendrik .\ntoon 

 Lorentz, For.Mem.R.S. 



Prof. Hendrik .Antoon Lorentz, of Leyden, has been dis- 

 tinguished during the last quarter of a century by his 

 fundamental investigations in the principles of the theory 

 of radiation, especially in its electric aspect. His earliest 

 memoirs were concerned, with the molecular equivalents 

 which obtain in the refractive (and dispersive) powers of 

 different substances ; in them he arrived at formulae that 

 still remain the accepted mode of theoretical formulation 

 of these phenomena. The main result, that 



(M=-i)/(m' + 2) 



is proportional jointly to the density of distribution of the 

 molecules, and to a function of the molecular free periods 

 and the period of the radiation in question, rests essentially 

 only on the idea of propagation in some type of elastic 

 medium ; and thus it was reached simultaneously, along 

 different special lines, by H. .^. Lorentz originally from 

 Helmholtz's form of Maxwell's electric theory, and by 

 L. Lorenz, of Copenhagen, from a general idea of pro- 

 pagation after the manner of elastic solids. 



The other advance in physical science with which Prof. 

 Lorentz's name is most closelv associated is one of greater 

 precision, the molecular development of Maxwell's theory 

 of electrodynamics. 



ROVAL MED.tLS. 



-A Royal medal is awarded to Prof. John Milne, F.R.S , 

 for his work on seismology. In 1875 Dr. Milne acceptcl 

 the position of professor at Tokyo, which was offered tn 

 him by the Imperial Government of Japan. His attention 

 was almost immediately attracted to the study of earth- 

 quakes, and he was led to design new forms of construc- 

 tion for buildings and engineering structures with the view 

 of resisting the destructive effects of shocks. His sug- 

 gestions have been largely adopted, and his designs have 

 been very successful for the end in view. Incidentally, he 

 studied the vibrations of locomotives, and showed how to 

 obtain a more exact balancing of the moving parts, and 

 thus to secure smoother running and a saving of fuel. 

 Here again his suggestions were accepted, and his work 

 was recognised by the Institution of Civil Engineers. 



He next devoted himself to the study of artificial shocks 

 produced by the explosion of dynamite in borings. He 

 then studied actual shocks as observed at nine stations 

 connected by telegraph wires. \ seismic study of Tokyo, 

 and subsequently of the whole of northern Japan, followed. 

 In this latter work he relied on reports from fifty stations. 

 The Government then took up the matter, increased his 

 fifty stations to nearly 1000, and founded a chair of seismo- 

 logy for Mr. Milne. On his return to England in 1895 

 he succeeded in obtaining international cooperation, and 

 reports are now received by him from some 200 stations 

 furnished with trustworthy instruments, and scattered all 

 over the world. 



The work of Dr. Henry Head, on which is founded the 

 award of the other Royal medal, forms a connected series 

 of researches on the nervous system (made partly in con- 

 junction with Campbell, Rivers, Sherren, and Thompson), 

 published for the most part in Brain at various times 

 since 1893 "P '° 'he present date, and constituting one 

 of the most original and important contributions to neuro- 

 logical science of recent times. 



His first paper (" Disturbances of Sensation with Special 

 Reference to the Pain of Visceral Disease," 1893), founded 

 on minute and laborious clinical investigation, established 

 in a more precise manner than had hitherto been done 

 the relations between the somatic and visceral systems 

 of nerves. He confirmed from the clinical side the experi- 

 mental researches of Sherrington on the distribution of 

 the posterior roots of the spinal nerves. 



Davy Medal. 



The Daw medal is awarded to Prof. William .i^ugustuS 

 Tilden, F.R.S. 



The researches of Prof. Tilden extend into man\ 

 domains. His recent work on the specific heats of the 

 elements in relation to their atomic weights, described to 

 the society in the Bakerian lecture for igoo, and in two 

 later papers published also in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions, is of high theoretical importance. The employ- 

 ment of liquid oxygen as an ordinary laboratory reagent, 

 rendered possible by the researches of Dewar and others, 

 has enabled Prof. Tilden to test the validity of Dulong 

 and Petit's law and of Neumann's law over a much wider 

 range of temperature than vifas possible before, and to 

 give a truer estimate of the range of their validity. 



In the region of organic chemistry he has carried out 

 important researches on the terpenes, such as that on the 

 hydrocarbons from Pimis sylvestris, on terpin and terpinol, 

 and on limettin. In inorganic chemistry, his investigations 

 on aqua regia and on nitrosyl chloride are especially 

 noteworthy. 



D.\RwiN Med.^l. 



The Darwin medal is awarded to Prof. August Weis- 

 mann for his contributions to the study of evolution. He 

 was one of the early supporters of the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion by means of natural selection, and wrote in support 

 of the Darwinian theory in 1868. His great series of 

 publications from that date onward must always remain 

 a monument of patient inquiry. In forming an estimate 

 of his work, it does not seem essential that we should 

 decide on the admissibility of his germ-plasm theory. It 

 is in like manner unimportant that he was, in certain 

 respects, forestalled by Galton, and that his own views 

 have undergone changes. The fact remains that he has 



NO. 2040, VOL. 79] 



