Feb. 2 1, 1884] 



NA TURE 



387 



arboretum — accomplished just before he retired from 

 pubhc life, was part of a scheme (perhaps chimerical) he 

 encouraged with the view of establishing a School of 

 Forestry in Edinburgh — a scheme now receiving some 

 attention in Scotland. 



Ready and rapid with his pen, Balfour's contributions 

 to botanical and other literature are very numerous. 

 Besides contributing to several Encyclopaedias, he was 

 for many years one of the editors of the Annals of 

 Natural History and of the Edijihiiri^h A'cto Philosophical 

 Journal. Of independent works, his text-books, to which 

 we have already alluded, were very popular in their day, 

 and are now valuable for reference, and he published 

 works on Botany and Religion, Plants of the Bible, &c. 



We should fail to give an adequate idea of the veteran 

 Professor were we not to allude to that which gave a 

 character to all he did — his religion. To him all nature 

 was a symbol. He was one of that band of which 

 Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, Greville, \Vm. Allen Miller, and 

 others were in the van, who '' recognised the harmony 

 between the word and the works of God," and who saw 

 " in the objects of nature around indubitable evidences of 

 a great designing mind." 



By those who knew him — and his was a wide circle 

 of friends— he will be remembered as a genial com- 

 panion with the best attributes of humanity, and his 

 name will always remain inseparably linked with the 

 progress of botany in Scotland during this century, and as 

 that of one of the eminent teachers in the University and 

 city to which he belonged. 



CAPTAIN HOFFMEYER 

 T N the early death of Niels Hoffmeyer, which occurred 

 ■^ at Copenhagen on the i6th inst., modern meteorology 

 has lost one of its most diligent and successful students, 

 and one whose place it will be hard to fill. 



Like more than one of our own physicists, Hoffmeyer 

 was an artillery officer, and had attained the rank of 

 captain in the service. At the close of the Prussian war 

 he had fallen into bad health, and accordingly, on the 

 reduction of the Danish army which then ensued, his 

 name was placed on the retired list, and he was for a 

 time unoccupied. 



The Danish Meteorological Institute was organised in 

 1872, and Hoffmeyer was nominated its first director. 

 There could scarcely have been a more fortunate appoint- 

 ment, for Hoftaieyer was gifted not only with unusual 

 energy, but also with a very pleasant manner, so that he 

 made friends for the new office and for its work wher- 

 ever he went. He will best be known by his Atlas. 

 He undertook to prepare daily weather-maps of the 

 Atlantic — in great measure at his own expense — and he 

 actually published them for a period of three and a 

 quarter years, from September, 1873, to November, 1S76. 

 It is only a few months ago that he announced his inten- 

 tion to resume the work in combination with Dr. Neu- 

 mayer, of the Deutsche Seewarte at Hamburg. 



The most important results which Hoffmeyer had de- 

 duced from his own maps were contained in his pamphlet, 

 " Etude sur les Tempetesdel' Atlantique Septentrional, et 

 Projet d'un Service Tdlcgraphique International Rel itif 

 ii cet Ocean,"' Copenhagen, 18S0; and up to the very 

 last he never ceased to use his utmost efforts for the 

 establishment of a meteorological telegraphic service with 

 America, ina the Faroes and Iceland. 



While HofVmeyer's chief work was in the domain of 

 synoptic meteorology, he by no means disregarded 

 climatology, and the service which the Danish (.ifffce has 

 rendered to that science by the maintenance of stations 

 in Iceland and Greenland has been very material. 



\\ hen Capt. Hoffmeyer was in London last summer as 

 Danish Commissioner to the Fisheries Exhibition, he 

 was complaining of great weakness of the heart. During 



December he was laid by for some time, but he had 

 somewhat recovered, when he was seized last week with 

 rheumatic fever, to which he soon fell a victim. He 

 leaves a widow, but no children. He was an Honorary 

 Member of the Royal Meteorological Society (London). 

 He had been one of the secretaries of the Meteorological 

 Congress at Rome, 1879, 3-"^ of the Conference on 

 Maritime Meteorology in London, 1874, but his chief 

 official service of this nature was as Secretary to the 

 International Polar Commission, where his loss, coming 

 after that of Weyprecht, will be severely felt. 



NOTES 



The Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh has awarded 

 the Keith Prize for the biennial period 1 88 1-83 to Mr. Thomas 

 Muir for his researches into the theory of determinants and 

 continued fraciions, the most recent instalment of results ob- 

 tained by him being in a paper on permanent symmetric func- 

 tions. Also the Macdougall-Brisbane Prize for the period 

 1880-83 to Prof. James Geikie for his contributions to the 

 geology of the north-west of Europe, including his paper on 

 the geology of the Faroes, published in the Transactions of the 

 Society, iSSo-Si. And the Neill Prize for the triennial period 

 18S0-S3 to Prof. Herdman for his papers in the Proceedings and 

 Transcutiotis on the Tunicata. 



We learn from the Standard that the Royal Astronomical 

 Society has awarded Mr. Ainslie Common its gold medal for 

 his photographs of celestial bodies. This high award has, it 

 is believed, been mainly bestowed on account of the magnificent 

 photograph he has succeeded in taking of the great nebula in 

 Orion, of which we gave an illustration in a recent number. 



We regret to learn of the death of M. T. du Moncel, editor 

 of La Lumi'ere Electrique, and author of numerous works in 

 theoretical and practical electricity. 



The needs of the higher education of women in Loudon are 

 gradually being met in the manner that has been found so satis- 

 factory at Oxford and Cambridge, where women students have 

 long enjoyed the advantages of collegiate life. On Monday, 

 February II, there was a gathering of many of the most influ- 

 ential friends of the movement to inspect an important extension 

 of the College Hall of Residence established at Byng Place, 

 Gordon Square, in October 1SS2. The succe.ss which attended 

 the first development of the scheme, and the growing demand 

 on the part of students for admission, has encouraged the com- 

 mittee to provide additional accommodation by adapting the 

 adjoining house. No. 2, Byng Place. With the new extension they 

 look forward to a yearly surplus instead of a deficit. With the 

 power of accommodating thirteen extra students the receipts would 

 be increased by 876/. for the short session, and there would not 

 be a proportionate increase in the expenditure. The advantage of 

 holding the two houses is therefore evident. The second house was 

 opened at the commencement of the current term, and there are 

 now seventeen students in residence. Of this number two are 

 pursuing the c urse of instruction provided at University College 

 for the B.A. degree, two that for the matriculation examination 

 of the London University, and another, a foreign lady, is a 

 student of English literature at the same college ; another 

 student is preparing for the examination of the Pharmaceutical 

 Society. Four ladies are students of the London School of 

 Medicine for Women, and preparing for the M. B. degree (Lond. ), 

 and the remainder are studying art at the Slade School and else- 

 where. The first student of the Hall who went up for the 

 examination for the B.A. degree pas ed successfully la^t October, 

 and has now an appointment as teacher at a school in York. 

 The expenses for board and residence vary, according to the size 

 and position of the room occupied, from 51 to 75 guineas for the 



