Marcu II, 1915] 
NATURE ; 41 

ings that James Geikie’s hereditary literary in- 
stincts were exhibited, for he published in 1887 
a series of translations from the German, “Songs 
and Lyrics by Heinrich Heine, etc.” His frank 
manner and bonhomie won him many friends, 
and we may well believe that, though an ardent 
golfer, like so many other Scotchmen, he gave 
expression to the sentiment ascribed to him that 
he found a still more pleasant means of recrea- 
tion in “loafing in pleasant places with a con- 
genial friend.” Ion Weal 

EMILE-HILAIRE AMAGAT. 
De the death of M. Emile-Hilaire Amagat at 
his country estate at Saint Satur in the 
department of Cher, France loses one of her most 
distinguished physicists. Born in 1840, he held 
several minor teaching appointments before be- 
coming professor at the Ecole Normal at Cluny. 
Here in 1867 he commenced his researches into 
the behaviour of gases under high pressures, 
which rapidly brought him into the front rank 
as an “experimentalist. At Lyons, where he had 
become professor at the Catholic university, he 
utilised the tower of one of the churches as the 
site for a mercury manometer giving pressures 
up to 80 atmospheres, and in one of the coal 
mines of Saint Etienne constructed one up to 430 
atmospheres. His observations on nitrogen at 
these pressures enabled him to use the nitrogen 
manometer in his experiments on other gases, on 
liquids and solids, and on the conditions of transi- 
tion from one state to the other. By the help of a 
skilled mechanic he had himself trained, he was 
able to construct apparatus for observations at 
pressures up to 3000 atmospheres. His results, 
which appeared for the most part in the Annales 
de Chimie et de Physique, were summarised in 
memoirs of dates 1883 and 1893, and his curves 
showing the variation of the value of pu as p 
increases for hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbonic 
acid have been reproduced in standard text-books 
for the last twenty years. 
In 1892 Amagat was elected an _ honorary 
member of the Literary and Philosophical 
Society of Manchester, and in 1897 a foreign 
member, of the Royal Society of London. After 
going to Paris as examiner for admission 
into the Ecole Polytechnique, he was in 1902 
elected member of the Académie des Sciences. In 
1906 he was president of the French Physical 
Society, and soon after was elected one of its few 
honorary members. Although offered a professor- 
ship at the Ecole Polytechnique, he preferred his 
examinership, and continued to devote to research 
much of the leisure it allowed him. During the 
last few years his health kept him at his country 
house, and for several months before his death he 
was confined to his room. For a generation he 
had been one to whom younger men could appeal 
for advice and encouragement in their work, and 
many distinguished physicists of to-day recall 
with affection his kindliness, his sincerity, and his 
modesty. Cy: 
NO. 2367, VOL. 95| 

NOTES. 
Tue prospectus of British Dyes (Limited), which 
was put before the public a few days ago, has evoked 
universal condemnation in the daily Press. As might 
perhaps have been anticipated, the board of directors 
does not include a single representative of science, 
whilst the directors appointed by the Government con- 
sist of a railway director and a civil engineer. This 
characteristic neglect of science, and its consequences, 
form the subject of two letters by Sir William Ramsay 
and Sir Henry Roscoe, published in Wednesday’s 
Times. Sir William Ramsay) gives numerous in- 
stances to show that scientific chemists must form 
an important part of the directorate if the scheme 
is to be a success. The Castner Kellner process has 
on its board Sir Henry Roscoe and Dr. Beilby. The 
ammonia-soda process, originally patented by Dyer 
and Hemming, was successfully introduced and 
managed by the late Dr. Ludwig Mond. The paraffin 
industry was due to the late James Young, at one 
time an assistant of Prof. T. Graham. Perkin’s and 
Spiller’s names are associated with the early days of 
synthetic colours. These men were both pupils of 
Hofmann at the Royal College of Chemistry. The 
firm of Spencer, Chapman, and Messel, which has for 
many years manufactured sulphuric acid by the con- 
tact process, owes its inception and success to Dr. 
Messel. Turning to metallurgy, Lowthian Bell and 
Bessemer were scientific chemists first; successful 
manufacturers after. In short, it would be difficult 
to discover a successful chemical industry which has 
not been initiated and controlled by a chemist. Un- 
less ‘‘ British Dyes (Limited)’’ copies this precedent, 
there is little hope for it. 
Str Henry Roscor, in the letter referred to above, 
points out that it is not the manufacture of the well- 
known colours of indigo, alizarin, or methyl blue which 
will bring financial and final success to British Dyes 
(Limited). The preparation of these articles—which, 
like all complicated chemical processes, requires both 
knowledge and great care—is on well-known lines. 
It is the new thing which makes a business success. 
“In the colour industry it is then the research chemist, 
and he alone, who can keep the flag flying, for he 
alone can bring forward new forces and create new 
developments. Capital cannot do it, business capacity 
cannot do it, but the brains, the imagination, the 
skill, and the knowledge of the research chemist can.” 
Yet though this is the case, so far at least, the 
research chemist is to have no voice in the direc- 
tion of affairs in the new colour company, but merely 
to be called in as an expert when, in the opinion of his 
business superiors, he can help then’ to solve some 
difficulty. If this plan is persisted in and the scien- 
tific chemist is not given a voice in the management 
““success is improbable, if not impossible.” 

Tue Bakerian lecture of the Royal Society will be 
delivered on Thursday next, March 18, by Prof. W. H. 
Bragg, upon the subject of ‘X-rays and Crystals.” 
We regret to see the announcement that Principal 
Sir James Donaldson, Vice-Chancellor of the Univer- 
sity of St. Andrews, died on Tuesday night, March 9, 
at eighty-three years of age. 
