May 29, 1913] 



NATURE 



come up for decision at the next meeting, which 

 will be held three years hence in Berlin, after dis- 

 cussion by a standing- committee charged with the 

 general revision of the statutes. 



Proposals to elect the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh and the Finnish Academy of Helsingfors 

 as members of the association were presented by 

 the Royal Society of London and the Imperial 

 Academy of St. Petersburg respectively. As 

 several of the delegates were without definite in- 

 structions from their academies, the proposals will 

 have to be submitted to the constituent bodies and 

 voted upon by correspondence. 



It is needless to say that the social functions of 

 the uncling were carried out admirably and with 

 lavish hospitality. Dinners and evening parties 

 followed each other almost too continuously, and 

 the ladies accompanying the delegates will not for- 

 get the manner in which they were hospitably enter- 

 tained throughout their stay in St. Petersburg. 

 But this account is only intended to deal with the 

 scientific aspect of the meeting, and a brief refer- 

 ence only can therefore be made to the visit to 

 the Tsar's palace at Tsarkoe Selo, during which 

 the delegates were individually presented to the 

 Emperor of Russia and afterwards entertained at 

 luncheon. Arthur Schuster. 



PROF. JAMES GORDON MACGREGOR, F.R.S. 

 pROF. J. G. MACGREGOR, of Edinburgh 

 -L University, died suddenly and unexpectedly 

 on the morning of Wednesday, May 21, shortly 

 after he had risen, apparently in his usual health. 

 It was known, of course, both to himself and his 

 friends that his heart was not in the healthiest 

 condition, but up to the moment of his death no 

 really grave symptoms had declared themselves. 



Prof. MacGregor was born on March 31, 

 1S52, at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his father 

 had been a well-known clergyman. He early 

 showed mental abilities of a high order ; and in 

 1 87 1 he graduated M.A. at Dalhousie College, 

 Halifax, with the highest distinctions in all de- 

 partments. He was awarded the Canadian Gil- 

 christ scholarship, the condition of which required 

 him to continue his studies and take a degree in 

 London University. He decided to follow out 

 physical and chemical science, and in 1871 en- 

 tered himself as a student of science in the Uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh. He began what promised 

 to be a most distinguished career ; but unfortu- 

 nately he broke down in health and was forbidden 

 to work for competitive honours in the classes. 

 During his second winter he spent much of his 

 time in Prof. Tait's laboratory, and in conjunc- 

 tion with Ewing (now Sir Alfred) he measured 

 the electrical resistance of certain saline solutions. 

 The paper was soon afterwards published in the 

 Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 and it may be regarded as giving the impulse which 

 led MacGregor to follow up the line in which his 

 best original work was done. 



He spent the better part of two years in Leipzig 

 in the laboratory of Gustav Wiedemann, and 

 NO. 2274, VOL. 91] 



carried out some investigations in the electrical 

 resistance of stretched silver wires. He gained 

 his doctorate of science in 1876, and was immedi- 

 ately thereafter recalled to his native town 

 as lecturer in physics in Dalhousie College. 

 This he held for only one year, and from 1877 

 to 1879 he filled the important post of physical 

 science master in Clifton College. The tragic 

 death, as the result of a shooting accident, of one 

 of the Clifton College masters, beside whom Mac- 

 Gregor was sitting at the moment of the accident, 

 seriously affected his health at the time, compel- 

 ling him to stop work entirely for several months. 

 Meanwhile the Dalhousie College lectureship had 

 developed into the Munro chair of physics, and 

 MacGregor, undoubtedly their most promising 

 alumnus, was invited to become professor. For 

 twenty-two years he filled this post to the educa- 

 tional advantage of his native town. He took an 

 active share in the founding of the Royal Society 

 of Canada, in the Transactions of which some of 

 his most important papers are published. He also 

 keenly interested himself in the welfare of the 

 Nova Scotian Institute of Science. 



In 1887 MacGregor brought out a text-book on 

 kinematics and dynamics (Macmillan and Co.). 

 At the time of its publication it occupied an inter- 

 mediate position between the elementary text- 

 books and the treatise of Thomson and Tait, 

 whose methods, indeed, MacGregor largely fol- 

 lowed. The book had outstanding merits, and 

 covered not only what is ordinarily understood 

 by dynamics, but much also of hydrodynamics 

 and elasticity. In 1909 appeared a third edition, 

 considerably altered and improved. 



The writing- of this book turned MacGregor's 

 mind to the difficult question of the foundations of 

 dynamical science ; and his conclusions were given 

 in several papers, some of which appeared in the 

 Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada and 

 others in the Philosophical Magazine. These are 

 characterised by clearness of apprehension of the 

 questions at stake and by a logical statement of 

 his own views. 



On the retirement of Prof. Tait in 1901 from the 

 chair which he had filled with such conspicuous 

 success for forty years, Prof. MacGregor was 

 elected his successor. During the twelve years of 

 his tenure of this post MacGregor's chief work 

 outside the ordinary duties of his chair was 

 to develop the natural philosophy department and 

 bring it into line with modern requirements. The 

 transformation of the old infirmary building into 

 a well-equipped laboratory demanded a vast 

 amount of detailed consideration ; and after two 

 years of careful planning the new department was 

 opened in 1907, not in the completed state designed 

 by MacGregor, but sufficiently developed for a 

 start to be made. With later additions and de- 

 velopments the whole combined departments of 

 natural philosophy and applied mathematics re- 

 main as a lasting monument to Prof. MacGregor's 

 energy, zeal, and forethought. 



During the last few years Prof. MacGregor had 

 been actively engaged in appealing to Prof. Tait's 



