June 



1913. 



NATURE 



15' 



International Library Association. Here, again, 

 our space forbids us to catalogue his almost in- 

 exhaustible list of honours, but we must mention 

 that he was a Commander of the Legion of Honour, 

 and he held the Order Pour le Merite. He was 

 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1858. 



Lord Avebury married firstly Ellen, only child 

 of the Rev. Peter Hordern, and secondly Alice 

 Augusta Laurentia, daughter of the late General 

 A. A. L. Fox-Pitt-Rivers, a granddaughter of the 

 second Baron Stanley of Alderley. He is suc- 

 ceeded by his eldest son, the Hon. J. B. Lubbock, 

 who is a partner in the banking firm of Robarts, 

 Lubbock and Co. 



PROF. ]. T. NICOLSON. 

 XHE early death of Dr. J. T. Nicolson, professor 

 of mechanical engineering in the Manchester 

 School of Technology and in the University of 

 Manchester, will be much regretted .by a wide 

 circle of friends. His health during the past six 

 months had given serious cause for anxiety, but 

 had improved sufficiently to allow him to return 

 to his duties. There followed a sudden relapse, 

 and he died at Macclesfield on May 27 after a 

 brief illness. 



Prof. Nicolson was born at Amble, in North- 

 umberland, in i860, and received his early educa- 

 tion at Watson's College, Edinburgh. He was 

 then apprenticed to Hawthorne Leslie and Co., 

 Newcastle-on-Tyne. From there he gained a 

 Whitworth scholarship and entered Edinburgh 

 University, where he graduated in 1889, obtain- 

 ing the D.Sc. degree some years later. After 

 graduation he spent two years in Charlottenburg, 

 where he investigated the strength of materials 

 under Prof. Martens. After holding the position 

 of assistant-lecturer in engineering in the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge, he was appointed in 

 1892 professor of mechanical engineering in 

 McGill University, Montreal. He took an 

 active part in the equipment of the engineer- 

 ing department and in arranging the courses 

 of instruction for students. During his stay in 

 Montreal he undertook an investigation with Prof. 

 Callendar on the valve-leakage of steam on the 

 surface of cylinders. This important investigation 

 led to the award of the Telford premium to the 

 authors. Prof. Nicolson resigned his professor- 

 ship in Montreal in 1S99 in order to take charge 

 of the engineering department of the School of 

 Technology, Manchester, and was largely respon- 

 sible for the whole engineering equipment of that 

 institution — an equipment which in variety and 

 extent is even now unsurpassed in this country. 

 When degree courses were instituted in the School 

 of Technology in connection with the University 

 of Manchester he was appointed the first professor 

 of mechanical engineering, a position which he 

 held until his death. 



Prof. Nicolson 's tenure of the chair at Man- 

 chester was marked by several important and ex- 

 tensive investigations. He made detailed experi- 

 ments on rapid-cutting steels, in which he showed 

 NO. 2275, VOL. 91] 



the relations between the cut and speed and the 

 durability. The results of these investigations 

 were published as a report by the Manchester 

 Association of Engineers in 1903, and were well 

 received by the engineering profession. As was 

 characteristic of Prof. Nicolson, he immediately 

 applied the experimental results to the improve- 

 ment of the design of machine tools. 



During the last few years of his life he took 

 up the question of the transfer of heat to boilers. 

 The late Prof. Osborne Reynolds had predicted 

 in 1874 on theoretical grounds that the rate of 

 transfer of heat from a gas or fluid to a solid 

 surface should increase with the velocity of move- 

 ment. This was confirmed for fluids by the ex- 

 periments of Dr. Stanton in 1897. Prof. Nicolson, 

 in an elaborate series of experiments, showed that 

 the same result held for gases. He then applied 

 this idea to the design of boilers and condensers, 

 the essential point being that the heated gases 

 wore driven at a high speed through the tubes 

 of the boiler, the water circulating in the opposite 

 direction. As a result of an extended trial of 

 a 60-h.p. boiler over sixty days, it was found 

 that the efficiency of such a combination was con- 

 siderably greater than that of the ordinary boiler. 

 There has been much difference of opinion among 

 engineers as to the practicability of this idea, but 

 Prof. Nicolson himself had the strongest belief 

 in the greater overall efficiency to be obtained 

 by his methods. 



The training of Prof. Nicolson fitted him admir- 

 ably to fill the position of a professor of engineer- 

 ing, for he had not only a wide scientific outlook, 

 but took a keen interest in the practical side of 

 his profession. This is shown by the promptness 

 with which he applied the results of his scientific 

 investigations to the improvement of engineering 

 practice. He was a man with strong opinions 

 on engineering questions, and vigorously sup- 

 ported his position when attacked. His personal 

 integrity, straightforward character, and sympathy 

 with their scientific difficulties endeared him to his 

 colleagues, while his vigorous personality and 

 ability as a teacher made a strong and lasting 

 impression on all his students. Owing to his 

 increasing deafness he was unable in recent years 

 to take that active part in administrative matters 

 for which his wide outlook well fitted him. His 

 premature death is a great loss to science, and 

 will be much regretted by his colleagues both in 

 Manchester and Montreal. 



NOTES. 



The home list of honours conferred on the occasion 

 of H.M. the King's birthday on June 3 includes three 

 new Privy Councillors, seven new baronets, and 

 twenty-six knights. The only fellow of the Royal 

 Society in the list is Prof. E. A. Schafer, professor 

 of physiology in the University of Edinburgh, who 

 has received the honour of knighthood. The same 

 honour has been conferred upon Prof. J. H. Biles, 

 I professor of naval architecture in the University of 

 1 Glasgow. Prof. T. H. Middleton, formerly professor 



