6 



NATURE 



[October 24, 1912 



a thing to be avoided we have avoided it. We liave 

 made our start by treating education as a single and 

 indivisible whole— and by trying to keep the different 

 kinds of students in one organisation. How powerful 

 tlis tendency is we may see by the example of Cam- 

 bridge. VVe have done even more, for we have 

 developed in connection with our new universities a 

 system of evening teaching for a separate class of 

 student. That the tendency to recognise this kind of 

 instruction as legitimate for the British university is 

 increasing appears when we look at such cases as those 

 of Glasgow and Manchester, where the great technical 

 colleges of these cities are being brought into the 

 closest relation with their universities. 1 believe this 

 to be entirely right, and I am glad that you in Bristol 

 took the same course at the beginning when you 

 brought the Merchant Venturers' College, with its 

 evening teaching, into your new University organisa- 

 tion. 



Specialisation in each city university there will be 

 and ought to be. A'ow omnia pos^umus omnes. In 

 one place the distinctive strength will be in chemistry 

 — general and applied — for exist without each other 

 thev cannot. In another, as in Sheffield, it will be 

 thp' metallurgy of iron and steel ; and it is not un- 

 important in this connection that Sheffield is the chief 

 centre for the manufacture of the national guns and 

 steel plates, an industry in which we dare not dis- 

 pense with high science. In another place, as in the 

 case of the Imperial College in London, we should 

 have the great training place in the metallurgy of the 

 precious metals for the students of a people which 

 leads the world in their production. Some universi- 

 ties will be strong in engineering, civil and mechan- 

 ical, or, it mav be, marine. But the one thing re- 

 quisite is that the broad foundations of the highest 

 general knowledge should be there in each university, 

 and that all specialisation should rest on these found.a- 

 tions. You cannot, without danger of partial starva- 

 tion, separate science from literature and philosophy. 

 Each groii'S best in the presence of the others. 

 Another essential feature is adequate provision for 

 the postgraduate student — that is, the student who, 

 having taken his degree, has in him the passion for 

 excellence sufficiently strong to desire to continue in 

 the university as a place of research and of the stUl 

 higher learning which is inseparable from research. 

 -Such students may not be numerous, but when they 

 are present they leaven the whole lump, and by tlieir 

 presence give a distinction to the university and to the 

 professors under whom tliey work which could not be 

 possible in their absence. 



WILLIAM BOTTOMLEY. 



THE death of William Bottomley at Glasgow 

 on October 19, at sixty-three years of age, 

 removes one who, throughout the greater part of 

 his life, did genuine, unobtrusive service to the 

 cause of applied science by the assistance he gave 

 to his uncle, Lord Kelvin. A son of the late 

 Mr. William Bottomley, of Fortbreda, County 

 Down, and of Anna Thomson, the second of Lord 

 Kelvin's sisters, Bottomley was trained as a civil 

 engineer. In 1872, Sir William Thomson and 

 Meeming Jenkin undertook to act in partnership 

 as engineers for the manufacture and laying of 

 telegraph cables which were to connect the cities 

 of the Brazilian coast, from the Amazon to the 

 River Plate. Bottomley was put in charge of a 

 staff of young assistants at the works of the 



NO. 2243, VOL. go] 



Hooper Company at Millwall Docks where the 

 cable was being made. 



In those days there were no college laboratories 

 which could compare with the testing-room of a 

 cable factory as a scientific training ground for the 

 practical electrician. The writer, who was a very 

 junior member of the staff, w-ell remembers 

 Bottomley 's cheery kindness, his capacity for 

 management, and the ardour with which he threw 

 himself into what was then a novel task. The art 

 of cable testing, the necessities of which had been 

 a chief factor in bringing into existence the 

 scientific system of electrical units, w-as still under- 

 going a(i-olution : new methods had to be devised, 

 tested, and licked into shape for everyday use. 



In 1873, Bottomley, along with his colleague 

 W. F. King, accompanied Thomson and Jenkin 

 in the maiden voyage of the cable ship Hooper, 

 when the first section-, from Para to Pernambuco, 

 was laid. The sections from Pernambuco south- 

 ward were laid in subsequent expeditions under 

 their supervision, and in the absence of the chiefs. 



Probably there are few parts of the later work 

 of Kelvin in applied science with which William 

 Bottomley was not in some degree concerned. 

 \^'ith the Kelvin compass he had an early and 

 intimate association. When the long struggle 

 was over which preceded its general acceptance in 

 the Navy and the mercantile marine, the task of 

 looking after it as an article of manufacture and 

 an object of business enterprise fell mainly on his 

 shoulders. He had to train and superintend the 

 skilled compass adjusters whose services were 

 essential to its success. His own energv, his tact 

 and judgment, and his appreciation of the scientific 

 points at issue were in constant exercise for many 

 years with the happiest results. The Kelvin com- 

 pass came into universal use primarily, of course, 

 because of its intrinsic merits; btit these had to 

 be demonstrated, defects had to be corrected, and 

 prejudices to be overcome. In this work 

 Bottomley's unfailing geniality, his simplicity and 

 directness, and the warmth of his enthusiasm were 

 valuable adjuncts to his technical knowledge : they 

 were qualities, too, that endeared him to his 

 friends. J. A. E. 



PROF. LEWIS BOSS. 



IT is witli deep regret that we have to record 

 the death of Prof. Lewis Boss on October 5. 

 While working as an assistant astronomer on the 

 U.S. Northern Boundary Commission in 1877, 

 Prof. Boss was greatly impressed by the urgent 

 necessity for greater accuracy in star catalogues, 

 and forthwith made the remedying of the defect 

 his life-work ; the immediate outcome was the 

 extremely valuable "Boss's Declinations," in 

 which, after discussing some hundred catalogues, 

 he gave the declinations and proper motions of 

 500 stars for the epoch 1875. ^n '878 he was 

 appointed director of the Dudley Observatory, 

 .'\lbany, N.Y., a position which he held until his 

 death, and after observing the corona at the solar 

 eclipse of that year, he settled down to the solution 



