NATURE 



[January g, 19 13 



their boats, and were rescued by Sir Allen Young, 

 in the Hope, sent out by a rehef committee organised 

 in England for the purpose, which received the sup- 

 port of the Government. His expedition added mate- 

 rially to the knowledge of the Franz Josef Archi- 

 pelago. Mr. Smith, when in the Diana, rescued 

 Nordenskjold's party, which had been frozen up in 

 Spitsbergen. Mr. Smith continued to the end to take 

 a keen interest in polar exploration. He was a fellow 

 of the Royal Geographical Society, as well as of the 

 Zoological and other societies. 



.Another polar explorer whose death we have to 

 record is Captain F. H. Johansen, the companion of 

 Dr. Nansen in his famous sledge journey across the 

 north polar ice from the drifting Fram, and a member 

 of the Amundsen Antarctic expedition. From an 

 obituary notice in j'esterday's Times we learn that 

 Johansen was born at Skien, in Norway, in 1867, 

 and matriculated at the university in 1886. In 1891-2 

 he went to the Military School, and became a super- 

 numerarv ofificer. He was so eager to take part in 

 Nansen 's expedition that, as no other post could be 

 found for him, he accepted that of stoker. When 

 the Fram drifted in the ice during 1893-4-5 to about 

 84° N., and Nansen decided to trust himself to a 

 sledge and push his away over the moving ice as 

 far north as possible, Johansen was selected to accom- 

 pany his chief. After the return of the expedition to 

 Norway, Johansen obtained Government employment. 

 When the Fram was again fitted out to drift once 

 more in the Arctic ice across the pole if possible, 

 Johansen joined Captain Amundsen, and afterwards 

 consented to accompany the ship to the south when 

 Amundsen announced his change of purpose. 



Dr. R. M. Ferguson, whose recent death at the 

 age of eighty-three has deprived Edinburgh of one 

 of her best-known citizens and educationists, was a 

 skilled chemist and physicist. As a young man he 

 had studied for several years in Germany under 

 Bunsen and others, and although in later life much 

 engrossed by his duties as headmaster in the Edin- 

 burgh Institution, he found time to work at his 

 favourite subject of electricity. He published several 

 papers on the telephone and on the action and theory of 

 the induction coil in the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh, and in the Transactions of the 

 Royal Scottish Society of Arts, at the meetings of which 

 he frequently exhibited experiments of an educational 

 character. In 1867 he contributed an excellent book 

 on electricity to "Chambers's Educational Series," 

 and was also the author of the articles, "Electricity," 

 "Galvanism," "Magnetism," &c., in the first edition 

 of "Chambers's Encyclopaedia." While preparing 

 some scientific experiments for his classes in 1898 he 

 met with a very serious accident, which left him 

 lamed for life. He served for three terms of office 

 on the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 and was its representative on the Heriot Trust 

 until about a year ago, when increasing 

 frailty compelled him to resign. He was 

 active in promoting the interests of the Edinburgh 

 Mathematical Society, which, after the first few years 

 NO. 2254, VOL. 90] 



of its existence, held (and still holds) its meetings in 

 his school. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death 

 of the veteran American astronomer, Mr. Lewis Swift, 

 at the age of eighty-two. His enthusiasm for astro- 

 nomy manifested itself at an early age ; after working 

 at business during the day he devoted his nights to 

 studying the stars with the help of a small cheap 

 telescope, a star atlas, and a single book, constructing 

 his own primitive observatories at Marathon, N.Y., 

 and afterwards at Rocliester, in the same State. His 

 first reward was the discovery of the comet of 1862 II., 

 the elements of which are almost indentical with those 

 of the August meteor shower. A little later he was pro- 

 vided with a i6-in. telescope by public subscription, 

 and Mr. H. H. Warner built him an observatory. 

 While at the Warner Observatory he discovered 

 several comets and 900 nebulae. Mr. Warner's failure 

 compelled Swift to leave the observatory, and in 1894 

 he removed to a new one just erected on Echo Moun- 

 tain, California, by Prof. Lowe. All the instruments 

 were taken to the Lowe Observatory, where Swift, 

 now assisted by his son, continued his work of dis- 

 covering comets and nebulae. He was compelled to 

 leave the Lowe Observatory in 1901, and, his eyesight 

 beginning to fail, was able to do little more astro- 

 nomical work. He died at Marathon, New York, 

 the scene of so many of his early struggles. Swift 

 received three medals from the Vienna .\cademy, and 

 several comet medals from the Astronomical Society 

 of the Pacific. In 1881 the Paris Academy of Sciences 

 awarded him the Lalande prize for his many dis- 

 coveries, and in 1897 he was the first recipient of the 

 Jackson Gwilt medal and gift from the Royal Astro- 

 nomical Society, of which he had been a fellow since 

 1S79. 



At the Northern Photographic Exhibition, which 

 was opened in the Manchester City Art Gallery on 

 January 3, a considerable amount of space has been 

 devoted to a scientific section. The photographs in 

 this section are divided into seven groups :— (i) 

 Natural history ; (2) radiograms ; (3) photomicro- 

 graphs ; (4) geology, meteorology, and astronomy ; 

 (5) physics and chemistry ; (6) photomechanical pro- 

 cesses ; (7) transparencies, in monochrome and colour. 

 The natural history group includes birds, mammals, 

 and insects of various kinds. An honourable mention 

 is awarded to Mr. Alfred Taylor for a series of sixteen 

 prints showing the life-history of the cuckoo from 

 the egg to the age of migration (Nos. 17 and 18). 

 Miss Frances Pitt shows six delightful animal studies 

 — fox cubs, badgers, a rat, a cat, a hedgehog, and a 

 spider. The radiograms of Drs. Bythell and Barclay 

 and Dr. C. Thurston Holland are very striking and 

 remarkably clear. Both are "honourablv mentioned." 

 The plaque is awarded to Dr. D. Hutchinson for 

 two large frames showing twenty-eight stages in the 

 development of the ovum of the Axolotl. An impor- 

 tant contribution is that of Mr. W. F. A. Ermen, 

 "The Rendering of Coloured Objects in Monochrome." 

 He photographs clouds, flovifers, a lady, &c., on an 

 ordinary plate, and a Wratten panchromatic plate. 



