6!;2 



NATURE 



[February 13, 19 13 



Mancliestei" and London will join in these 

 observations. 



The new movement initiated by the committee 

 for stud3'ing and recording; the character of the 

 soot-fall in various industrial centres of the United 

 Kinj^dom is, therefore, meeting with considerable 

 support ; and there is little doubt that the observa- 

 tions and records will prove of decided value 

 to all interested in the progress of smoke abate- 

 ment. 



Dr. W. N. Shaw, F.R.S., director of the 

 Meteorological Office, is chairman of the com- 

 mittee ; and its hon. secretary is Dr. J. S. Owens, 

 47 \'ictoria Street, S.W., from whom any further 

 particulars regarding the work of the committee 

 can be obtained. 



LORD CRAWFORD, F.R.S. 



AS announced with regret last week, Jamas' 

 Ludovic Lindsay, the twenty-sixth Earl of 

 Crawford, died on January 31. Born at St. 

 Germain-en-Laye on July 28, 1847, he was 

 educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, and for a short time served as 

 lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, but 

 his early developed scientific tastes led him 

 to resign the service and devote himself to 

 astronomy and bibliography. 



.'Vs Lord Lindsay he first became known to 

 readers of Nature by his organisation of an 

 expedition to obser\'e the total eclipse of the sun 

 near Cadiz on December 21, 1870, and by the 

 establishment, soon afterwards, of his observatory 

 at Dun Echt, Aberdeenshire. Its astronomical 

 equipment was far in advance of any other 

 observatory in Scotland and second only to that 

 of Greenwich in the United Kingdom, for it con- 

 tained a fine 15-inch equatorial refractor by Grubb 

 with many improvements on former designs, a 

 transit circle of 8-in. aperture by Troughton 

 and Simms, a fine heliometer by Repsold 

 of 4-in. aperture, a 6-in. equatorial refractor 

 by T. Cooke and Sons of York, two reflecting 

 telescopes with silver-on-glass mirrors of 

 i2-in. aperture, both equatorially mounted, a 

 Foucault siderostat by Eichens of Paris, with 

 i6-in. mirror by M. Martin, a 40-ft. photographic 

 lens by Dallmeyer (to be used to photograph the 

 transit of Venus), a 12-in. altazimuth by Trough- 

 ton and Simms, and a large collection of smaller 

 astronomical and physical apparatus, including the 

 laro-est electro-magnet then in existence. 



Simultaneously with the erection of this 

 observatory (1871-1874) Lord Lindsay was organ- 

 ising an expedition to Mauritius for the purpose 

 of observing the transit of Venus in December, 

 1874, and there are those who remember the 

 astonishment and interest with which astronomers 

 first read in the Monthlv Notices of the Royal 

 Astronomical Societv for November, 187-;, of the 

 scone and extent of these preparations. The very 

 important results of that cxncdition are published 

 bv him in vols. ii. and iii. of the Dun Echt 

 Observatory Publications. They not only include 

 determinations of the longitudes of Alexandria, 



NO. 2259, VOL'. 90] 



Suez, Aden, Seychelles, Reunion and Mauritius, 

 but also an experimental determination of the 

 solar parallax by heliometer observations of the 

 minor planet Juno. This latter series of 

 observations was probably the most important 

 result of all the many costly transit of Venus 

 expeditions, for it proved conclusively that the 

 heliometer method of observing minor planets was 

 capable of determining the solar parallax with a 

 precision and certainty that is unattainable by 

 the historic method of the transit of Venus. 



On his return to England Lord Lindsay, in 

 addition to his duties as Member of Parliament 

 for Wigan, continued to perfect the equipment of 

 his observatory, and made researches on the 

 spectra of stars, planets and comets — adding at 

 the same time continually new treasures to his 

 splendid astronomical library. 



He also instituted, under the able editorship of 

 Dr. Ralph Copeland (who was in charge of his 

 observatory from 1876 to 1889), the valuable series 

 of Dun Echt circulars, by which early intimation 

 of astronomical discoveries was communicated to 

 astronomers. 



On the death, in 1880, of his generous and highly 

 cultured father, the twenty-fifth Earl of Crawford, 

 he succeeded to the earldom. The many responsi- 

 bilities and occupations which then crowded upon 

 him prevented him from taking much farther part 

 in active astronomical research, and although his 

 interest in it never abated, he thereafter left the 

 work of the observatory almost entirely in the 

 hands of Dr. Copeland. 



For some years previous to the retirement of 

 Prof. Piazzi .Smyth, in 1888, from the post of 

 Astronomer Royal for Scotland, the question of 

 reorganising the Edinburgh Observatory had been 

 under consideration — and it had even been pro- 

 posed to hand it over to the University. But this 

 was prevented by Lord Crawford's timely action 

 and noble generosity. He offered the whole of 

 the beautiful instrumental equipment of his 

 observatory and its splendid astronomical library 

 to the nation on the sole condition that the 

 Edinburgh Observatory, thus enriched, should be 

 maintained as a royal observatory. This offer 

 was finally accepted and Dr. Copeland was ap- 

 pointed to the vacant offices of Astronomer Royal 

 for Scotland and professor of astronomy in the 

 University of Edinburgh in January, i88g. The 

 great national obser\'atory on Blackford Hill, 

 which owes its existence to the generous action 

 above described, was formally opened in April, 

 iSafi, bv Lord Balfour of Burleigh in the presence 

 of Lord Crawford. 



Our limits of space render it impossible to do 

 iustice to the varied activities of Lord Crawford's 

 life; we have therefore confined attention to the 

 side of his career by which his name will chiefly 

 be remembered In the scientific world, although 

 the narrative conveys but little Idea of his mental 

 grasp and breadth of view. He had an Inborn 

 crenlus for mechanics and englneerins', a love of 

 science In every form, and a passion for travel ; and 

 he inherited from his father the love of all things 



