October i8, 1906] 



NATURE 



615 



a change of such magnitude. These considerations 

 are well understood in the colonies. Thus on p. 64 

 of the report now under consideration we find the 

 statement : — " The United Kingdom is conservative 

 and unless this is forced upon them it will never be 

 adiipled." 



The ijucslion of tlie adi^plion of the metric system 

 has not been brouglit forward in our colonies merely 

 from considerations of relative practical utility or of 

 relative scientific perfection, but owing to difficulties 

 experienced in commerce with foreign countries, and 

 to the prospect of continual loss of trade. Until the 

 United Kingdom, their very good customer, takes 

 the lead, they cannot afford to make the change. If 

 their loyalty in respect of weights and measures is 

 thus in great measure enforced upon them, it is none 

 the lesspathetic. Every day it is more effectually 

 shutting thetn out from the new markets which are 

 of vital importance to their commercial prosperity. 

 So long as the public at home are taught that the 

 claims of the metric system are based chiefly on its 

 decimal notation, so long will they remain uncon- 

 vinced of the necessity for adopting it. On the other 

 hand, if the true issues are placed before them, they 

 are not likely to be inconsiderate in a matter which 

 involves the interests of their most important colonies. 



The following is the text of the address presented by 

 Sir .Arch. GeiUie for the Royal Society at the recent 

 celebration of the quatercentenary of the University of 

 Aberdeen : — The Royal Society of London for Promoting 

 Natural Knowledge sends cordial greetings to the Uni- 

 versity of .Aberdeen on the auspicious occasion of the 

 celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of its found- 

 ation. The Royal Society would more specially desire to 

 record its sense of the importance of the services which the 

 University has rendered to the progress of science. From 

 its infancy the society has been privileged to count among 

 its fellows distinguished professors and graduates of 

 Aberdeen, and this close and valuable association still con- 

 tinues. It is a gratification to recall that the illustrious 

 family of the Gregorys, which for some two centuries shed 

 so much fame upon the University and upon Scotland, were 

 from the beginning intimately linked with the Royal 

 Society. James Gregory early reached such eminence in 

 mathematical and astronomical research that in 1668, when 

 he was only thirty years of age, he was elected a fellow, 

 six years after the incorporation of the society. His 

 invention of a reflecting telescope, of which he had first 

 conceived the idea, prompted Newton to proceed in a 

 similar direction in order to evade the difficulties of 

 chromatic dispersion, and led to mutual regard and friendly 

 •cooperation. To his brother David Gregory, who had the 

 distinction of being one of the earliest effective promoters 

 of the Newtonian philosophy, the society is also indebted 

 for important communications published in early volumes 

 of the Philosophical Transactions. The obligations of 

 physical science to .Aberdeen did not end with the lives of 

 the masters of the seventeenth century, for within living 

 memory the University has numbered among its professors 

 the world-renowned pathfinder James Clerk Maxwell. To 

 the progress of the study of medicine the same remark- 

 able family of Gregory continued during successive gener- 

 ations to make important contributions, while the fame 

 of the medical school was in more recent years extended by 

 Allen Thomson. In natural science the well-remembered 

 names of John Fleming, William MacGillivray, and James 

 NO. 1929, VOL. 74] 



Nicol appear among those who have sustained the scien- 

 tific reputation of -Aberdeen. But it is not only with the 

 scientific side of culture in the University that the Royal 

 Society has had interesting links. It is a pleasure to 

 remember that Thomas Reid, the father of Scottish philo- 

 sophy, whose fame is one of the fairest pearls in the 

 chaplet of the northern University, contributed to the 

 Royal Society in 1748 an essay upon quantity. In remem- 

 brance of these varied associations of the past, and with 

 sincere wishes for their continuance in the future, the 

 Royal Society gladly adds its felicitations to those which 

 will this year come from all civilised countries to the 

 University of .Aberdeen. 



We regret to learn of the death on Wednesday, 

 October 10, at the age of fifty-five, of Mr. Herbert Rix, 

 assistant secretary of the Royal Society from 1885 to 1896. 

 -Mr. Rix resigned his post ten years ago, finding that his 

 strength would no longer sustain the greatly increased 

 anxiety and burden of his office. He was already suffering 

 from a weakness of the heart, which gradually developed 

 during the following years. A year ago he was obliged to 

 relinquish nearly all active work, and the shock of his 

 wife's death last August, as the result of an accident, had 

 a disastrous effect upon him. Mr. Rix entered the service 

 of the Royal Society in 1879, as clerk under the late Mr. 

 Walter White, then assistant secretary, whom he succeeded 

 six years later, his service to the society thus extending 

 over seventeen years. During this period a great extension 

 of the activity of the society occurred, entailing a large 

 increase in the responsibilities of the executive and in the 

 amount of work thrown upon the office. Mr. Rix's bent 

 was in the direction of the moral rather than of the e.xact 

 sciences, but he gave the best energies of a well-trained 

 mind to the arduous duties of his position, and the simple 

 directness of his character, his high principles, and his 

 kindly nature made him popular with all who came in 

 contact with him. .After retiring from the assistant 

 secretaryship he retained for some years the position of 

 clerk to the Government Grant Committee, and continued 

 up to the time of his death to act as secretary to the Lavves 

 Trust Committee. He devoted much of his latter years to 

 the study of coiriparative religion, and was a frequent 

 lecturer on ethical subjects. He w-as a graduate of London 

 University. 



The board of directors of the great manufacturing firm 

 of Kynoch (Ltd.) has decided to introduce the metric 

 system of weights and measures into all their works. A 

 small committee has been appointed to consider the details 

 of the change and to provide the necessary instruments, 

 and as soon as the committee reports the change will be 

 made. All the weights and measures used by the firm, 

 whether lineal, square, or cubic, will be metric. For 

 money calculations the pound sterling will be adopted as 

 the unit, and this will be subdivided decimally. 



.A Reuter telegram of October 11 from Basse-Terre, 

 Guadeloupe, reports that a violent eruption of Mont Pelee 

 has caused a shower of ashes to fall over the south-east of 

 Guadeloupe. 



A New Zealand international exhibition is to be held, 

 under the auspices of the New Zealand Government, at 

 Christchurch, Canterbury. The exhibition will be opened 

 on November i, and will be terminated in -April, 1907. 

 .A special feature is to be made of the representation of 

 Maori life, and Pol dances and hakas will be arranged 

 from time to time. 



