NA TURE 



[November 25, 1909 



instruments for the application of the measurements of 

 gases to quantitative analysis. 



From 1868 to 1870, Dr. Russell was lecturer on 

 chemistry in the Medical School of St. Mary's Hos- 

 pital. In the latter year he was appointed to a similar 

 office at St. Bartholomew's and retained this appoint- 

 ment until 1897. After his retirement, he continued 

 his experimental work, and until very recently was 

 actively occupied at the Davy-Faraday Laboratory. 

 He died at his house at Ringwood, after a very short 

 illness, on the twelfth of the present month 

 (November, 1909). 



At the time of his death, Dr. Russell was one of the 

 oldest Fellows of the Chemical Society, having been 

 elected in 1851. He served on the council from 1863 

 to 1867, and from 1870 onwards his ofificial connection 

 with the society was unbroken : he was a member of 

 the council from 1870 to 1872 ; vice-president, 1872 

 to 1873 ; secretary, 1873 to 1875 ; treasurer, 1875 to 

 1889; president, 1889 to 1891, and since the last date 

 a permanent vice-president. The society, which was 

 only ten years old when Russell joined it, celebrated 

 the jubilee of its foundation in 1891, during his term 

 of office as president. It naturally devolved upon him 

 to take the leading part in the proceedings, and all 

 who were present must have been struck by the admir- 

 able manner in which he acquitted himself. He had to 

 make many speeches, long or short, and they were 

 always simple and appropriate. Without wasting 

 words, or any apparent striving after effect, he 

 managed every time to say exactly what wanted 

 saying. 



He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 

 1872 ; he served twice on the council, and was a vice- 

 president from 1897 to 1899. He was an original 

 member of the Institute of Chemistry, founded in 1877, 

 was president from 1894 to 1897, and served various 

 other offices between 1878 and 1904. 



Dr. Russell's connection with Bedford College 

 (London) extended over many years of his life, and 

 was of very great value to the college. It began 

 with his being appointed professor of natural 

 philosophy in i860. He retained this office until 1870, 

 and opened in i860 the first laboratory accessible to 

 women-students for practical work at science. He 

 was a member of the council of the college from 

 1878 to 1903, being chairman from 1887, and also 

 chairman of the college board of education from 

 1805. During Dr. Russell's chairmanship, the 

 college was twice enlarged, and at the end of his 

 term of office the necessity for still further extension 

 had become so pressing that it was decided to start a 

 fund to provide an entirely new building. He was 

 an active supporter of this movement, and contributed 

 liberally to the fund. 



Dr. Russell's contributions to the methods of gas- 

 analysis have been mentioned already. Among other 

 investigations, we may refer to those relating to the 

 atomic weights of nickel and cobalt (1863 and 1869), 

 which were important in consequence of the way in 

 which results obtained by very different methods were 

 employed to check each other ; a series of papers in 

 conjunction with Dr. Samuel VVest, F.R.S., on a new 

 method of estimating urea, which gave rise to a 

 valuable clinical method; papers (conjointly with Mr. 

 Lnpraik) on absorption spectra, and notably one on the 

 absorption bands in the visible spectra of colourless 

 liquids, which was the pioneer paper in a branch of 

 inquiry that has been most ably followed up by 

 Prof. Noel Hartley, F.R.S., Mr. E. C. C. Baly, 

 F.R.S., and others; a remarkable series of .)apers on 

 the action of metals, resins, wood and other natsrials 

 on a photographic plate in the dark. Some of the 

 results of this investigation were given to the Royal 

 Society as the Bakerian lecture for 1898. By well- 

 NO. 2091, VOL. 82] 



directed and persevering experiments, the effects 

 observed were traced to the generation of peroxide of 

 hydrogen. In another set of experiments on the 

 figures formed by the deposition of dust. Dr. Russell 

 demonstrated the curiously definite course of the con- 

 vection currents of air that rise from a heated solid 

 body. 



A report made to the Science and Art Department, 

 in conjunction with Sir William .'\bney, on the action 

 of light on water-colours was published as a Blue 

 Book in 1888. It involved a very careful investigation 

 of the subject, and was highly appreciated by artists. 

 A committee consisting of the president and other 

 prominent members of the Royal Academy in 

 reporting on it said that they "unanimously desired to 

 record their sense of the very great value and of the 

 thoroughness and ability with which so laborious an 

 inquiry had been conducted." 



In manner, Russell was quiet and entirely free from 

 anything approaching self-advertisement, but he was 

 genial and hearty with his friends, and was gifted 

 with a sympathetic laugh that it was always refreshing 

 to hear. As some indication, both qualitative and 

 quantitative, of the estimate formed of him by his 

 fellows, it may not be out of place to mention that, 

 as a young man, he was the first secretary, treasurer, 

 and keeper of the archives of the B Club— originally 

 a society of young chemists which grew out of Section 

 B of the British .'\ssociation, first took definite shape 

 at the Oxford meeting in i860, and kept itself alive 

 between the meetings of the Association by consuming 

 monthly beef-steak puddings at the "Cheshire 

 Cheese " — and that, in later life, he was elected to 

 serve on the committee of the Athenasum Club. His 

 death will be felt as a sore personal loss by very many. 

 He was liked by all who knew him, and by all who 

 knew him intimately he was held in affectionate 

 esteem. 



Dr. Russell married, in 1862, Fanny, daughter of the 

 late A. Follett Osier, F.R.S., of Edgbaston. He 

 leaves one son, and a daughter married to Dr. 

 Alexander Scott, F.R.S. G. C. F. 



The Standard for November 22 contains a full list of 

 the House of Lords, classified according to their qualifi- 

 cations. It is disappointing to find only two names — those 

 of Baron Rayleigh and Baron Lister — under the heading 

 "Scientists," while "Educationists" are only represented 

 by Baron Ashcombe, member of council of Selwyn College ; 

 Baron Killanin, member of Senate of Royal University 

 of Ireland ; and the Earl of Stamford, formerly professor 

 of classics and philosophy at Codrington College, Barbados. 

 There are thirty-five railway directors, thirty-five bankers, 

 and thirty-nine so-called " captains of industry " on the 

 list, and a column and a half under " Military and Naval 

 Services." 



At the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 

 Monday, November 22, the Makdougall-Brisbane prize for 

 the biennial period 1906-8 was presented to Mr. D. T. 

 Gwynne-Vaughan for his papers (1) " On the Fossil 

 Osmundacea;, " and (2) " On the Origin of the Adaxially 

 Curved Leaf-trace in the Filicales " ; and the Gunning 

 Victoria Jubilee prize for the third quadrennial period 

 1904-8 was presented to Prof. G. Chrystal, for "A Series 

 of Papers on ' Seiches,' including ' The Hydrodynamical 

 Theory and Experimental Investigations of the Seiche 

 Phenomena of Certain Scottish Lakes.' " 



The Livingstone gold medal of the Royal Scottish Geo- 

 graphical Society has been presented to Sir Ernest 

 Shackleton, in recognition of his work in the Antarctic. 



