February 17, 1910] 



NATURE 



46J 



ASPECTS OF ASTRONOMY. 

 A T the anniversary meeting of the Royal Astro- 

 ■^*- nomical Society on February ii, the gold medal 

 of the society was presented to Prof. Friedrich 

 Kiistner, director of the Royal Observatory, Bonn, for 

 his catalogue of stars, his pioneer determination of the 

 aberration constant from motions in the line of sight, 

 and his detection of the variation of latitude. In his 

 address as president of the society. Sir David Gill 

 •described the valuable work done by Prof. Kiistner in 

 each of these directions. He prefaced his remarks by 

 saying : — 



Astronomy in one sense or another appeals to minds of 

 widely different orders. To the mathematician it offers 

 problems of infinite interest ; but, as we all know, there 

 have been most distinguished workers in the field of astro- 

 dynamics to whom the spectacular glories of the heavens do 

 not appeal — to whom the first sight of an object like 

 Saturn or a great star cluster as viewed through a good 

 telescope brings no thrill, no insatiable desire to see more 

 or to acquire or devise means for so doing. Such men 

 are too apt to regard the art of observing as a mere 

 mechanical operation that is unworthy of their practical 

 study ; but they are thus frequently placed in the position 

 of having to employ observations about which they have 

 not the capacity to distinguish between the good and the 

 bad. 



There is a larger number of persons who are not want- 

 ing in the emotional response to their first telescopic sight 

 of celestial objects ; some of these acquire, or are driven 

 to construct, instruments to indulge their awakened 

 curiosity, and not a few of them afterwards do useful 

 work as astronomical observers. 



The attributes of the great majority of astronomers lie 

 between these two extremes ; but the number of men who 

 possess the true fire and natural capacity for the most 

 refined original research in the field of astrometry is 

 limited. Such men must have an inborn natural mathe- 

 matical, mechanical, and manipulative aptitude ; the 

 critical faculty to discern the possible sources of error to 

 which any class of observations may be liable, with the 

 inventive capacity to devise means for their elimination ; 

 and that persistent patience and divine discontent with 

 (heir own best efforts which alone can lead to the highest 

 and most refined class of work. 



NOTES. 



The following telegram from the Paris correspondent of 

 the Times appeared in the issue of that journal for February 

 16 : — " Paris, February 15. — According to a communica- 

 tion made yesterday to the Academy of Sciences by 

 M. Lippmann, Mme. Pierre Curie, the widow of M. Pierre 

 Curie, the discoverer of polonium and radium, has at last 

 succeeded in isolating one-tenth of a milligram of 

 polonium. In order to obtain this result, Mme. Curie, 

 working in cooperation with M. Debierne, has had to 

 treat several tons of pitchblende with hot hydrochloric 

 acid. The radio-active properties of polonium turn out to 

 be far greater than those of radium. It decomposes chemi- 

 cally organic bodies with extraordinary rapidity. When 

 it is placed in a vase made of quartz, which is one of 

 the most refractory of substances, it cracks the vessel in 

 a very short time. But a no less distinctive quality of 

 polonium is the comparatively rapid rate at which it dis- 

 appears. Whereas it takes one thousand years for radium 

 to disappear completely, a particle of polonium loses 50 per 

 cent, of its weight in 140 days. The products of its 

 disintegration are helium and another body, the nature 

 of which has not yet been ascertained, but Mme. Curie 

 and M. Debierne are inclined to believe it to be lead. Its 

 identity, however, will shortly be established, and at the 

 same time science will have had the experimental proof 

 of the transformation of a body which had been believed 

 to be elementary." 



NO. 2103, VOL. 82] 



We learn from the Paris correspondent of the Chemist 

 and Druggist that the administrative council of the Pasteur 

 Institute has decided to establish a laboratory for the study 

 of radio-activity and its therapeutic applications. This 

 laboratory will adjoin the Oceanographic Institute there. 

 The Pasteur Institute will devote to this object 400,000 

 francs of the Osiris Legacy. The University of Paris will 

 give the land and find the rest of the money. Mme. Curie 

 will be directress of the physical side of the laboratory, and 

 the other section (researches as to practical applications of 

 radio-therapy) will be under the direction of the Pasteur 

 Institute. On a neighbouring site an extensive institute of 

 chemistry is to be erected at the joint cost of the State, the 

 city of Paris, and the Paris University. 



.\ COMMITTEE has been formed with the view of promoting 

 investigations into the nature and etiology of pellagra, a 

 lethal disease which has become a terrible scourge in some 

 countries of southern Europe and in many tropical or sub- 

 tropical regions in other parts of the globe. The generally 

 accepted notion is that the disease is caused by damaged 

 maize ; Dr. Sambon has, however, brought forward cogent 

 reasons for regarding this theory as inadequate, and has 

 pointed out that the seasonal prevalence and distribution 

 of pellagra are compatible with its being a protozoal 

 disease, which is spread by the agency of blood-sucking 

 insects, probably sand-flies. It is intended to send Dr. 

 Sambon, accompanied by properly qualified assistants, to a 

 pellagrous region to carry on investigations on the etiology 

 of the disease, and for this purpose it is hoped to raise a 

 fund of 1000/., towards which several subscriptions have 

 been received, including a sum of 150/. from the Colonial 

 Office. 



All English chemists will join with their German col- 

 leagues in offering their congratulations to Prof. Julius 

 Wilhelm Briihl on his si.xtieth birthday, which he celebrated 

 on Sunday last. Prof. Briihl's contributions to chemical 

 science range over the whole of the subject. His first 

 paper, on the substitution amido- and phosphido-acids, was 

 published in 1875, and from that year, almost up to the 

 present, his work exhibits an almost unequalled activity. 

 During the last thirty-five years no fewer than ninety papers 

 have been published by this extremely energetic chemist, 

 and it is worthy of note that, with few e.xceptions, they 

 are a record of his own personal work. A paper published 

 in 1881, on the relations of the physical properties of 

 bodies and their chemical constitution, was the first of a 

 long series of contributions on a part of chemistry in 

 which Briihl stands pre-eminent. Those who were privi- 

 leged to be present at the lecture he delivered in London 

 in 1905 will remember the excellent summary he gave, in 

 faultless English, of his work on molecular refractivity. 

 One paper, in the domain of pure inorganic chemistry, 

 deserves special mention as illustrating the all-round 

 character of his work. In this research, published in 

 189s, hydrogen dioxide was first prepared in a pure con- 

 dition, its formula was for the first time established, and 

 its physical properties determined. Prof. Briihl has very 

 many friends in this country ; indeed, it is scarcely too 

 much to say that all who have met him, at the British 

 Association and elsewhere, are his friends. He has a 

 great love for this country, and an unprejudiced respect 

 for the achievements of her men of science. All will be 

 glad to know that he is recovering from the severe illness 

 which has crippled his activity for the last two years, and 

 hope that his renewed health will enable him to add still 

 more to our knowledge of the most difficult and perhaps 

 the most interesting problems in chemical science. 



