February 24, 19 10] 



NA TURE 



505 



the later years of his life. This interest occasionally gave 

 rise to controversy, and some of his latest papers were 

 wholly polemical. 



Thomsen was a pronounced atomist, and to him a 

 chemical process was a change in the internal structure ol 

 a molecule, and the chief aim of chemistry was to investi- 

 gate the laws which control the union of atoms and mole- 

 cules _ during the chemical process. He considered that 

 chemistry should be treated mathematicallv as a branch of 

 rational mechanics. But no one insisted more stronglv 

 than he how little we really know of these questions. lii 

 summarising his theoretical ideas in the Thcrnwkemischc 

 ResuUater. he says, " An almost impenetrable darkness 

 hides from us the inner structure of molecules and the true 

 nature of atoms. We know only the relative number of 

 atoms witliin the molecule, their mass, and the existence 

 of_ certain groups of atoms or radicles in the molecule, but 

 with regard to the forces acting within the molecules and 

 causing their formation or destruction our knowledge is 

 still exceedingly limited." He fully realised that his own 

 work was only the foundation on vk-hich the future elucida- 

 tion of these questions must rest. "He worked," savs 

 Bronsted, " in the conviction that what we somewhat 

 vaguely call the affinity of the atoms— their interaction, their 

 attraction, and varying effect, &c.— follows the general laws 

 of mechanics, and that, as he worded it. the principle that 

 ' might is right,' holds good in chemistry as in mechanics. 

 On this foundation he hoped to be able to evolve the laws 

 for the statics and dynamics of chemical phenomena, even 

 although the true nature of the action is unknown." 



Thomsen''s merits as an investigator received formal 

 recognition from nearly every countrv in the civilised world. 

 So far back as i860 he was elected one of the thirty-five 

 members of the Danish Royal Society of Sciences of 

 Copenhagen, and from 188S 'until his 'death he was its 

 president. In 1876 he became an honorary foreign member 

 of the Chemical Society of London. On the occasion of the 

 fourth centenary of the foundation of the University of 

 Upsala (created in 1477), he received the degree of Doctor 

 of Philosophy honoris causa. In 1S79 he was made an 

 honorary M.D. of the University of Copenhagen. Two 

 years later he was made a foreign member of the Phvsio- 

 graphical Society of Lund, and "in 188S he was elect'ed a 

 member of the Society of Science and Literature of Gothen- 

 burg. In 1885 he became a member of the Royal Society 

 of Sciences of Upsala, and in 1886 of the "Stockholm 

 Academy of Sciences. 



In 18S3 he and Berthelot were together awarded the Davy 

 Medal of the Royal Society — a fitting and impartial recogni'- 

 tionon the part of the society of the manner in which the 

 two investigators, whose work not infrequently brought them 

 into active opposition, had jointly and severally contributed 

 to lay the foundations of thermochemistry. 



In the same year Thomsen was made a member of the 

 Accademia dei Lincei of Rome, and in the following year 

 he was elected into the American Academy of .'\rts and 

 Sciences in Boston, and of the Royal Academy of Sciences 

 of Turin. In 1887 he was made a member of the Royal 

 Belgian .\cademy. 



In 1886-7, 3nd again in 1891-2, he was rector of the 

 University of Copenhagen. In 1S88 he became Commander 

 of the Dannebrog, and in 1S96, and on his seventieth 

 birthday, he was made Grand Commander of the same 

 order. On the same occasion the Danish chemists caused 

 a gold medal to be struck in his honour. In 1902 he 

 became a Privy Councillor (Geheime Konferenz raad). In 

 ihe same year he was elected a foreign member of the 

 Royal Society of London. 



He died on February 13, 1908, full of years as of honours, 

 and was buried on the eighty-third anniversary of his 

 birth and on the jubilee of the opening of the Oeresund 

 factory. His wife, Elmine Hansen — the daughter of a 

 farmer on Langeland — predeceased him in 1890. 



I desire to express my acknowledgments to Director 

 G. A. Hagemann, of Copenhagen, and to Prof. Arrhenius, 

 I'f Stockholm, for their assistance in obtaining information 

 \'oncerning Thomsen 's personal history. I am also much 

 indebted to our fellow, Mr. Harald Faber, for his kind- 

 ness in making for me a translation of Prof. Bronsted's 

 account of Thomsen's scientific work, on which my own 

 ri'sumc is mainly based. 



NO. 2104, VOL. 82] 



UMVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — Sir J. J. Thomson has been nominated to 

 represent the University at the celebration next October 

 of the centenary of the University of Berlin. 



Mr. S. Brodetsky, bracketted senior wrangler in 1908, 

 has been elected to the Isaac Newton studentship, tenable 

 for three years. 



The adjudicators of the Smith's prizes and Rayleigh 

 prizes are of opinion that the following essay sent in by 

 a candidate is of distinction, " Discontinuous Motion in 

 Gases," by Mr. G. I. Taylor. .A Smith's prize is awarded 

 to Mr. Taylor for this essay. The second Smith's prize is 

 not awarded. 



In response to an appeal for funds for the purpose of 

 purchasing a -site and for building, equipping, and con- 

 ducting a field laboratory on the outskirts of CamBridge, 

 mainly for the study of protozoal and parasitic diseases, 

 donations amounting to 988/. 175. have been received. A 

 donation of 1000/. has been promised, anonymously, when 

 the fund has reached 6000Z. In addition to the foregoing, 

 the Government of Cape Colony has placed the sum of 

 500Z. at the disposal of Prof. Nuttall for the purpose of 

 investigating East Coast fever. By permission of the 

 Government, a part of this sum will be utilised for the 

 construction of the laboratory. 



Oxford. — The fact that Halley occupied the Savilian 

 chair of astronomy at Oxford gives this University a 

 special interest in Halley's comet. This interest the Uni- 

 versity proposes to mark by conferring the honorary degree 

 of Doctor of Science on Mr. P. H. Cowell, F.R.S., chief 

 assistant, and Mr. A. C. D. Crommelin, assistant, at the 

 Royal Observatory, Greenwich, by whose joint calculations 

 the exact determination of the re-appearance of Halley's 

 comet was successfully accomplished. The actual cere- 

 mony of conferring the degree will probably take place in 

 May, at the time when the comet is expected to be at its 

 brightest. It has further been arranged that the first dis- 

 course given on the new foundation of the Halley lecture 

 shall be delivered by the founder himself. Dr. Henry Wilde, 

 F.R.S., and it is hoped that this may take place at the 

 same time as the conferring of degrees on the two 

 Greenwich astronomers. 



St. .Andrews. — Besides the munificent gifts to the 

 chemical department of the University already noted, Dr. 

 Purdie recently handed 2000/. to the University Court to 

 aid in paying a chemical assistant. 



Prof. Percy Herring (physiology) has been appointed 

 dean of the faculty of science, and he enters on his duties 

 at the end of the winter session, the pro-dean (Prof. 

 Butler) meanwhile officiating during the enforced retire- 

 ment of Prof. Musgrove from illness. 



The spacious new Pettigrew Museum of Natural History 

 (the gift of Mrs. Pettigrew) is approaching completion, and 

 the hothouses and conservatories in connection with the 

 botanical department, to which Mrs. Pettigrew also 

 liberally contributed, are well advanced. 



A JOINT conference of members of the Geographical 

 .Association and of the Federated .Associations of London 

 Non-primary Teachers will be held at 3 p.m. on Saturday, 

 March 12, at the Polytechnic, Regent Street, W., when an 

 address will be given by Mr. H. J. Mackinder on " The 

 Regional Method in Geography." Tickets may be obtained 

 from the honorary secretary of the Federated .Associations, 

 Miss R. F. Shove, 26 Blessington Road, Lee, S.E. 



Edi'c.\tion.al and charitable institutions, says Science, 

 have received 32,400/. by the will of the late Mrs. Frances 

 E. Curtiss, of Chicago. Among the institutions which 

 have benefited is Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., 

 5000/. Cooper Medical College, .San Francisco, has received 

 a bequest of 1000/. by the will of the late Mrs. Myrick. In 

 connection with these bequests to higher education, it is 

 interesting to note that our contemporary reports President 

 Schurman, of Cornell University, as havinif said in a recent 

 address : " I should like most to see at Cornell a score of 

 research professorshios with salaries, say 1500!. each, 

 which would call for a capital of some 600,000!. or 

 800.000/., a really small amount in this age of American 

 multi-millionaires. " 



