MA PO fae 
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THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 10912. 
GABRIEL LIPPMANN. 
Savants du Jour: Gabriel Lippmann. 
Bibliographie Analytique des Ecrits. 
Lebon. Pp. viii+70. (Paris: 
Igi1.) Price 7 francs. 
NDER the able editorship of M. Lebon, who 
enjoys a considerable reputation in his own 
country as a mathematician and mathematical 
astronomer, the enterprising firm of Gauthier- 
Villars is engaged in bringing out a series of mono- 
graphs on the lives and achievements of the con- 
temporary men of science of France. Up to the 
present the numbers published deal with the 
scientific careers of MM. Poincaré, Darboux, 
Picard, and Appell. Each memoir occupies from 
79 to 80 large 8vo pages, printed on thick 
hand-made paper with ample margins, and 
containing a photogravure portrait of its subject, 
the whole constituting a remarkably handsome 
work well worthy of the reputation of the eminent 
publishing house concerned in its production. 
The number before us treats of the life-work of 
Prof. Lippmann, the distinguished professor of 
physics of the faculty of science in Paris, member 
and vice-president of the Academy of Sciences, 
commander of the Légion d’Honneur, Nobel 
Laureate, and a foreign member of the Royal 
Society. M. Lippmann is known to all physicists 
more especially by his work on electro-capiliarity, 
by his enunciation of the law of the conservation 
of electricity, and his notable contributions to the 
science and practice of colour photography. He 
is, however, the author of numerous memoirs in 
all branches of physics pure and applied. He has 
occupied himself in turn with the study of the 
phenomena of capillarity, Carnot’s functions, the 
application of Coulomb’s law to electrolytes, elec- 
trical measurements, the determination of the ohm, 
and the theory and mode of use of seismographic 
apparatus—a range of subjects which well serves 
to illustrate the many-sidedness of the man and the 
catholicity of his studies. 
M. Lippmann, although born of French parents 
—his father was of Lorraine and his mother from 
Alsace—owes much of his inspiration to German 
influence. On the conclusion of the war of 1870 
M. Lippmann had the courage to repair to Heidel- 
berg, where he was welcomed by Kiihne, Kirch- 
hoff, Koenigsberger, and Lossen. In the first 
instance he was attracted by the problems of 
physiological chemistry, and worked with Kiihne 
on the albuminous phosphates. But he soon aban- 
doned chemistry for physics, and, entering Kirch- 
hoff’s laboratory, took up the study of electro- 
NO. 2213; VOL. 89] 
Biographie, 
By Ernest 
Gauthier-Villars, 
capillarity, which eventually culminated in his well- 
known memoir of 1875. He graduated at Heidel- 
berg, and after a year at Berlin, under Helmholtz, 
he returned to Paris and became attached to the 
physical laboratory at the Sorbonne, then under the 
direction of Jamin, whom he eventually succeeded. 
The physical laboratory of the Sorbonne in those 
days was a wretched affair, consisting of some 
sheds and two or three rooms on the ground floor 
of a house in the Rue Saint-Jacques. M. Lipp- 
mann is far better housed to-day, but he has still 
a tender regard for the old shed in which he had 
worked with such signal success for upwards of 
twenty years. 
M. Lebon’s biographical notice is executed with 
taste and discrimination. Much of M. Lippmann’s 
| work has dealt with problems of the hour, and it 
has occasionally happened that he has been as- 
sailed by questions of priority, especially by 
certain English authorities. But M. Lebon deals 
with these matters impartially, and with an 
obvious desire to mete out strict justice to all 
concerned. 
The analytical bibliography which necessarily 
constitutes a large part of M. Lebon’s memoir has 
been carefully edited, and will be of great use to 
those to whom M. Lippmann’s many publications 
are not readily accessible. M. Lebon’s work is in 
every way a worthy contribution to contemporary 
scientific biography and a record of brilliant 
achievement, and as such we heartily congratulate 
both him and its subject on its appearance. 
JOTTINGS OF A SPORTSMAN- 
NATURALIST. 
Stalks in the Himalaya. Jottings of a Sportsman- 
Naturalist. By E. P. Stebbing. Pp. xxvin+ 
321. (London: John Lane; New York: John 
Lane Company, 1912.) Price 12s. 6d. net. 
N a book with a title and sub-title of such 
| import, there are certain things that one 
expects to find. 
The naturalist—or even the plain unlabelled son 
of Adam—who has lifted up his eyes to the hills, 
and has considered the manifold works of the Lord 
therein revealed, looks for some brief account of 
their physical features, and of the ways in which 
| these are being changed or confirmed by sun and 
frost and rain; for some brief account of their 
fauna, if not also of their flora, and of any 
adaptations or variations, or seasonal changes that 
can be discerned or suspected ; for some occasional 
observations and well-founded reflections upon the 
general facies of the fauna of a tract where two 
great zoogeographical regions meet and overlap. 
If he be a naturalist of the old-fashioned kind, he 
E 
