638 
NATURE 
| AUGUST 22, 1912 
plumage, although short, have been carefully 
drawn up and are clearly expressed, but it is not 
correct to say that in young greater spotted 
woodpeckers the ‘entire head is crimson,” 
though the entire crown of the head is so. Pos- 
sibly it was a slip of the pen that produced 
Royston’s instead of Royston crow. 
An important feature of the book is the biblio- 
graphy—a list of books relating to British birds, 
brought down to 1900. This valuable piece of 
work has been compiled by Mr. W. H. Mullens 
for the use of those who may desire to gain some 
general knowledge of the work which has been 
done in British ornithology in the past. The final 
parts contain a full addenda and corrigenda to the 
account of rare and accidental visitors given at 
the end of each family, bringing the records up 
to date; a glossary of synonyms and _ provincial 
names of British birds, scientific and English 
indices, a short preface to the final volume, and 
the list of subscribers. 
DR Ele Os) ONE Spain ie.35 = 
()% Thursday, August 15, Mr. Humphrey Owen 
Jones, F.R.S., with his wife and a guide, 
met with a tragic death in an accident on the 
Alps, in the neighbourhood of Courmayeur, where 
Mr. and Mrs. Jones were spending part of their 
honeymoon. They were ascending the western 
face of the Mont Rouge de Peuteret, and were 
struck by a falling rock, which had become dis- 
lodged. They fell about a thousand feet to the 
Fresnay Glacier. It was in an attempt to make 
the first ascent of a peak in the same range, the 
Aiguille Blanche de Peuteret, that Prof. F. M. 
Balfour was killed in 1882. 
Mr. Jones was born on February 20, 1878, and 
was educated at the University College, Aberyst- 
wyth, and at Clare College, Cambridge. He 
was one of the first graduates in science of the 
University of Wales. He graduated at Cam- 
bridge in 1900, obtaining the rare distinction of 
a “star” in chemistry in part ii. of the natural 
science tripos. He was admitted to the D.Sc. of 
the University of London in 1904. In 1902 he was 
appointed Jacksonian Demonstrator, a post which 
he held to the present time, and subsequently he 
became a fellow and lecturer of Clare College, 
Cambridge. In the present year, at the early age 
of thirty-four, he was elected a fellow of the Royal 
Society. 
Mr. Jones was a man of remarkable energy 
and a born teacher. A peculiar quickness of per- 
ception enabled him immediately to understand 
and meet the difficulties of students. His lectures 
and his laboratory teaching, both to under- 
graduates and to postgraduates, were a feature of 
the university chemical laboratory. He was 
greatly interested in estimating the abilities and 
particular facilities of students. This character- 
istic made him an excellent examiner, an office 
which he was frequently called upon to fill, both 
in his own university and elsewhere. His original 
investigations and contributions to knowledge 
NO. 2234, VOL. 89] 
were numerous and many-sided. As early as 1904 
he was recognised as an authority on the stereo- 
chemistry of nitrogen, on which subject he wrote 
a detailed critical report for the British Associa- 
tion, and subsequently the chapter in the annual 
reports of the Chemical Society. With Sir James 
Dewar, he investigated metallic carbonyls, and 
discovered carbon monosulphide. More recently 
he had been engaged on researches on thio- 
oxalates, and on the intricate problem of the con- 
stitution of aldol bases. 
Mr. Jones also took a very active part in affairs 
not. purely professional. He was a _ co-opted 
member of the Cambridge Appointments Board, 
where his power of discriminating between candi- 
dates was of particular value, and, with others, 
he directed the building of the recent extension to 
the chemical laboratory at ‘Cambridge. His 
appointment to the Royal Commission to report 
on the use of oil fuel in the Navy, which is just 
announced, would have given scope to his ability 
in practical problems. 
It is perhaps as a mountaineer that Mr. Jones 
will be best known to a wide circle of friends. 
Finding out almost accidentally, during a visit to 
North Wales seven years ago, his exceptional 
facilities as a rock climber, he set himself to learn, 
with characteristic energy and directness, the 
highest practice of the art from the best exponents. 
He rapidly acquired a minute knowledge of the 
Italian side of Mont Blanc, and was the originator 
of several new routes. Soon becoming recog- 
nised as a skilful cragsman and experienced moun- 
taineer, he was elected a member of the Alpine 
Club in 1909, and was a member of the committee 
of the Climbers’ Club. 
He married, on August 1, Muriel Gwendolen 
Edwards, the second daughter of the Rev. William 
Edwards, of Bangor, a member of the Edwards 
family to which the Bishop of St. Asaph and the 
late Dean of Bangor belong. Mrs. Jones was 
also a chemist; she was a member of Newnham 
College, Cambridge, and was the first woman to 
be elected a fellow of the University of Wales. 
Ke J.P: 
PROE. (hi. VARRORIE IE: 
M FRANCOIS ALPHONSE FOREL, of 
IVI. Morges, honorary professor of the Uni- 
versity of Lausanne, who died on August 7 at 
seventy-one years of age, was born at Morges, on 
the shores of Lake Geneva, and devoted his life 
to the study of the lake, fostered in his studies 
by his father, Président Fran¢ois Forel, of Morges. 
““Pour nous, ses riverains,” he writes, ‘le Léman 
est le roi des lacs; nous l’aimons avec enthousi- 
asme, avec passion”’; and from 1868 onwards 
there flowed from his pen memoir after memoir 
dealing with “le Léman” in all its varying 
aspects. There is no department of limnology 
that he did not enrich by his researches, and he 
may fairly be considered the founder and chief 
exponent of the scientific study of lakes. 
Forel’s activity as an author was great. In 
ee 
