July 29, 1922] 



NA TURE 



16: 



Leicester Conference of the Museums Association. 



'"PHE thirty-third annual conference of the Museums 

 *■ Association, held on July 10-15 a t Leicester, 

 under the presidency of Mr. E. E. Lowe, director 

 of the Museum, Art Gallery, and Libraries in that 

 city, was attended by eighty-six members, comprising 

 delegates from most of the leading museums, national 

 and provincial, in the British Isles, as well as from 

 Canada and the United States. The admirably 

 organised hospitality of an influential reception com- 

 mittee rendered the meeting one of the most enjoy- 

 able in the history of the Association ; and the 

 devoted labours of its experienced president with 

 his helpers, in their endeavours to make up for the 

 regretted absence of the secretary, Dr. W. Tattersall, 

 through illness, led to an unusual smoothness of 

 working. Above all, the papers and discussions 

 were thoroughly practical, and seemed likely to 

 produce valuable results. 



The president divided his address into a more 

 popular part, for the benefit of the local dignitaries 

 and other friends who attended the opening meeting, 

 and a more technical part addressed to the members 

 of the Association alone. This is an example that 

 might sometimes be followed elsewhere. The first 

 part showed how romance could be extracted from 

 the objects in a museum and used to make more 

 effective contact between the museum and the public. 

 The second part suggested a means by which the 

 Association might undertake more constructive work 

 than it had previously been able to accomplish, and 

 by which members other than the officers and council 

 could take a more continuous and active share in the 

 life and labours of the corporate body. This was the 

 establishment of sub-committees, similar to those 

 of the British Association, to conduct inquiries during 

 the year and to report through the executive to the 

 annual meeting. The proposal was taken up by the 

 Council and welcomed by the meeting. Three such 

 sub-committees were appointed to investigate matters 

 already laid before the conference. Thus Mr. E. 

 Rimbault Dibdin's paper on the organisation of 

 picture exhibitions in the provinces led to the appoint- 

 ment of a committee to consider his proposals. A 

 second committee, arising out of a demonstration 

 by Mr. E. Howarth, is to report on the cleaning and 

 restoration of pictures. The third committee is to 

 investigate and report upon preservative solutions 

 and upon cements for use with various preservatives. 

 This committee, as at present constituted, comprises 

 Dr. W. E. Hoyle (chairman), Dr. G. Hay Murray, 

 and Dr. J. J. Simpson (secretary), and will doubtless 

 welcome assistance from every quarter. The last two 

 gentlemen presented to the meeting notes and demon- 

 strations on cements and labelling for spirit specimens. 

 Other practical communications included a demon- 



stration by Sir Sidney Harmer of his researches on 

 the fading of museum specimens, illustrating his 

 important paper published in a recent number of 

 the Museums Journal and previously noticed in these 

 columns ; a paper and demonstration on taking 

 squeezes of fossils by Dr. F. A. Bather ; and a paper- 

 on museum labelling and printing, by Mr. \ I 

 Roberts, head of the Leicester School of Arts and 

 Crafts. Leicester is famous for its printing and 

 lettering, and the labels in the Leicester Museum 

 admirably exemplify the influence of this school, 

 while the exhibitions held there from time to time 

 help the business community to improve the style 

 of advertisement. Mr. Leney, of the Norwich 

 Museum, recounted his success in obtaining money 

 for museum purposes through an organisation known 

 as " Friends of the Museum " ; Mr. R. \V. Brown, 

 of Northampton, made sound suggestions on mutual 

 co-operation between museums and public libraries ; 

 .Mr. Williamson, of Derby, discussed the classifica- 

 tion of Derby porcelain ; Prof. Parks, of Toronto, 

 described the constitution of the Royal Ontario 

 Museum ; and Mr. R. E. Martin reported on the 

 Buffalo meeting of the American Museums Association 

 which he had attended. Mr. J. Bailey urged the 

 appointment of a Royal Commission " to investigate 

 and report upon the work of museums of the United 

 Kingdom in relation to industries and general culture " 

 and his proposals, endorsed by a large meeting, were 

 subsequently adopted by the council. 



In connexion with the conference there were 

 arranged at the museum an exhibition by the British 

 Institute of Industrial Art, an exhibition of wood-grain 

 panels, executed by Mr. A. J. Rowley, after designs 

 by well-known artists, and a number of modern 

 paintings lent by artists of international reputation. 

 Bearing more directly on the work of the Association 

 were two rooms filled with exhibits by members 

 and by fifteen business firms, all of which attracted 

 the constant attention of the delegates and other 

 visitors throughout the week. But perhaps the most 

 illuminating and inspiring exhibit was the Leicester 

 Museum itself, not so much for the building or the 

 specimens contained in it as for the prevailing sense 

 of life and directing intelligence. The numbers that 

 thronged the galleries on Sunday afternoon and the 

 cordial assistance of the Mayor and many members 

 of the corporation showed how highly the people 

 of Leicester appreciate a museum and a director of 

 whom they may well be proud. In doing so they 

 prove how true are the principles for which the 

 Museums Association and notably its retiring presi- 

 dent have never ceased to strive. 



The next conference will meet at Hull in July 

 1924, under the presidency of Mi. Thomas Shepparcf. 



The Arrangement and Motion of the Sidereal System. 



THE above is the title of the late Prof. Kapteyn's 

 last paper, which appeared in the Astrophysical 

 Journal for May. In an earlier paper he had shown 

 that the surfaces of equal stellar density are approxi- 

 mately ellipsoids of revolution, modified, however, by 

 inflexions near the pole. In the present paper he 

 assumes the exact ellipsoidal form, for convenience 

 of computation, though admittedly not quite in accord 

 with fact. He draws ten ellipsoids, embracing the 

 known portion of the stellar system ; the semi-minor 

 axes (towards the galactic pole) range from 1 1 S to 

 1660 parsecs, while the radii of the circular galactic 

 sections are in each case 5-1 times the polar semi- 

 axes. The logarithms of the star-density in the 

 successive shells fall off from 9/S0 in the inner to 8-oo 



NO. 2752, VOL. I IO] 



in the outer, the density in the sun's neighbourhood 

 being the unit. For simplicity the sun was taken as 

 central ; its most probable distance from the centre 

 is given as 650 parsecs, the latter lying in K.A. 

 23 11 io™, N. Decl. 57 ; this is not far from Kap- 

 teyn's 1893 position, which was K.A. o 1 ', N. Decl. 

 42°. Kapteyn noted that his work would need 

 correction for this eccentric position of the sun, and 

 also for the fact that he combined stars of all spectral 

 types together, though it is known that there are 

 systematic differences in their motions. 



The convenience of assuming that the successive 

 shells are ellipsoids is that each shell exerts no attrac- 

 tion on the space within it, and if there are other 

 similar shells outside the outermost one considered 



