October 28, 1922] 



NA TURE 



59i 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers. 



October 29, 1874. John Laird died. — One of the 

 chief pioneers of iron shipbuilding, Laird, who was 

 born in Greenock in 1805, was the son of William 

 Laird, who established a boiler - making works at 

 Birkenhead. As a partner with his father, in 1829 

 he built an iron lighter of 60 tons, and in .1833 built 

 the iron paddle steamer Lady Lansdowne. Laird 

 also built the first iron vessel in the Royal Navy, 

 and in 1839 built the Nemesis for the East India 

 Company, the first iron steamer to carry a gun and 

 to steam round the Cape. The famous Birkenhead 

 Iron Works were established by him. 



October 30, 1823. Edmund Cartwright died. — 

 The inventor of the power loom, which he brought 

 out in 17S5, Cartwright was born in the Midlands 

 in 1 743, was a student of University College, Oxford, 

 and entered the Church. While holding the living 

 of Goadby - Marwood in Leicestershire a visit to 

 Arkwright at -Matlock turned his attention to weaving, 

 and within a year he had made the great invention 

 by which he is remembered. His loom was employed 

 but little till the 19th century, but in 1809 he was 

 granted a sum of 10,000/. by Parliament. Cart- 

 wright also made improvements in woolcombing and 

 in agriculture, and assisted Fulton in some of his 

 experiments in steam navigation. 



October 30, 1880. Sir Thomas Bouch died. — Born 

 in Cumberland in 1822, Bouch was trained as a 

 railway engineer and in 1849 became manager of the 

 Edinburgh and Northern Railway. He constructed 

 some 300 miles of railway, instituted steam ferries 

 on the Forth and Tay, and between 1870 and 1877 

 built the first Tay Bridge, nearly two miles long. 

 This bridge consisted of 85 spans, some of the wrought- 

 iron lattice girders being 245 feet long. It was com- 

 pleted in September 1877, and opened for traffic in May 

 1878. During a hurricane on the evening of December 

 28, 1879, the central portion with an entire train 

 and 70 passengers fell into the Taj-. 



October 30, 1898. Josiah Latimer Clark died. — 

 A distinguished electrical engineer, Clark began life 

 as a chemist, and after engaging in railway work, in 

 1850 joined the Electric and International Telegraph 

 Company. His principal work lay in the field of 

 submarine telegraphy and he was concerned with 

 the laying of many cables, mainly in the East. He was 

 also an original investigator, assisted to found the 

 Institute of Electrical Engineers, and in 1874-75 

 served as president. 



November 1, 1856. John Urpeth Rastrick died. — 

 Trained under his father as a mechanical engineer, 

 Rastrick tookan important part in introducing railways 

 into the country. He effected improvements in locomo- 

 tives, was one of the judges at the Rainhill trials of 

 1829 who decided in favour of Stephenson's Rocket, 

 assisted Stephenson to survey the Birmingham and 

 Manchester Railway, and with Sir John Rennie was 

 engineer to the London and Brighton line. 



November 4, 1917. William Du Bois Duddell died. 

 — Recognised as a brilliant investigator of electrical 

 phenomena, Duddell was trained as an engineer at 

 Colchester and then worked under Ayrton at the 

 Central Technical College, London. His discovery 

 of the singing arc formed the starting point in the 

 'development of the Poulsen arc, while his oscillograph 

 marked an epoch in the experimental investigation 

 of alternating current phenomena. He was a Fellow 

 of the Royal Society and served as president of the 

 Rontgen Society and of the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers. E. C. S. 



NO. 2765, VOL. I 10] 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 



Optical Society, October 12. — Prof. F. J. Cheshire, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — L. C. Martin : A 

 physical study of coma. A specially designed micro- 

 scope objective and mounting, calculated to exhibit 

 coma in the absence of spherical aberration and 

 astigmatism, arc described. Photographs of .1 star 

 image, taken when the amount of coma is equivalent 

 to that for which the light distribution has been 

 calculated, verify the numerical work. The photo- 

 metric examination of the photographic image is 

 carried out by a special method. — F. W. Preston : 

 Comparison of the structure of sand-blasted and 

 ground glass surfaces. Glass surfaces smoothed or 

 " greyed " by loose abrasives in the usual way are 

 compared with those produced by sand blasting. 

 The surfaces are practically indistinguishable either 

 by the naked eye or the microscope, and the develop- 

 ment of the structure by etching shows that the 

 structure is virtually identical. Thus it appears that 

 mere pounding of a glass plate can, and does, produce 

 a surface which is structurally indistinguishable from 

 a smoothed surface of a technical order. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, September iS. — M. Emile 

 Roux in the chair. — I.. Cuenot and Raymond Poisson : 

 The development of some coaptations of insects. 

 Coaptations are defined as mechanical arrangements 

 formed by the reciprocal adjustment of two in- 

 dependent parts, like a key and a lock. Examples 

 of such processes are given from Nepa cinerea and 

 Ranatra linearis. — L. G. Du Pasquier : The arithnomy 

 of quaternions. — Jean Rey : The probability of 

 illuminating an aeroplane by the beam from an 

 electric projector. — A. Sanfourche : The reactions 

 between the gaseous oxides of nitrogen and alkaline 

 solutions. The reaction generally assumed to take 

 place occurs only when the alkali is in excess at every 

 point. If there is any local deficiency of alkali, 

 the gas reacts with water producing nitric acid and 

 nitric oxide. Sulphuric acid is preferable as an 

 absorbent. — Paul Riou : The velocity of absorption 

 of carbon dioxide by ammoniacal solutions. Ex- 

 perimental results on the velocity of absorption of 

 carbon dioxide by solutions of ammonium carbonate, 

 with varying concentrations of salt and with varying 

 temperatures. — P. Russo : New indications of the 

 Trias in eastern Morocco. — Jean Bathellier : The 

 role of the soldiers in Eutermes matangensis. In 

 fighting, the soldiers of this species eject a sticky 

 fluid, insoluble in water, which rapidly reduces their 

 opponents to immobilitv. If the nest is broken, 

 the workers are protected during the pi" 

 reconstruction by a line of soldiers, which follows the 

 contour of the gallery under repair. — F. Dienert and 

 P. Etrillard : The possibility of the existence of 

 organisms in rocks capable of reviving after sterilisa- 

 tion by heat. A repetition of some experiments by 

 M. Galippe. The results of M. Galippe were not 

 confirmed : the rocks were sterile after prolonged 

 heating to 180 C. 



September 25. — M. L. Maquenne in the chair — 

 The Perpetual Secretary announced the death of 

 M. Battandier, correspondant for the section of 

 Botanv.— P. Urysohn : The ramification oi the 

 Cantorian lines.— M. Seigle : The principal cha 

 istics of mild steel bars previously broken by traction. 

 It has been generally held that a steel hardened by 

 extension is breakable and dangerous to use. Tests 



