December 23, 1922] 



NA TURE 



851 



Lemoine, having served the Polytechnic School, in 

 various capacities, from 1871, was elected professor in 

 1897.- He succeeded Friedel as a member of the 

 chemistry section of the Academy of Sciences in 1899. 



T. E. Thorpe. 



Howard Fox. 



Mr. Howard Fox. of Falmouth, died on November 

 15, in his eighty-sixth year. In the intervals ol a 

 busy commercial and consular career — the firm to 

 which he belonged were appointed American Consuls 

 by George Washington — he contributed verv largely 

 to our knowledge of the natural history of his native 

 county, Cornwall, especially in the domain of geology. 

 The record of his work is to be found in many papers 

 published by the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, 

 of which he was president during the years 1893 and 

 1894, the Geological Society of London, the Geological 

 Magazine, and other scientific institutions and journals. 

 We can only refer to a few of his more important 

 discoveries. 



Mr. Fox traced the distribution of the Radiolarian 

 (Codden Hill) Beds of the Lower Culm Series throughout 

 the west of England ; and, in collaboration with the late 

 Dr. G. J. Hinde. studied the characters of these rocks 

 and of their radiolaria. He also discovered the radio- 

 larian cherts of Mullion Island, which belong to a 

 much lower geological horizon. Among other fossils 

 found by him is the notable Pteroconus minis, prob- 

 ably allied to the pteropods. occurring in the supposed 

 Lower Devonian rocks of Bedruthan Steps, north of 

 Newquay, the younger stages of which are some- 

 times preserved in such a way as closely to resemble 

 graptnliies. lie also published accounts of other 

 Cornish fossils, relying on the help of specialists for 

 their determination and description. 



But .Mr. Fox's interest was by no means confined 

 to the fossiliferous rocks. He studied the igneous 

 and metamorphic rocks of the Lizard peninsula and 

 made himself familiar with every nook and corner 

 of that rock-bound coast. By mapping a small 

 portion of the sloping face of a cliff, on a scale much 

 larger than that of any published map, he proved con- 

 clusively that the serpentine and hornblende-schist 

 had been intimately interfolded ; and, by observa- 

 tions on another portion of the coast, established the 

 fact that certain rocks, apparently belonging to the 

 " Granulitic Series," were intrusive in the surrounding 

 schists. He also made the important discovery that 

 the Man of War rocks, off Lizard Head, are mainly 

 formed of a corrugated igneous gneiss, quite different 

 from any rock occurring on the mainland. 



In petrology and mineralogy, as in palaeontology, 

 Mr. Fox availed himself of the help of specialists, and 

 all those who were thus brought into personal contact 

 with him were captivated by his geniality and stimu- 

 lated bv his enthusiasm. 



Lord Sudeley, F.R.S. 



Charles Douglas Richard Hanbury - Tracy 



fourth Baron Sudeley. whose death on December 9, 



in his eighty-third year, will be regretted in many 



circles, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 



NO. 2773, VOL. I io] 



1888, in recognition of his services to science as chair- 

 man of the British Commission to the Electrical 

 Exhibition at Vienna in 1883. Of late years, Lord 

 Sudeley persistently advocated in the House of Lords 

 and in the Press the increased use of our museums and 

 picture-galleries for the education and recreation (in 

 the highest sense) of the public. In 1910, struck by 

 the value of a demonstrator engaged by the Science 

 Committee at the Japano-British Exhibition, he urged 

 that similar guide-lecturers should be attached to our 

 national museums. The Natural History Museum was 

 the first to adopt the suggestion, and now, thanks to 

 Lord Sudeley's untiring efforts, all the larger public 

 museums have one or more of these popular adjuncts. 

 Next he actively promoted the production and sale of 

 picture postcards by Government museums. Lastly, 

 as shown by his article in the Nineteenth Century for 

 October, he was preparing to move for the appointment 

 of a Royal Commission to consider the better working 

 of the museums of this country. 



Mr. Herbert Wood'ville Miller, who died on 

 December 4, was one of the pioneers of electric lighting 

 in this country. In 1886 he was appointed to assist 

 Crompton and Co. in working out the system of 

 electric light distribution in the West End of London 

 which they had successfully installed in Vienna. By 

 1899 it was evident that stations centrally situated in 

 populous districts were unsuitable to meet a growing 

 demand , and Miller therefore designed and carried out 

 the power station at Wood-lane which supplies the 

 Kensington and Knightsbridge Company and the 

 Notting Hill Co. He was engineer and manager of 

 the Kensington Co.; the station beneath the Albeit 

 Hall is an excellent example of an accumulator station. 

 He served on several committees of the International 

 Electrotechnical Commission, and his thorough know- 

 ledge of electrotechnical subjects made him a most 

 useful member of the editing committee of the British 

 Engineering Standards Association. 



The Chemiker Zeitung of November 23 announces 

 the death on November 20 of Prof. August Horstmann, 

 at the age of eighty. Prof. Horstmann was the first to 

 show the applicability of the laws of thermodynamics 

 to chemical problems, his first paper on this subject 

 being published in the Berichte in 1869. His other 

 work was mainly in this direction, and was concerned 

 with problems of dissociation, the determination of 

 vapour densities and vapour pressures, specific heats, 

 and heats of reaction. He was therefore the pioneer 

 in a branch of physical chemistry which has since been 

 developed particularly by Van't Iloff and Nernst. For 

 some years Horstmann was professor emeritus of 

 theoretical chemistry in the University of Heidelberg. 



We learn from Sciatic with much regret of the 

 death, on November 1, of I>r. R. W. Willson. emeritus 

 professor of astronomy at Harvard University, at the 

 age of sixty-nine years. 



