December 23, 1922] 



NA TURE 



861 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers. 



December 24, 1872. William John Macqueen 

 Rankine died. — The author of a series of valuable 

 engineering text-books, Rankine was a distinguished 

 engineer and physicist, and with Clausius and Kelvin 

 helped to found the modern science of thermo- 

 dynamics. A student first at Glasgow Academy 

 and then of the University of Edinburgh, he gained 

 practical experience in railway engineering under 

 M'Neill and Locke, and in 1855 succeeded Gordon in 

 the chair of civil engineering in Glasgow University. 



December 25, 1868. Linus Yale, Junior, died. — 

 The son of Linus Yale, senior (1797-1857), a successful 

 inventor of locks, Yale was born in 1831 and began 

 life as a portrait painter. Joining his father in 

 1849 he contributed much to the success of the firm. 

 and during 1860-64, by the adoption of an old 

 Egyptian device, worked out his well-known pin- 

 and-tumbler lock for the production of which the 

 Yale Manufacturing Company was organised at 

 Stamford, Connecticut. 



December 27, 1883. Andrew Atkinson Humphreys 

 died. — Humphreys graduated from the United States 

 Military Academy, served in the Bureau of Topo- 

 graphical Engineers and the United States Coast 

 Survey, and made a long study of the problem of 

 controlling the waters of the Mississippi, his work 

 on which raised him high among hydraulic engineers. 



December 27, 1890. William John died. — Trained 

 as a naval constructor under the Admiralty, John 

 was regarded as one of the ablest and most original 

 constructors of his day. He wrote on stability, the 

 strength of iron ships, and other subjects, and from 

 1 88 1 to 1888 was manager of the Barrow Shipbuilding 

 Works. 



December 27, 1896. Sir John Brown died. — One 

 of the first to develop successfully the Bessemer 

 process, Brown introduced into Sheffield the manu- 

 facture of steel rails, and at the Atlas Works, in 1863, 

 rolled an iron armour plate twelve inches thick and 

 fifteen to twenty feet long. 



December 27, 1900. Sir William George Armstrong, 

 Baron Armstrong of Cragside, died. — A solicitor, who 

 became a great engineer, Armstrong was a pioneer 

 in the use of hydraulic machinery, the rival of Krupp 

 as an improver of artillery, and an organiser of 

 outstanding ability. Born in Newcastle in 1810 he 

 practised as a solicitor there ; in 1846, he invented 

 his hydraulic crane, and the following year became 

 the first manager of the Elswick Engineering Works. 

 In 1854 he brought out a breech-loading rifled gun, 

 in 1859 founded the Elswick Ordnance Works, and 

 in 1880 built a six-inch wire-wound gun. He was 

 assisted by Rendel, Noble, Yavasseur, and others, 

 and the Elswick Works were afterwards amalgamated 

 with those of Mitchell and Swan and of Whitworth. 



December 28, 1907. Coleman Sellers died. — A 

 distinguished American mechanical engineer, Sellers 

 was for many years connected with the firm of 

 William Sellers and Co., of Philadelphia. Retiring 

 in 1887 he became a consultant, and was actively 

 engaged in the pioneering schemes for the utilisation 

 of the power of the Niagara Falls. 



December 30, 1910. Fredrik Adolf Kjellin died. — 

 Known for his original work on electric smelting, 

 Kjellin was trained at the Technical High School of 

 Stockholm and became metallurgical chemist at the 

 Gysinge works of the Aktiebolaget G. Benedicks, 

 where, in 1899, he constructed the first induction 

 furnace. E. C. S. 



NO. 2773, VOL. I IO] 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 

 Geological Society, December 6. — Prof. A. C. 

 Seward, president, and afterwards Mr. R. D. Oldham, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — H. A. Baker : Geological 

 investigations in the Falkland Islands. The strati- 

 graphical succession comprises rocks of Archaean, 

 Devono-Carboniferous, and Permo-Carboniferous age. 

 There is only one exposure of Archasan rocks, namely, 

 in the cliffs of Cape Meredith, the southernmost point 

 of West Falkland. Overlying these old rocks, and 

 separated from them by a strong unconformity, are 

 coarse sandstones and quartzitic rocks, nearly hori- 

 zontal. This unfossiliferous series is of great thick- 

 ness, probably about 5000 feet. It occupies the 

 southern part of West Falkland and the islands lying 

 to the west of this area. It is regarded as of Devonian 

 age. The succeeding series of rocks, of Devono- 

 Carboniferous age, occupy the remainder of West 

 Falkland (except for small areas of Permo-Carboni- 

 ferous rocks) and the northern half of East Falkland. 

 The Middle and Upper Series each include about 2500 

 feet of strata. Terrestrial deposits of Permo-Carboni- 

 ferous age follow. They occupy a synclinorium ex- 

 tending over the whole of the southern half of East 

 Falkland (Lafonia) and Falkland Sound. They in- 

 clude a thickness of strata exceeding 9000 feet. A 

 sandstone formation (Lafonian Sandstone) of no great 

 thickness follows, and is, in turn, succeeded by more 

 than 6000 feet of terrestrial deposits. Several thou- 

 sand feet of these Upper Lafonian Beds consist of a 

 monotonous alternation of thin sandstones and shaly 

 beds. Doleritic dykes are of frequent occurrence ; 

 their age is post-Upper Lafonian. The marine fauna 

 will probably prove to be of Upper Devonian age. 

 The Falkland Islands appear to owe their existence 

 to the fact that they occur at the crossing-place of 

 two sets of folding movements. — A. C. Seward and 

 J. Walton : On a collection of fossil plants from the 

 Falkland Islands. A Devonian age is suggested for 

 the oldest plant-bearing beds. Numerous examples 

 of Glossopteris leaves were collected, especially in 

 Lafonia, of species which are not confined to one 

 geological series in the Gondwana System. Many 

 specimens of Equisetaceous stems were also obtained 

 from the Glossopteris Beds : of these several are 

 identical with Falkland examples described by A. G. 

 Nathorst and by T. G. Halle, while others are com- 

 pared with an' Upper Triassic or Rhastic species 

 Neocalainites cavrerei (Zeiller). A comparison of 

 petrified wood, most of which has been assigned by 

 various writers to the genus Dadoxylon, from different 

 parts of Gondwanaland, points to the prevalence, in 

 the southern botanical province, of trees differing 

 in anatomical characters from contemporary plants 

 in the northern province. The Permo-Carboniferous 

 flora seems to agree most nearly with the Damuda 

 and Beaufort Series of India and South Africa re- 

 spectively. The stems compared with Neocalamites 

 favour a reference of the beds at Cygnet Harbour and 

 Egg Harbour to a somewhat higher position ; and, on 

 the other hand, the leaves described as Glossopteris 

 indica Schimper (cf. G. decipiens Feistmantel) from 

 North Arm, although they represent a type which 

 has a wide range both in space and in time, suggest 

 a possible correlation with the Ecca Series of South 

 Africa and the Talchir Series of India. 



Cambridge. 



Philosophical Society, November 27. — Mr. C. T. 

 Heycock, president, in the chair. — C. T. R. Wilson : 

 On some a-ray tracks. (1) The track of an a-particle 

 from an atom of thorium emanation, together with 



