2 54 



NA TURE 



[July i i, 1907 



well known to nie when I held the office of Chancellor of 

 the University of Wales. I feel confident that increased 

 efficiency will result from the facilities afforded by the 

 commodious premises of which I have to-day laid the first 

 stone. The competition in every branch of industry, 

 especially in those branches which depend largely on science 

 and art, is in these days severe, and it must be met by 

 increased application and improved methods. The world 

 is, I believe, better for such competition, but it behoves 

 individual nations to use every possible effort to hold their 

 own in the struggle. For this purpose higher education 

 is an absolute necessity. However brilliant a man's 

 natural talents may be, he is greatly hindered by the want 

 of early training, and as a rule only those who have 

 enjoyed a good education are capable of acquiring such 

 proficiency in any branch of study as will enable them to 

 succeed. The University College of North Wales will offer 

 to its students exceptional opportunities of instruction. 

 Time and money, energy and perseverance, will, I am 

 sure, not be spared in the endeavour to afford everv facility 

 to the acquirement of knowledge, and I have had sufficient 

 opportunities of judging the intelligence of the Welsh people 

 and their eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge to know- 

 that your young men and women will take every advantage 

 of the instruction which is offered them. 



At the close of the ceremony of laying- the founda- 

 tion stone, the King conferred the honour of knight- 

 hood upon Dr. H. R. Reichel, the principal of the 

 college. 



We regret to announce that Sir William H. Broadbent, 

 Bart., F.R.S., physician in ordinary to the King and to 

 the Prince of Wales, died on Wednesday, July lo, at 

 seventy-two years of age. 



The Nettleship gold medal of the Ophthalmological 

 Society of the United Kingdom has been awarded to Dr. 

 J. Herbert Parsons, for his work on " The Pathology of 

 the Eye." 



The council of the Institution of Civil Engineers has 

 appointed Sir William Matthews, K.C.M.G., president of 

 that institution, to succeed the late Sir Benjamin Baker, 

 K.C.B., K.C.M.G., as one of their representatives on the 

 main committee of the Engineering Standards Committee. 



The annual meeting of the Victoria Institute will be 

 held at Burlington House, Piccadilly, on Wednesdav, 

 July 17. The chair will be taken by the president, the 

 Earl of Halsbury, F.R.S. ; and an address will bo given by 

 Bishop Welldon. 



The Women's Agricultural and Horticultural Inter- 

 national Union will hold an exhibition and sale of farm 

 and garden produce, and of nature-study teaching 

 apparatus, in the gardens of the Royal Botanic Society, 

 Regent's .Park, on Wednesday, July 17. For the con- 

 venience of teachers, the nature-study room will be kept 

 open until Saturday, July 20. 



The vacancy in the tidal and optical departments of the 

 National Physical Laboratory, occasioned by the appoint- 

 ment of Mr. J. de Graaf Hunter to the post of mathe- 

 matical expert on the Indian Survey, has been filled by the 

 appointment of Mr. T. Smith, formerly scholar of Queens' 

 College, Cambridge. 



The recent death of M. Charles Tr(;pied, director of 

 the Algiers Observatory, inflicts yet another severe loss on 

 the ranks of French astronomers. In the organisation of 

 the work of the Astrographic Catalogue and Chart he 

 played an ;ictive and prominent part from the beginning, 

 and it is ti> be deplored that he was not spared to see the 

 completion o( hi^ labours. M. Tr(5pied became director of 

 NO. 1967, VOL. 76J 



the observatory at Algiers in 1880, and in the following 

 year carried out a scheme of reorganisation. In 1883 the 

 observatory was removed from its temporary site at Kouba 

 to its present position at Bondzav^ah, eleven kilometres 

 from Algiers, and was further equipped with an equa- 

 torial coude, and later with a photographic instrument of 

 the standard photographic pattern. Since 1875 M. Tripled 

 was a prolific writer on all branches of astronomy, and 

 gave much study to the physical condition of the sun and 

 to cometary spectra, while the observatory under his charge 

 was always most active in observational work of all kinds. 

 On the occasion of the solar eclipse of 1900, he extended 

 the most generous hospitality and assistance to the foreign 

 astronomers who visited Algiers. He was a corresponding 

 member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. 



Prof. W. J. .Soi.las, F.R.S., professor of geology and 

 palfEOntology at Oxford, and his assistant, Mr. M. Allorge, 

 have just taken' the geological class to Belgium to study 

 the structure of that country. In the Easter expedition of 

 the students, Dr. Vaughan and Prof. Reynolds explained 

 the zoning of the Carboniferous limestone in the Bristol 

 district ; and the object of the present expedition is to 

 bring the results then obtained into comparison with the 

 facts furnished by the Belgian limestones. The leading 

 Belgian geologists, MM. Mourlon, Gosselct, Halet, 

 Simoens, Lohcst, Formari^, and Rutot, are acting as guides 

 for the various visits and excursions which have been 

 arranged. The expedition thus provides facilities for 

 geological observations under the best conditions. 



The retirement is announced of Prof. G. Lunge, at the 

 age of sixty-eight, from the chair of technical chemistry 

 at Zurich, a position which he has held during the past 

 thirty-one years. Prof. Lunge's name is intimately 

 associated with the development of chemical industry in 

 Germany, not only on account of the influence he exerted 

 on his many students, but more directly owing to his 

 inventions and treatises on applied chemistry. At the time 

 when he, as a young man, completed his studies at 

 Heidelberg, chemical industry had hardly come into exist- 

 ence in Germany, so that in order to gain practical 

 experience he found it necessary to proceed to England. 

 In this country, in which he spent the twelve years 1864- 

 1876, he was first actively engaged in studying the problems 

 connected with the distillation of coal tar, but subsequently 

 acted as manager of a large soda works at Tyneside. He 

 was one of the founders of the Newcastle Chemical Society, 

 a precursor of the Society of Chemical Industry. In 1876 

 Prof. Lunge received a call to the professorship of technical 

 chemistry at Zurich, a position which, in spite of many 

 inducements to pass to other universities, he continued to 

 occupy until this year. His books on coal-tar distillation 

 and on the manufacture of acid and alkali have, since the 

 publication of the first volume in 1S79, become almost 

 classics in chemical technology. 



An influentially signed appeal was published in the 

 Times of July 5 for donations to a fund which is being 

 raised to ensure the preservation of characteristic examples 

 of the " grey wethers " on Marlborough Downs. These 

 boulders are locally known as " Sarsen Stones," and are 

 geologically the solidified boulders of a stratum of Eocene 

 sand formerly covering the chalk which in the course of 

 time has been denuded of the softer portions. For many 

 generations these stones have been broken up and used 

 for building and other purposes, but the breaking up has 

 not been on such a scale as to make any appreciable 

 difference in the appearance of the downs. A recent 



