448 



NATURE 



[September io, 1908 



honorary member of the Ph3'sical Society of London ; 

 in 1892, Foreign Member of the Royal Society; in 1900 

 vice-president, and in 190 1 honorary member of the 

 Institution of Electrical Eng'ineers. 



After his retirement last year, at the age of seventy, 

 from the directorate of the Bureau of Meteorology, 

 liis health, which had suffered under his strenuous 

 activities, broke down, and even the repose of his 

 country residence failed to bring recovery. He was 

 buried with military honours on Saturday, August 29, 

 in the cemetery of Montparnasse. 



THK LATE EARL OF ROSSE. 

 'T'HE Earl of Rosse, whose death on August 29 has 

 -'■ been already announced, inherited a name of 

 great renown in science. It was during his childhood 

 that his father, the third Earl, erected the mighty 

 reflecting telescopes at his seat at Birr Castle" by 

 which the name of Lord Rosse became famous 

 throughout the world. The third Earl was endowed 

 by Nature with much mechanical skill, and as a means 

 of utilising his tastes and opportunities in the best 

 possible manner for the advancement of knowledge 

 he commenced to make reflecting telescopes. Every 

 detail of the work was carried out in the workshops 

 which gradually grew about Birr Castle. Incessant 

 experiments were made to improve the methods of 

 casting, grinding, and polishing the specula, until at 

 last his efforts culminated in the mighty si.x-foot 

 reflector which even at this day, notwithstanding the 

 advances of the last si.xty years, has still the greatest 

 aperture of any astronomical instrument in theVorld. 



The great six-foot telescope at Birr, or Parsonstown, 

 as the little country town used then to be called, soon 

 gave abundant proof of its power. The most notable 

 achievement was the discovery of the spiral nebute, 

 which were not visible by any other telescope at that 

 time existing. Indeed, the spiral nebulae were not 

 altogether credited in some quarters, until the advent 

 of photography in recent years put an end to all doubts 

 and showed that the spiral nebulas abound in such 

 myriads as to form, next to the fixed stars themselves, 

 the most characteristic objects in the sidereal spaces. 



It was under the shadow of the great telescope and 

 amid such inspiring surroundings that Lord Rosse 

 was reared. The sons of the third Earl inherited the 

 mechanical tastes of their father, and joined eagerly 

 in the practical work of the laboratories and work- 

 shops at Birr Castle. The eldest. Lord Oxmantown, 

 succeeded to his father's scientific gifts no less than to 

 his title and estates, and the youngest, the Hon. C. A. 

 Parsons, following the natural development of his 

 tastes from childhood, has achieved fame for his 

 country as well as for himself by the splendid inven- 

 tion of the steam turbine. 



The education which Lord Rosse derived from his 

 father's precept and example was, of course, supple- 

 mented by the necessary education of a more conven- 

 tional type. In this he was also e.xceptionally for- 

 tunate. The two first mathematical men of their 

 year (1855) in Trinity College, Dublin, were John 

 Purser, the late distinguished professor of mathe- 

 matics in Belfast, and the Rev. T. T. Gray, who is 

 at present a most respected senior fellow of his college. 

 First one o'f these men (Gray) became resident at Birr, 

 and to him the education of Lord Oxmantown was 

 entrusted. He was succeeded bv Purser, and under 

 such admirable tuition the future Earl of Rosse de- 

 veloped much power in mathematics and its phvsical 

 applications. In d\ie course he entered Trinity College, 

 Dublin, and had there a distinguished career. 



The third Earl had been president of the Roval 

 Society for several years, and his personal scientific 

 NO. 2028, VOL. 78] 



distinction, as well as his unrivalled position as one of 

 the most bountiful and most capable patrons of 

 science, naturally placed him in intimate association 

 with the leading men of science of the day. Sir John 

 Herschel, I-Jomnev Robinson, Sabine, Fairbairn, Lyell, 

 South, and many other distinguished persons in the 

 middle of the last century were the friends of Lord 

 Rosse. As Lord Oxmantown always resided with his 

 father either in the ancestral home at Birr Castle or 

 when a visit was paid to London, or a cruise was 

 tal-;en in their vacht, his years of early manhood were 

 passed in close association with the illustrious friends 

 of his father, and he had thus unique advantages of 

 making acquaintance with science and with scientific 

 workers. On one occasion (more than forty years 

 ago) we know of Lord Oxmantown 's spending a long 

 day with Babb.ige, who was enthusiastically explain- 

 ing to him the details of that wonderful analytical 

 engine which would perform every description of cal- 

 culation up to fifty significant figures that the mind 

 of man could render into formulas. Babbagc had many 

 parts of the engine to exhibit. But though the differ- 

 ential engine was to some extent completed, the much 

 more formidable analytical engine had not made much 

 progress beyond the drawings, in which, however, 

 it was believed that the characteristic mechanical ditifi- 

 culties had been overcome. Another time. Lord 

 Oxmantown and his brothers would be the guests of 

 Wheatstone for an afternoon, who would explain to 

 them his inventions of the moment, such as the 

 original printing telegraph or the inverted stereoscope, 

 that presented objects hollowed out instead of in 

 relief. Even in those early days of electricity Gassiot. 

 at his home in Clapham, showed to the great Earl, as 

 well as to Lord Oxmantown and his brothers, his 

 wonderful battery of many thousand cells by which 

 effects which at that time seemed marvellous were 

 produced. 



A specially notable incident in the early career of 

 Lord Rosse as an astronomer was a visit which he 

 paid in 1866 to the observatory of Sir W. Hoggins at 

 Tulse Hill. It was a memorable time in modern 

 astronomy. Huggins had commenced that great 

 series of spectroscopic discoveries which, by the 

 labours of himself and others, have so amazingly 

 extended our knowledge of the heavens. On the night 

 in question fluggins was observing the new star T 

 Coronas, which, after a few days of brightness, had 

 then declined to the sixth magnitude. We are now so 

 much accustomed to the outbreak of new stars and to 

 the occurrence of bright lines in the spectra of such 

 stars that it requires a special effort to recall the in- 

 terest with which these discoveries were received at 

 the time of their making. Huggins showed these lines 

 to Lord Rosse, who also saw another most interesting 

 object on that same evening. It was the linear spec- 

 trum of the first planetary nebula of which the gaseous 

 nature had recently been announced. 



With sucli opportunities and with the splendid in- 

 struments available at Birr, Lord Rosse devoted 

 himself keenly to practical astronomical work. His 

 first achievement was his magnificent drawing of the 

 great nebula in Orion. It is probably the most elabor- 

 ate piece of astronomical portraiture ever completed. 

 It occupied about seven years of practically continuous 

 work at all available opportunities with the six-foot 

 reflector. The beautiful engraving which was made 

 froin Lord Rosse 's drawing of the nebula is a familiar 

 object on the walls of astronomical observatories, 

 .^mong his other astronomical investigations we may 

 mention those of the lunar radiation of heat. On this 

 he was engaged up to the time of his last illness, and, 

 indeed, at the recent meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion in Dublin Sir Howard Grubb exhibited a short- 

 focus mirror of remarkable construction which he had 



