SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— A. 337 



Bromley House Subscription Library, Nottingham, is that of George 

 Green, self-taught in the main until after the publication of the thesis by 

 which he is most remembered. His father was first a baker in Nottingham 

 and then a prosperous miller in the neighbouring hamlet of Sneinton. The 

 son assisted his father in the business, but at the same time pursued his 

 scientific interests, which must have been regarded with sympathy by the 

 family as the top storey of the mill was used by him as a study. In 1828 

 the Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of 

 Electricity and Magnetism, which introduced the famous theorem, was 

 published privately in Nottingham by subscription. Although lost to the 

 scientific world in general until re-discovered in dramatic fashion by Sir 

 William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) in 1845, the paper at once attracted the 

 notice of Sir Edward Ffrench Bromhead of Thurlby, near Nottingham, who 

 communicated his next two papers to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 

 According to a brother-in-law. Green found his work as a miller irksome, 

 and after his father's death (1829) he disposed of the business though he 

 still retained the property. He then prepared himself to enter Gonville 

 and Caius College, Cambridge, which he did in 1833 under the recom- 

 mendation of Sir Ffrench Bromhead, though he apparently kept an active 

 practical interest in local affairs, as a George Green was appointed trustee to 

 a Sneinton charity in 1839. Becoming Fourth Wrangler in 1837, he pro- 

 ceeded two years later to a college fellowship, but his health failing after a 

 year, he returned to Sneinton and died in 1841. 



Visit to Sneinton. 



Monday, September 6. 



Joint Symposium of Sections A, B, and I on Surface action in biology 

 (lo.o). 



Chairman : Prof. J. C. Philip, O.B.E., F.R.S. 



Dr. Irving Langmuir. — Visible adsorbed films in the field of biology. 



Interference minima with built-up films of forty-seven monolayers of 

 barium stearate on chromium are so sharp that an increment of thickness 

 of 2A can be seen. The surface of such a plate can be conditioned (for 

 example by dipping in a thorium nitrate solution) so that it can adsorb 

 many substances from aqueous solution. Proteins, bile acids, etc., give 

 saturated adsorbed films of characteristic accurately measurable thickness. 

 Antibodies can be adsorbed on antigens, hydrocarbons on bile acids, digitonin 

 on monolayers of cholesterol, etc. Often alternating multilayers can be 

 built up by adsorption or by deposition from the surface of water. Many 

 valuable properties of these films can be measured ; thickness, refractive 

 index, solubility, volatility, contact angle against various liquids, adsorbing 

 power for other substances, X-ray and electron diffraction patterns. Per- 

 meability can be measured by determining the effect of a solvent in removing 

 material from underlying layers, or the penetration of liquids or vapours 

 through monolayers into the voids of an underlying skeleton film. The 

 monolayers can act as catalysts for reactions involving substances in 

 solution, in detecting and identifying minute amounts of substances of 

 biological interest and in throwing light on their structure. 



N 2 



