January 14, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



37 



chronology by means of ancient eclipses, in- 

 equalities in the motions of many of the 

 planets, the procession of the equinoxes, and 

 the mutual perturbations of planets. 



In 1919 he published a new solution of the 

 problem of the tides. In the preface to his 

 work he says: 



> The cause of the tides was sufficiently and cor- 

 rectly explained by Sir Isaac Newton in the year 

 1687; and the mathematical development of the 

 effects produced by that cause upon the waters of 

 the ocean has been the great unsolved problem 

 before the scientific world for more than 230 

 years. 



Mr. Stockwell believed that he had solved 

 this problem, and in his recent pamphlet he 

 gives two different solutions and a set of 

 tables of the solar and lunar tidal waves, to- 

 gether with the method of computing the tides 

 at any point on the earth's surface. 



In 1855 he was married to Sarah Healy, a 

 foster-daughter of his uncle, and they lived 

 together for over sixty-one years until she 

 died, at the age of eighty- three. Their life 

 together was an ideal one. Besides taking 

 upon herself much of the burden of domestic 

 cares in order that her husband might devote 

 himself more fully to his scientific work, she 

 sympathized fully with him in all that he was 

 doing and gave him her encouargement. 



Dr. Stockwell continued his mathematical 

 work up to within three weeks of his death. 

 Although he lived to be eighty-eight years of 

 age, his mind was perfectly clear, and until 

 attacked by his last illness, he was able to 

 carry on his work with much of the vigor 

 which had always characterized his investiga- 

 tions. Occasional visits by him to my office 

 kept me in touch with what he was doing, and 

 I was very glad to be able to loan him, from 

 the college library, some books which he did 

 not possess. He was a nattu-al mathematician 

 and acquired his knowledge without a teacher 

 because his clear, analytical mind was able to 

 grasp and understand any mathematical or 

 astronomical theory which intereted him. The 

 long list of his published papers shows that he 

 was also possessed of that rare type of mind — 

 the type which can work out for itself new 



things in mathematics and science which 

 clearly interpret the great laws of our uni- 

 verse. 



Charles S. Howe 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



CHAIR OF LOGIC AT THE UNIVERSITY OF 

 LONDON 



Dr. C. a. Mercier, the distinguished Lon- 

 don alienist, in his will offered $100,000 to 

 London University to endow a chair under 

 stipulations, sent us by Dr. E. E. Slosson. 

 They are: 



Scheme for the establishment of a Professorial 

 Chair of Bational Logic and Scientific Method. 

 The purpose of this foundation is that students 

 may be taught, not what Aristotle or any one else 

 thought about reasoning, but how to think clearly 

 and reason correctly; and to form opinions on ra- 

 tional grounds: the better to provide that the 

 teaching shall be of this character, and shall not 

 degenerate into the teaching of rigid formulffl and 

 worn out supersitions, I make the following con- 

 ditions : 



The professor is to be chosem for his ability to 

 think and reason and to teach, and not for his ac- 

 quaintance with books on logic, or with the opin- 

 ions of logicians or philosophers. Acquaintance 

 with the Greek and German tongues is not to be 

 an actual disqualification for the professorship, but 

 ^n case the merits of the candidates appear in 

 other respects approximately equal, preference is 

 to be given first to him who knows neither Greek 

 flor German; next, to him who knows Greek but 

 not German; next, to him who knows German but 

 not Greek; and last of all, to a candidate who 

 knows both Greek and German. 



The professor is not to devote more than one 

 twelfth of his course of instruction to the logic of 

 Aristotle and the schools, nor more than one 

 twenty-fourth to the logic of Hegel and other Ger- 

 mans. He is to proceed upon the principle that 

 the only way to acquire an art is by practising it 

 under a competent instructor. Didactic inculcation 

 is useless by itself. He is, therefore, to exercise 

 his pupils in thinking, reasoning and scientific 

 piethod as applied to other situdies that the stu- 

 dents are pursuing concurrently, and to other topics 

 of living interest. 



Epistemology and the rational grounds of opin- 

 ion are to be taught. The students are to be prac- 



