418 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 299. 



an investigator whose influence has been 

 equally marked on the theories of tran- 

 scendental geometry and on the progress of 

 mathematical physics. In our own country 

 we have lost in D. E. Hughes one of the 

 great scientific inventors of the age ; while 

 we specially deplore the removal in his 

 early prime, of one who has recently been 

 well known at these meetings, Thomas 

 Preston, whose experimental investigations 

 on the relations between magnetism and 

 light, combined with his great powers of 

 lucid exposition, marked out for him a bril- 

 liant future. 



Perhaps the most important event of gen- 

 eral scientific interest during the past year 

 has been the definite undertaking of the 

 great task of the international coordina- 

 tion of scientific literatui-e ; and it may be 

 in some measure in the prolonged confer- 

 ences that were necessitated by that object 

 that the recently announced international 

 federation of scientific academies has had 

 its origin. In the important task of ren- 

 dering accessible the stoi-es of scientific 

 knowledge, the British Association, and in 

 particular this Section of it, has played the 

 part of pioneer. Our annual volumes have 

 long been classical, through the splendid 

 reports of progress of the different branches 

 of knowledge that have been from time to 

 time contributed to them by the foremost 

 British men of science ; and our work in this 

 direction has received the compliment of 

 successful imitation by the sister Associa- 

 tions on the Continent. 



The usual conferences connected with 

 our department of scientific activity have 

 been this year notably augmented by the 

 very successful international congresses of 

 mathematicians and of physicists which met 

 a few weeks ago in Paris. The three vol- 

 umes of reports on the progress of physical 

 science during the last ten yeai-s, for which 

 we are indebted to the initiative of the 

 French Physical Society, will provide an 



admirable conspectus of the present trend 

 of activity, and form a permanent record 

 for the history of our subject. 



Another very powerful auxiliary to prog- 

 ress is now being rapidly provided by the 

 republication, in suitable form and within 

 reasonable time, of the collected works of 

 the masters of our science. We have quite 

 recently received, in a large quarto volume, 

 the mass of most important unpublished 

 work that was left behind him by the late 

 Professor J. C. Adams ; the zealous care of 

 Professor Sampson has worked up into or- 

 der the more purely astronomical part of 

 the volume ; while the great undertaking, 

 spread over many years, of the complete 

 determination of the secular change of the 

 magnetic condition of the earth, for which 

 the practical preparations had been set on 

 foot by Gauss himself, has been prepared 

 for the press by Professor W. G. Adams. 

 By the publication of the first volume of 

 Lord Rayleigh's papers a series of memoirs 

 which have formed a main stimulus to the 

 progress of mathematical physics in this 

 country during the past twenty years has 

 become generally accessible. The com- 

 pleted series will form a landmark for the 

 end of the century that may be compared 

 with Young's ' Lectures on l^atural Philos- 

 ophy' for its beginning. 



The recent reconstruction of the Univer- 

 sity of London and the foundation of the 

 University of Birmingham will, it is to be 

 hoped, give greater freedom to the work 

 of oar University Colleges. The system 

 of examinations has formed an admirable 

 stimulus to the eifective acquisition of that 

 general knowledge which is a necessary 

 part of all education. So long as the exam- 

 iner recognizes that his function is a re- 

 sponsible and influential one, which is to be 

 taken seriously from the point of view of 

 moulding the teaching in places where ex- 

 ternal guidance is helpful, test by examina- 

 tion will remain a most valuable means of 



