272 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1104 



papers of unusual interest. The intrinsic 

 value of his method has proved so great that 

 it is quite probable that the name of the 

 author is more widely known from these scien- 

 tific contributions than from any others pub- 

 lished during his long and active life. 



In the for^'oing review of the scientific 

 work of Professor Wright there has been no 

 ^ort to do more than sketch the contents of 

 the papers of chief importance, a large num- 

 ber of notes and minor contributions to sci- 

 ence have been ignored. It would hardly be 

 just, however, to fail to note his activities in 

 X-ray experiments. At a time when Rontgen's 

 ■discovery was hardly more than a rumor and 

 the greater niunber of physicists, perhaps 

 somewhat skeptically, were awaiting more defi- 

 nite descriptions of methods and results, Pro- 

 fessor Wright immediately applied the test of 

 experiment and secured the first of these 

 photographs made in this country. This 

 showed in a very striking way his coTninand 

 of all the resources of his science at the time; 

 nor did he stop with a mere verification of the 

 most wonderful features of the phenomena. 

 He made many studies of the nature of the 

 radiations and their reactions on various forms 

 of matter, but, like other contemporary inves- 

 tigations, the results were hardly more than 

 negative and he did not publish them in a 

 permanent form. 



Professor Wright was a fellow of the Royal 

 Astronomical Society of Great Britain and of 

 the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science; he was a member of the 

 American Physical Society, of the National 

 Academy of Sciences and of other learned 

 societies. 0. S. H. 



THE LOUTREUIL FOUNDATION 



It is stated in Nature that the first distribu- 

 tion of this fund imder the auspices of the 

 Paris Academy of Sciences has been made. 



The grants recommended fall into three 



1. To institutions specially mentioned in the 

 will of the founder. The If atural History Mu- 

 seum, 1,000 francs for the continuation of re- 

 searches on orchids undertaken by Professor 



J. Costantin, and 5,700 francs for the purchase 

 of accumulators, and 4300 francs for a radio- 

 graphic installation needed in the laboratory 

 of Professor Jean Becquerel. The College de 

 France, 4,000 francs to G. Gley, for the in- 

 stallation of an apparatus in his laboratory for 

 the production of cold; 5,000 francs to L. 

 Cayeux, for completing the equipment of his 

 geological laboratory for petrographical re- 

 searches; 2,400 francs to M.. Miintz, director 

 of the laboratory of vegetable chemistry of 

 Meudon; 2,000 francs to L. ISTattan-Larrier for 

 the purchase of a centrifuge and incubator for 

 cultures of microorganisms. As the provincial 

 observatories are all attached to the univer- 

 sities which have already received a special 

 legacy from M. Loutreuil, the council will only 

 consider claims for grants relating to re- 

 searches of a personal order. Under this head 

 3,000 francs is granted to M. Gonessiat, di- 

 rector of the Algiers Observatory, for the con- 

 struction of an apparatus designed to measure 

 the intensity of Hertzian waves and for a ver- 

 tical seismograph. Polytechnic School, 3,000 

 francs to E. Carvallo, for the continuation of 

 his researches on a method of shooting at air- 

 ships. The veterinary schools of Lyons and 

 Alfort, each 5,000 francs, for the upkeep of 

 their libraries; the veterinary school of Tou- 

 louse, 3,000 francs for the same purpose, and 

 1,000 francs to M. Montane, for the reorgani- 

 zation of the anatomical collections of this 

 school. 



2. To institutions admitted by the president 

 of the academy to participate in grants from 

 the Loutreuil Fund. The Conservatoire des 

 Arts et Metiers : 3,000 francs to Marcel Deprez, 

 for his experiments relating to the transmis- 

 sion of the heat of gases to metallic walls, 

 constantly cooled, and for experiments on elec- 

 trical phenomena arising from internal-com- 

 bustion motors ; 4,500 francs to A. Job, for the 

 purchase of a calorimetric bomb, an electric 

 transformer, and other apparatus necessary to 

 his researches on the velocities of oxidizing re- 

 actions; 6,000 francs to Jules A mar, for im- 

 proving his equipment for the study of the 

 muscular forces of man at work by the graphic 

 and chronophotographic methods. 



