Annual Report of the Council. xxxiii 



published (1876-94) by the Schlesische Gesellschaft fiir vater- 

 landische Kultur. His singular ability as a popular lecturer 

 is evident from a perusal of his collected lectures in " Die 

 Pflanze." In these he has related in fascinating way and in 

 simple language the results of many botanical investigations, 

 including many of his own observations, and has described some 

 of the problems still awaiting solution. Cohn was elected 

 Foreign Meml)er of the Linnean Society of London in 1876 and 

 awarded the Linnean Medal in 1895. 



He was elected Honorary Member of the Manchester 

 Literary and Philosophical Society on April 30, 1889. 



A year before his death, on the occasion of the jubilee of 

 his doctorate, he had conferred upon him the freedom of the 

 city of Breslau, his native town. 



A fuller account of his life and work will be found in the 

 Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London (Oct. 1899). 



F. E. W. 



The distinguished Norwegian mathematician, Sophus Lie, 

 died at Christiania on the i8th of February, 1899. 



Professor Lie was born at Nordfjordeid at the end of 1842. 

 After graduating at Christiania, he held an appointment as 

 extraordinary professor there, till he was called, in 1886, as 

 ordinary professor to Leipsic. Just before his death he returned 

 to Christiania to fill a specially created chair. 



The number of mathematical papers by Lie is very large, 

 and shew great originality and masterly skill. The subject which 

 he developed and with which the greater part of his work is 

 concerned is the theory of continuous Transformation-groups 

 and in particular that of tangential transformations. The 

 purposes to which Lie applied this theory are very varied. 

 Although in the first place a geometrical theory, perhaps the 

 most successful application was to the theory of Differential 

 Equations. 



The originality and wide extent of his labours have provided 

 a field for the many workers whom his genius has inspired, and 



