232 Annual Report of the Council. 



brated " vortex atoms." A further series of papers on the 

 application of hydrodynamics to meteorology have not, as 

 yet, perhaps, received all the attention they deserve. 



Amongst his electrical contributions we may draw 

 attention to his theory of the " double layer," which explains 

 the so-called electro-capillary actions, and to the important 

 questions treated in his "Faraday Lecture" before the 

 Chemical Society. From this lecture I may quote the 

 following passage, which has already served as text to 

 several theoretical deductions, and which will probably 

 receive increased attention in the immediate future : — 



" If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary sub- 

 stances are composed of atoms, we cannot avoid concluding 

 that electricity, also positive as well as negative, is divided 

 into definite elementary portions, which behave like atoms 

 of electricity." 



Helmholtz was not a good lecturer, but he exercised a 

 powerful influence on the students in his laboratory. The 

 quiet and thoughtful attention he always gave to the often 

 crude ideas of his pupils, the deep and sympathetic manner 

 in which he discussed their difficulties, must have left a 

 lasting impression on all with whom he came into contact. 

 He was elected an honorary member of the Society in 

 1886, and died in September, 1894. A. S. 



Wilhelm ROSCHER, who has been rightly described 

 by a German biographer as the founder of the historical 

 school of political economy, to which Emile de Laveleye 

 and Cliffe Leslie also belonged, was born in Hanover in 

 1 8 17, and was educated in the Lyceum of that town. He 

 subsequently studied, from 1835 to 1839, at the Universities 

 of Gottingen and Berlin. At the Lyceum he came under 

 the influence of the divinity teacher Petri, subsequently one 

 of the most famous Protestant preachers in Germany, and 

 at the Universities he sat at the feet of Leopold Ranke, 



