324 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Sept. 21, iS 



composed of elements common to all pictures. Proctor 

 was an eminent example of such great masters in 

 original scientific exposition. 



Proctor boldly attacked one of the most difficult 

 problems presented to the teacher of science, that of 

 simplifying complex mathematical processes and results, 

 and presenting them in such form as to be intelligible 

 to the non-mathematician. No mere learning of lessons 

 can enable a man to do this. He must master the 

 whole subject in itself, must make it his own. The 

 machinery of mathematical formulae is absolutely 

 necessary for the performance of certain quantitative 

 scientific work, and must be used accordingly, but 

 writers who pepper their pages with algebraic equations 

 for the expression of simple laws that can be expounded 

 in plain, ordinary language are either pedantic mental 

 pretenders, or intellectual cripples that cannot traverse 

 scientific ground without the aid of symbolic crutches ; 

 they are those who have learned to formulate, but 

 cannot reason. 



Proctor's popular treatises were by no means devoted 

 to merely the rudiments of his subjects. He presented 

 on the popular platform those more recondite questions 

 previously regarded as appertaining only to the altars of 

 the high-priests of science ; he not only told his uniniti- 

 ated readers that the sun is so many millions of miles 

 distant from the earth, but struggled to teach them the 

 details of the methods of determining the solar parallax, 

 and in doing so detected a serious blunder made by the 

 late Astronomer-Royal in reference to the transit of 

 Venus, a mistake that was corrected only just in time to 

 save our expeditions from a humiliating fiasco. He 

 revelled in thus unravelling mathematical complexities, 

 and even carried his mathematical propensities into his 

 recreation^, his whist and chess problems, and to the 

 mathematical demonstration of the folly of the gambler. 

 We be'ieve that he acted imprudently in this, but he 

 laughed at our ideas on this subject, which are that a 

 man who works with his brain should play with his 

 muscles, that the brain-worker should scrupulously ab- 

 stain from intellectual recreations. Navvies should play 

 at chess, philosophers may play at skittles, on the 

 principle that recreation should afford rest to the hard- 

 worked faculties, and exercise those that are otherwise 

 left dormant. Like most of Proctor's friends, we feared 

 that he would suffer cerebral collapse on account of his 

 insatiable love of intellectual hard work. 



It was not until we had seen him at home with his 

 family, and wheeling his little sickly son on the Brighton 

 pier, that this apprehension was removed. Then the 

 wisdom of his second marriage became evident, the 

 widower had found a helpmate who could win him away 

 from severer studies to revel in music and pictorial art, 

 in lively social converse, and the prattle of little children ; 

 for now there were three loving families, the first family 

 of the widow, that of the widower, and those of the 

 second marriage. 



All who have had the pleasure of thus knowing Mrs. 

 Proctor must deeply sympathise with her terrible afflic- 

 tion, as all such must have seen that the marriage was a 

 genuine love-match, subsequently sustained by mutual 

 respect and admiration. 



In the days of his widowhood, when he lived at Clap- 

 ham, we only met him on purely scientific ground, and 

 was told by those who knew him more intimately that he 

 was then a recluse and rather morose ; but at Kew he 

 was all the opposite of this, the difference due no doubt 



to his brilliant and gentle partner, than whom no one 

 could be more suitable to such a man, nor no man more 

 suitable than Proctor to such a woman. 



His faith in the infallibility of mathematical results 

 was curious, seeing that he had successfully refuted some 

 of the accepted conclusions of very eminent mathemati- 

 cians. His own mathematical self-righteousness main- 

 tained him in a perpetual Donnybrook, and those who 

 only knew his controversies in their printed form com- 

 monly supposed him to be ill-tempered. T his, however, 

 was not the case ; he was really as amiable as the 

 habitual smile of his somewhat feminine features indi- 

 cated. 



We dwell upon this, knowing that considerable bitter- 

 ness exists in the minds of many who have had contro- 

 versies with him, and in this hope that all this will 

 now be healed by making fair allowances for errors due 

 to overwork and an earnest devotion to the purity of 

 science, which occasionally led the great teacher into a 

 somewhat Quixotic eagerness to defend it against the 

 inroads of real or supposed fallacies. 



<-J»£i><^3<f-'-— 



INTERNATIONAL GEOLOGICAL 

 CONGRESS. 



'T'HE opening of the International Geological Confer- 

 ence took place on Monday evening, the 17th inst. , 

 at the London University, Burlington Gardens, the com- 

 mittees on nomenclature and on the map of Europe hav- 

 ing held sittings at the same place earlier in the day. At 

 the evening meeting, which was attended by a large and 

 distinguished company, a short address was delivered by 

 the outgoing President, Professor Beyrich, of Berlin, 

 after which a letter from Professor Huxley, the new 

 Honorary President, who is now in the Eugadine, was 

 read, expressing his great regret that the state of his i 

 health did not allow him to be present. Sir Douglas ' 

 Galton having in a brief, telling speech bade the strangers 

 and foreigners welcome, and M. Capellini, Rector of the ( 

 University of Bologna, having made a su.'ta 1 le reply, the 

 new President, Professor Prestwich, assumed tie chair, 

 and delivered the opening address in French. 



The following is a translation of Professor Prestwich's 

 address : — 



I deeply regret that on account of the present state of 

 his health Mr. Huxley is not here to offer you a welcome 

 to England. But if we need a voice, I ask you to believe 

 that the unanimous voice of English geologists joins in 

 this sentiment, and thanks you, our foreign colleagues, for 

 having responded in a manner so flattering to us to 

 the invitation of English geologists to meet this year 

 in London. We have in this assembly, geologists 

 representing Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, 

 Spain, France, Holland, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, 

 Roumania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, as well as the 

 United States, Canada, Mexico, the West Indies, the 

 Argentine Republic, an! Australasia. Eminent and 

 illustrious men from all these countiies honour us with . 

 their presence, and bring their knowledge to our assist- 

 ance in discussing for the fourth time the questions with 

 which the International Congress is concerned. The 

 number of geologists present on this occasion indicates 

 the deep and unbroken interest which they bring to it. 

 Among the most permanent members of the organisa- 

 tion are the Secretaries of the Congress and of the Com- 

 mittees, to whose important and gratuitous services the 



