214 Annual Report of the Council. 



much to his reputation as a lecturer both in this country 



and America. He was also the author of several works in 



which the results of modern scientific research were presented 



in a form likely to be attractive to a wide circle of readers. 



He died at his residence, Hind Head House, Haslemere, 



December 4th, 1893. He was elected one of the Honorary 



Members of the Society April 28th, 1868. 



J.B. 



Heinrich Hertz was born in Hamburg on the 22nd 

 February, 1857. Having passed through the usual school 

 curriculum, he at first chose the life of an engineer as that 

 to which he considered himself best fitted, but, finally, at 

 the age of twenty, decided to devote himself entirely to 

 the pursuit of pure science, and entered Helmholtz's labora- 

 tory in the year 1878. The last work of Hertz appeared 

 after his death, accompanied by a preface from the pen of 

 Helmholtz, and that preface contains the most complete 

 account which has yet appeared of Hertz's scientific career. 

 We learn from it how the Berlin professor was struck at once 

 with the great ability of his pupil, and how, when he had to 

 propose the subject of a prize essay a year later, he chose it 

 specially in the hope of interesting Hertz in the work. The 

 question turned on the possibility of electricity possessing 

 inertia. It is well known that the effects of self-induction 

 are similar to those of inertia. If we adopt the older 

 hypothesis of an electric current being due to something 

 moving in the conductor and exerting forces at a distance, 

 there is a very distinct difference between this apparent 

 inertia and that of ordinary matter. The problem consisted 

 in finding an upper limit beyond which no true inertia can 

 exist. Hertz solved the problem, and found that no appre- 

 ciable part of the self-induction can be due to a true inertia. 

 Led by these experiments to consider the various theories 

 concerning electricity, he turned his attention to the 

 hypothesis of Faraday and Maxwell, which discards action 



