436 Anniversary Address by Sir A. Geikie. [Nov. 30, 



1858, and, in the midst of his legal work, found time to extend his 

 mathematical studies. He thus became a high authority on the dynamical 

 theory of gases and other branches of physical mathematics. 



John Brown, formerly a linen manufacturer of Belfast, who only died at 

 the beginning of the present month, deserves to be remembered as another 

 representative of the now dwindling class of men of business who devote 

 their leisure to scientific pursuits and the promotion of knowledge. His 

 papers on the seat of the electromotive force in voltaic combinations, 

 especially on the influence of the surrounding medium, contributed sub- 

 stantially to the elucidation of that subject. He became a Fellow of the 

 Society in 1902. 



Frederick Jervis-Smith, formerly Millard Lecturer in Experimental 

 Mechanics at Trinity College, Oxford, and a devoted worker in that subject, 

 was remarkable for his skill in the construction of delicate mechanical 

 appliances in the laboratory which he fitted up in his College. He was 

 elected into the Society in 1894, and died on August 23 last, at the age 

 of 63. 



Mervyn Herbert Nevil Story-Maskelyne was the bearer of a name which 

 is honoured in the history of science and in that of the Boyal Society, and 

 which received additional distinction from his own labours. For almost forty 

 years Professor of Mineralogy at Oxford, and for twenty years of that period 

 likewise Keeper of the Department of Minerals in the British Museum, he 

 stood at the head of mineralogical science in this country. By his lectures, 

 his writings, and, above all, by his labours in the augmentation and arrange- 

 ment of the admirable mineral collection in our National Museum, he did 

 much to encourage the study of mineralogy, which had been somewhat 

 neglected in Britain. 



John Attfield will be remembered for the value of his contributions to 

 chemical pharmacology. By his teaching and writings, and his constant 

 personal exertions in raising the standard of education among pharmaceutical 

 chemists, he rendered great service to the branch of applied science which he 

 cultivated. He died on March 18 at the age of 76. 



Besides these losses on the Home List from the ranks of our physicists and 

 chemists, we have to record, with sincere regret, the death of one of the most 

 notable of our Foreign Members, the illustrious Jacobus Henricus van't 

 Hoff. His genius, combining a remarkable union of mathematical acumen, 

 experimental resource, and faculty for bold and lofty generalisation, opened 

 up new domains in chemistry. His work on ' Chemistry in Space ' laid the 

 foundations of stereo -chemistry, and his ' Studies in Chemical Dynamics ' 

 placed that side of the science on a well-established basis. In recent years 



