PERSONAL NOTES

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2203, 16 July 1914, Page 4

PERSONAL NOTES

ON VISITING SCIENTISTS: ■ Professor Easterfield, speaking at last week's meeting in connection with the visit to New Zealand of the British Association; referred ■ to some of the eminent men who wore to come,, to Now Zealand. ' • . ' • The first ho mentioned was Professor Bowpr, P. 0., D:Sc„ F.R.S., Professor of Botany in the Glasgow University, one of the'ablest botanists in the world and one who must ho of interest to all who have a garden and love flowers. ■■Dr.' J?.; Clowes, .P.'C.S.,- is chemist to tho County Council, and a rpaii whose name was honoured through' the knowledge that liad been derived from his researches in connection, with the cause of;.fire-damp in coal-mines, and how the presence of fire-damp could be detected by the miner. He 'had done mors than anyone in. Great Britain in that direction. .?■ Mr.'E. G. Ooker, M.A., is Professor of the Mechanical Engineering mid Applied Mathematics in '.tho City- and Guilds pf tho London Technical College at Finsbury. •.::.■ An interesting visitor is Dr. Dandy, who has made an extensive study of the tuatara, and is deeply learned in the creation and growth of sponges. Professor. H. B. Dixon, of Manchester, is well known to almost, every-: body: • Ho is an expert on the nature of explosive gases, and is bringing out with him an elaborate apparatus to illustrate his experiments. Professor Dixon, as a yoivng man, was a. noted athlete, but in' science ho is a good allround ,mail whom it is a pleasure.to meet. . Dr. F.' W. Dyson, M.A., F.R.S., is the Astronomer-Royal, and is in charge of the Greenwich Observatory. Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, F.S.A., is nn archaeologist of note, a student of folk-loro and fairy ■ talcs—most interesting. •' ■ ' Sir'Everard Im Thurn is a man of very exceptional attainments., Ho is a great climber, naturalist, anthropologist, and statesman. Ho will be remembered as the High Comniissionei 1 of the Western Pacific. Sir Charles Lucas is late head of tho Dominions Department of the Colonial Office, who visited Now Zealand comparatively recently. Ho is one of the most brilliant classical scholars of his university. .'""•. Professor John Perry DSc, LL.D., F.R.S., is an. engineer. He went to Japan as a Professor of Engineering, studied electrical engineering, and became President of tho Socioty of Electrical Engineers. Ho is, too, a great educational reformer who believes that tho methods of teaching mathematics are loaded with red-tape, and headed a revolution against thorn. Ho did a great deal of good, though some peonlo aro of 'the opinion that ho went too far. Professor Perry is a man who'believcs that every engineer is a scientist in embryo who gained his knowledge through his finger-tips rather than through bonksj. Dr. A. B. Remlle, M.A , is the keeper of tho Department of Botany in the British Museum, and Dr. W. H. R. Rivers is an eminent physiologist and now a psychologist, connected with St. John's College, Cambridge. : Dr.' Waller is director of the Physiological Laboratory of the University of London, and a man of good all-round attainment..?.