and neon for use in luminous reddish vacuum tubes, such as are often employed for showy illumination and advertisement. The discovery of argon is, therefore, a sort of climax and reward vouchsafed to skillful and accurate experimenting, and may be regarded as the copingstone to Lord Rayleigh's work, the kind of result most easily apprehended by the public. But to scientific men the importance of Lord Rayleigh's work was far greater than this. He roamed over the whole field of physics, taking up obscure and but little understood phenomena; he worked them out and reduced them to intelligible form, and left the science of optics and of acoustics and of electricity in a much more advanced and perfect stage than they would be likely as yet to have attained had he not lived. In the Life which has now been written by his son, the present peer, a quiet, restrained, but effective account of these researches is given. It was not possible to enter on an exposition of the more recondite lines of investigation, but such parts as could be made intelligible are dealt with in a clear and satisfactory manner. And though filial restraint prevents anything in the nature of overemphasis, leads indeed to a certain amount of underemphasis, a reader can hardly fail to allow for this, and to be impressed both with the magnitude and with the modesty of the great man whose life and work are being described. And besides all this, a son has opportunities possessed by few for drawing a picture of the domestic life of his father and exhibiting in unobtrusive form, not only his scientific achievements, but the beauty and piety of his personal character. One special feature that characterizes Lord Rayleigh's work is caution. He was very chary of expressing an opinion. He mistrusted his own results, until they were thoroughly confirmed; he hesitated to criticize adversely the work of others. He was appreciative of all good work, and the suggestions that he made to others often led to important developments, and stimulated them to investigations that otherwise they might have refrained from undertaking. Even so great an experimenter as Professor Michelson will admit that he received stimulus from Rayleigh's encouraging hints and suggestions. The caution which characterized all his work, though it may in some respects have limited his output, prevented him from making any mistakes. A certain element of rashness when exploring the unknown seems permissible, or at any rate pardonable; but Rayleigh would not have pardoned it in himself; he was not rash, nor did he jump to conclusions. He formed hypotheses, doubtless, like other men, but he was not willing to publish them until he had verified them to the hilt. In that respect he was rather like Newton. All his work was highly finished, elaborated, and trustworthy. The outward circumstances of his life are simple enough. He had a distinguished career at Cambridge, graduating as Senior Wrangler. He then worked for some years as an amateur, but was persuaded to occupy the Chair of Physics at Cambridge, vacated by the lamentable and premature death of Clerk Maxwell at the age of forty-nine, ultimately resigning it with enhanced lustre to Professor J. J. Thomson. He also took charge of the laboratory at the Royal Institution, which had been Faraday's and Tyndall's, and by holding these offices obtained facilities for experimental work on a larger scale than was possible in the amateur laboratory in which he worked with one skilled mechanic at a his home at Terling Place in Essexhome well known to most of the distinguished physicists who visited England from other countries. Here also Lord Kelvin was a frequent visitor, and we younger men were sometimes privileged to hear momentous and often amusing discussions between Kelvin and Rayleigh - a conflict of enthusiasm on the one hand and caution on the other, which could not fail to be of absorbing and exciting interest to those whose previous studies enabled them to follow the arguments. Lord Rayleigh's social position doubtless gave him some facilities in these directions. He had no need to earn a precarious livelihood by scientific work; nor had he occasion to take part in legal controversies and the uncertainties associated with Patent Law. Also he had the means of dispensing hospitality on an extensive scale. But on the other hand, there must have been some temptation to which he did not succumb to take up duties consistent with his position: work in the House of Lords, for instance, the LordLieutenancy of his county, and other distractions, some of which he felt it owing to society to undertake. But he never allowed them to absorb his time unduly; he devoted himself to his scientific work to the end. have been expected by people less informed than himself. He took up the theory of sound as it was left by that giant of science, von Helmholtz, and elaborated it toward perfection. His two volumes on the Theory of Sound are by far the most complete in any language. Among other activities he presided over the British Association at its meeting in Montreal in 1884, having been already President of Section A at Southampton. He took up the chairmanship of the newly formed National Physical Laboratory from its foundation, and to his advice and encouragement some of the conspicuous success of that institution must be due. His opinion was constantly sought, and after Lord Kelvin's death he was the recognized leader of physical science in Britain. Later he became Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. All these things are touched upon in the volume under review. But had it been a stranger instead of a son who was the author they would have been exhibited in a more enthusiastic, though probably less effective, manner. The book is full of interest and stimulus, and will be welcomed by the rising generation of physicists. In spite of his profound knowledge, Rayleigh was no specialist. He looked at life largely, and with a sense of humor. His caution did not prevent his entering on unpopular fields of work. He took a real interest in psychical research, for instance, and had himself observed many curious and inexplicable phenomena. One of the last positions that he held was the presidency of the Society for Psychical Research, at which he gave a memorable, though, as usual, cautious and humorous, address. He refrained from coming to definite conclusions, but neither his scientific nor his deep religious sense deterred him from realizing that these things demanded investigation, and his instinct taught him that they would probably have far-reaching consequences when properly understood. The subject, however, was at a stage which did not admit of the precision of the physical sciences, and therefore attracted less than his whole interest. Indeed, even in the physical sciences he was very doubtful about some of the most recent developments. I doubt if he altogether liked the theory of relativity, though he hardly lived to appreciate some of its remarkable confirmations. The quantum also must have seemed to him rather vague and unintelligible, and therefore unsatisfactory, or at any rate only an intermediate stage. And so these modern developments he left to younger men. He was a powerful wielder of the classical dynamics, and may perhaps be regarded as the last of the great generation of physicists of whom England and Cambridge have been so proud, and who were satisfied with the Newtonian outlook on the universe. WHITE WOMEN IN THE AUSTRALIAN TROPICS1 BY FREDA STERNBERG 'CAN white women make homes and rear families in the tropical parts of Northern Australia?' 'They can, and they have,' is perhaps the best answer to this oft-repeated question. It can be backed by personal observation, by information gathered from women who have spent the best part of their lives in the Northern Territory, and by facts stated at a recent Medical Congress at Brisbane. During the winter of 1924, when Stefansson, the famous Canadian Arctic explorer, decided to make an expedition into Central Australia and the Northern Territory, I, as the woman member of his party, was commissioned to write of what I saw from a woman's point of view. Before we left so-called civilization I was told repeatedly it was 'no trip for a woman.' Behind this was the old idea that it was 1 From the Spectator (London Moderate-Conservative weekly), February 21 impossible for the white woman to live in this part of the Commonwealth.' There was a general opinion, too, that most of my stories on return would be 'hard luck' ones, culled from women who had been forced by Fate to live far away from cities, amid what were supposed to be impossible climatic conditions. Before we had been a day out on the journey we realized that most of the difficulties, adventures, and hardships existed only in the imaginations of the people who were content to live in cities and 'imagine the worst.' On we journeyed northward until we found ourselves almost a thousand miles north of Adelaide. This is not the place to expand on the scenic, geological, botanical features of that trip. It will suffice to say that every member of the expedition felt an immediate improvement in his general health after enjoying the air, which had some wonderful, WHITE WOMEN IN THE AUSTRALIAN TROPICS 109 exhilarating quality, the sunshine, and the freedom of the glorious outdoor bush life. long time in Sydney told me she did not find the heat of the Northern Territory any more trying than that of the But what impressed all was the capital of New South Wales. healthy, contented, happy appearance. of the white women we met at the different stations on the way. Talking with everyone, it was impossible to get even a glimmer of a 'hard-luck story.' They were not posing as cheerful martyrs. They insisted one and all that they 'loved the life,' that it was 'better than city life,' that they found it 'healthy for both themselves and their children,' and that they 'did not mind the heat.' If one woman had told these stories it might have been possible to think of her as an interesting exception, but women who lived hundreds of miles away from each other all had the same point of view. As far north as Alice Springs, where the total white population numbers twenty-five, the women and their children all presented a healthy mental and physical appearance. Their homes were well kept and exceedingly comfortable. If they suffered from lack of domestic help they did not stress the fact in the way of city women. They had gardens which they tended with great interest and in which were to be found flowers and vegetables. What was particularly significant and interesting was the fact that, although they were living at a spot where the mail and merchandise came only on camels once a month, they were smartly dressed and interested in all things pertaining to fashion - a something that does not go with the woman who lives in unhealthy and uncongenial surroundings. One day I did manage to extract some information about a dust storm which had raged for four days, and which was so severe that 'you could not see your hand before you.' The woman who told of it confessed that 'when it came to getting the house clean again' she had to use a shovel instead of a broom. But she regarded even that philosophically, saying, 'But you have the fogs in London,' suggesting that the perfect climate did not exist. All these women lived in tin-roofed houses which lacked modern conveniences of any kind, and which must have been unbearably hot in summer time; but it did not seem to occur to them that stone ones would have been better. One woman who had lived for a In one Far North locality we came across a family of white people who had lived for the last twenty years in the same spot, and who insisted that they 'did not want to live anywhere else.' There were three children in that family, two girls and a boy, all fairhaired, with pink-and-white cheeks like English children. The baby was nine months old and had been born at the homestead without medical assistance - the nearest hospital was more than nine hundred miles away. But nobody seemed to regard that as an exceptional occurrence. The woman was healthy and child-bearing was natural. That was all there was to it! Of course it would be absurd to regard these women, who have the true pioneer spirit that has helped to build up the outposts of the Empire, in the same way that one would regard the city-bred woman, who lacks initiative, who is unwilling to face hardships such as are found in any out-back world, no. matter what the climate may be. But they are a living proof that life in the tropical portion of Northern Australia is possible for women and children, and is even a happy, health-giving life. Then to come to the story of the woman who has lived for a long period in the Northern Territory. Quite re cently the English wife of an Australian grandchildren and great-grandchildren. settler at Darwin wrote to a Southern paper, in reply to a published statement that said 'the climate of the Northern Territory prohibits the white family life as we know it.' She stated that with her husband she had been living in the Territory for more than sixteen years. Five of their six children had been born there, and according to the mother 'healthier children could not be found.' After giving details of her domestic life, — a busy one carried on without much assistance, she continued: 'I have proved from practical experience that a sensible white woman's life can be lived in the Territory.' She told stories of a white woman who had lived forty-eight years in the Territory without having a trip away. That woman had reared her children, and had lived to see her In a calm, practical strain the Englishwoman reiterated: "The Territory is a white man's country. I would not live South again after the free, open-air, healthy life I know here.' The Report of the Medical Conference at Brisbane contains such statements as: 'There is no evidence indicating that tropical Northern Australia is in any way unsuited for the development of a virile white race.' And: 'After mature consideration of sources of information embodying the results of long and varied professional experience and observation in the Australian tropics, the Congress is unable to find anything pointing to the existence of inherent or insuperable obstacles in the way of the permanent occupation of tropical Australia by a healthy, indigenous white race.' 1 AN IMPRESSIONIST IN SPAIN 1 BY VICTOR AUBURTIN [DR. AUBURTIN is a dramatic critic, and is the author of several volumes of clever essays and travel sketches.] I. MADRID I NOTE one remarkable and rather disturbing effect of this city upon myself: I am beginning to lose my manly rude,ness. Just before I left Berlin I observed the following typical incident in Friedrichstrasse. Two gentlemen coming from opposite directions accidently bumped into each other. One turned around and said 'Ox!'; the other likewise turned around and said 'Ox!' 1 From Berliner Tageblatt (Liberal daily), January 17, 24 Then both calmly went their respective ways. Something of that sort runs in our German blood, and I feel it in mine. The first time a running newsboy bumped me in the belt on Alcala Street in Madrid I naturally grunted 'Ox!' But the newsboy only giggled, and I felt the shot was wasted. In fact I grow so softly good-humored here that I feel serious concern about it. But I hope that when I return to Germany I shall recover my stern Teutonic surliness. It is now the beginning of January. For a month a sky of cloudless, radiant blue has hung over this noisy, singing city. I have not yet had occasion to wear my winter overcoat, and I leave |