THE ANALYST. JUNE, 1904. OBITUARY NOTICE. PROFESSOR A. W. WILLIAMSON, P.R.S. THE death of Professor Williamson, F.R.S., in his eighty-first year, at Hindhead, Surrey, on May 6 last, removes from our ‘list of Honorary Fellows one who connects this Society and present chemists with the past, Early in life Dr. Williamson visited the Continent, and at Heidelberg and Giessen studied under Gmelin and Liebig, and thus became intimately acquainted with those early investigators in chemistry, from whom the developments of the last century originated. After leaving Liebig’s Labora- tory he did not immediately return to England, but realized that the study of the higher mathematics under Compte in Paris for three years would further equip him for his life-work. At last, in 1849, an opportunity presented itself, and he was elected Professor of Practical Chemistry at University College, London, where Graham had been prosecuting his researches on the physics of liquids, in the laboratory which was at that time unique in this country.For nearly forty years, until his retirement in 1887, Dr. Williamson held the chair of chemistry at this college, and many hundreds of students received from him their early training in the science. Not only from England, but also from the Continent and from Japan, did students come to his classes, and at the present time there must be men in all parts of the world who will recollect the energy, patience, and clearness with which his lectures and demonstrations were given. AIthough it will be as a thorough teacher that Dr.Williamson will be chiefly remembered, his early work in enunciating the type theory of t h e constitution of a11 compounds, and especially in clearing up and establishing on a firm basis the theory of etherification, renders his contribution to our knowledge of the chemical constitution of matter of no mean value, and warrants his being ranked as one of the pioneers in founding our conceptions of the atomic theory. He realized in etherification the mobility of the ions and the dissociation which is involved in mam action, and this at a time when the moleculttr aggregate was believed to be a rigid unit incapable of rupture without external agencies. Thus he was quite in line with the recent developments of modern thought. I n addition to his work as a teacher, and in the domain of pure science, Dr.Williamson, as chief gas examiner to the Metropolis under the Board of Trade, held a judicial position between the gas companies and the consumers, and in other branches of applied chemistry brought his legal faculties to bear upon problems of practical utility. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1855, was President of the Chemical Society in174 THE ANALYST. 1563-65 and in 1869-71, and was one of the six Past Presidents that had been members of the Chemical Society for fifty years who were entertained at the memorable dinnbr in 1898. He was elected an honorary member of the Society of Public Analysts at an early period of its existence. S. R. PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY OF PUBLIC ANALYSTS. THE monthly meeting of the Society was held on Wednesday evening, May 4. The President, Mr. Thomas Fairley, occupied the chair. The minutes of the previous meeting were read and confirmed. Certificates of proposal for election to membership in favour of Messrs. A. E. Brown, B.Sc., and L. G. Paul, Ph.D., were read for the second time ; and a certificate in favour of Mr. Harold Sankey Hammond, Assistant Chemist in the Government Laboratory, Jamaica, was read for the first time. Mr. J. H. Ball, B.Sc., was elected a member of the Society. The following papers were read : u Cod-liver Oil and other Fish Oils,” by J. F. Liverseege ; ‘‘ Note on Mushroom Ketchup,” by J. F. Liverseege ; ‘‘ Note on some Constants obtained in the Examination of Margarine,” by Edward Russell, B.Sc., and V. H. Kirkham, B.Sc. ; and a “Note on the Estimation of Sugars in Concentrated Malt Extract,” by Arthur R. Ling and Theodore Rendle.