Sir Joseph Larmor (b. in Antrim 1857), F.R.S., was educated at
Queen's College, Belfast, and in Cambridge, in which last place he
has spent his life as a professor. He now represents the University
in parliament and is secretary to the Royal Society. He is well-known
for his writings on the ether and on other physical as well as
mathematical subjects.

ASTRONOMERS.

William Parsons, Earl of Rosse (b. in York 1800, d. 1867), F.R.S.,
was a very distinguished astronomer who experimented in fluid lenses
and made great improvements in casting specula for reflecting
telescopes. From 1842-45 he was engaged upon the construction, in his
park at Parsonstown, of his great reflecting telescope 58 feet long.
This instrument, which cost £30,000, long remained the largest in the
world. He was president of the Royal Society from 1848 to 1854.

Sir Howard Grubb (b. 1844), F.R.S., is known all over the world for
his telescopes and for the remarkable advances which he has made in
the construction of lenses for instruments of the largest size.

Sir Robert Ball (b. in Dublin 1840, d. 1913), F.R.S. Originally Lord
Rosse's astronomer at Parsonstown, he migrated as professor to
Trinity College, Dublin, and subsequently became Lowndean Professor
of Astronomy at Cambridge. He was a great authority on the
mathematical theory of screws, and his popular works on astronomy
have made him known to a far wider circle of readers than those who
can grapple with his purely scientific treatises.

William Edward Wilson (b. Co. Westmeath 1851, d. 1908), F.R.S. A man