THE NOBEL PRIZES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 449, 6 March 1909, Page 11

THE NOBEL PRIZES.

MBS. RUTHERFORD'S ACCOUNT.

"Dominica" is permitted to publish the following extracts from a very interesting letter sent by Professor Ernest Rutherford's wife to his brother, Mr. George Rutherford, of Raglan, describing their visit to Sweden, and the ceremony of presenting the Nobel prizes. Mrs. Rutherford was a Christchurch High School girl, and a student of Canterbury College, and she is a niece of Sir Isaac Newton, the curator of the British Museum. • After describing their arrival in Stockholm and their meeting there with the Nobel Committee and the prize-winners, she proceeds to give an account of the ceremony of presenting the prizes. This began in the afternoon, but the entertainment in connection with it lasted till nearly'midnight, so that it was a full dress affair, and the description of the frock chosen for the occasion by the young Now Zealand lady sounds very pretty. It was of soft white ivory satin trimmed with gold and ivory passementerie, the skirt opening in front over an underskirt of white ninon, the draped bodice made with folded sleeves and vest of ninon, and the train falling from the shoulders., Professor Rutherford and his wife were by .far the youngest members of .the party. ' "The Swedish Academy hall is a very fine one," writes Mrs. Rutherford, "and tho stage, upon which was a good orchestra, was decorated with palms,; ferns, and flowers. Along the front of the audience was a row of gilt armchairs for the Royalties. To one side were the four prize men, and slightly behind, but higher, where they could see perfectly, were their wives. Only a privileged number were admitted,to this ceremony. At i p.m. the Royalties arrived, the King, the Crown Prince and hie wife, Prince Wilhelm and his wife (the Tsar's niece), and some others. The ceremony began with some music, which was also performed between the presentations of the prizes. The head of the Nobel Institute delivered a long oration in Swedish, and one could tell when he reached the part referring to each man, for he turned to the one he was mentioning, who then rose. Then the orator came down off the stage and led him over to the King, who murmured something and presented him with a gold medal and a leather book, beautifully tooled outside and illuminated inside. Ernest's is in turquoise blue with gold tooling, and inside is a. long dedication and the cheque or its equivalent. The book, which is about, the size of full-sized music, is a lovely thing to have. Most of them were different. .The medal:is not very, large. It has Nobel on one side and a eymbolic scene on the otheri The Physics prize was presented first, then the Chemistry. They gave • Ernest the Chemistry prize because his subject is on the borderland. "As soon as the prizes were all awarded, the Royalties departed for the Grand Hotel, where a large banquet was to be held. Of course the number of guests at this was much less than at the ceremony. We assembled in a big salon, where we were each presented with a programme of the table. After a few minutes someone came up and'said I was to be taken in by Prince Wilhelm, the King's second son. I was taken into a smaller salon, where all tho. princes and princesses were, and they came up and talked to us. Tho Crown Prince came to me and said, ' I think you are Mrs. Pvutherford. You look like the English one,' and she chatted very pleasantly. She is Princess Margaret of Connaught, very bright and pleasant, and very pretty, and she is much loved by everyone m Sweden. Prince Wilhelm, who is a sailor, is married to a very lively Russian'princess only nineteen years old, and very wealthy. The Crown Prince is a good archaeologist, and excavates in the backwoods, while the Kind's brother, Prince Eugen, who lives a rather Bohemian Me for a prince, is a first-class artist some very fine pictures of his beiwexhibited in their galleries. ' " B '.' At <£"*«, I found myself seated between Prmce Wilhelm and the Crown Prince, the Crown Princess opposite ; I felt rather alarmed at my position of loftiness, but soon got over, it—they were so pleasant, and such extremely interesting people. By tho way none of the Royalties take wine; they drank all the healths in mineral waters. After we had been dining a little while, tho Crown Prince rose and gave the toast of tho Kin" in Swedish. After that af intervals came th? toasts of the prize men; which they then answered. Several of the speeches were in Uernian. Ernest's health was proposed by Professor Petersson, who speaks very good English. He referred to Dilton and Joule, of Manchester, which .gave Ernest something good to answer. Ernest was rathor amusing, and they were all. very much pleased with his speech Hβ said he had dealt for a long * lm ° m the transformations of varying lengths, but that the quickest he had met was to owatemsiormation from a physicist mto a chemist. The Royalties all congratuawTsn" "? r e o CL Our-banquet Wn about 6.30, by 8.30 or 9we got away fiom the table and went into the big salon, where we mov?d about . and )k t J ™ other hour and a half, when the RovaC departed, and we ourselves left about llf I I h»l ih fJ m r Very J ired ™ th landing so long After dinner the Russian Princess talked-to me, and I asked her if it" toolhe long to learn She laughed and said she had learnt it during her vear'a in gagement, but that anyway ft was nTtroublo to Russians to learn a new language, for they already had in their own all the diffi cult sounds of all other languages "Next'day Ernest gave his lecture, and spent tho .^morning/trying to fix up experiments with practically no facilities. The lecture wont very well indeed, though Isud poso a good many could not quite follow in •tinpjlisn. His experiments also wont well and I think it was a success. To give a lecture is one of the conditions of the prize That evening the prize-winners dined with the King. No ladies were invited, but the Queen and tho princesses were all there f rncs t; says they were all very pleasant, and that 'the Queen seemed to ! know a good deal about his work. I forgot to say that we lunched that day at the British Embassy. Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, tho Minister, is a verv cultured, interesting man; he had only been in Sweden a week. The only other visitors wcro the consul and his wifo, so we had a nice talk On Sunday wo were both asked to go to Upsala for the day to see tho university, but I stayed in Stockholm."