THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



57i 



founded on basic discoveries made by 

 English chemists, but which had never 

 been properly developed in the land of 

 their birth. 



The explanation of this ' disastrous 

 phenomenon ' Professor Dewar gave in 

 three words : ' Want of education.' He 

 said it was the failure of schools to 

 turn out, and of manufacturers to de- 

 mand, properly trained men which ex- 

 plained Great Britain's loss of valu- 

 able industries and the country's pre- 

 carious hold upon others. ' To my 

 mind,' said he, ' the really appalling 

 tiling is not that the Germans have 

 seized upon this or the other industry, 

 but that the German population has 

 reached a point of general training 

 and specialized equipment which it will 

 take us two generations of hard and 

 intelligently directed educational work 

 to attain.' 



TEE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL 



FOR TEE STUDY OF TEE 



SEA. 



This Council was constituted at 

 Copenhagen on July 22 by delegates 

 from Great Britain, Germany, Holland, 

 Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia and 

 Finland. According to the report in 

 the September number of the Journal 

 of the Royal Geographical Society, the 

 principle of simultaneous observations 

 four times a year as the basis of a 

 system of regular observations of tem- 

 perature, density and plankton was 

 adopted, and the share to be taken in 

 the work by each of the participating 

 nations was practically settled. The 

 two ships which the British Govern- 

 ment has voted for the work will un- 

 dertake periodical trips in the Fsroe- 

 Shetland channel and across the north- 

 ern end of the North Sea, working from 

 a central harbor in Shetland, and also 

 simultaneous trips in the western part 

 of the English channel. The southern 

 half of the North Sea will be investi- 

 gated by the Dutch, the northern half 

 by the German ships. Denmark under- 

 takes the sea between Fseroe and Ice- 



land, while Norway has the heavy task 

 of making observations in the North 

 Atlantic off the extensive western sea- 

 board of Scandinavia. Russia has un- 

 dertaken similar work along the Mur- 

 man coast and across Barents Sea to 

 Novaya Zemlya, while the Baltic will 

 be studied in detail by Danish, Swe- 

 dish, Finnish, Russian and German 

 ships. While the periodical oceano- 

 graphical trips are the framework of 

 the whole system of observations, they 

 are intended to be connected and com- 

 pleted by observations at fixed stations, 

 such as light-ships and by the coopera- 

 tion, as far as surface observations are 

 concerned, of regular lines of steamers 

 crossing the North Sea and the At- 

 lantic. 



The biological work of the council 

 has been limited, by the conditions 

 which most of the governments con- 

 cerned have attached to their grants, 

 to the investigation of special problems 

 of urgent practical importance to fish- 

 eries. Two such problems were se- 

 lected. A committee has been charged 

 with the duty of investigating the mi- 

 grations of such fish as the cod and 

 herring, and another with the investi- 

 gation of the whole question of over- 

 fishing in the parts of the North Sea 

 most frequented by trawlers. 



The organization of the central bu- 

 reau of the Council was also deter- 

 mined, Dr. Herwig being appointed as 

 president. The seat of the bureau is 

 in Copenhagen, and the chief assistant 

 will be Dr. Knudsen, lecturer on phys- 

 ics in the Polytechnic school there. 

 All the publications of the council will 

 be issued by the bureau, which will 

 also form the medium of communica- 

 tion between the various national or- 

 ganizations, the special committees and 

 others. 



The international laboratory has been 

 established in Christiania, with Dr. 

 Nansen as honorary director and Dr. 

 Walfrid Ekman as assistant for phys- 

 ical work; an assistant for chemical 

 work is also about to be appointed. 



