i8 



NATURE 



[March 2, 191 1 



upheld the contention of the Marconi Co. that the two 

 kinds of transformers are electrically equivalent, and 

 that the apparatus of the defendants was an infringe- 

 ment of their patent. 



The defence disputed the validify of the contested 

 patent, and attempted to prove anticipation, basing 

 the contentions principally on the patents granted to 

 Sir Oliver Lodge and Prof. Braun. It is indeed a 

 fact that the apparatus described by both these in- 

 ventors contain examples of inductive couplings 

 between the aerial and the oscillation-generating cir- 

 cuits, but it was successfully argued that neither of 

 them had claimed the special kind of loose coupling 

 or the tuning of the circuits that are essential to the 

 satisfactory working of the Marconi system, and are 

 fully set out in the Marconi patent specification. 

 <^ther scientific investigators were mentioned, such as 

 Henry, Tesla, and Elihu Thomson, who have em- 

 ployed coupled circuits, but their use of a transformer 

 merely to raise the potential of the electrical oscillations 

 produced by the discharge of Leyden jars was not 

 able to be proved to constitute an anticipation or prior 

 user of the essential features of the patent that has 

 now been upheld. 



The decision in this case has created a situation the 

 outcome of which it is difficult to foresee, but there 

 is no doubt that a number of companies now working 

 systems similar to that of the Marconi Company will 

 need to close their operations or to change their 

 systems. This will have a marked effect on the group- 

 ing of wireless telegraph companies that is being 

 carried out in England and on the Continent at the 

 present time. A. J. Makower. 



The following fifteen candidates have been selected by 

 the council of the Royal Society to be recommended for 

 election into the society : — Prof. H. T. Barnes, Prof. A. J. 

 Brown, Prof. J. B. Cohen, Prof. W. E. Dixon, Prof. 

 F. G. Donnan, Major E. H. Hills, Dr. W. H. Lang, Prof. 

 J. B. Leathes, Prof. E. .'\. Minchin, Prof. R. Muir, Mr. 

 R. D. Oldham, Mr. R. L Pocock, Prof. A. W. Porter, 

 Mr. H. W. Richmond, and Mr. G. G. Stoney. 



Under the auspices of the -Advisory Committee for the 

 Investigation of Plague in India, Dr. G. F. Petrie, of the 

 Lister Institute, left London on February 20 en route for 

 Harbin, where he intends to prosecute investigations into 

 the spread of pneumonic plague in Manchuria. Opportuni- 

 ties for extended research into this highly contagious and 

 extremely fatal form of plague infection have only rarely 

 presented themselves, and as all available information 

 points to the fact that the disease in Manchuria is almost 

 exclusively of the pneumonic type, it is hoped that Dr. 

 Petrie's investigations may shed some light on the factors 

 which determine the incidence and spread of this particular 

 variety. With matters of administration and sanitarv 

 measures Dr. Petrie will not be concerned. As one of the 

 bacteriological experts whose work in Bombay (1905-7) 

 proved conclusively the rdle played by the rat flea in trans- 

 mitting bubonic plague from rat to man, Dr. Petrie 

 obtained an intimate acquaintance with the disease in its 

 epidemiological and bacteriological aspects, and recently he 

 has been engaged, at the request of the Local Government 

 Board, in determining the extent of the rat infection in 

 Suffolk. The precise form which Dr. Petrie's investiga- 

 tions will assume in Manchuria cannot be determined until 

 the local conditions prevailing in the plague-stricken area 

 and the facilities available for scientific inquiry are known. 

 Dr. Reginald Farrar, one of the medical inspectors of the 

 Local Government Board, is also on his way to Harbin 

 NO. 2157, VOL. 86] 



as the British representative on the International Plague 

 Commission convened at the request of the Chinese 

 Government. 



In the Prussian Diet of February 18, Prof. Kirchner, a 

 well-known epidemiologist and administrator in the service 

 of the Ministry of the Interior, is reported to have said 

 that, during the last few weeks, three cases of plague had 

 occurred in London, the infection being conveyed by ship- 

 rats. This statement has been officially denied, and it is 

 probable that Prof. Kirchner had in mind the two isolated 

 cases of plague which occurred in ships on the Thames 

 four months ago (see The Times, October 14 and 15, 

 19 10). With the exception of a few imported cases on 

 ships arriving at the docks, no cases of plague have been 

 reported in London since the year 1679. An interesting 

 account of such imported cases in recent years is to be 

 found in The Times of February 20. With regard to rat 

 infection, three rats which had probably escaped from .1 

 ship were examined at the London Docks in Novemb' r 

 last, and two of them were found to be suffering fr' m 

 plague, but at present there is no evidence of the existent 

 of a plague epizootic among rats in the London Do< I;s 

 area. The destruction of rats, which was instituted ::i 

 1908 owing to the existence among them of a disea- 

 declared to be a mild form of plague, is still carried out 

 at the London Docks, and careful precautions are being 

 taken to prevent rats in ships from infected ports from 

 escaping ashore, and possibly initiating an epizootic among 

 the shore rats. Large numbers of cats are also main- 

 tained in the various warehouses and sheds. 



The death of the well-known Indian pteridologist, Col. 

 R. H. Beddome, in his eighty-first year, took place on 

 February 23 at his residence, " Sispara," West Hill, 

 Putney. Educated at Charterhouse, Col. Beddome entered 

 the Indian Army in 1848, and became quartermaster and 

 interpreter of the 42nd Madras Infantry in 1856. A keen 

 student of natural history, whose scientific tastes were 

 well known,' he was selected to act as principal assistant 

 to the conservator in the newly organised Madras forest: 

 department in 1857 ; three years later he became con^ 

 servator himself, and held this position until his retire 

 ment in 1882. His transfer to the Forest Department led* 

 him to give especial attention to botany, more particularly, 

 with regard to forest needs, and led to the preparation of 

 a work on " The Trees of the Madras Presidency," pub- 

 lished in 1863, followed by an excellent " Flora Sylvatica '* 

 of southern India, two quarto volumes, with plates and 

 descriptions of 400 species, published between 1869 and 

 1874. A professional "Report upon the Nelambur Teak 

 Plantations " was published by Government in 1878. His: 

 leisure, however, was given to the systematic study of| 

 other groups of plants, one of his earliest papers, pub- 

 lished in 1859, being an interesting attempt to reduce to 

 order the south Indian species of the difficult genus' 

 Impatiens. In 1863 appeared Beddome's important work* 

 " The Ferns of the Madras Presidency," a quarto volume'^ 

 of descriptions and plates which at once stamped him aS;: 

 an authority' of this family. The issue between 1865 and; 

 1870 of a similar work on " The Ferns of British India, "^ 

 with descriptions and figures of species not dealt with ioi 

 the earlier work and the Supplement to that work issued*, 

 in 1876, only served to confirm the position of authority, 

 he had been by common consent accorded. But ferns did 

 not entirely absorb his attention, for between 1869 and 

 1874 Col. Beddome issued a volume of " Icones Plan- 

 tarum," with descriptions and figures of 300 interesting 

 species from southern India and Ceylon. Before he left 

 India, he placed students of ferns under a further obliga- 



