May II, 191 1] NATURE 



355 



Geheimrat Prof. Flamm {Germany), Prof. A. Rateau 

 {France), and Mr. J. Johnson {Sweden). On Thursday, 

 July 6, there will be a visit to the National Physical 

 Laboratory to inspect the national experimental tank, and 

 in the evening a banquet to the delegates and repre- 

 sentatives. 



The death, at a very advanced age, of Miss C. C. 

 Hopley, daughter of the late Mr. E. Hopley, of Lewes, 

 a naval surgeon, has been recently announced. As re- 

 gards natural history, the deceased lady, who took special 

 interest in reptiles, of which she kept various specimens as 

 pets, was best known as the author of a popular work on 

 snakes, published in 1882. American birds likewise 

 attracted her attention, and during the Civil War, when 

 she was travelling to collect materials for a work on this 

 subject, she was arrested and imprisoned as a British spy. 

 Miss Hopley was for a number of years a contributor to 

 The Globe, many natural history articles in that journal 

 having been apparently written by her pen. 



The authorities of the British Museum are to be con- 

 gratulated on having acquired, at an almost nominal price, 

 the valuable collection of specimens illustrating the religion 

 of Polynesia, which was long in the possession of the 

 London Mission Society. Many of the specimens are 

 unique, and it would now be quite impossible to form such 

 a collection. Among the most remarkable objects are the 

 great tapering idol of the national god of Raratonga, kept 

 swathed in blue and white matting ; Tangaroa, the supreme 

 god of Polynesia, a wooden figure with small human-like 

 objects sprouting from his eyes, mouth, and other parts 

 of his body, typifying his creative power ; and a head- 

 dress of black feathers, which completes a mourning 

 costume already owned by the museum. It would have 

 been nothing short of a calamity if a collection of this 

 kind had been dispersed, and the council of the London 

 Mission Society, which has for some time entrusted the 

 objects to the British Museum for exhibition, is to be 

 commended for. its liberality in transferring the collection 

 to the nation. 



In reference to the proposal to appropriate a large por- 

 tion of the ground at the back of the Natural History 

 Museum to purposes other than those of that institution, 

 it is pointed out in the April number of The Museums 

 Journal that the Government does not appear to realise 

 the imperative need for expansion which must occur at no 

 distant date if the museum is to do its work properly and 

 kff>p abreast of the times. Such expansion, it is added, 

 will by no means be confined to galleries and rooms for 

 ihc exhibition and storage of specimens, but must embrace 

 rooms and buildings in which scientific work in connection 

 with the collections is carried on. Indeed, this latter item 

 will probably be found to be the more urgent of the two. 

 " Nowadays, any museum worthy of the name requires 

 libraries, laboratories, workshops, studios, and so forth, 

 ind these often occupy a larger area than the exhibited 

 >l!ections of the museum. The ground that lies between 

 • Natural History Museum and the Science Museum 

 might very well prove none too large for either of these 

 imiseums alone.'' 



.Apropos of the article on " Standard Bread " which 

 ppeared in the last issue of Nature, Dr. Leonard Hill, 



R.S., publishes a note in The British Medical Journal 

 I May 6 on the nutritive value of white and of standard 

 1 'ad. Young tame rats were fed for three weeks some 

 n white and some on standard bread, and for a second 

 iree weeks some on white and some on standard flour. 



NO. 2167, VOL. 86] 



Two lots of twenty-five rats each were used and kept in 

 identical conditions ; at the start the total weight of each 

 lot was approximately the same. The results were 

 astonishing; ten of the white flour and bread lot died against 

 five of the standard. Taking fifteen survivors of each lot, 

 the standard has a percentage gain in weight of 27J, 

 against twelve for the white in the last three weeks, and 

 at the end nearly all the latter are losing weight, and are 

 less lively and less sleek than the standard. Another lot 

 fed on white flour plus an addition of the germ equivalent 

 to that in standard flour, have done as well as on standard 

 flour and bread, suggesting that the germ contains bodies 

 essential for growth or activating enzymes engaged in the 

 digestion of wheat proteins. 



In the House of Commons on May 3, Mr. E. Edwards 

 asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department 

 whether any arrangements were being made to continue 

 the experiments with coal dust which had been carried on 

 during the last three years by representatives of the coal 

 owners and others at Altofts Colliery and elsewhere ; and 

 whether the Government were prepared to undertake the 

 control and responsibility of the experiments, in view of 

 their great importance to the mining population in the 

 direction of the prevention of coal-dust explosions. In 

 reply, Mr. Churchill stated that it has been decided to con- 

 tinue the experiments referred to under the supervision of 

 the Home Office, and that the Treasury has sanctioned the 

 considerable expenditure that will be necessary for the 

 purpose. The Mining Association has offered to place at 

 the disposal of the Government for the purposes of the 

 experiments the plant and instrument now in use at Altofts, 

 an offer which has been accepted, and arrangements are 

 being made for starting work as soon as possible on a 

 new site. Mr. Churchill has appointed an expert com- 

 mittee to be directly in charge of the experiments, the 

 members being Sir Henry Cunynghame, K.C.B., Mr. 

 R. A. S. Redmayne, Captain Desborough, Prof. H. B. 

 Dixon, F.R.S., and Mr. W. Cuthbert Blackett. He has 

 also requested the members of the Royal Commission on 

 Mines and of the Coal Dust Committee of the Mining 

 Association, under whose supervision the previous series of 

 experiments was conducted, to act as a consultative com- 

 mittee in connection with the experiments. 



Mr. J. A. J. DE ViLLiERS described the foundation and 

 development of British Guiana before the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society on May 8. Starting with the first 

 settlement in the early part of the seventeenth century, he 

 traced the gradual growth and development of the colony 

 in the hands of the Dutch for some two hundred years. 

 From 1803 the country became British property, and in 

 1834 Robert Schomburgk, who had been sent out by the 

 Royal Geographical .Society, commenced his travels and 

 explorations which enabled him to lay down boundaries 

 provisional at that time, but which were substantially 

 followed and accepted by the arbitration tribunal in Paris 

 in 1800. The whole subject is an interesting and instruc- 

 tive contribution to colonial history. 



Miss Olive MacLeod, who, with Mr. and Mrs. P. A. 

 Talbot, has been exploring the country round Lake Chad 

 for several months, returned to England on Tuesday. The 

 expedition passed up the Niger and Benue Rivers by 

 steamer and canoes through Southern and Northern 

 Nigeria, and then traversed the North Kamerun. French 

 Ubangi was reached in October last. A splendid reception 

 was accorded to the party by the Lamido at Lere. The 

 mysterious falls on the Mao Kahi were located, and have 

 been named Lcs Chutes MacLeod. .After mapping this 



