June 15, 191 1] 



NATURE 



519 



has been personally engaged in feather collecting in 

 Venezuela, it appears that while a few moulted feathers, 

 worth possibly a fifth of the value of those taken from 

 living birds, are collected, there is not the slightest founda- 

 tion for the statement that the breeding places are pro- 

 tected for the purpose. 



Mr. A. H. Meyer, who has come forward, adds the 

 following to his account : — " The natives of the country, 

 who do virtually all the hunting for feathers, are not 

 provident in their nature, and their practices are of a most 

 cruel and brutal nature. I have seen them frequently pull 

 the plumes from wounded birds, leaving the crippled birds 

 to die of starvation, unable to respond to the cries of their 

 young which were calling for food in the nests above. I 

 have known these people to tie and prop up wounded egrets 

 on the marsh, where they would attract the attention of 

 iher birds flying by. These decoys they keep in this posi- 



TUE NATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL TANK. 

 'T^O the present-day shipbuilder or shipowner there 

 -■- are probably no more important problems than 

 those of getting the best or least wasteful form of hull 

 with the limitations of dimensions imposed by its ser- 

 vice or internal arrangements, and of obtaining a 

 trustworthy forecast of the power required to propel 

 a ship of that form at a given speed. 



It is the exhaustive investigations of such problems 

 as these which constitutes the primary object of an 

 experiment tank. Such a tank is to the naval archi- 

 tect what the research laboratory is to the chemist, 

 or the testing house to the engineer. Forty years ago 

 model experiments were looked upon as "remote from 

 practical use," and it was largely due to the fertile 



Fig. I.— National Physical Laboratory Experimental Tank. View looking Noilh (empty). 



tion until they die of their wounds or from the attacks of 

 insects. I have seen the terrible red ants of that country 

 actually eating out the eyes of these wounded, helpless 

 birds that were tied up by the plume hunters." 



The story that the aigrettes used in the feather trade 

 are picked up on the ground in Venezuela is stated by 

 those interested to have been based on a letter written by 

 Mayeul Grisol, naturalist and explorer of the Honorary 

 Mission of the Museum of Natural History of Paris. 

 Prof. Osborn, president of the American Museum of 

 Natural History, recently sent the following cablegram to 

 the Muspum of Natural History of Paris : — 



" Is Mayeul Grisol of scientific standing? Has he been 

 an accredited explorer for your museum to South 

 America? " 



This is the answer: — " Mayeul Grisol unknown." 



Wilfred Mark Webb. 



42 Bloomsbury Square, W.C. 

 NO. 2 1/2. VOL. 86"] 



brain and the carefully conducted epoch-making ex- 

 periments of the late Dr. William Froudc that this 

 impression has been removed, and replaced by a con- 

 tinually growing confidence in the application of the 

 results of experiments with models to the full-sized 

 ship. 



Many early investigators, amongst whom may be 

 numbered Bernouilli and Euler, attempted to solve 

 the problem of least resistance mathematically. 



Later on, in 1770, experiments on a small scale 

 were made bv D'Alcmbert, Abb<5 Bossut, and Con- 

 dorcet, and aii attempt was made to frame formula 

 for forms of least resistance. These were followed by 

 M. Romme, and later by Marc Bcaufoy, who for five 

 years (1793 to 1798) made experiments with various 

 models in the Greenland Dock. Unfortunately, owing 



