February 22, 19 12] 



NATURE 



56£ 



Lazarus Fletcher, F.R.S. ; Murchison medal, Prof. Louis j 

 DoUo ; Lyell medal, Mr. Philip Lake ; Wollaston fund, Mr. 

 C. L Gardiner; Murchison fund, Dr. .\. Morley Davies ; 

 Lyell fund. Dr. .\. R. Dwerryhouse and Mr. R. H. Rastall. 

 The president delivered his anniversary address, which 

 dealt with the natural resources of this country in the 

 matter of coal supply, and their probable duration. 



The death is announced, at Bergen, of Dr. G. H. A. 

 Hansen, whose name will always be associated with the 

 discovery of the bacillus of leprosy by him in 1871. This 

 was almost the first micro-organism associated with disease 

 to be recognised, antedating Koch's discovery of the 

 tubercle bacillus by ten years. Hansen regarded leprosy 

 as a malady of an ordinary bacterial type, and he therefore 

 hoped for the complete extinction of the disease by the 

 segregation of the sufferers. With this end in view, he 

 took an active part in the organisation of leper hospitals 

 in Norway, and although his hopes have not been com- 

 pletely realised, these measures have considerably 

 diminished the prevalence of leprosy in Norway. Notwith- 

 standing the bacillus of leprosy was recognised forty years 

 ago, it is only within the last year or two that the artificial 

 cultivation of the organism has attained any measure of 

 success. 



It is ofificially announced that the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer is appointing a committee to report at an early 

 date upon the considerations of general policy in respect of 

 the problem of tuberculosis in the United Kingdom, in its 

 preventive, curative, and other aspects, which should guide 

 the Government and local bodies in making or aiding pro- 

 vision for the treatment of tuberculosis in sanatoria or 

 other institutions or otherwise. The committee will consist 

 of Mr. Waldorf Aster, M.P. (chairman), Dr. C. Addison, 

 Dr. N. D. Bardswell, Mr. David Davies, M.P., Dr. A. 

 Mearns Eraser, Dr. A. Latham, Dr. W. Leslie Mackenzie, 

 Dr. J. C. McVail, Dr. W. J. Maguire, Sir George New- 

 man, Dr. Arthur Newsholme, C.B., Dr. J. Niven, M.P., 

 Mr. M. Paterson, Dr. R. W. Philip, Dr. H. Meredith 

 Richards, Mr. T. J. Stafford, C.B., Miss Jane Walker, 

 and Mr. J. Smith Whitaker. The secretary to the com- 

 mittee will be Mr. F. J. Willis, one of the assistant secre- 

 taries of the Local Government Board. 



The Times of February 10 includes an article by its well- 

 informed correspondent in Sydney upon the Australian 

 water supply. The article mentions the great progress 

 which has been made in the construction of storage 

 reservoirs for the collection of winter floods down the rivers 

 of the Murray System. It deals mainly with the supply 

 from the wells in Queensland and the adjacent parts of 

 eastern central Australia, and refers to the large volumes 

 of water yielded by some of these wells at a comparatively 

 slight cost. Many of the bore waters cannot be used for 

 irrigation, as they are heavily charged with salts ; and 

 though it has long been known how some of the injurious 

 alkalies could be converted into useful plant foods, these 

 methods have not yet been applied in practice. The article 

 recognises that the supply from the bores tends to fall ofT, 

 and that some have ceased altogether. It has recently been 

 discovered that the water of one of the bores is radio- 

 active, which gives support to the view that some of the 

 water is of plutonic origin. That gas pressure helps in 

 the outflow of the well waters has been recently shown by 

 chemical analyses. It may be hoped that the attention 

 now being given in Australia to this great subterranean 

 supply of water will lead to the alteration of the old 

 policy, whereby many of the wells were allowed to run to 

 waste. 



NO. 2208, VOL. 88] 



Dr. a. p. Laurie gave his opening lecture as professor 

 of chemistry in the Royal Academy on February 19. His 

 subject was " Pigments Old and New, and their Value 

 in Detecting Forgeries." He began by describing the list 

 of pigments which were in use at the time of Pliny. He 

 then went on to point out what pigments had been intro- 

 duced in addition to these at various times in the history 

 of art up to the present day, such as the diMov. r\ nt i!ir 

 preparation of real ultramarine, the introduction of lakes 

 prepared with alum, and the introduction in more recent 

 times of such pigments as chrome yellow, cadmium yellow, 

 artificial ultramarine, cobalt blue, and oxide of chromium 

 green. He then proceeded to discuss the question of how 

 far these pigments could be identified in pictures without 

 injuring the picture, first by means of a microscopic .ex- 

 amination of the surface with the assistance of the micro- 

 spectroscope, and by actual but minute tests made upon 

 the surface of the pigments, and then by the removal of 

 very small portions by means of delicate tools at a scale 

 much finer than that required for surgical operations on the 

 e3"e, these minute portions to be mounted in paraffin and 

 cut in sections to be microscopically examined and tested. 

 A systematic plan for the identification of blues when 

 mixed with white lead was shown, and many photomicro- 

 graphs, on Lumi^re plates, of pigments magnified to 200 

 diameters. In conclusion, the photomicrographs of the 

 pigments actually found on an illuminated missal letter of 

 the fifteenth century were shown on the screen, and the 

 means of identifying them explained. Finally, some 

 account was given of the mediaeval methods and the treatis<» 

 of the monk Theophilus. 



We record with regret the death of Mr. George Maw, 

 which occurred at Kenley, Surrey, on February 7. Born 

 in 1832, Maw was a manufacturer of artistic tiles and 

 pottery at Broseley, Shropshire, where he formed a remark- 

 able collection of living hardy plants. With wide scientific 

 interests. Maw gave especial attention to botanical, geo- 

 logical, and antiquarian problems. His earlier studies 

 dealt with English botany ; in 1853 he discussed the plants 

 of the Taw, Tamar, and Torridge Valleys ; he discovered 

 Lilium pyrenaicutn, in a naturalised condition, near 

 Molton, S. Devon. To enrich his garden he travelled 

 widely in the mountains of Europe, Asia Minor, and Nortli 

 .Africa; he discovered Draba Mawii on the Spanish Sien 

 Nevada, and Saxifraga Maweaua on the mountains abu\ 

 Tetuan. In 1871 he accompanied Sir J. D. Hooker and 

 Mr. J. Ball in an expedition to North Africa, and dis- 

 cussed the geology of the country traversed in the well- 

 known work " Marocco and the Great .Atlas," published 

 by Messrs. Macmillan in 1878. About 1875 Maw began to 

 concentrate his attention on the genus Crocus, as to which 

 he became the recognised authority; in search of its spec! 

 he travelled much in Greece and Asia Minor. After pi- 

 liminary systematic and horticultural notices, Maw issued, 

 in 1886, a magnificent monograph of Crocus containing 

 quarto plates of sixty-seven species drawn and coloured 1 

 himself. Then his health gave way; in May, 1886, he I' 

 Shropshire, and had lived in retirement at Kenley ev. 

 since. Maw was a fellow of the Linnean society, whi. 

 he joined in i860, of the Geological Soei' i\, :uu! .f ih" 

 Society of Antiquaries. 



The trial of Galileo formed the subject of the third 

 lecture delivered on February 14 at University College by 

 the Quain professor of comparative law (Sir John .Mai - 

 donnell). on comparative legal procedure as illustrated l\ 

 historical trials. From the report in The Times of t! 

 following day it appears that the lecturer justly reject- 

 the legend that Galileo was thrown into a dungeon a: 



