592 



NATURE 



[February 29, 191 2 



fiices will be made to the committee from time to time as 

 occasion arises. The committee will be asked, in the first 

 instance : — (i) to consider and advise upon proposals for 

 a forestry survey ; (2) to draw up plans for experiments in 

 vlviculture, and to report upon questions relating to the 

 ..lection and laying out of forestal demonstration areas ; 

 (3) to advise as to the provision required for the instruc- 

 tion of woodmen. The committee is constituted as 

 follows :— Sir Stafford Howard, K.C.B. (chairman), Mr. 

 F. D. Williams-Drummond, Sir S. Eardlcy-Wilmot, 

 K.C.I. E., Mr. R. C. Munro Ferguson, M.P., Lieut.- 

 Colonel D. Prain, C.M.G., CLE., F.R.S., Mr. E. R. 

 Pratt (president of the Royal English Arboricultural 

 Society), Sir W. Schlich, K.C.I. E., F.R.S., Prof. Wm. 

 Somerville, and the Hon. .Arthur L. Stanley. Mr. R. L. 

 Robinson, of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, will 

 act as secretary. 



A MEMORANDUM of the Secretary of State for War 

 relating to the .Army Estimates for 1912-13, just issued 

 as a Parliamentary Paper, states that after careful 

 consideration by the Committee of Imperial Defence, it 

 has Been decided to establish at once a joint Army and 

 T^avv School of Aviation at which officers of both services 

 shall be taught to fly, before proceeding to the separate 

 Armv and Navy establishments at which they will be 

 exercised in the more specialised requirements of their 

 respective services. A site for the school has been selected 

 on Salisbury Plain, and the purchase of the necessary land 

 will be completed at the beginning of April. Building, to 

 plans which have been already prepared, will be pressed 

 forward rapidly, and it is hoped at a very early date to 

 ihave accommodation at the school for officers and men, 

 instructors, and mechanics, as well as the necessary sheds 

 for aeroplanes and workshops for their repair and adjust- 

 ment. Provision has also been made on an extended scale 

 for purchase of aeroplanes and other necessary equipment 

 for the school. The Estimates further provide for con- 

 tinuing the experimental and other work of the Army Air- 

 craft Factory, for further buildings required for airships, 

 for an addition of personnel to Army establishments for 

 aeroplane work, and for a considerable number of aero- 

 planes as a first instalment of the equipment of the Field 

 Army. The total sum provided for the above services 

 amounts to 322,000/., which includes an Admiralty con- 

 tribution of i4,oooZ. to the general expenses of the school. 

 The increased provision for aviation services is 177,000/. 



In a lecture delivered at University College, on 

 February 20, in connection with the Francis Galton 

 Laboratory for National Eugenics, Dr. M. Greenwood 

 pointed out that public opinion respecting the possibility 

 of influencing the infant death-rate by administrative action 

 'had greatly changed during the last 100 years, the preva- 

 lent belief being that the great majority of deaths in the 

 first year of life were due to preventable causes. Apart 

 from the supposed ill-effects of the industrial employment 

 of mothers, three factors had been associated in the public 

 mind with the rate of infant mortality, viz. the birth- 

 rate, the prevalence of artificial feeding, and poverty. The 

 general conclusion which the lecturer emphasised was that 

 the effects of administrative reforms upon the infant death- 

 rate were in danger of being exaggerated. Any such 

 exaggeration was calculated to do a great deal of harm, 

 because expectations were raised which could not be 

 realised, and the consequent reaction in the public mind 

 might lead to general indifference towards the subject of 

 sanitary administration. 



The general exhibition of lunar study which the Astro- 

 nomical Society of Barcelona proposes to hold in the 



NO. 2209, VOL. 88] 



University of that city, under the honorary presidency of 

 the Rector of the University, Baron de Bonet, will be open 

 to the public from May 15 to June 15. This exhibition 

 has for its object the grouping in one harmonious whole 

 of the discoveries relating to our satellite. It will com- 

 prise at least the following sections : — .A, lunar carto- 

 graphy ; B, representations of the moon by drawings and 

 models ; C, photographs of the moon ; D, lunar physics ; 

 E, the study of the tides ; F, observatories and instru- 

 ments ; G, apparatus for cosmographic demonstration ; 

 H, history and biography; I, lunar astrology. The com- 

 mittee arranging the exhibition will be glad to receive 

 offers of assistance from any interested persons, whether 

 members of the society or not. Already exhibits are being 

 received, and the society is anxious to get into touch with 

 anyone who possesses books, drawings, photographs, 

 sketches, models, &c., of items of lunar interest. The last 

 day for entries is .-Xpril 15, and the last day for receiving 

 exhibits is May i. The society offers diplomas to exhibitors 

 and to all who contribute in any way to the success of the 

 exhibition. All correspondence and offers of help, &c., re- 

 garding the exhibition should be addressed to Don Salvador 

 Raurich, secretary of the society, Gran Via Diagonal, 462, 

 Barcelona, Spain. 



Dr. a. H. Young, Emeritus professor of anatomy in the 

 University of Manchester, a former president of the 

 .'\natomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, died at his 

 residence in Didsburj- on February 22, of an illness which 

 had incapacitated him for the past three years. Prof. 

 Young exercised a considerable influence upon British 

 anatomy during the last quarter of a century, not only by 

 his own investigations, but even more so by the researches 

 which he inspired his assistants to carry on. Much of his 

 earlier work, such as the memoirs on the anatomy of the 

 elk, the hyaena, and the northern beluga, was done in 

 collaboration with his predecessor, Prof. Morrison Watson ; 

 but at the same time he carried out a series of investiga- 

 tions of his own upon the anatomy of Phascolarctos, 

 Viverra, Proteles, and the elephant, devoting especial 

 attention to the musculature of the marsupial hand and 

 forearm. After he succeeded to the chair of anatomy in 

 Manchester he and his assistants became interested in 

 embryology, and they produced a series of morphological 

 memoirs, in which the facts of ontogeny and comparative 

 anatomy were happily blended. Prof. Young himself con- 

 centrated his attention mainly upon the problems of the 

 morphology of arteries, his best known work being his 

 strong attack upon the commonly accepted interpretation 

 of the middle sacral or caudal artery as the prolongation 

 of the dorsal aorta. 



In a Reuter telegram from Khartum which appeared 

 in the Press last w'eek, it was stated that Prof. Garstang 

 had discovered at Meroe evidence that the Roman Empire 

 extended much further south than has hitherto been sup- 

 posed, even to Meroe (Kabushia) itself, the evidence for 

 this conclusion being the discovery of a Roman temple, 

 &c. In this way, the telegram adds, the presence at 

 Meroe of the Augustus-head discovered last year is ex- 

 plained. We have not as yet the facts of the discovery 

 which have led Prof. Garstang to this conclusion, but until 

 they have been carefully examined it would be rash to 

 accept so revolutionary a statement as certain. Hitherto, 

 though the Roman legions are known to have marched 

 so far south as Gebel Barkal (Napata) in the reign of 

 Augustus in order to punish a Nubian invasion of Egypt, 

 the southernmost Roman permanent post has always been 

 supposed to have been Primis (Ibrim), and this was only 

 occupied for a short time, the usual " furthest south " 



