July 21, 1923] 



NATURE 



1 1 



The Liverpool Meeting of the British Association. 



I. — ^LocAL Arrangements. 



THE preliminary programme and invitation 

 circular for the meeting at Liverpool of the 

 British Association in September has recently been 

 issued, and the subjects of the various presidential 

 addresses and the chief sectional discussions have 

 been mentioned in Nature for June i6, p. 825. 

 A short account of the local arrangements may, 

 however, be of interest to members of the Association 

 who intend coming to Liverpool, as well as to others 

 who are as yet undecided about their attendance at 

 the meeting. 



The Reception Room and the General Offices will 

 be at St. George's Hall, though accommodation will 

 also be provided at the University for meeting rooms, 

 etc., for offices and members if required. St. George's 

 Hall, though rather more than half a mile from the 

 University, where very many of the sections will 

 hold their meetings, is admirably situated in the 

 centre of the city, close to the railway stations and 

 easily accessible by tram from all parts. The 

 experience of the last meeting showed how excellent 

 a reception room it proved, while its beaiitiful 

 tessellated floor adds a decorative value most recep- 

 tion rooms lack. 



Section E (Geography), and Section F (Economics) 

 will meet in St. George's Hall, the former in the 

 concert room and the latter in one of the large rooms 

 used ordinarily for purposes of the assizes. These 

 rooms being in the same building as the Reception 

 Room itself could not be more convenient. Section H 

 (Anthropology) will meet in the lecture theatre 

 belonging to the Public Museum, not more than a 

 few minutes' walk from the Reception Room. The 

 other sections will all meet in the University buildings. 

 For convenience of getting to and fro between the 

 Reception Room and the University, it is proposed 

 to run a service of motor buses. 



The inaugural meeting and presidential address, as 

 well as the evening lecture by Prof. Elliot Smith, 

 will be held in the Philharmonic Hall, which has a 

 seating capacity of about 3000. Citizens' lectures 

 will be given in the Picton Hall, Liverpool, as well as 

 in several of the neighbouring boroughs, and it is 

 also intended to give a few lectures to young people, 

 as these proved such a great success at last year's 

 meeting at Hull. 



The Lord Mayor is giving a reception to members 

 of the Association in the Walker Art Gallery and 

 Museum and Library (all three buildings being " en 



suite ") on Thursday evening, September 13, and for 

 that occasion it has been arranged to exhibit the 

 greater portion of the permanent art collections of 

 the city as well as to show exhibits of interest in the 

 Library and Museum. 



On the last evening of the meeting, Tuesday 

 September 18, a scientific soiree will be held at the 

 University. This gathering, based on the lines of the 

 Royal Society functions, will, it is believed, be of 

 the greatest interest, as a very large number of 

 exhibits and experiments illustrating recent develop- 

 ments in science will be on view. There will also 

 be a series of lecturettes by eminent men of science. 

 It may be mentioned that the committee engaged 

 in the organisation of this soiree at the University 

 hope that as many members of the Association as 

 possible will wear full academic dress on that 

 occasion. 



During the whole of the meeting, an exhibition 

 of scientific apparatus, specimens, diagrams, etc., 

 representative of the work of all the thirteen sections 

 of the Association, will be on view in the Central 

 Technical School, kindly placed at the disposal of 

 the local committee by the Technical and Commercial 

 Education Sub-Committee of the Corporation. This 

 exhibition should prove of interest to all members, 

 if one may judge from the small sectional exhibits 

 which have been features of the Association meetings 

 on several occasions during the last decade. All 

 members of the Association will be admitted free. 



A comprehensive series of excursions and visits 

 to works and places of interest in the neighbourhood 

 is being arranged, and the local committee hope the 

 programme will provide interest for all. 



A special handbook is in preparation. It will 

 contain a number of articles dealing with the whole 

 district of which Liverpool is the centre, rather than 

 being restricted to the city and its immediate environs. 

 It is hoped members will find it of more than merely 

 ephemeral interest, as the articles are all by authors 

 well qualified to write on their particular subjects. 



Every effort is being made by the local committee 

 to make the meeting a signal success. It is hoped 

 very much that all those interested in science, even if 

 not actually professional scientific workers, will attend. 

 The local programme is developing week by week, 

 and there is no doubt that by the date the meeting 

 commences, provision will have been made for every 

 minute of the member's day. Alfred Holt. 



The Thunderstorm of July 9-10 over Southern England. 



I^HE thunderstorm which visited London during 

 the night of July 9-10 will find a place on the 

 list of famous storms rather for its duration and for 

 the spectacular effect produced at night by the inces- 

 sant lightning, than for the quantity of rain associated 

 with it or the damage done, though neither of these 

 was by any means negligible. It is too early yet to 

 attempt anything like a complete account of the 

 storm, but data already at hand, and personal observa- 

 tions generously placed at my disposal, render a pre- 

 liminary note possible. 



Apart from the long duration, the most noteworthy 

 general characteristics appear to have been the sudden 

 development with little in the way of sky signs to aid 

 the isolated observer, the general lack of hail, the 

 absence of any marked squalls of wind at the surface, 



NO. 2803, VOL. 112] 



and the very marked preponderance of cloud-to-cloud 

 discharges, without which the damage might have 

 been very much worse. 



The storm ^ first made its appearance about 8.30 p.m. 

 (Greenwich time) on the south coast, where it was 

 seen approaching from the south-east. It then pro- 

 gressed N.N.W., in the direction of London, where 

 a corresponding phase was reached about two hours 

 later, the system having advanced at a speed of 

 roughly 25 miles per hour. This rate of movement 

 appears to have been maintained in the same direction 

 across Bedford and Peterborough, and then, rather 

 faster, on to Hull and Middlesbrough. Thunder- 

 storms which occurred later on July 10 at Berwick, 



' The disturbanc* as a whole is referred to as the storm, but the system 

 undoubtedly had several nuclei. 



