554 



NATURE 



[October 13, 1923 



how valuable a feature such reviews are likely to be. 

 The journal is very attractive in appearance ; both 

 letter-press and illustrations are excellent and the price 

 is moderate. We wish it all success, and especially 

 a large Ixxly of subscribers. 



" The Natural History of Wicken Fen," Part I. 

 (Cambridge : Bowes and liowes), which is to con- 

 tinue appearing until the volume is completed, under 

 the general editorship of Prof. J. Stanley Gardiner 

 and Mr. A. G. Tansley, is a very desirable record of 

 public-spirited action by entomologists and botanists, 

 supported by the National Trust for Places of Historic 

 Interest or National Beauty. The Trust now holds 

 for till 1)1 lufit of the nation 521 acres, which include 

 the greater part of the old, undisturbed fenland in 

 Wicken Sedge Fen, St. Edmund's Fen, and Burwell 

 Fen, and has obtained leases of other areas. Mr. A. 

 H. Evans, the secretary of the local committee 

 formed in Cambridge in 1914 to further the purchase 

 and preservation of the fenland, states that the Trust 

 is able to look forward with confidence to the early 

 purchase of a further 60 or 70 acres if funds are 

 available. Mr. Evans reports that " very little more 

 remains to be done in this direction," an eminently 

 satisfactory state of affairs for which we have to 

 thank many generous donors, but notably the late 

 Mr. G. H. Verrall, of Newmarket, an ardent entomo- 

 logist who realised the value of the undisturbed fen- 

 land to the student of insect life. The volume now 

 commenced is to place on record the history and the 

 biology of the fenland, and the present part contains 

 Mr. Evans's history of the fens, with especial reference 

 to Wicken Fen, and of their drainage and its effect upon 

 the fauna and flora, together with an account of the 

 butterflies and moths of Cambridgeshire by W. Farren, 

 which is substantially the same as that appearing in 

 the British Association Handbook for 1904. The 

 local committee has wisely decided not to leave the 

 fen " to Nature," which, as the secretary points out, 

 would mean eventually the formation of a tangled 

 impenetrable thicket of the tall coarse sedge {Cladium 

 Mariscus) shaded by alien trees, but to see that excess- 

 ive growth is thinned out and the waterways kept 

 so that the winter floods may profit the ground. The 

 characteristic fen country has never been an un- 

 touched wilderness, but so far back as its history is 

 known the sedge crop has regularly been cut, being 

 once of considerable value. 



Sir E. Sharpey Schafer is to deUver the first 

 Victor Horsley Memorial Lecture at the Royal 

 Society of Medicine on Thursday, October 25, at 5 

 o'clock, taking as his subject " The Relations between 

 Surgery and Physiology." 



The sixth annual Streatfeild Memorial Lecture 

 will be delivered in the Chemical Lecture Theatre 

 of the Finsbury Technical College, Leonard Street, 

 E.C.2, at 4 o'clock on Thursday, . October 25, by 

 Mr. E. M. Hawkins. The subject will be " Analytical 

 Chemistry," and admission will be free. 



The eighth annual meeting of the Optical Society 

 of America will be held at Cleveland, Ohio, in the Case 

 School of Applied Science, on October 25-27. The 

 NO. 2815, VOL. 112] 



address of the retiring president. Dr. L. T. Ti 

 will be on " The Optics of the Nervous S\ 

 Prof, A. A. Michelson will read, by invita- 

 paper on " The Limit of Accuracy in Optical M- 

 ment," and Mr. F. A. Whiting, director of the Ciev< 

 land Museum of Art, will address the Society on " Th' 

 Optical Problems of an Art Museum." A number "! 

 papers on general optics, vi.sion, colorimetry, photo 

 metry, spectroscopy and instruments will also 1>' 

 presented. 



The programmes for the meetings of the Royal 

 Microscopical Society during the coming wint< r 

 session have been issued, and the Society is to b- 

 congratulated on the excellent series of papers atnl 

 communications which will be submitted for <lj> 

 cussion. The section dealing with the industrial 

 applications of the microscope has a specially attrae 

 five list, and in addition to the large number i>\ 

 exhibits, the practical demonstrations shown will 

 be a leading feature at each meeting. Arrangements 

 have been made for communications and discussion ^ 

 dealing with coal, petrology, metallurgy, textile^ 

 (cotton and linen), paper, bee-keeping, and poultrx- 

 keeping. A further attraction of the meetings of 

 the Industrial Applications Section will be a series of 

 lecture demonstrations, which will embody a practical 

 course of instruction in the manipulation of the 

 microscope. These will be given by Mr. J. K 

 Barnard, and a detailed syllabus of the sam2 will b.' 

 forwarded on application to the secretary to the 

 Society, 20 Hanover Square, W.i. 



The latest news of Mr. K. Rasmussen's exjjedition 

 to Arctic Canada has been brought to Europe by 

 Mr. Birket-Smith, who has returned to Copenhagen. 

 According to the Times, Mr. Rasmussen had reached 

 Pelly Bay, near the Magnetic Pole, at the end of 

 April on his way to Alaska and Siberia in his en- 

 deavour to trace the route of Eskimo migrations 

 Mr. P. Freuchen is following the Eskimo track via 

 Baffin Land, Lancaster Sound and EUesmere Land to 

 Thule in north-western Greenland. Mr. Birket-Smith 

 completed his task of visiti ng the inland Eskimo tribes 

 in Melville Peninsula and Rae Isthmus. 



The Times publishes an account of the travels in 

 Spitsbergen last August of the Merton College expedi- 

 tion. The original project of exploring North-East 

 Land had, as was fully expected, to be abandoned. 

 It is far bej'ond the scope of a summer visit. The 

 vessel carrying the party was able to p>enetrate 

 Hinlopen Strait from the north, land a sledging party 

 on the western shore and reach Ulve Bay on the 

 south coast of North-East Land. On the pack closing 

 in, a retreat was made northward along the strait and 

 a brief visit was paid to the north coeist of North- 

 East Land. Pack ice prevented progress beyond Cape 

 Brunn and the vessel was forced to return. After a 

 visit to Klaas Billen Bay, where the sledging party 

 was picked up at Camp Bruce, the expedition returned 

 to Norway. On the west side of North Cape was 

 found a canvas tent bag which has been identified as 

 a relic of the German Expedition of 191 2 and doubt- 

 less belonged to Lieut. Schroeder Stranz, who lost his 

 life in an attempt to sledge over insecure sea-ice. 



