December 29, 1923] 



NATURE 



947 



and published in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous 

 Collections. 



A collected and revised edition of these reviews, in 

 three volumes, under the title of " Pattedyr-Slsegter," 

 is at present passing through the press ; and the first 

 volume of this work was received in London on the 

 day before Winge's death. This new and more 

 convenient edition will be welcome, for it is but bare 

 justice to state that the reviews in question constitute 

 together the finest, most comprehensive, and most 

 inspiring technical account of the class Mammalia 

 that has ever been written. 



Many other papers dealing with the mammals of 

 Greenland and the fossil mammals and birds of Den- 

 mark were published by Winge. In 1908 he contri- 

 buted the volume on Danish Mammals to the series 

 of handbooks entitled " Danmarks Fauna " ; and this 

 little book, illustrated by Winge himself, is at once 

 admirable and inimitable. 



Reviewing the whole of Winge's published work, 

 one cannot fail to be struck by an extraordinary fact. 

 It is that in his writings one does not mark the flight 

 of time. He seems to have acquired his full mental 

 power and his own peculiar way of looking at things 

 at an extremely early age ; for his early papers of 

 1877 and 1882 read to-day, exactly like that of 1919, 

 as the work of a great master. M. A. C. H. 



We regret to announce the following deaths : 



Prof. F. Clowes, emeritus professor of chemistry 

 and metallurgy and first principal of University 

 College, Nottingham, and the author of well-known 

 text-books on analytical chemistry, on December i8, 

 aged seventy-five. 



Canon T. Wood, well known for his natural history 

 studies, on December 13, aged sixty-one. 



Current Topics 



Two octogenarian fellows of the Royal Society 

 celebrated their birthdays this week. Sir Archibald 

 Geikie, O.M., the Nestor of British geology, who was 

 elected to the Royal Society so long ago as 1865, 

 attained the age of eighty-eight on December 28, and 

 another distinguished geologist, Sir W. Boyd Dawkins, 

 elected to the Society in 1867, was eighty-live on 

 December 26. To both of them the congratulations 

 of all scientific workers will be heartily accorded. 

 Sir Archibald Geikie, who figured as a " Scientific 

 Worthy " in Nature thirty-one years ago (January 5, 

 1893), has a world-wide reputation. As a geologist, 

 and as the author of the " Text -book of Geology," 

 originally published in 1882, and of other standard 

 works on geology and geography, he is known every- 

 where. This is in great measure due to the way in 

 which Sir Archibald is able to quicken interest in 

 his subject by the expression of his deep and intense 

 feeling for Nature. No one has done more to link 

 geology with appreciation of the natural beauty of 

 scenery. His work as an original investigator in 

 geology and as a writer of inspiring volumes on this 

 subject and on physical geography won for him the 

 Royal medal of the Royal Society in 1896. From 

 1908 until 191 3 Sir Archibald served as president 

 of the Royal Society, while he was president of the 

 British Association at the Edinburgh meeting in 1892. 

 For the period 1882-1901, he was Director-General of 

 the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom and 

 Director of the Museum of Practical Geology. In 

 spite of his advanced age, Sir Archibald maintains his 

 active interest in both science and literature, and so 

 recently as 19 18 he produced a notable volume of 

 Memoirs of John Michell, who died in 1793, one of the 

 early workers in geology. 



Scientific societies and other bodies organising 

 conferences for next year should know that the 

 authorities of the British Empire Exhibition to be 

 held at Wembley have constructed an admirable 

 congress building containing four conference halls, 

 with appropriate committee rooms, etc., capable of 

 seating 2140, 550, 180, and 150 persons respectively. 



NO. 2(S26, VOL. I I 2] 



and Events. 



These halls are being allocated to responsible organis- 

 ing committees free of charge, and early application 

 should be made for the use of any of them, as the 

 dates are being filled up rapidly. The following 

 scientific and technical societies, among others, have 

 already booked one or more of the halls for con- 

 ferences on different dates : The British Engineers' 

 Association, the British Electrical and Allied Manu- 

 facturers' Association, the Institution of Sanitary 

 Engineers, the Textile Institute, the Society of Dyers 

 and Colourists, the North-East Coast Institution of 

 Engineers and Shipbuilders, the Institution of Auto- 

 mobile Engineers, the Museums Association, the 

 Horace Plunkett Foundation, the Health Propaganda 

 Association, the Association of British Chemical 

 Manufacturers, the Institution of Mining and Metal- 

 lurgy, the Municipal Electrical Association, the 

 Electrical Contractors' Association, and the Gas 

 Association. Applications for use of the halls on 

 dates still open should be sent to the Secretary, 

 Conference Committee, British Empire Exhibition, 

 16 Grosvenor Gardens, London, S.W.i. 



With the approaching retirement of Prof. S. 

 Alexander from its chair of philosophy, the University 

 of Manchester loses the services of one of the most 

 original of the elder generation of thinkers. Nearly 

 fifty years ago, he came from Australia to Oxford, 

 where he gained reputation by a rare power of winning 

 first classes. He soon, however, deserted other 

 pursuits for philosophy, and won an assured position 

 before he was thirty by his remarkable book on 

 " Moral Order and Progress." Called in 1893 from 

 a tutorship at Lincoln College to succeed Robert 

 Adamson at Manchester, he has represented philosophy 

 there for more than thirty years. At Oxford he was 

 conspicuous in the reaction against the philosophy 

 of T. H. Green, and was among the first to preach to 

 an unheeding university the importance of modern 

 psychology. But he never lost a bent for metaphysics 

 and for vigorous thinking about fundamentals. His 

 philosophic position was fully revealed in his Giflford 

 lectures at Glasgow on " Space, Time, and Deity," 

 published in 1920. A book so technical defies 



