November io. 192 ij 



NATURE 



349 



Thomas, Mr. R. M. Fovvltr, Mr. E. Cunningham, 

 and Mr. T. C. Nicholas. 



Even if the Oppau explosion had been heard in 

 this country, the fact would have been very difficult 

 to prove, and it is therefore not surprising that the 

 Air Ministry should announce a negative result to 

 their inquiries. The explosion took place at 6.32 a.m. 

 (G.M.T.) on September 21, and should have been 

 heard in England between 7 and 7.30 a.m. Only 

 four out of forty-eight correspondents refer definitely 

 to this time, " and there is little to indicate that 

 the noises they mention differed from others which 

 could not have been due to the explosion." 



A SUM of 250,000^. has been allocated to forestrv 

 rom the Unemployment Fund. The Forestry Commis- 

 sioners who will administer this sum wish to direct 

 attention to the grants that are offered, the object being 

 the relief of the unemployed and the promotion of 

 afforestation. As regards local authorities, a free 

 grant of a fixed sum (approximately 60 per cent, of 

 the labour bill) is obtainable for every acre planted. 

 Provision has been made for assistance towards meet- 

 ing unemployment by means of free grants to wood- 

 land owners who provide work for unemployed. In 

 ordinary cases 3Z. per acre is the sum available, but 

 where the areas are covered with scrub the grant mav 

 amount to 5/. in all. Inquiries regarding grants, and 

 offers of land for planting, should be addressed, for 

 England and Wales, to the Assistant Commissioner, 

 Forestry Commission, i Whitehall, London, S.W.i, 

 and as regards Scotland, to the Assistant Commis- 

 sioner, Forestry Commission, 25 Drumsheugh 

 Gardens, Edinburgh. 



On November 2 the Natural History Museum Staff 

 Association held a very successful and largely attended 

 scientific reunion — the third and last for the current 

 year — in the board room of the museum by permis- 

 sion of the Trustees. Many interesting specimens 

 recently acquired by the museum were exhibited, the 

 more important of them being a series of 

 marine invertebrates from Japan collected and 

 presented by Mr. Alan V. Insole, which included 

 many rare and remarkable forms; the fcetal African 

 elephant, the third known in point of smallness, pre- 

 sented by Mr. H. A. Hopwood ; a series of minerals 

 and rocks from the Simplon Tunnel, including fine 

 crystals of purple anhydrite, presented by Mr. F. N. 

 Ashcroft; and fossils, mostly ammonites, from a 

 >ingle bed of marl in Lower Lias at Charmouth. 

 Lord Rothschild showed examples of melanic aberra- 

 tion in Lepidoptera, and considerable interest was 

 taken in Mr, M. Maxwell's remarkable photographic 

 enlargements of East African big game, especially 

 those showing giraffes in full gallop. Dr. F. A. 

 Bather gave a short lecture on "Tubular Quartzites 

 and Sandstones." 



A REPORT of the inaugural meeting of the Institu- 

 tion of Rubber Industry held on October 19 at the 

 Royal Society of Arts appears in the Itidia-Rubber 

 Journal for October 22. Sir Henry Wickham, who 

 in 1870 brought the first Hevea seeds from the banks 

 of the Amazon to Kew, was the guest of the evening. 

 After the address of the president, Mr. J. H. C. 

 NO. 2715, VOL. 108] 



Brooking, Mr. H. Rogers, manager of Messrs. 

 James Lyne Hancock, Ltd., gave an interesting review 

 of the history of rubber manufacture. The firm 

 mentioned was founded by the great English pioneer 

 of the rubber industry, Thomas Hancock (1786-1865). 

 The Indians of America were the first to use caout- 

 chouc, and from them we get the term "India," 

 while the word "rubber" is due to Priestley's use 

 of the substance in 1770 for erasing pencil-marks. 

 Up to 1840 only unvulcanised rubber w-as used. The 

 credit of first producing rubber which would with- 

 stand changes in temperature without getting soft 

 and sticky belongs to Charles Goodyer, an American, 

 who died in 186 1. In 1843 Hancock took out his 

 patent for vulcanising by sulphur alone. This was 

 twenty 3'ears after Macintosh had patented his method 

 of rendering fabric impervious to rain and wind. 

 Hancock was assisted in his development of the manu- 

 facture of rubber by his four brothers, one of whom, 

 Walter Hancock (1799-1852), was a pioneer of steam 

 road-cars. 



In the issue of Discovery for November Mr. F. W. 

 Hall describes the excavations which have disclosed 

 the buried Roman citj- of Timgad, or Thamugadi, as 

 its founder called it, in Algeria, about a hundred miles 

 from the northern coast and little more than twenty 

 from the nearest French settlement at Batna. It can 

 be compared only with Pompeii, but in some ways 

 Timgad is even more Roman. Pompeii grew out of 

 an old Oscan town, and its architects never had a free 

 hand in laying it out, but Timgad, founded by the 

 Emperor Trajan in .\.r>. 100, [was systematically 

 planned as a fortified frontier town to resist the attacks 

 of the wild tribes of the south. It is built in the 

 form of a Roman camp, a true square with an area of 

 about 30 acres. But it is not quite symmetrical, and 

 the avenue from east to west conforms to the align- 

 ment of the great road from Lambacsis to Theveste. 

 Its roads, drainage system, and public baths were con- 

 structed with the eflRciency which marks all Roman 

 work ; a fine system of public markets met the wants 

 of trade, and a public library promoted intellectual 

 culture. Its end came when in 533 Belisarius destroyed 

 Vandal power by his victory near Carthage and, in 

 alarm, the Berber tribes swept down from their moun- 

 tains and destroyed it. Excavations by the French 

 Government began in 1880, and have continued to the 

 present time, throwing "a flood of light upon Roman 

 life and history by disclosing the authentic features of 

 a daughter city of Imperial Rome." 



A LONG account, accompanied by a sketch-map, of 

 the work of the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-18 

 is given in the Geographical Journal for October by 

 Mr. V. Stefansson. Apart from the anthropological 

 and biological observations, which are not vet ready 

 for publication, the main results include the rectifica- 

 tion of the coast-line of Banks Island, Prince Albert 

 Land, and EUef Ringnes Island, and the discovery of 

 two new islands in the Gustav Adolf Sea and one 

 between Isachsen Island and Cape Thomas Hubbard. 

 These islands have not yet received names. Bv a 

 journey northward over the ice of the Beaufort Sea 

 Mr. S. Storkersen proved the non-existence of the 



