December i, 192 i] 



NATURE 



443 



The Royal Society of South Africa has elected the 

 following officers for 1922: — President: Dr. J. D. F. 

 Gilchrist. Hon. Treasurer: Dr. L. Crawford. Hon. 

 General Secretary: Dr. W. A. Jolly. Members of 

 Council: Sir Carruthers Beattie, Mr. S. H. Haugh- 

 ton, Mr. S. S. Hough, Dr. C. J. Juritz, Mr. C. P. 

 Lounsbury, Prof. J. T. Morrison, Dr. A. Ogg, Dr. 

 A. \V. Rogers, and Dr. R. B. Young. 



We learn from Science that Dr. Harlow Shapley, 

 formerly of the Mount Wilson Solar Observator}', has 

 been appointed director of the Harvard College Ob- 

 servatory in succession to the late Edward C. Picker- 

 ing, and that Dr. Joel Stebbings, director of the 

 \\'ashburn Observatory and professor of astronomy at 

 Ihe University of Wisconsin, is to succeed Prof. G. C. 

 Comstock as director of the observatory in July next. 



The Trustees of the British Museum have decided 

 to open the Natural History Museum to the public 

 everv Sunday from 2.30 p.m. to 6 p.m., commencing 

 next Sunday, and on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

 in the winter months, October to February, and from 

 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the summer months, March to 

 September. Previously the hours of admission on 

 Sundavs have varied with the season of the year. 

 The museum will be closed on Christmas Day. 



Lt.-Col. H. H. Godwin-Austen, Nore, Godalming, 

 asks us to make known that a portfolio of his Indian 

 sketches is missing from the rooms of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society, Kensington Gore, London, S.W.7, 

 and he hopes that publicity will lead to its recovery. 

 The portfolio is very large and heavy, about 2 ft. 4 in. 

 by I ft. 6 in., strongly bound in black cloth. On the 

 outside cover are set out the names of the countries 

 the sketches were made in — Burma, Kashmir, etc. — 

 the lettering cut out in gilt paper and pasted on. The 

 portfolio contains about 160 sketches in water-colour, 

 sepia, and pencil (a few loose), of which there is nearly 

 a complete list made. 



At the meeting of the Sociological Society held on 

 November 22, a lecture on "The Successors of 

 Austria-Hungary : Some of their Problems " was 

 delivered by Dr. R. W. Seton Watson. Mr. G. P. 

 Gooch was in the chair, and his Excellency the 

 Czecho-SIovak Minister was present, as well as repre- 

 sentatives of the Rumanian and Jugo-Slav Legations. 

 Dr. Seton Watson said that of all States Austria- 

 Hungary had been the most complex, presenting not 

 only a great diversity of languages and races, but 

 also a peculiar divergence of culture. Its disappear- 

 ance had been a unique event in historj', similar only 

 to the fall of the Roman Empire, caused, however, 

 not by any general action of other States, but by slow 

 political disintegration due to the lack of any under- 

 lying and unifying idea. Criticism of the Treaties of 

 St. Germain and Trianon is easy, but clear-cut fron- 

 tiers on ethnographical lines ^re unattainable, such is 

 the intermixture of races. A complete political and 

 social transformation is going on in Europe east of 

 a line from Konigsberg to Trieste, the chief, if not 

 the only, citadel of reaction being Hungary. The 

 lecturer went on to give a detailed account of the 

 NO. 2718, VOL. 108] 



reforms developing in the succession States, paying 

 a special tribute to the achievement of the Czecho- 

 slovak Government in the assignment of its various 

 types of lands to the small holders and in education. 

 In Jugo-Slavia, and in Rumania too, education is 

 going forward. In all the succession States religicm 

 is becoming democratised and obscurantism has dis- 

 appeared. We have here a vast laboratory of 

 political, economic, and educational experiments. 



Mr. T. Stevens, who laid down the hydraulic plant 

 for the Niagara Power Station so long ago as 1887, 

 gave a very interesting lecture on " Hydraulic Power 

 Development " at Faraday House on November 22. 

 He emphasised the fact that the large water-power 

 undertakings at Niagara, Shawinigan Falls, Montana, 

 etc., had all to wait ten or twelve years before they 

 developed a paying load. In London experts had 

 stated recently that we should build large power 

 stations first, and then the load would be sure to 

 come. Speaking as a hydro-electric engineer, he said 

 that all his experience showed that such a procedure 

 would be financially disastrous. He showed a strik- 

 ingly beautiful photograph of the Shawinigan Falls 

 enveloped in virgin forest and a recent photograph of 

 the falls with not a tree left and surrounded by un- 

 lovely factories and houses. The town, however, has 

 a flourishing population of 12,000, who have been 

 attracted by the cheap power available. He also 

 showed beautiful photographs of the Yguazu Falls, on 

 the border line between Brazil and Argentina, which 

 are among the largest falls in the world. Both the 

 Yguazu Falls and the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi are 

 situated in tropical countries, and the power available 

 varies widely during the different seasons of the year. 

 He pointed out that maximum power does not neces- 

 sarily coincide with the maximum flow. For instance, 

 a small fall near Yguazu had a 90-ft. drop and a good 

 stream of water in the dry season. In the flood season 

 the falls completely disappeared owing to the raising 

 of the level of the lower part of the river. Owing to 

 the great distances from the nearest centres of 

 population of both the Yguazu and the Victoria Falls, 

 he thought it most unlikely that they would attract 

 an industrial population to their neighbourhood. 



In 1910 Major Patton came to the conclusion that 

 the bed-bug is the invertebrate host of the parasite 

 (the Leishman-Donovan body) of kala-azar, a disease 

 of India and other tropical countries. Major Patton 

 adduces further evidence in the Indian Journal of 

 Medical Research, vol. 9, 1921, pp. 240, 252, and 255, 

 in proof of this and Mrs. Helen Adie describes intra- 

 cellular developmental forms of the parasite in the 

 cells of the stomach of the bed-bug. 



Prof. Raymond Pearl, in a paper in Science 

 (vol. 53, p. 120, 192 1), shows the exceedingly transi- 

 ton.- eff^ect of war, with its accompanying epidemic 

 and other diseases, upon the rate of growth of popu- 

 lation. In Vienna, for example, in spite of the dis- 

 tressing conditions which have prevailed there, it is 

 probable that in 1920 the births will have exceeded 

 the deaths. Prof. Pearl concludes that war and 



