March 17, 192 1] 



NATURE 



83 



issues. In his later years it was a delight of his 

 to recall the patent cases on which he had been 

 engaged, and he was able with his wonderful 

 memory to relate the circumstances in close detail. 

 The esteem in which he was held as a scientific 

 investigator was signalised by his election during 

 this time as a fellow of the Royal Society. One 

 of his greatest efforts at the Bar was as counsel 

 for the newly formed Metropolitan Water Board 

 before the Commission on the water supply of 

 London, and in this his mathematical knowledge 

 was of great service to him in dealing with an 

 intricate set of statistics. 



Lord Moulton's Parliamentary career com- 

 menced in 1885, when he became M.P. for Clap- 

 ham. Afterwards he contested other seats, ulti- 

 mately becoming member for Launceston. He 

 was, however, too independent in thought to attune 

 himself readily to party politics. In 1906 he 

 became a Lord Justice of Appeal, and in 191 2 a 

 Lord of Appeal and a member of the Judicial Com- 

 mittee of the Privy Council. He was also made 

 a life peer. At the same time, he had numerous 

 other activities in connection with medical re- 

 search, engineering, etc. 



Then came, in 1914, the great struggle which 

 was to give scope for all his wide experience and 

 wonderful energy. Few men had the vision in 

 those early days of the war to foresee its magni- 

 tude as Lord Moulton did. For him there could 

 be no peace of mind when he knew that other men 

 were thinking in tons of explosives while he was 

 already thinking in hundreds of tons. He knew 

 the Germans, knew how they had for a generation 

 specialised in organic chemical industry, and knew 

 also that unless this country made a great and 

 immediate effort, the war would end through 

 shortage of supplies on the side of the Allies. For- 

 tunately, he had a power of insistence which en- 

 abled him to impose his influence against all resist- 

 ance and in spite of all difficulties. In November, 

 1914, he became chairman of a small Advisory 

 Committee on Chemical Products. Two months 

 later, in consequence of his efforts, the Committee 

 on High Explosives ("A 6") was formed under 

 the War Office, and ultimately he became 

 Director-General of the Department of Explosives 

 Supply under the Ministry of Munitions, and ob- 

 tained a freedom of action which enabled him to 

 make provision for the abundant supplies of ex- 

 plosives which he foresaw to be necessary. 



Lord Moulton gathered round him a staff in 

 which he placed entire confidence. The fear of 

 a shortage was always before him, but he laid 

 his plans with courage and prevision. At the 

 beginning of the war picric acid was- the standard 

 high explosive. Lord Moulton realised at once 

 that the supply of raw materials was absolutely 

 inadequate. This necessitated the establishment 

 of a new industry — the synthetic phenol industry 

 — to increase the supply of picric acid, and at 

 the same time the manufacture of T.N.T., which 

 was new to this country, had to be inaugurated. 

 As the demands increased, the T.N.T. had to be 

 economised bv mixing it with ammonium nitrate, 

 NO. 2681, VOL. 107] 



and this was ultimately done without loss of effi- 

 ciency. It was characteristic of him that he was 

 untiring in his personal inspection of the ex- 

 plosives factories, and travelled thousands of 

 miles, often at night, to spend Saturdays and 

 Sundays in this way. From end to end of the 

 country his visits were welcomed on account of 

 his helpfulness and encouragement. He and his 

 devoted staff had ultimately the satisfaction of 

 seeing the supplies of explosives increase to such 

 an extent that not only our own needs, but also 

 those of our Allies, were met. 



Later in the war the supply of poison gases 

 also came into Lord Moulton's hands. This side 

 of the work was most repugnant to him, but he 

 met it, as a hateful necessity, with his full vigour 

 and with notable success. 



By reason of its very eflficiency the work was 

 but little heard of, and consequently imperfectly 

 appreciated by the general public. It is pleasant, 

 however, to recall that his efforts were recognised 

 by the conferment of the K.C.B. in 191 5 and of the 

 G.B.E. in 191 7. He had a host of foreign dis- 

 tinctions, and was a Commander of the Legion 

 of Honour. 



After the war Lord Moulton was untiring in his 

 efforts to place the scientific industries of the 

 country on a sound basis. Few, if any, can 

 realise what the country owes to him for his work 

 of the last six years. His self-sacrificing devotion 

 was unbounded. He was a great patriot and a 

 true friend. R. C. Farmer. 



Baron T. Kikuchi. 



Men of science in this country and in Japan will 

 hear with much regret of the premature death, on 

 March 2, of Baron T. Kikuchi at the age of 

 twenty-seven. The son of a distinguished father, 

 the late Baron Kikuchi, at one time Minister of 

 Education in Japan, he had a distinguished career 

 in the University of Tokyo, specialising in physics 

 under the direction of Prof. Nagaoka. In 1919 

 he came to England to work in the Cavendish 

 Laboratory under the direction of Sir Ernest 

 Rutherford. His first paper, published in 1920 

 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in con- 

 junction with Dr. F. Aston, contained a careful 

 and able examination of the nature and velocity 

 of the swiftly moving striations observed in neon 

 and helium. An account of further independent 

 work on this subject is in course of publication. In 

 the midst of the preparations for the experimental 

 attack on an important physical problem Baron 

 Kikuchi was taken ill and died after a two months' 

 illness in a nursing home in Cambridge. During 

 his illness he was devotedly attended by his young 

 wife, who had come from Japan to join him a few 

 months before. Like his father before him 

 a member of St. John's College, a special 

 memorial service was conducted in the college 

 chapel by the Master, attended by the Vice-Chan- 

 cellor of the University. The remains were taken 

 to London for cremation. 



A man of marked intellectual energy and ex- 

 perimental ability. Baron Kikuchi had been 



