468 



NATURE 



[June 9, 192 1 



1 1 is proposed ::o hold an additional ordinary meet- 

 ing of the Royal Meteorological Society for the read- 

 ing and discussion of papers in Edinburgh on Sep- 

 tember 7. The British Association will be in session 

 in Edinburgh on September 7-14, and arrangements 

 are being made to hold the society's meeting, prob- 

 ably in the afternoon, immediately before the work 

 of the Associc-tion begins. The possibility of a 

 "meteorological luncheon" and of an excursion of 

 special meteoi ological interest is also under considera- 

 tion. 



The Newcomen Society for the Study of the His- 

 tory of Engineering and Technology is one of our 

 younger societies, having been founded only a year 

 ago. The titular name adopted by the society is that 

 of the eighteenth-century engineer to whose labours 

 we owe the steam-engine as we know it to-day. The 

 subject which the society takes for its field is one 

 which has been too much neglected in the past, 

 perhaps more so in this country than elsewhere, in 

 spite of the fact that England has been tlie cradle of 

 so many leading inventions. To some extent this 

 indifference is caused by the fact that the materials 

 needed by the historian in this branch of human 

 endeavour are all too scanty, and it is the aim of 

 the society to help in supplying this deficiency. 

 Besides holding meetings, the society intends to help 

 in the preservation of records, MSS., and drawings 

 of engineering work, as well as of biographical 

 matter concerning those who have been prominent in 

 such work. It is also intended to publish at the end 

 of each session a yearbook containing original papers 

 and historical matter not readily accessible. The 

 summeir meeting will be held in Birmingham on 

 June 16-17 (headquarters, Queen's College, Paradise 

 Street), under the presidency of Mr. A. Titley, and 

 visits to places of interest are arranged for both days. 

 On the first day the president will give his address, 

 and Mr. A. Seymour-Jones will read a paper on "The 

 Invention of Roller Spinning." This is appropriate 

 in view of the little-known fact that the first attempts 

 in this direction were made in Birmingham. The 

 hon. secretary of the society is Mr. H. W. Dickinson, 

 and communications should be addressed to him at 

 the Science Museum, South Kensington, S.W.7. 



The thirty-second congress and health exhibition of 

 the Royal Sanitary Institute will be held on June 

 20-25 at Folkestone under the presidency of the Earl 

 of Radnor. Some five hundred delegates have already 

 been appointed to attend the meeting, representing 

 Government Departments interested and health 

 authorities of the British Isles, as well as delegates 

 from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, and 

 Denmark. The congress will be divided into five sec- 

 tions : — Section A (president, Sir Leslie Mackenzie) 

 will deal with sanitary science and preventive medi- 

 cine; Section B (president. Major W. H. Prescott) 

 with engineering and architecture ; Section C (presi- 

 dent, Mrs. H. A. L. Fisher) with the hygiene of 

 maternity and child welfare ; Section D (president, 

 Mrs. R. G. Wood) with personal and domestic 

 hygiene ; and Section E (president, Viscount Burn- 

 ham) with industrial hygiene. Conferences have been 

 NO. 2693, VOL. 107] 



arranged for medical officers of health, sanitary 

 authorities, engineers and surveyors, veterinary in- 

 spectors, sanitary inspectors, health visitors, and rat 

 officers. A long list of subjects for discussion has 

 been published, among which are such important 

 topics as the control of developmental and wasting 

 diseases, the relation of hospitals to preventive medi- 

 cine, tuberculosis, industrial fatigue and welfare, the 

 prevention and destruction of rats, and smoke abate- 

 ment. A popular lecture on June 23 by Prof. E. 

 Mellanby on " Vitamins and their Relation to Health " 

 has been arranged, and excursions will be made to 

 places of interest in the neighbourhood of Folkestone. 

 June 25 will be devoted to a whole-day visit to 

 Boulogne, during which the members of the various 

 sections will be conducted over appropriate institutes 

 in the town. Further information on local arrange- 

 ments can be obtained from the Secretary, the Royal 

 Sanitary Institute, 90 Buckingham Palace Road, 

 S.W.I.' 



Dr. Capitax and M. Peyrony have contributed to 

 the Revue Anthropologique a r^sumd of the works of 

 art which they have discovered at La Ferrassie. The 

 specimens are now deposited in the museum of 

 the Chateau des Eyzies. The engravings, etc., 

 belong to an early phase of the Aurignacian period, 

 and are among the most ancient works of art known 

 to exist. One of the earliest, which the explorers 

 themselves unearthed, is a human figure from which 

 thei head and limbs are ahsent and only the trunk 

 remains. This is rudely shaped and by no means 

 beautiful ; it is not steatopygous. Deeply outlined 

 carvings of horses' heads and deer's heads were found 

 on rocks. All the figures are exceedingly rude. One 

 stone is occupied with cup markings in concentric 

 circles, and cups appear mingled with other designs. 

 Two complete figures of deer in outline, coloured red 

 and black respectively, were found. Another figure 

 represents the head of a rhinoceros, but only one en- 

 graved human figure appears. The authors not^ that 

 all the engraved figures were placed face downwards, 

 except in one case which could not be so treated ; this 

 had been designedly mutilated. They hold that these 

 rudimentary, yet already complicated, images are the 

 earliest known artistic manifestations and are ritual 

 representations of magical practices. 



Miss Nina F. Layard has published an interesting 

 account of her discovery of mammalian remains with 

 Mousterian flint-implements in a Pleistocene clay in 

 the Stoke railway cutting at Ipswich (Proc. Pre- 

 historic Soc. East Anglia, vol. iii., part ii.). Besides 

 well-preserved teeth and bones of the mammoth, 

 horse, large ox, and red deer, there are remains of 

 three individuals of a large lion and fragments of a 

 large bear. There are no traces of the reindeer. 

 Close to the crushed skull of a mammoth were found 

 some characteristic pieces of the shell of the small 

 freshwater tortoise, Emys orbicularis, which had not 

 previously been observed in late Pleistocene deposits in 

 England. Miss Layard desires to mention that all the 

 fossils were named in the geological department of 

 the British Museum (Natural History). 



