5^4 



NATURE 



[June 30, 192 1 



the ions where they are wanted, so that an increased 

 flow of electrons is produced, giving a steeper charac- 

 teristic curve and improving the sensibility by some- 

 thing like a further 50 per cent. The increased anode 

 current when the field was applied was seen by 

 means of an ammeter, and in another experiment the 

 effect of a powerful electromagnet in controlling the 

 position of the glow in a softer tube was demon- 

 strated. It was pointed out that this action is similar 

 to that taking place in the aurora borealis, according 

 to the theory that in the layers of reduced pressure of 

 the upper atmosphere the earth's field concentrates 

 the ions and thus locates the glow produced by the 

 bombardment of electrons shot off from sun-spots. 

 This apparatus, which Capt. Donnisthorpe calls the 

 "Thermagnion," can also be use^ to produce con- 

 tinuous oscillations with an equal gain in efficiency. 



The tercentenary of the death of Thomas Harriot, 

 the mathematician and astronomer, occurs on 

 July 2. Not only was he the most celebrated English 

 algebraist of his time, but he was also one of the first 

 astronomers in England to use a telescope, and, like 

 Galileo, Fabricius, and Scheiner, was one of the 

 early observers of the spots on the sun. Born 

 at Oxford in 1560, he was a year older than Henry 

 Briggs. He graduated from St. Mary's Hall, and 

 became an ardent student of mathematics forty 

 years before the inaug"uration of the first univer- 

 sity chair of mathematics. At the age of twenty- 

 five he entered the service of Sir Walter Ralegh, 

 by whom he was employed in the survey of the newly 

 founded colony of Virginia The greater part of 

 Harriot's life, however, was passed in the neigh- 

 bourhood of London, where he came under the 

 patronage of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, 

 who gave him a pension and assigned him rooms 

 at Sion House, which stands on the banks of the 

 Thames opposite Kew. When the earl was confined 

 to the Tower through the complicity of some of his 

 family in the Gunpowder Plot, Harriot and two other 

 mathematical worthies, Thomas Hughes and Walter 

 Warner, often bore him company. They were known 

 as "the three magi." Harriot appears to have passed 

 an uneventful life, and at his death was buried in 

 St. Christopher's Church, on the site of which now 

 stands the Bank of England. A monument erected 

 to his memory was destroyed in the Great Fire of 

 1666. As an algebraist Harriot is a connecting link 

 between Vieta and Descartes. His "Artis Analytical 

 Praxis " was not published until ten years after his 

 death. The revival of his fame as an astronomer 

 was due to von Zach, who, while on a visit to the 

 Earl of Egremont in 1784, discovered some of Har- 

 riot's writings beneath a pile of old stable accounts at 

 Petworth Castle; while the reduction of Harriot's 

 ol>servations of the comet of 1607 formed one of the 

 first tasks of Bessel's astronomical career. Some of 

 Harriot's manuscripts are in the British Museum. 



.^T the annual meeting of the British Pharmaceutical 

 Conference at Scarborough on June 14, Mr. E. Saville 

 Peck, in his presidential address on " British Phar- 

 macy and its Possibilities," said he looked forward 

 to the time when pharmacy in this country shall have 

 NO. 2696, VOL. 107] 



established itself as a separate professional entity. 

 It could not be raised to this status without the 

 combined efforts of its members, and would have to 

 move forward with the advance of general education 

 and of applied science. In his opinion every student 

 before registration should be required to pass one of 

 the school leaving certificate examinations which the 

 Board of Education has recognised as equivalent to 

 matriculation. While not advocating any serious exten-. 

 sion of the syllabus for the qualifying examination, 

 Mr. Peck favoured the addition of commercial science. 

 In the major examination, which should be renamed 

 the fellowship examination, practical physiological 

 chemistry and bacteriology (with clinical microscopy^ 

 should be included among the compulsory subjects, 

 and steps should be taken to establish a degree in 

 science with pharmaceutics as one of the subjects in 

 the final examination. If pharmacy is to take 

 its position with other professional bodies it must 

 bring its final qualification up to university standard. 

 He looked forward to the ultimate evolution of a real 

 profession of pharmacy. 



Mrs. Scoresby Routledge has made another im- 

 portant contribution to our knowledge of the ethnology 

 of Easter Island in her account of a series of carved 

 rocks and stone houses, published in the Journal of 

 the Royal Anthropological Institute (vol. 1., part ii.). 

 The houses built of slabs of stone procured from an 

 adjoining quarry are remarkable. The soil is exca- 

 vated on a sloping site; the foundations are made 

 of large rough cubes of rock, on which slabs are laid 

 on edge, and the roof is formed of similar slabs. 

 The house is entered by a rectangular tunnel. A series 

 of excellent photographs enables us to understand the 

 methods of construction, and the accommodation pro- 

 vided for the occupants. 



In Ancient Egypt, 192 1, part ii., Prof. Flinders 

 Petrie explains that the work of the British School 

 has been moving southward,' in the course of a 

 systematic clearing of the western bank of the Nile 

 valley. The excavation of the cemetery of Hera- 

 kleopolis, which had been wrecked in ancient times, 

 provided some important results. In particular, a 

 number of well-dated skeletons gave an opportunity 

 to compare them with those of other sites on either 

 side — Medum, Tarkhan, and Deshashe. This showed 

 important differences between the types of the Second, 

 Sixth, and Ninth Dynasties, but the question whether 

 the interments were those of nobles or of plebeians 

 may to some extent confuse the results. 



In the April issue of the Entomologist's Monthly 

 Magazine Dr. R. C. L. Perkins writes on the varia- 

 tion exhibited by the British species of parasitic 

 bumble-bees of the genus Psithyrus. It is evident 

 from the many colour forms which are recorded in 

 this article that variation in these bees has been very 

 inadequately studied. The subject is an interesting 

 one, and species of Psithyrus need to be much more 

 extensively collected before we shall be able to learn 

 the distribution of their varietal forms. Dr. Perkins 

 also refers to the very rare bumble-bee Bombus 

 pomorum, Panz. A few examples of this insect were 



