July 7, 192 1] 



NATURE 



597 



this great factor in protective resemblance. The 

 artist in him first saw the well-nigh ever-present 

 effects, and then found the cause, which, indeed, 

 had been suggested some years earlier by one 

 who failed to recognise its far-reaching importance 

 and thus missed a great discovery. 



Thayer's artistic temperament also led him to 

 resent any limits to the application of his prin- 

 ciples and to attempt to explain by them all ex- 

 amples of warning and mimetic coloration. 

 When the review of the first edition of his work, 

 ^' Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom," 

 appeared in Nature (1910), it was many months 



before he could bring himself to read it. Yet 

 when at length he made the effort he was pleased, 

 and wrote a kindly letter to the reviewer. 



Science needs the help of such men whose 

 approach is from a widely different point of view, 

 and science owes much to Thayer and will grate- 

 fully preserve his memory. E. B. P. 



The death is announced, at eighty-three years 

 ] of age, of Prof. Viktor von Lang, formerly pro- 

 : fessor of physics at Vienna University and a past- 

 president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. 



Notes. 



At the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 

 held on Monday, July 4, the following were elected 

 honorary fellows : — British Honorary Fellows : William 

 Henry Perkin, Sir Ronald Ross, Sir Ernest Ruther- 

 ford, and Sir Jethro J. H. Teall. Foreign Honorary 

 Fellows : Reginald Aldworth Daly (Cambridge, Mass.), 

 Johan Hjort (Bergen), Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran 

 (Paris), Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (Leyden), and 

 Salvatore Pincherle (Bologna). 



Through the generosity of the Rev. Dr. Winifrith, 

 of Hythe, a memorial tablet has just been placed 

 on the house — 31 High Street — in that town in 

 which Sir Francis Pettit Smith was born. Of all 

 the numerous inventors of screw propellers, Smith, 

 {>erhaps, is the best known. Born in 1808, he began 

 life as a farmer, but was always given to mechanical 

 invention. His first patent for a screw propeller was 

 dated May 31, 1836, and his screw was first fitted in 

 the Francis Snvith, and then in the epoch-making 

 vessel s.s. Archimedes. Brunei was among the con- 

 verts to Smith's ideas, and he discarded paddle wheels 

 for the Great Britain, which, in 1845, was the first 

 screw-driven vessel to steam across the Atlantic. The 

 same year the screw sloop, H.M.S. Rattler, was 

 added to the Navy List, and for some years after- 

 wards Smith was employed by the Admiralty installing 

 his screws in the converted line of battleships, many 

 of which were in service in the Crimean War. 

 He made little money out of his invention, but the 

 shipbuilding and marine engineering world in 1858 

 raised a subscription of nearly 3000Z. for him, and 

 gave him the fine silver salver and jug which are in 

 the Science Museum. During the latter part of his 

 life — he died in 1874 — Smith was curator of the 

 Patent Office Museum. 



Glasgow University, in accordance with the policy 

 of establishing separate buildings for its scientific 

 departments which was initiated by the erection of 

 the Botanical Institute, has signed a contract for a 

 zoological building, which has been planned by Prof. 

 J. Graham Kerr and the architects, Messrs. John 

 Burnet, Son, and "Dick. The building will be near 

 the new medical department on part of the former 

 athletic ground. It will cover 3000 square yards, and 

 include a lecture-room with accommodation for 260 

 students, an elementary laboratory with tables for 

 NO. 2697, VOL. 107] 



150 students, and special laboratories for advanced 

 work, protozoology, research, and experimental zoo- 

 logy. There will be a large museum, to which will 

 be transferred the zoological collections now in the 

 Hunterian Museum, leaving space there fc«- exten- 

 sions of the departments of geology and archaeology. 

 Above the museum will be two large tank-rooms 

 for living marine specimens, and land animals will 

 be accommodated in a courtyard. A room will be 

 provided for the departmental library and a suite of 

 rooms for the staff. The building is estimated to cost 

 130,000!., and it is hoped that the lecture-rooms and 

 laboratories will be ready for the winter session of 

 1922-23, Under Prof. Graham Kerr the zoological 

 department of Glasgow University has achieved great 

 success, and it will now have a building worthy of 

 its important work. 



The attention of French archaeologists is now being 

 devoted to an important series of discoveries in tombs 

 at Martres-de-Veyre, Auvergne, which, according to 

 M. Salomon Reinach, "are in an unprecedented state 

 of preservation. In my experience there has never 

 been found anywhere so many articles of leather, of 

 wool, and of other stuffs in such good condition after 

 being buried in graves for 1800 years." Near this 

 necropolis is the famous fortress of Gergovia, where 

 Vercingetorix won some temporary success against 

 C^sar, practically the last revolt against the Romans. 

 The extraordinary state of preservation of the bodies 

 found in the six tombs now brought to light calls for 

 explanation. The body of a Gallo-Roman woman 

 interred in a stone coffin lay as if life had only just 

 departed, but on being exposed to the air it suddenly 

 crumbled into dust. Ornaments and articles of the 

 toilet were found in great abundance, while a jar of 

 honey, vases, leather sandals, and linen and woollen 

 fabrics were among the furniture of the graves. The 

 articles discovered have been deposited in the museum 

 at Clermont-Ferrand, the capital of the Department 

 of Puy-de-D6me, the Paris museums having wisely 

 decided not to enter into competition with the local 

 collections. It may be hoped that careful excavation 

 in this district will lead to further important results. 



In the James Forrest lecture delivered on June 28 

 Sir George Beilby presented a review of the world's 

 fuel situation. Coal, brown coal, peat, oil from wells 



