July 21, 192 1] 



NATURE 



^59 



nical Committee, and filled many other public ap- 

 pointments. He received the honour of knight- 

 hood in 1918. 



It is with great regret that we learn of the 

 death of Prof. Gabriel Lippmann, Foreign 

 Member of the Royal Society, on July 14 on 

 board the liner ha France while on his way from 

 Canada, where he had formed part of the French 

 Mission undef Marshal FayoUe. Prof. Lippmann 

 was born in 1845 and educated in Paris. His 

 work there was concerned mainly with the rela- 

 tion between electrical and capillary phenomena, 

 the outcome of which was his capillarv electro- 

 meter and other instruments. His process of 

 colour photography, announced in 1891, is widely 



known. In xgo8 he was awarded the Nobel prize 

 for physics, and in 191 2 became president of the 

 Paris .Vcademy of Sciences. 



We announce with much regret the death, on 

 June I, at the age of seventy-nine years, of Mr. 

 Charles Picker inc. Bowditch, associate of the 

 Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and 

 Ethnology, Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Bowditch was 

 well known for his work on Mexican and Maya 

 codices and inscriptions. 



We regret to announce the death of Prof. J. A. 

 Menzies, professor of physiology at Durham Uni- 

 versity School of Medicine, Xewcastle-upon-Tyne. 



Notes. 



The Civil List pensions granted during the year 

 ended March 31, 1921, amounted to i2ooi., and in- 

 clude the following : — Mrs. Frederick Enock, in 

 recognition of her husband's services to natural science 

 and entomology (September 7, 1920), looZ. ; Mr. 

 Edward Greenly, in recognition of his services in the 

 geological survey of Anglesey (September 7, 1920), 

 Sol. ; Mrs. J. A. McClelland, in recognition of her 

 husband's distinguished services as an investigator in 

 physical science (September 7, 1920), looZ. ; Mrs. and 

 Miss Sharman, in recognition of Mr. George Shar- 

 man's valuable services in palaeontological science 

 (September 7, 1920), Sol. ; Mr. John Nugent Fitch, in 

 recognition of his long services to the cause of botany, 

 horticulture, and natural history (September 15, 1920), 

 75/. ; Mr. \\\ R. Hodgkinson, in recognition of his 

 valuable scientific work in the public service (March 24, 

 1921), looZ. ; and Mr. Herbert Tomlinson, in recogni- 

 tion of his services as a teacher, and of his valuable 

 and distinguished contributions to physical science 

 (March 24, 192 1), looZ. 



The popular fallacy that explosions can precipitate 

 rainfall found expression in the question asked bv 

 Major Morrison-Bell in the House of Commons on 

 July 13 as to whether the Government would be pre- 

 pared to initiate experiments which might possibly 

 have the result of precipitating a downpour of rain. 

 The answer ' given was to the effect that from 

 past experiments meteorologists were of opinion that 

 explosions would not induce a fall of rain, and rightlv 

 so; for experiments were conducted on a vast scale, 

 not, it is true, with that particular end in view, on 

 the Western Front during the Great War. The col- 

 lation of statistics of rainfall with the gunfire failed 

 to show any certain connection. The only way in 

 which the water-vapour in the atmosphere can be 

 condensed into rainclouds is by cooling. Unless an 

 explosion can produce a cold current, or cause to any 

 appreciable extent such a disturbance in the atmo- 

 sphere as will bring about the mixture of a stratum 

 bearing a cold current with that carrying a warmer 

 current, it cannot produce rain. The compression in 

 the air produced by a bursting shell is propagated as 

 NO. 2699, VOL. 107] 



a sound-wave. The amplitude of the motion, there- 

 fore, diminishes as the square of the distance from 

 the origin, so that at the distance of a quarter of a 

 mile it would probably be no greater than 1/ 10,000th 

 of an inch. In 19 17 M. Angot, Director of the 

 French Meteoro'ogical Office, showed that in the 

 extreme case of two equal masses of saturated air, 

 one at 0° C. and the other at 20° C, it would be 

 necessary, in order to produce rain of even so small 

 an amount as i mm. (004 in.), for the two masses 

 rapidly and thoroughly to mix throughout an atmo- 

 spheric layer of 6850 metres (about 4 miles) in thick- 

 ness. Nor are dust particles and ions, which form 

 the nuclei of raindrops, sufficient of themselves to 

 cause precipitation unless there be a concomitant 

 reduction of temperature. 



By a resolution of the Swedish Riksdag passed 

 on May 18 last, it has been decided to establish an 

 institute for the investigation of the problems of racial 

 biology. To Sweden, therefore, falls the honour of 

 being the first country to establish a State-supported 

 institute of this kind. The history of the movement 

 which led up to this decision is related in a pamphlet, 

 written in English, entitled "The Swedish State 

 Institute for Race Biological Investigation," which 

 has Just been published by Dr. Hjalmar Anderson. 

 The success of the movement has been due largely 

 to the indefatigable exertions of one man, *Dr. Her- 

 man Lundborg, who was the first to direct attention in 

 Sweden to the national importance of the studv of 

 eugenics in a lecture which he delivered to the 

 L^psala Physicians' Society in 1904. After much strenu- 

 ous advocacy on the part of Dr. Lundborg and other 

 prominent men of science, the question was brought 

 to the notice of the Riksdag, and a report was called 

 for. As a result of the opinions then expressed, the 

 Government took up the matter, and Dr. B. Bergvist, 

 the Minister of Education, drew up a recommenda- 

 tion, which received the Royal sanction, in which 

 it was proposed to found an institute with an annual 

 appropriation of 80,000 crowns. In the meantime Dr. 

 Lundborg, with a self-sacrifice worthy of all praise, 

 had rejected an alternative proposal to establish a 



