August 4, 192 1] 



NATURE 



723 



(hon. secretary and treasurer of the International 

 Commission), Mr. A. P. Trotter (Illuminating 

 Engineering Society), Dr, E. H. Rayner (National 

 Physical Laboratory), Mr. L. Gaster (Illuminating 

 Engineering Society), Mr. R. Watson (Institution of 

 Gas Engineers), and Mr. J. W. T. Walsh (National 

 Physical Laboratory, assistant secretary of the Inter- 

 national Commission). The subjects dealt with by 

 the Commission were as follows : — (i) The unit of 

 candle-power at present in use in this country and in 

 France and the United States was adopted for inter- 

 national purposes, and is to be known as the " inter- 

 national candle." It is maintained by means of elec- 

 tric incandescent lamps at the National Laboratories 

 of the three countries named. (2) The definitions of 

 the terms "luminous flux," "luminous intensity," 

 and "illumination," and the units of these quantities, 

 viz. the lumen, the candle, and the lux (metre-candle), 

 were agreed upon. (3) The subjects of hetero- 

 chromatic photometry (including physical photometry 

 and the characteristics of the "normal eye "), factory 

 lighting, and automobile head-lighting were also dis- 

 cussed at the meetings, and sub-committees were ap- 

 pointed to study the questions from the international 

 point of view during the next three years. The new 

 president of the Commission is Dr. E. P. Hyde, 

 director of the Nela Research Laboratories of America, 

 and Major Edgcumbe is one of the three vice-presi- 

 dents. The next meeting of the Commission was 

 provisionally arranged to be held in New York in 

 1924. 



Correspondence has recently appeared in the Times 

 on the subject of State awards for medical discovery. 

 Sir Ronald Ross urges (July 13) that a system of 

 small pensions, somewhat on the lines of Civil List 

 pensions, ought to be established in order to com- 

 pensate medical men and others for work which has 

 been of advantage to the public without being re- 

 munerative to themselves, the medical profession 

 rightly objecting to medical discoveries or inventions 

 being kept secret or monopolised by those who make 

 them. Sir Ronald Ross mentions an example :■ — 

 Dr. H. made during the war valuable additions to 

 our methods of diagnosis by X-rays, particularly by 

 the use of a cardboard scale. He appealed to the 

 Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors, but was 

 refused an award on the ground that the chairman 

 had "such a high esteem of the noble ideals which 

 the medical profession had adopted in forgoing per- 

 sonal advantage, giving their services free, artd so on, 

 that he was in favour of maintaining this spirit, and 

 altogether against the idea that the Royal Commis- 

 sion could be persuaded to give an award to a member 

 of the medical profession." This means, as Sir 

 Ronald Ross pertinently remarks, that while the in- 

 ventors of life-destroying devices may be rewarded bv 

 the State, those of life-saving devices are to be 

 rigorously excluded! To this Mr. Tindal-Robertson, 

 Secretary of the Royal Commission on Awards, re- 

 plied (July 15), quoting the general practice of the 

 Commission, and stating that in the particular case 

 of Dr. H. the ordinary principle was held to apply, 

 that the sale of any article, whether patented or copy- 

 NO. 2701, VOL. 107] 



righted or not, necessarily includes the right to use- 

 the article. Sir Ronald Ross replied to this letter 

 (July 28), admitting that the Royal Commission, on 

 the grounds laid down, could not help, but urging 

 that the powers of the Royal Commission should be 

 enlarged so as to enable it to deal with the claims in: 

 question. He quoted the precedent of Edward Jenner, 

 who received a grant of 30,000^. from the State. It 

 is noteworthy that the British Science Guild and the 

 British Medical Association last year advocated the 

 payment of pensions on the lines suggested by Sir 

 Ronald Ross, and that the latter body reaffirmed the 

 principle at its annual meeting in July. 



Recent excavations at Pompeii, which have been 

 in progress since 191 1, have disclosed what may one 

 day prove to be the most interesting part of the city, 

 but the results are still jealously concealed from the 

 visitor. A correspondent of the Times of July 26 is, 

 however, in a position to supply some Information 

 regarding them. Passing through the well-known 

 Strada dell' Abondanza, a compitum or crossing of 

 two streets is reached, where there is a large sacred 

 picture. Such places were held sacred, and were 

 generally marked with sacred pictures and an altar, 

 where propitiatory sacrifices were made to the Lares, 

 who had houses and street-crossings under their 

 special protection. The fresco now unearthed is 

 divided into three sections, the first representing the 

 twelve Penates or city guardians, beginning with 

 Jupiter and Juno and ending with Diana. To the 

 right of this painting, which is probably more interest- 

 ing than any other found at Pompeii except that of 

 the Villa Dionysius, is a sacrificial scene in which a 

 large-winged demon serpent, the emblem of the Lares, 

 is seen approaching the altar with two eggs and a 

 pine cone as a bribe to it to avert the Evil Eye. 

 Beneath is a real altar of masonry, on which are still 

 preserved the ashes of the last sacrifice that was 

 offered before the fatal August 24, a.d. 79. Archaeo- 

 logists will await with much interest the publication 

 of these important discoveries. 



In a communication to the Ipswich and District 

 Field Club Mr. Reid Moir describes the excavation of 

 several barrows (sepulchral mounds) on Brightwell 

 Heath, near Ipswich. Within a radius of 8 ft. in the 

 middle of one, on the original ground-level, were found 

 fragments of a pottery beaker dating from the early 

 Bronze age and a number of flint scrapers and other 

 implements, which the author claims to be able to 

 distinguish from Stone-age specimens by an examina- 

 tion of their flaked areas. The study has hitherto 

 been complicated by the habit of collecting all the 

 worked flints from a barrow, whether belonging to 

 a burial or scattered at random in the soil thrown up 

 to form the mound, and possibly of much earlier date. 

 Full-size drawings are given, with side-views and an 

 analytical table of the 152 scrapers and 106 flakes 

 found. Another barrow contained a burial of the 

 earliest Anglian period, about a.d. 460, with a thin 

 bronze bowl containing the cremated bones and 

 originally covered with linen secured by a cord under 

 the rim ; also a bone comb and ornamented bone disc- 



