October 7, 1920J 



NATURE 



187 



before his death, and his wife survives him. An 

 appreciation of his work by Prof. F. Cohn is con- 

 tained in Asironomische Nachrichten, No. 5053. 



The death is announced, at the age of fifty- 

 eight, of Prof. Samuel Sheldon, professor of 

 physics and electrical engineering- at the Poly- 

 technic Institute of Brooklyn since i88g. Prof. 

 Sheldon was at one time assistant to Kohlrausch, 

 with whom he was associated in the former's 

 determination of the ohm. In 1906 he was elected 

 president of the American Institute of Electrical 

 Engineers. 



The death of Sir Lindsay Wood, Bt., on Sep- 

 tember 22, at eighty-six years of age, is an- 

 nounced in the Journal of the Royal Society of 

 Arts. Sir Lindsay was born in 1834, ^nd educated 

 at the Royal Kepier Grammar School, Houghton- 

 le-Spring, and King's College, London. He served 

 ;is a mining engineer apprentice at Hctton Col- 

 lieries, of which in 1866 he became managing 



] director. He was also on the boards of several 



. other coal companies and allied undertakings. 



From 1875-78 he was president of the Northern 



Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, and 



in 1879 he served on the Royal Commission on 



Accidents in Mines. His chief work was a series 



of elaborate and exhaustive experiments on the 



I pressure of gas in coal. Sir Lindsay was created a 



': baronet in 1897, and served as Deputy-Lieutenant 



j and High Sheriff of the County of Durham. 



Dr. Harmon Northrup Morse, professor of 

 [ inorganic and analytical chemistry and director 

 of the chemical laboratory at Johns Hopkins 

 University, died recently in his seventy-second 

 year. Having graduated at Amherst in 1873, 

 Dr. Morse returned to that college as an assistant 

 in chemistry in 1875, after a period of study at 

 Gottingen. In the following year he was ap- 

 pointed associate professor at Johns Hopkins, and 

 in i8gi was promoted to a full professorship. He 

 carried out many original researches on osmotic 

 pressure and related subjects. 



Notes. 



At the concluding meeting of the International Con- 

 gress of Physiologists, which was held in Paris on 

 July 16-20, it was unanimously resolved, on the invita- 

 tion of Sir E. Sharpey Schafer, to hold the next 

 meeting in Edinburgh in 1923. 



The annual oration of the Medical Society of 

 I^ondon is to be delivered in May next by Lord 

 Dawson of Penn. The Lettsomian lectures of the 

 same society are to be given in February and March 

 next by Mr. George E. Gask. 



The British Electrical and Allied Industries Research 

 Association has been approved by the Department of 

 Scientific and Industrial Research as complying with 

 the conditions laid down in the Government scheme 

 for the encouragement of industrial research. The 

 .-issociation may be approached through Mr. E. B. 

 Wedmorc, Electrical Research Committee, c/o Elec- 

 trical Development .Association, Hampden House, 

 64 Kingsway, W.C.2. 



The following arrangements have been made by 

 the Royal College of Physicians of London : — ^The 

 Horace Dobcll lecture will be delivered by Sir 

 William B. I>;ishman, at 5 o'clock on November 2, 

 on ".An Experimental Investigation of the Parasite 

 of Tick Fever, Sphochacta Duttoni " ; the Bradshaw 

 lecture by Dr. C. Wall, at 5 o'clock on November 4, 

 on "Chorea"; and the Fit/Patrick lectures by Dr. 

 K. G. Browne, at 5 o'clock on November 9 and 11, on 

 " .\rabian Medicine after Aviccnna." 



Thr council of the Chemical Society has arranged 

 for the following lectures to be held during the 

 > oming session :— October 28, Emil Fischer memorial 

 lecture, Dr. M. O. Forstcr ; December 16, Some 

 Properties of Explosives, Sir Robert Robertson; 

 April 7, 1921, Mass Spectra and Atomic Weights, Dr. 

 F. W. Aston; and <fune 16, 1921, The Natural Photo- 

 NO. 2658, VOL. 106] 



synthetic Processes on I^ind and in Sea and .Air, and 

 their Relation to the Origin and Preservation of Life 

 upon the Earth, Prof. Benjamin Moore. By the 



i courtesy of the council of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers, the first two lectures will be hold in the 

 lecture hall of that institution (Storey's Gate, West- 



j minster, S.W.i). Informal meetings, at which fellows 

 are invited to show experiments and apparatus, will 

 l)e held at Burlington House on November 18 next 

 and on February 3 and May 19, 1921. 



Prof. F. Soddy's review of the activities of the 

 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research 

 published in the Observer of September 26 has been 

 followed up in the same newspaper by letters from 

 Dr. J. W. Evans and Mr. J. W. McConnell. Prof. 

 Soddy remarked: "To-day a new kind of science — 

 Government science — is being step by step built up, 

 not for humanity, but its masters ; not for the com- 

 munity, but big business " ; emphasised the funda- 

 mental change of policy which accompanied the 

 creation of the new department for the administration 

 of funds for industrial research ; and contrasted the 

 generous treatment and comparative freedom from 

 Government control accorded to industrial associations 

 with the arbitrary methods of dealing with individual 

 ! research workers. Dr. Evans suggests that the mis- 

 takes of the Department arc attributable to the 

 " fundamentally wrong-headed attitude .-jdopted by the 

 nation generally with regard to our scientific societies 

 and the science faculties of our universities," and 

 instances the disabilities under which these bodies 

 suffer in carrying on their work. He deplores also 

 the decision of some university authorities to raise 

 their fees at a critical time in the nation's history. 

 Mr. McConnell, who acted as chairman of the provi- 

 sional committee for forming the Cotton Research 

 Association, although in general sympathy with the 



