5'8 



NATURE 



[November 4, 1920 



as hon. secretary to the Duddell Memorial Fund, and 

 subscriptions may be sent to him at 15 Creighton 

 Avenue, Muswell Hill, N.io. 



With the advice and assistance of the National 

 Research Council of the United States, a co-operating 

 fjroup of scientific investigators of insect pests and 

 pl.int diseases, together with representatives of leading 

 industrial concerns engaged in the manufacture of 

 chemicals -and appliances used in fighting these 

 enemies of crops, has been organised under the name 

 of the Crop Protection Institute. This institute will 

 undertake and support a series of thorough scientific 

 studies of the crop pests themselves and of the means 

 for improving and standardising the materials and 

 appliances used in fighting them. The Board of 

 Trustees of the institute is composed of nine scientific 

 men representing leading organisations interested in 

 crop protection and four representatives of the manu- 

 facturing and commercial interests. The temporarv 

 secretary is Mr. Harrison E. Howe, chairman of the 

 Division of Research Extension of the National 

 Research Council. The annual losses as a result of 

 the attacks on growing and stored crops bv insect 

 pests and plant diseases are enormous, despite all that 

 has been done to lessen them. A conservative esti- 

 mate of the loss of wheat in the United States in a 

 single recent year on account of the black-stem rust 

 is 180,000,000 bushels, and this pest is but one of 

 many that attack the wheat every year. 



The Federal Go\jernment of Australia, acting in 

 response to representations which have been made 

 to it, has taken steps for the preservation of the 

 aborigines who are under its jurisdiction. It has been 

 decided to set aside part of the State lands in the 

 Northern Territories as a reservation for the tribes. 

 This aboriginal reserve will include the Mann and 

 Petersen Ranges and practically the whole of Lake 

 .Amadeus. .Areas have also been set aside bv the 

 Governments of South and Western Australia in the 

 adjoining districts for the purpose of this reserve. No 

 intimation has been received that medical attention 

 will be provided, but it is to be hoped that, if no step 

 in this direction has been taken, some form of medical 

 service may be instituted, as it is essential to the 

 success of any scheme to preserve the aboriginal from 

 extinction. 



The presidential address delivered by Sir Robert 

 Hadfield to the ninth annual conference of the British 

 Commercial Gas Association at Sheffield on Octo- 

 ber 19 has now been published. The address deals 

 with a number of problems connected with increased 

 production and with the economy of natural resources. 

 True economy does not consist in the mere cutting 

 down of expenditure ; wise expenditure on improved 

 working conditions, on modern plant, on research, 

 and on education is more than ever necessary. In- 

 creased production demands economy of fuel, 

 diminished cost per unit of production, and the better 

 organisation and training of labour by scientific 

 planning and direction of the details of operations. 

 This would be accompanied by a decrease of strain 

 on the workers rather than by an increase, owing to 

 the elimination of unnecessarily fatiguing methods 

 NO. 2662, VOL. 106] 



and the extension of the use of labour-saving 

 machinery. The universal adoption of modern 

 methods of obtaining heat and power would result 

 in cheaper factory construction, economy of space, 

 increased speed and trustworthiness of output, and 

 decreased consumption of fuel. Tables are given to 

 show the present state of the national industries, and 

 also to compare gas, coal, and electric heating from 

 the point of view of cost and consumption of coal in 

 the heating and melting of steel. It is evident that 

 for heating to moderate temperatures coal is the 

 cheapest fuel ; whilst for melting, producer gas is bv 

 far the most economical. Electric energy cannot 

 compete with gas in cost, except for certain classes 

 of work at very high temperatures. The author again 

 directs attention to the necessity of applying scientific 

 principles more thoroughly to the design of furnaces, 

 and urges the desirability of a study of the important 

 researches of Groume-Grjimailo on the flow of heated 

 gases through a furnace. 



The Carnegie Corporation of New York some time 

 ago made a gift of fivemillion dollars to the American 

 National Research .Council and National Academy of 

 Sciences, of which about one million dollars is to be 

 devoted to the erection of a building in Washington 

 to serve as the home of these two closely related 

 scientific organisations. The remainder of the total 

 sum is to serve as an endowment for the maintenance 

 of the Council. A site for the building, comprising 

 an entire block of land near the present Lincoln 

 Memorial in Potomac Park, has just been obtained 

 at a cost of about 200,000 dollars through gifts from 

 about a score of generous individuals, most of whom 

 are business men associated with great industrial 

 concerns or generally interested in the promotion of 

 American science. The National Research Council, 

 which was organised during the war to aid the 

 Government in mobilising the scientific resources of 

 America, in both personnel and material, for attack 

 on scientific problems connected with America's war- 

 time activities, has now been reorganised on a peace- 

 time basis as a permanent institution for the promo- 

 tion of scientific research and the dissemination of 

 scientific information. It is not a Government Depart- 

 ment or Bureau, but is privately supported and 

 wholly controlled by the co-operating scientific men 

 of the country. The major part of its membership 

 is composed of appointed representatives of aboyt 

 forty American major scientific and technical societies. 

 Dr. George E. Hale, director of the Mount W'ilson 

 Solar Observatory, is the honorary chairman, and 

 Dr. H. A. Bumstead, professor of physics at Yale 

 University, is the active chairman for the present year. 

 Dr. Vernon Kellogg, formcrlv of Stanford L'niversity, 

 is the permanent secretary. 



The Institut International d'Anthropologie has been 

 formally constituted, with a provisional council of 

 direction, consisting of representatives of seventeen 

 nationalities. 



Mr. Alax A. Campbell Swinton, chairman of the 

 council of the Royal Society of Arts, will deliver the 

 inaugural address of the 167th session on Wednesda\-, 

 November 17, at 8 p.m. His subject will be "Wire- 

 less Tplegraphv and Telephony." 



