November 4, 1920] 



NATURE 



319 



The annual general meeting of the National Union 

 of Scientific Workers is to be held at King's College, 

 Strand, on Saturday, November 13, at 2.30. An 

 invitation to attend is extended to all scientific 

 workers. The annual dinner of the union will take 

 place in the evening of the same day. 



The Stockholm correspondent of the Morning Post 

 announces that the Nobel prize in medicine for 1919 

 has been awarded to Dr. Jules Bordet, chief of the 

 Pasteur Institute, Brussels, and the same prize for 

 1920 to Prof, .\ugust Krogh, professor of physiology 

 in the University of Copenhagen. 



The Prince of Monaco has summoned a meeting 

 of representatives of the Oceanographic Section of 

 the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics 

 for January 25, 192 1, at Paris. .An extensive pro- 

 gramme of the work to be undertaken by the Section 

 will be submitted to this meeting. 



.\ DISCUSSION on the African arc and meridian will 

 he held in the rooms of the Royal Astronomical 

 Society on Friday, November 5, at 5 p.m. The chair 

 will Ix! taken by Col. E. H. Hills. Col. H. G. Lyons 

 will open the discussion, which will be continued by 

 Sir Charles Close, Col. E. M. Jack, Mr. A. R. 

 Hinks, Mr. C. G. T. McCaw, and probably Sir 

 S. G. Burrard and Sir G. Lenox-Conyngham. 



The British Motor Cycle and Cycle-car 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 

 association may be approached through Major II. R. 

 Watling, "The Towers," Warwick Road, Coventry. 



The Civil Service Commission of Canada announces 

 the promotion of Mr. .Arthur Gibson to the position 

 of Dominion Entomologist and head of the Entomo- 

 lofjical Branch of the Dominion Department of Agri- 

 culture. Mr. Gibson has been .Acting Dominion 

 Entomologist since the death of Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt 

 in February last. 



The Institute of Industrial .Administration, no Vic- 

 toria Street, London, S.W.i, has among its objects 

 "the general advancement of knowledge relative to 

 the principks of industrial administration and their 

 applirations." The inaugural meeting was held on 

 October 23, when an address on the industrial ques- 

 tion was given by Viscount Haldane. Other meeting.i 

 to be held are as follows : — November <>, The In- 

 fluence of Exposed Records on Output, F. M. Lawson ; 

 November 23, Staff Selection and Promotion, E. W. 

 Cousins; December 7, Road Transport as an Aid to 

 Industrial Management, R. Twelvetrees; December 21, 

 Standardisation of Rate-fixing Methods, J. E. Powell; 

 January ii, 1921. The Measure of Output in .Agri- 

 rulturc, W. J. .Maiden; and January 25, News and 

 its Influence on Output, II ^ Uylands. 



.Mr. F. S. Spiers, secrei;iry of the Faraday Society, 

 was recently appointed by the King an Ofticcr of the 

 British Empire (O.B.E.), and reference was made 

 to this honour at the opening <if the joint meeting on 

 111 physics and chemistry of colloids described clsc- 

 VO. 2662, VOL. 106] 



where in this issue. Mr. Spiers has been responsible 

 for the organisation of the many valuable joint con- 

 ferences arranged by the Faraday Society during Sir 

 Robert Hadfield's presidency, and everyone who has 

 attended an^- of them will be glad to know that his 

 work has met with official recognition. He was 

 secretary of the two British Scientific Products 

 Exhibitions organised in 1918 and 1919 by the British 

 Science Guild, and is secretary of the Institute of 

 Physics, which there is every reason to believe will 

 eventually occupy a very strong position among 

 scientific bodies. 



In recent notes in the Astr. Nachr. (No. 5047) and 

 the Paris Contptes rendus (vol. clxxi., p. 520) Prof. 

 Carl Stormer describes inost interesting results from 

 photographic observations made at seven stations in 

 Norway on the height of a very brilliant aurora seen 

 on the night of March 22-23 '**'• More than six 

 hundred photographs were taken. Only some of the 

 plates have been fully studied, but these give for the 

 summits of some of the auroral rays heights of the 

 order of 500 fern. Prof. Stormer describes a unique 

 corona, seen on March 23 about 3h. 45m. a.m. G.M.T., 

 of "long blue rays of indescribable beauty." Of this 

 he himself, at his station at Bygdo, near Christiania, 

 obtained several photographs, but unfortunately by 

 . that time all his other stations had run out of plates. 

 He is anxious to know whether anyone else obtained 

 a photograph of the blue rays, as he thinks their 

 height was probably quite exceptional. 



The second reading of the British Empire Exhibi- 

 tion (Guarantee) Bill was carried in the House of 

 Commons on November i. The exhibition is to be 

 held in London in 1923, and to be representative of 

 the industries and resources of the British Empire. 

 It will be privately organised, but has received official 

 recognition and support. The King has given it his 

 patronage, and the Prince of Wales is to be president 

 of the General Committee. Under the Bill the 

 Government proposes to guarantee the sum of 

 100,000/., subject to private guarantees amounting to 

 500,0002. being forthcoming. As a condition of the 

 guarantee, the Board of Trade is to approve the 

 manager of the exhibition, the executive committee, 

 and the general conditions under which the exhibition 

 will be run, so that the Government may be in a 

 position to secure that the exhibition is conducted 

 with proper regard to economy and on lines which 

 will ensure a success worthy of the object in view. 



The usual winter courses of the Ecole d '.Anthro- 

 pologic began at Paris on November 3. Prof. 

 Manouvrier's subject is the anthropological problems 

 of heredity; Prof. Herv^'s the regional ethnology of 

 France and the conclusion of a study of crossings; 

 Prof. Mahoudeau's the naturalists and philosophers 

 of the eighteenth century, and the struggle against 

 crcationism; Prof, de Mortitlet's labour, industry, 

 and commerce among primitive peoples; Prof. Capi- 

 tan's the most recent obser\'ai!ons upon the megaliths 

 of Brittany, upon .Alsatian and Belgian prchistorics, and, 

 generally, upon the architecture and art of prehistoric 

 times; Prof. Schrader continues his teaching on the 

 normal and abnormal relations of modem civilisation 



