8i4 



NATURE 



[February 17, 192 1 



Notes. 



The new session of Parliament was opened by the 

 King in person on Tuesday. Reference was made in 

 the King's Speech to a measure to be introduced into 

 the House of Commons "to deal with the safeguard- 

 ing of essential key industries of the country, and 

 with certain aspects of unfair and abnormal indus- 

 trial competition." 



A MEETING of the organising committees of all the 

 Sections of the British Association will be held at 

 Burljngton House on Friday, February 25, to con- 

 sider possible arrangements for joint programmes and 

 related matters for the Edinburgh meeting of the 

 Association in September next. Dr. Ethel Thomas, 

 recorder of Section K (Botany), asks us to say that 

 she would be glad to hear as soon as possible before 

 February 25 from those who propose to offer papers 

 for the Edinburgh meeting, and no doubt the recorders 

 of other Sections would like to receive similar early 

 notice. 



Support for the appeal for the protection of the 

 optical glass industry which appeared as a leading 

 article in Nature of February 10 comes in the form 

 of a series of resolutions passed by the Optical Society 

 at its general meeting on the same date. The import- 

 ance of optical munitions is emphasised, and it is 

 pointed out that such supplies can be maintained only 

 if the necessary materials, manufacturing establish- 

 ments, and skilled labour are available. No other 

 industry can by adaptation of existing resources pro- 

 duce the class of work required. The supply of optical 

 glass required by this country should also be ensured. 

 Another point made is that although the world's pre- 

 war demand for optical glass was only about 25 tons 

 per annum, some sixty different varieties are required ; 

 experience has shown that manufacture under these 

 conditions cannot be a commercial proposition. In 

 conclusion, it is urged that, in the interest of re- 

 search, no obstacle should be allowed to prevent 

 men of science from obtaining the instruments 

 necessary for their work. The society is convinced 

 that the optical industries of this country must be 

 preserved and developed, and the President of the 

 Board of Trade is to be asked to receive a deputation 

 to explain more fully the position of these industries. 



The gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society 

 was presented on February 11 to Prof. H. N. Russell 

 for his work on the theory of star-development. The 

 retiring president. Prof. A. Fowler, recalled in .his 

 address that Prof. Russell had introduced thern in 

 that very room to the giant and dwarf theory nearly 

 eight years ago. Although a theory on the same lines 

 (the division of the stars into two groups in which 

 the temperature is rising and falling respectively) had 

 been proposed many years earlier by Sir Norman 

 Lockyer, it ran so counter to the then accepted views 

 that he (Prof. Fowler) acknowledged that he had 

 remained unconverted for some time ; but recently 

 several lioes of evidence have converged to support 

 the truth of the theory, namely, (i) the accumulation 

 of additional parallaxes, both visual and spectroscopic ; 

 NO. 2677, VOL. 106] 



(2) the theoretical researches of Prof. Eddington and 

 others on the physics of giant stars and the correla- 

 tion of temperature with mass; and (3) the recent 

 optical confirmation of the immense bulk of the 

 typical red giant star Betelgeux. There is now little 

 dispute as to the main lines of the theory, though 

 there is room for much further work, in which 

 Prof. Russell is taking a prominent part, on the 

 problem of the nebulae and Wolf-Rayet stars and their 

 place in the scheme of development. Prof. Russell, 

 in returning thanks, expressed his indebtedness to 

 Prof. E. C. Pickering for determining the spectral 

 type of his parallax stars, and noted that Prof. Hertz- 

 sprung and himself had put forward the theory simul- 

 taneously. 



In recent years M. l'Abb6 Breuil has contributed to 

 L'Anthropologie a series of memoirs on the rock- 

 paintings of Spain. In the last of these (June, 1920) 

 he sums up the general results to which his studies 

 have led him, and states his belief that all known 

 examples can be arranged in an evolutionary series 

 dating from the closing phases of the Ice age to the 

 dawn of the Neolithic period. In a lecture given at 

 the Institut Fran^ais, Cromwell Gardens, S.W., on 

 February 9, the Abb6 exhibited a series of original 

 slides illustrating the remarkable art which flourished 

 in southern France and throughout the Spanish Penin- 

 sula during the age of the Reindeer, and summed up 

 for his hearers the conclusions reached after many 

 years of systematic investigation. He believed that 

 in the region covered by the art of the cave-men 

 three centres or localities of independent or semi- 

 independent development could be distinguished. 

 North Spain and South-West France forming one 

 centre. East Spain a second, and South Spain a third. 

 The paintings and engravings in the first and second 

 of these cave-areas were, he believed, the work of 

 different peoples; although both were hunters, both 

 giving graphic and realistic representations of the 

 animals they followed and captured, the mammoth, 

 reindeer, bison, and horse. In South Spain, on the 

 other hand, the influence of a pastoral people was 

 to be observed on cave art; it is in this centre that 

 the final degradation of the earlier realistic art of the 

 north into the later linear, conventional form of the 

 south could be detected. There seems reason to 

 believe that it may be possible to trace the evolution 

 of an alphabetical system from the original graphic 

 art of the earlier cave-men. The cave art of South 

 Spain has many points in common with the art of 

 the Bushmen of South Africa. 



Owing to the recent decision of the Government 

 that, for the present, no new schemes which invoh* 

 the expenditure of public money shall be proceeded 

 with, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries 

 informs bee-keepers that no further progress can be 

 made at present with the Bee Disease Bill which was 

 introduced into the House of Lords on December 20 

 last. The Ministry has also been making preliminary 

 arrangements for the establishment of a Bee Advisory 

 Committee which, it was hoped, would represent 



