January 12, 1922] 



NATURE 



51 



Ii All friends of humanity will welcome with a pro- 

 pound sense of relief the intimation that the repre- 

 bentatives of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and 

 Ihe United States, assembled at the Washington Con- 

 lerence, have agreed to the American proposal to 

 prohibit the use of poison gas in warfare As Mr. 

 A. J. Balfour pointed out, in announcing the adher- 

 ence of Great Britain, Mr. Root's resolution was, in 

 effect, a re-affirmation of international law as it 

 existed prior to 1915, when it was deliberately violated 

 by Germany. He was conscious, as was M. Sarraut, 

 the representative of France, that the exercise of 

 authority in banning the use of an abhorrent method 

 of warfare was, under present conditions, scarcely 

 practicable, and that whilst the agreement would 

 serve to bind the Five Powers, it would not relieve 

 nations from the necessity of preparing themselves 

 against the use of gas by an unscrupulous enemy. 

 We could not afford to ignore the lesson of April, 1915. 

 The position thus reached by the Washington Con- 

 ference is as satisfactory as could be exjjected. It 

 is, in fact, all that was practicable, and it will be wel- 

 comed by all the Powers comprising the League of 

 Nations. The issue now rests with Germany. But 

 the moral effect of the action of the Conference will 

 not be lost upon the world. 



Sir David Prain will shortly retire on account of 

 age from the post of Director of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens, Kew, which he has held since 1905, and the 

 First Lord of the Treasury has appointed as his suc- 

 cessor Dr. A. W. Hill, who has been Assistant 

 Director of the gardens for the last fourteen years, 

 and was previously 'fellow and dean of King's Col- 

 lege, Cambridge, and University lecturer in botany. 

 Sir David Prain was born in 1857, and entered the 

 Indian Medical Service in 1884, when he was almost 

 at once seconded for service in the Botanic Garden 

 at Sibpur, Calcutta, as curator of the herbarium, in 

 1898 succeeding the late Sir George King as super- 

 intendent. During this period his activities included 

 the duties of professor of botany in the Calcutta 

 Medical College, Director of the Botanical Survey of 

 India, a trustee of the India Museum, and fellow of 

 the Calcutta Liniversity. Upon the retirement of Sir 

 William Thiselton-Dyer in 1905 from the directorship 

 of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Sir David 

 Prain was appointed his successor, and he has 

 worthily maintained the high traditions of his post, 

 the highest and most important of its kind in the 

 British Empire. He has also been president of the 

 Linnean Society of London (1916-19) and treasurer of 

 the Royal Society since 19 19, besides serving oh 

 numerous boards and committees of biological asso- 

 ciations, where his well-balanced judgment and large 

 exjx'rience have made him welcome. On entering on 

 his duties at Kew he found them so exacting that his 

 favourite botanic studies have been curtailed ; with 

 his coming release from official labours he will, no 

 doubt, be able to devote himself to original work 

 once more. Dr. Arthur Hill, who succeeds to the 

 NO. 2724, VOL. 109] 



Notes. 



office of Director, has travelled in South America and 

 tropical Africa ; he has also been largely responsible 

 for the laying-out of British cemeteries in France and 

 Italy. 



An expedition, consisting of Prof. J. W. Gregory, 

 of Glasgow University, and his son, Mr. Christopher 

 J. Gregory, which has for its primary object the in- 

 vestigation of some features in the mountain struc- 

 ture of north-western Yunnan and western Szechuan, 

 expects to leave for Burma at the end of March. 

 The area is one of sjx'cial geological and biological 

 interest. It includes some mountains of which the 

 height varies, according to the available information, 

 from 20,000 to 25,000 ft. ; and as these mountains 

 occur in line with the Himalaya and the mountains 

 south of Assam, it has been suggested that they 

 represent a prolongation of the Himalaya and are 

 continuous through China with the main mountain 

 lines of north-eastern Asia. This view is opposed to 

 the interpretation by von Richthofen that the moun- 

 tains of this part of China belong to a pre-Himalayan 

 system which they cross almost at right angles, and that 

 the continuation of the Himalayan folds bends back 

 through western Burma and is continued by the 

 mountains on the southern edge of the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago. It is hoped to obtain evidence for the solu- 

 tion of this problem, and also in reference to the 

 remarkable parallelism of the three great rivers which 

 discharge from south-eastern Tibet. The area is of 

 biological interest in connection with the geographical 

 distribution of the fauna and flora of south-eastern 

 Asia. Some zoological and botanical collections will 

 be made which it is hoped will be worked out in the 

 British Museum of Natural History and in the India 

 Museum, Calcutta. The expedition will travel via 

 Rangoon, and hopes to start from Bhamo, near the 

 north-western frontier of Burma, at the beginning of 

 May. 



The council of the Geological Society has this year 

 made the following awards : — Wollaston medal. Dr. 

 .\. Harker; Murchison medal. Dr. J. W. Evans; 

 Lyell medal. Dr. C. Davison ; Wollaston fund. Dr. 

 L. J. Wills; Murchison fund. Mr. H. Bolton; and 

 Lveli fund, Mr. A. Macconochie and Mr. D. Tait. 



Beginning on January 26, we have arranged to 

 issue a monthly supplement giving the titles of new 

 books on science and technology published at home and 

 abroad. Publishers have been invited to send us the 

 titles of such additions to their catalogues, and it is 

 hoped to make the lists an index to the chief scientific 

 works issued. Any assistance which may be offered in 

 order to make our lists complete will be welcomed. 



An Exchange telegram published in the Daily Mail 

 on Monday aoinounced that after a visit to Mount 

 Kosciusko, the highest in Australia, Sir T. Edgeworth 

 David and Profs. Skeats and Richards have con- 

 firmed the discovery in 1893 that the summit of that 

 mountain was formerly covered by glaciers. The 



