2l6 



NATURE 



[February i6, 1922 



whether any changes can be made with due regard 

 to the requirements of each department interested in 

 the work to avoid dissipation of energy, overlapping 

 of duties, and unnecessarily different conditions of ser- 

 vice. Mr. W. J. Evans, Director of Establishments, 

 is chairman, and Mr. J. Lang, of the Admiralty C.E. 

 Branch, is secretary ; the other members being Eng, 

 Vice-Adm. Sir George Goodwin, Engineer-in-Chief ; 

 Capt. R. R. C. Backhouse, Director of Naval 

 Ordnance; Comdr. L. E. H. Llewellyn, Chief Inspec- 

 tor of Naval Ordnance; Mr. F. E. Smith, Director 

 of Scientific Research; Mr. W. J. Berry, Director of 

 Warship Production ; and Mr. F. Ward, Deputy- 

 Director of Armament Supply. 



The Fuel Research Board of the Department of 

 Scientific and Industrial Research has appointed a 

 Committee to advise upon the sampling and analysis 

 of coal. The personnel of the Committee is as 

 follows :— Prof . T. Gray (chairman). Prof. J. W. 

 Cobb, Mr. J. T. Dunn, Dr. J. S. Flett, Mr. G. Nevill 

 Huntly, Mr. S. Roy Illingworth, Mr. J. G. King, Dr. 

 C. H. Lander, Dr. R. Lessing, Mr. C. A. Seyler, Mr. 

 F. S. Sinnatt, and Prof. R. V. Wheeler. Secretary, 

 Miss N. Renouf. It is intended that the methods 

 recommended by the Committee shall be adopted in 

 connection with the physical and chemical survey of 

 the national coal resources. Communications for the 

 Committee should be addressed to the secretary at 

 16 and 18 Old Queen Street, Westminster, London, 

 S.W.I. 



We are glad to see that the Portsmouth Literary 

 and Philosophical Society, which was established in 

 i86g but was afterwards discontinued, has been 

 revived. There must be many citizens of all classes 

 in such a place as Portsmouth, with the adjacent 

 residential district of Southsea, who will find interest 

 and stimulus in the activities of the new society. The 

 programme for the current session includes descrip- 

 tive lectures, field excursions, and sectional meetings 

 of students and workers in various departments of 

 knowledge, such as literature, history, geography and 

 geology, botany and zoology, psychology, and social 

 science. The president, Sir Richard Gregcwy, will 

 deliver his presidential address on "The Influence of 

 Science " to-morrow, February 17. Mr. E. Heron- 

 Allen, F.R.S., and Sir John Brickwood are vice- 

 presidents of the society, Lt.-Col. J. H. Cooke chair- 

 man of council, and Mr. C. W. Ball, Whittington 

 Chambers, King's Road, Southsea, honorary secretary. 



Continuing its discussion of the State and pro- 

 vincial museums, the Museums Journal in its February 

 issue suggests that this country is not merely falling 

 behind others, but has even taken a step backward. 

 "The post created for dealing with, provincial museum 

 work at the Board of Education has now been vacant 

 for more than a year." The regulations formerly " laid 

 before Parliament annually, as pact of a Board of 

 Education command paper, setting forth the condi- 

 tions upon which loans of objects and grants of money 

 were made to provincial museums, were last issued 

 in 1910." These alleged facts seem curiously incon- 

 sistent with the activity of discussion on the educa- 

 NO. 2729, VOL. 109] 



tional use of museums that prevailed a few years ago 

 at the Ministries of Reconstruction and Education. 

 This is not altogether to be explained by the necessity 

 for economy, since what is wanted is not so much 

 fresh expenditure as the co-ordination and utilisation 

 of the means ready to hand. 



Donations to the Maidstone Museum during the 

 past year include an albino specimen of the American 

 grey squirrel, shot near Maidstone; a lower jaw of 

 the woolly rhinoceros found in Maidstone, and 

 remains of the cave lion and the mammoth from the 

 river^rift at Aylesford ; a miscellaneous collection 

 containing many fine minerals, formerly the property 

 of Prof. Arthur Connell, F.R.S., of St. Andrews; 

 fragments of a baked earth bowl associated with a 

 calcined flint nodule (? a pot-boiler) found at Borough 

 Green ; three pieces of Late Celtic pottery from the 

 Cherry Orchard Estate, near Maidstone; and a copy 

 of William Smith's "Delineation of the Strata of 

 England and Wales, etc.," published in 1815. The 

 large number of other donations bears witness to the 

 confidence placed in the curator, Mr. J. H. Allchin. 



As from April i next, the importation into the 

 United Kingdom of the plumage of birds not ex- 

 pressly excepted under the Importation of Plumage 

 (Prohibition) Act, 192 1, will be prohibited. The 

 Board of Trade may, however, under section 2 (4) 

 of the Act, "grant to any person a licence subject 

 to such conditions and regulations as they may 

 think fit authorising the importation of plumage for 

 any natural history or other museum, or for the 

 purpose of scientific research or for any other special 

 purpose." All applications for licences under this 

 sub-section should be addressed to the Imports and 

 Exports Licensing Section, Board of Trade, Great 

 George Street, Westminster, S.W.i. 



The annual meeting and excursions of the Somerset- 

 shire Archaeological and Natural History Society will 

 be held at Clevedon on July 4-6. The president- 

 elect is Sir William Boyd Dawkins. 



Mr. G. V. Colchester has been appointed to the 

 post of geologist on the Geological Survey of the 

 Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in succession to Mr. C. T. 

 Madigan, who now holds a lectureship in geology at 

 Adelaide University. 



At a meeting of the Institution of Automobile 

 Engineers on February 8 Mr. E. L. Bass read his 

 paper on "Engine Lubrication,'- for which the 

 Daimler premium for the session 1920-21 was 

 awarded. Lt.-Col. D. J. Smith was elected president 

 for the session 1922-23. 



On Tuesday next, February 21, Sir Arthur Keith 

 will begin a course of five lectures at the Royal In- 

 stitution on "Anthropological Problems of the British 

 Empire," Series i : Racial Problems in Asia and 

 Australasia. The Friday evening discourse on 

 February 24 will be delivered by Prof. J. Joly on "The 

 Age of the Earth." 



The thirty-first annual meeting of the Royal Society 

 for the Protection of Birds will be held at the Middle- 

 sex Guildhall, Westminster, S.W.i, on Tuesday, 



