28o 



NATURE 



[March 2, 1922 



mend that the Provisional Estimate, as framed by the 

 Treasury, should be accepted, with the qualification 

 that it may be possible, under the terms of the Irish 

 Settlement, to omit /2200 proposed for the four 

 Academies and Societies in Ireland. The Department 

 of Scientific and Industrial Research was instructed, 

 in May last, to effect at least a 20 per cent, reduction 

 on expenditure. The Department succeeded in 

 effecting this, and presented a Provisional Net 

 Estimate of ;^330,287. Since arriving at that figure 

 the Department and the Treasury have agreed on an 

 additional cut of ;^i 7,700, and, as the result of a 

 further review, the Department have intimated that 

 a still further reduction can be made, which will 

 bring their Net Estimate down to ^298, 071. We are 

 unable to recommend any further reduction beyond 

 the saving of ;^32,2i6 already effected." 



The Minister of Health announced last week that 

 the Rockefeller Foundation had offered a sum of 

 two million dollars (approximately ;^454,ooo at the 

 present rate of exchange) for the provision of an 

 institute of State Medicine in London— site, building 

 and equipment — on the understanding that the 

 British Government accepted the responsibility for 

 staffing and maintenance. At present public health 

 teaching is given at some seven or eight institutions 

 in London, which instruct about 120 students per 

 annum for the examinations for the Diploma of 

 Public Health ; for toxicology and medical juris- 

 prudence practically no advanced course is available. 

 The need for an Institute of State Medicine has long 

 been recognised, and some years before the war the 

 Board of Hygiene of the University of London 

 formulated a scheme for the provision of such an 

 institute, but funds for its establishment were never 

 forthcoming, and in 1921 the Committee for post- 

 graduate medical education in London made a 

 similar recommendation. The offer of the Rockefeller 

 Trustees has been gratefully accepted by the Minister 

 of Health, and the Government proposes, we believe, 

 to allocate a sum of ;^25,ooo annually for the mainten- 

 ance of the Institute, the work of which will be devoted 

 . both to education and to research in all branches of 

 State Medicine. 



On Wednesday, March i, there was opened at the 

 British Museum a special exhibition of Greek and 

 Latin papyri presented at various dates by the 

 Egypt Exploration Society. This body (formerly 

 the Egypt Exploration Fund) is celebrating the 

 twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of its 

 Graeco-Roman Branch, the excavations of which at 

 Behnesa (Oxyrhynchus) and elsewhere have made 

 so many additions to our stock of Greek literature 

 and to our knowledge of the political, economic, and 

 social history of Graeco-Roman Egypt ; and it is in 

 honour of the anniversary that the Museum is arrang- 

 ing its exhibition. A guide-book to the exhibition, 

 with introduction, detailed descriptions of the papyri 

 shown, a preface by Sir Frederic Kenyon, and one 

 photographic facsimile, is being pubHshed by the 

 Society, and will be on sale at the Museum, price is. 

 The exhibition, which will be found in the MSS. 

 Saloon, Case A, includes many interesting papyri of 



NO. 2731, VOL. 109] 



various kinds, selected to illustrate the wide range of 

 papyrological discovery. There are examples of 

 famous additions to Greek literature, hke the Paeans 

 of Pindar, the poems of Cercidas, and the Oxyrhyn- 

 chus historian ; theology is represented by the Sayings 

 of Jesus ; and the economic and social Hfe of Egypt 

 finds illustration in many non-literary documents, 

 several of them rich in human interest. 



The Referee, under section i (5) of the Safeguarding 

 of Industries Act, has given judgment against the 

 complaint of the British Cellulose and Chemical Manu- 

 facturing Company, Limited, that calcium carbide 

 had been improperly excluded by the Board of Trade 

 from the lists published by them of articles charge- 

 able with duty under Part I. of the Act. The effect 

 of the award is that calcium carbide is not to be 

 subject to import duty. 



"TThe ambitious project for opening up a navigable 

 channel of sufficient width and depth to enable ocean- 

 going vessels to reach the group of inland ports 

 fringing the shores of the Great Lakes of North 

 America, and there to ship and discharge their cargoes 

 direct without any intermediate handling, is steadily 

 being urged in influential quarters, and, despite 

 strong and determined opposition, appears to be 

 gaining ground. The report of the International 

 Commission, which has been holding an inquiry into 

 the feasibility, necessity, and cost of the scheme, has 

 just been presented to the respective Governments 

 at Washington and Ottawa. The position may be 

 briefly summarised as follows : — At the present time 

 vessels loaded with grain at the great depots of Port 

 Arthur, Fort William, Duluth, and Superior, on 

 Lake Superior, and of Chicago and Milwaukee, on 

 Lake Michigan, are unable, on account of the rapids 

 on the St. Lawrence, to proceed further than Buffalo, 

 at the lower end of Lake Erie, where the grain has 

 to be transferred either into barges to proceed along 

 the Erie Canal to New York for reshipment or into 

 small ships capable of traversing the Welland Canal 

 as far as Montreal, where again reshipment is required 

 for the ocean journey. This repeated handUng of 

 the cargoes means increased cost of carriage, delay, 

 and dearer bread for the countries to which the grain 

 is consigned. The necessity for transhipment can 

 be avoided only by the formation of a waterway of 

 sufficient capacity for ocean-going vessels, and, as 

 contemplated in the proposed scheme, this means 

 the enlargement and deepening of the Welland Canal 

 from a depth of 25 ft., to which it is at present being 

 increased, to a depth of 30 ft., and the construction 

 of four lateral canals and impounding dams at the 

 rapids on the St. Lawrence River, together with the 

 deepening of the river-bed itself. There is an addi- 

 tional advantage attaching to the scheme in that by 

 the construction of the dams a very considerable 

 amount of hydro-electric power could be developed, 

 and it is claimed that on this ground alone the project 

 should prove a sound and profitable enterprise. 



We learn from Science that Capt. Roald Amundsen 

 has made arrangements for co-operative work in 



