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NA TURE 



[May 20, 1922 



and " The Country Month by Month," with J. Owen 

 (Mrs. Owen Visger), brought him into touch with a 

 wide pubHc, and his edition of Johns' " Flowers of the 

 Field " has proved invaluable to thousands of amateur 

 botanists. Other works of his were " The Uses of 

 Plants," " Elementary Geology," and " Plant Geo- 

 graphy." He was for a long time the Kew Gardens 

 correspondent of the Times. He always faced troubles 

 cheerfully, and, constantly active, it is to be feared 

 that overwork may have had much to do with his 

 regretted death. His loss will be greatly felt by 

 workers in many fields. 



By the death of Dr. C. W. Waidner on March 10, the 

 Bureau of Standards lost the third member of its 

 original staff within the last year. Dr. Waidner was 

 born in Baltimore in 1873, graduated at the Johns 

 Hopkins University in 1896 and remained there, engaged 

 first in research and afterwards in teaching, till he was 

 appointed to the staff of the Bureau on its foundation 

 in 1901. In a short time he became head of the Heat 

 and Thermometry department, and organised the 

 testing of thermometers of all kinds from clinical 

 instruments to optical pyrometers. In conjunction 

 with various members of his staff- — most often with 

 Dr. G. K. Burgess — he published a number of papers 

 which did much to increase the precision with which 



temperatures could be determined. Of these papers 

 it is only necessary to mention those on a comparator 

 for thermometers, on radiation pyrometry, on the high 

 temperature scale, on standards of light, on the platinum 

 thermometer and the melting-point of platinum, and 

 on the possibility of detecting the presence of icebergs 

 by the temperature of the ocean, to show the nature 

 and extent of his work. In recent years his interests 

 have centred mainly in the applications of physics 

 to problems of refrigeration and to the production of 

 fire-resisting stmctures. In these fields his loss will 

 be severely felt. 



In the Chemiker ZettUng of April 15 the death is 

 announced, at the age of sixty years, of Dr. F. Voigt- 

 lander, emeritus professor of chemistry at the University 

 of Hamburg. 



The U.S. Public Health Service has lost, by his 

 death at the age of forty-eight, the skilled assistance 

 of its assistant epidemiologist. Dr. David G. Willets, 

 He had spent several years at Manila, at first in the 

 biological laboratory of the Bureau of Science and 

 afterward on the staff of the University of the 

 Philippines. He had written many bulletins and 

 monographs on pellagra, intestinal parasites, and other 

 tropical problems. 



Current Topics and Events. 



The one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 

 foundation of the Royal Academy of Belgium will 

 be celebrated in Brussels on May 23-24. More than 

 ninety delegates, representing forty-five academies 

 in eighteen different countries, in addition to foreign 

 associates of the Belgian Academy, are expected to 

 attend the function. France is sending a number of 

 representatives ; the Institute of France alone will 

 have thirty -six delegates. We learn from the 

 Secretary. of the Academy that the learned societies 

 of Great Britain will be represented as follows : 

 Royal Society, Sir William Leishman and Prof. H. 

 Lamb (also representing the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Society) ; Royal Society of Edinburgh, Sir George 

 Berry ; Royal Academy, Sir George Frampton, Sir 

 Reginald Blomfield, and Mr. H. Hughes-Stanton ; 

 Royal Institute of British Architects, Sir John 

 Burnet, Mr. J. Simpson, and Mr. P. Waterhouse ; 

 Royal Geographical Society, Sir Frederick Sykes ; 

 Royal Historical Society, Mr. G. M. T. Omond ; 

 British Academy, Sir Frederic Kenyon and Mr. H. 

 Stuart-Jones ; Chemical Society, Sir William Pope ; 

 Zoological Society, Dr. G. A. Boulenger and Dr. P. 

 Chalmers Mitchell ; Asiatic Society of Bengal, Sir 

 Thomas H. Holland and Dr. Pascoe. The follow- 

 ing British Associates of the Belgian Academy will 

 be present : Sir Frank Dyson, Sir T. Erskine Holland, 

 Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Thomas Jackson, Sir John 

 Lavery, and Mr. J. Pennell. The learned societies of 

 Australia and New Zealand and the Royal Irish 

 Academy have sent congratulatory addresses. 



NO. 2742, VOL. 109] 



The Times of May 9 records the striking of 

 petroleum (on the previous day) in a well put down 

 at Darcy, near Dalkeith, on the property of Lord 

 Lothian. The well was originally one of the two 

 selected sites in Scotland in accordance with the 

 Government's drilling programme of 191 8, the other, 

 at West Calder, having since been abandoned after 

 being drilled to a depth of 3923 feet. The Darcy 

 well is producing from a sandstone at a depth of 1810 

 feet, and the oil, though inferior both in quality and 

 quantity to that obtained at Hardstoft, is of paraffin 

 base, somewhat viscous, and carries much gas. 

 Previous to the flow, 8-inch casing had been set in 

 the hole and the oil accumulated afterwards for 

 several hundred feet within it. The bringing in of 

 this well is an event of scientific rather than economic 

 importance, as the initial yield is, commercially 

 speaking, insignificant, while the prospects of the area 

 as a whole are geologically unfavourable to the 

 development of a large oilfield. Hardstoft, the only 

 other producing well in this country, makes an 

 average of 20 barrels per week ; the Darcy well is 

 said to yield considerably less pro rata. The same 

 number of the Times contains the report of a serious 

 announcement concerning the world's oil supplies, 

 made by Prof. Arrhenius, at the close of a course of 

 lectures given at the Sorbonne. Prof. Arrhenius 

 stated that at the present rate of consumption the 

 existing oilfields in the world would, in his opinion, 

 be exhausted within 15 years, an opinion shared by 

 many experts both in this country and in America. 



