46: 



NATURE 



[December 23, 1915 



politics; if the former, we may justly ask what are 

 the Government chemists and the scientific Advisory 

 Committees doing to enlighten responsible authorities 

 on this matter? 



The death is announced of two ex-directors-general 

 of Indian Telegraphs. Mr. J. Horsburgh Lane, 

 who was deputy-director-general in 1890, and officiat- 

 ing director-general in 1892, retired in 1894. He was 

 the compiler of a "Word Code for Foreign Tele- 

 grams," and at the time of his death had reached the 

 age of seventy-six years. The other Indian Telegraph 

 Department official who has just died was Mr. F. 

 Gurr Maclean, who was director-general from 1900 to 

 1903, when he retired. He died at Woking, aged sixty- 

 seven years. 



The Government has decided that all medical 

 students, except those in the two last years of profes- 

 sional study, are to relinquish their work and become 

 combatant members of the Army. While it must be 

 recognised that the Interests of the community must be 

 subservient to the military needs of the State, the 

 heavy drains now being made on the medical reserves 

 of the nation may well In the future bring about an 

 acute shortage of medical men. As the Morning Post 

 pertinently asks : What Is going to happen if the war 

 is prolonged, and few new medical men become avail- 

 able In the future? For under the present policy, after 

 the end of 19 16, no present students will become quali- 

 fied except a few medically unfit for the Army. Alto- 

 gether probably not more than 600 or 700 men are 

 involved — a negligible contribution to the fighting 

 forces of the Army — but a number which in four or five 

 years' time would be of the greatest value In augmenting 

 the then depleted medical service of the country. We 

 are already suffering from a diminished birth-rate, an 

 Increasing death-rate, and an increased infant death- 

 rate, and If the medical care of the community be 

 lessened, as it inevitably will be if there are no fresh 

 doctors, these evils will certainly increase. If these 

 students could be made use of as dressers and attend- 

 ants, and the time so occupied were allowed to count 

 towards the time required for the medical curriculum, 

 the difficulty would be partly met. The first and 

 second year students should at least be relegated to 

 so late a class in the reserved groups that their calling 

 up will occur only in the case of the most desperate 

 need. 



Dr. Orville A. Derby, whose death at Rio de 

 Janeiro we reported last week, was one of the most 

 active pioneers in the geology of Brazil, and did great 

 service to science by the influence he was able to exert 

 on the Brazilian Government. A pupil of Prof. C. F. 

 Hartt, of Cornell University, whose well-known 

 "Geology and Physical Geography of Brazil" was 

 published in 1870, he followed in his teacher's foot- 

 steps, and in 1879 was appointed director of the Geo- 

 graphical and Geological Commission of the State of 

 San Paulo. In 1906 he removed to Rio de Janeiro as 

 director of the newly Instituted Geological and Mlnera- 

 logical Service of Brazil, and there remained full of 

 activity until his last brief Illness. Dr. Derby's first 

 NO. 2408, VOL. 96] 



original paper was a notice of some Palaeozoic fossils 

 collected by A. Agassiz and S. W. Garman near Lake 

 Titlcaca, in 1876; and in the two following years he 

 published in the Archives of the National Museum of 

 Rio de Janeiro Important memoirs on the geology of 

 the Lower Amazons and the neighbourhood of Bahia. 

 In 1878 he also described the diamond-bearing region 

 of Parand, and in later years most of his re- 

 searches were concerned with petrology and the dis- 

 tribution of the sources of the rarer minerals. To the 

 end, however, he was interested in the purely scientific 

 aspect of his work, and one of his last papers was on 

 the microscopical structure of the Permo-Carboniferous 

 fern-stem, Psaronius hrasiliensis. He was ever ready 

 to welcome and help other geologists who visited the 

 country for special purposes, and in 1906 he co-operated 

 with Prof. J. C. Branner, of Leland Stanford Univer- 

 sity, in producing a useful manual of elementary 

 geology adapted for Brazilian students. Dr. Derby 

 became a fellow of the Geological Society of London 

 in 1884, and was awarded the Wollaston Donation 

 Fund in. 1892. 



The juvenile lectures of the Royal Society of Arts 

 will be delivered by Prof. J. M. Thomson and Mr. J. 

 Swinburne. Prof. Thomson will give the first lecture 

 on January 5, his subject being "Crystallisation," and 

 Mr. James Swinburne will give the second on January 

 12, upon "Science of Some Toys." Both lectures will 

 be fully illustrated with experiments. 



We have received from Mr. F. W. FItzSirhons, of 

 the Port Elizabeth Museum, an abstract of his paper 

 on the fossil human skull from Boskop (Transvaal), 

 read before the meeting of the South African Asso- 

 ciation at Pretoria. It Is essentially Identical with his 

 letter on the subject published In Nature of August 15, 

 1915 (vol. xcv., p. 615), and indicates clearly that, 

 although he emphasised the high state of mineralisa- 

 tion of the fossil, he had no Intention of referring it 

 to so remote a period as that of the Karoo reptiles. 



The President of the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries has appointed a Committee for the purpose 

 of making such arrangements as are likely to ensure 

 the fullest use being made of native resources in 

 supplying existing demands for timber. The Com- 

 mittee is prepared to purchase standing timber and to 

 make arrangements where necessary for felling, haul- 

 ing, and conversion. All communications for the 

 Committee should be addressed to the Secretary, Home 

 Grown Timber Committee, Craven House, North- 

 umberland Avenue, W.C. 



On Sunday evening, December 19, a great fall of 

 chalk took place on the cliffs which overlook the pic- 

 turesque Warren, near Folkestone, and it is reported 

 that a considerable amount of damage has resulted. 

 The South-Eastern Railway line, which runs along 

 the foot of the cliffs, has been burled for a considerable 

 distance under the debris, whilst the main road be- 

 tween Folkestone and Dover near the edge of the cliflf 

 exhibits long cracks about 4 in. wide, and heavy traffic 

 has been stopped. Fortunately, no lives were lost, 

 and although a house built only a few years ago 

 on the face of the cliff was involved in the fall, the 



