January 13, 19 16] 



NATURE 



54: 



and on failure of issue, 500/. each is to be paid to the 

 Royal Society, the Chemical Society, the Entomo- 

 logical Society, and the Institute of Chemistry of Great 

 Britain and Ireland. 



The Government of India has created a special 

 appointment in research for Prof. J. C. Bose, in recog- 

 nition of his important contributions in biophysics. 

 Dr. Bose is now engaged in completing his new work 

 on " Experimental Phyto-dynamics," which will con- 

 tain a detailed course of new methods and instrumental 

 appliances for the advanced research on plant-irrit- 

 ability, the specimens of plants chosen bqing; those 

 available in Europe and America. The Government 

 of India has also placed at his disposal experi- 

 mental stations in the hills, where climatic conditions 

 are similar to those in the West. The faculty of Presi- 

 dency College, Calcutta, has appointed Dr. Bose pro- 

 fessor emeritus, honoris causd, for the benefits con- 

 ferred by him on the college by his services for the 

 last thirty-one years. 



Miss Margaret Harwood, formerly at Harvard 

 Observatory, and, by annual award, a fellow of the 

 Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association, 1912-16, has 

 been appointed for an indefinite term a fellow of this 

 association and director of its observatory. Miss Har- 

 wood is at present studying at the University of Cali- 

 fornia. Her new year at the Nantucket Observatory 

 will begin on June 15 next. Many women teach astro- 

 nomy successfully, but few openings exist for women 

 to do research work, and a majority of the fellowship 

 committee recommended Miss Harwood's permanent 

 appointment, to ensure to a woman in every way pre- 

 pared this unusual privilege, free from academic con- 

 trol. The Maria Mitchell memorial fellowship at Har- 

 vard Observatory has been awarded for 1916-17 to 

 Miss Susan Raj^mond. The value of the fellowship is 

 100/. 



The Journal of the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers for December 15, 1915, contains a report of 

 an interesting presentation of original Faraday papers 

 made to the institution by Mr. D. J. Blaiklev, whose 

 wife is a niece of Faraday's. Her sister, Miss Jane 

 Barnard, lived for several years with Faraday and his 

 wife as a daughter of the house. She died in 191 1, 

 and left these books and papers to Mr. Biaikley to 

 dispose of under certain conditions. They include 

 Faraday's journal of the Continental voyage which 

 he undertook, at the age of twenty-two, as an assistant 

 to Sir Humphr}' Davy— the voyage which, Prof. Sil- 

 vanus Thompson said, in proposing the vote of thanks 

 to Mr. Biaikley, "transformed Faraday frcim being 

 little more than a bookbinder's apprentice and labora- 

 tory assistant of a great chemist, into a man who 

 ( ould speak and think and work scientifically." 



The Rome correspondent of the Times announces 

 the death, at eighty-three years of age, of Dr. Guido 

 Baccelli, professor of clinical medicine in the University 

 of Rome. Dr. Baccelli took a very active part in 

 Italian politics: he was four times Minister of Public 

 Instruction, and once Minister of AgriruUiin-, Indus- 

 try, and Commerce. 



NO. 241 1, VOL. 96] 



Among the victims of the Persia outrage was Miss 

 Elizabeth Stephens Impey, M.B., Ch.B., who was on 

 her Way to take up her post as medical ofticer at the 

 DufTerin Hospital, Lahore. Miss Impey, who was an 

 all-round athlete, was the first woman to be president 

 of the Guild of Undergraduates of Birmingham 

 University. 



The death is reported of Mr, T. L. Willson, of 

 Ottawa, Canada, who was awarded the McCharles 

 prize by Toronto University in 1909 for his various 

 discoveries. His manufacture of calcium carbide 

 had a most important industrial influence. His 

 inventions were principally concerned with acety- 

 lene gas and carbide, and included the Will- 

 son acetylene-gas buoys and the Willson gas beacons. 

 He was formerly president of the International Signal 

 Company of Ottawa. At the time of his death Mr. 

 Willson was working out an enterprise in Newfound- 

 land for the production of an artificial fertiliser. 



Dr. R. a. Witthaus, a prominent American toxi- 

 cologist, died recently at his home in New York at the 

 age of sixty-nine. He had successively occupied chairs 

 of chemistry at the University of Vermont, the Univer- 

 sity of Buffalo, and the medical college of Cornell 

 University. He was best known as a "poison ex- 

 pert " in a number of sensational criminal trials. He 

 was also the author of several manuals of chemistry, 

 and had contributed largely to the literature of medical 

 jurisprudence. Dr. Witthaus was a graduate in arts 

 of Columbia University, and in medicine of New York 

 University. 



The Engineer for January 7 records the death of 

 Mr. Peter Whyte, which took place in Edinburgh on 

 December 31. Mr. Whyte occupied the post of super- 

 intendent and engineer of Leith harbour and docks for 

 thirty years, and retired two years ago. He was a 

 member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and was 

 an authority in dock engineering and port manage- 

 ment; he acted as advisory expert to the Government 

 Commission charged with the taking over of the 

 docks at Singap>ore. Papers on professional subjects 

 were contributed by Mr. Whyte to the Royal Society of 

 Arts, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Association of 

 Municipal and County Engineers, and kindred bodies. 



The death has occurred, at the age of eighty, of Dr. 

 D. G. Elliot, who shared with the late Prof. A. S. 

 Bickmore the honour of being one of the two scientific 

 founders of the American Museum of Natural History. 

 His career as a zoological traveller and collector began 

 when he was scarcely out of his boyhood, and con- 

 tinued until quite recent years. As late as 1909 he 

 made a tour which included such diverse points as the 

 second cataract of the Nile, Mandalay, Batavia, Han- 

 kow, and Mauna Loa. His expedition into the re- 

 cesses of the Olympic Mountains in 1898 is said to 

 have been the first penetration of that range by any 

 naturalist. Dr. Elliot's outstanding work was his 

 recently published " Review of the Primates." He was 

 the author of many other books on zoological subjects 

 and of hundreds of papers in scientific journals. 



The death is reported, in his eightieth year, of Dr. 

 A. W. Wright, of Yale, who occupied the chair of 

 molecular physics and chemistry in that University 



