February 17, 1916] 



NATURE 



683 



v< 



' . Michaelis published numerous papers on organic 

 I ivatives of phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, and of 

 uiher elements. His first paper in the Berichte, on 

 phosphorus sulphobromide, dates back to 1871, and 

 almost his last was a long paper on organic com- 

 pounds of phosphorus and nitrogen, in the Annalen 

 of last year. He was successively connected with 

 the technical high schools of Karlsruhe and of Aix-la- 

 Chapelie, and had been for the last twenty-five years 

 at Rostock. 



Three volumes of special reports on the mineral 

 resources of Great Britain, prepared by the director 

 of the Geological Survey in response to numerous 

 inquiries that have arisen through the conditions 

 brought about by the war, have just been ffublished. 

 In vol. i. the uses, distribution, treatment, and output 

 of tungsten and manganese ores are dealt with, and 

 particulars of the mines, active and inactive, are 

 given. The second volume deals, with the sources, 

 uses, and treatment of barytes and witherite (the 

 sulphate and carbonate of barium). The mines from 

 which the minerals are or have been raised are 

 ■ scribed in detail. Vol. iii. of the series deals with 

 properties, uses, treatment, and modes of occur- 

 iviice of gypsum, anhydrite, celestine, and stron- 

 tianite. Details of the workings in all parts of Great 

 Britain are given, with statistics as to output. Copies 

 may be obtained through any bookseller, or from the 

 Director-General, Ordnance Survey Office, Southamp- 

 ton, 



left Cambridge, also, he devised some ingenious ex 

 periments in competition between closely allied species 

 of plants which in nature occupy different habitats, and 

 these were beginning to give valuable information on 

 the ecological relations of the species. But at the 

 time he joined the Army, Marsh was only just begin- 

 ning to " find himself " intellectually, and it is im- 

 ~f>ossible to say what he would have done in science 

 if he had lived to return to botanical work. He was 

 very greatly loved by those who knew him best, and 

 his death is a bitter loss to his friends. 



In Man for January Prof. Ashby describes the ex- 

 cavation of a portion of a megalithic building in Malta, 

 known as Id-debdieba, "The Place of the Echo." 

 Among the objects discovered were six pillars of hard 

 coralline limestone, cylindrical in shape, but some 

 tapering at one end^ of a type common in Maltese 

 megalithic buildings; a few flint implements; a quan- 

 tity of Neolithic pottery, with other fragments show- 

 ing that the site was occupied in Greek and Roman 

 times. 



In the American Museum Journal for December last 

 Mr. H. Lang describes, with a fine set of photographs, 

 his work of exploration in the Congo valley. He 

 points out that the result of the present war will be 

 even more disastrous to these native races than to the 

 peoples of Europe. The direct loss of life will be 

 largely confined to the white officers ; but the dispersal 

 of hosts of armed native warriors when the hostilities 

 are over will inevitably lead to a wide extension of 

 the dreaded plague of sleeping sickness. The usual 

 prophylactic measures have been seriously weakened as 

 a result of the war, and there is little hope of check- 

 ing the plague in the absence of a well-equipped 

 medical service entailing enormous expenditure, for 

 which the necessary funds cannot be provided. 



The always interesting problems on motion raised 

 by Zeno, and continued at recurrent intervals ever 

 since, form the text of an amusing article, " The Flying 

 Arrow," by P. E. B. Jourdain, in Mind (New Series, 

 No. 97). The shade of Zeno is represented as being 

 conversant with all the mathematical and philosophical 

 works, including the periodic literature, since his day, 

 and with Socrates as his victim and auditor he analyses 

 critically those who have wrestled with his paradox of 

 the flying arrow. The writer's view is that all four 

 arguments are directed against the belief that lines 

 are made up of points. Both philosophers and mathe- 

 maticians will find the article stimulating and subtly 

 amusing. 



The twenty-ninth annual report of the Liverpool 

 Marine Biology Committee, in addition to the usual 

 accounts of work at the Port Erin Station, contains 

 an address by Prof. W. A. Herdman on the life and 

 work of Edward Forbes. Reading this vivid account 

 of an arduous and fruitful career, the naturalist of 

 to-dav cannot but mourn the loss which biological 

 science suffered from Forbes's early death in 1854, a 

 few months after he had attained "the goal of his 

 ambition, the chair of natural history at Edinburgh." 

 Prof. Herdman 's appreciation of Forbes's work is wise 

 and generous, yet present-day students of distribution 



