622 



NATURE 



[February 4, 19 15 



The relation between science and industry in this 

 country has been the subject of a number of letters 

 and articles in the daily papers recently, but the real 

 difficulties of the situation from the scientific p>oint of 

 view have not usually been explained. Prof. J. F. 

 Thorpe, however, in the Times of February 2, states 

 clearly what the national needs are in this matter. It is 

 often supposed that when business men decide what 

 substance they wish to obtain all the chemist has to do 

 is to look up the details of the preparation of the 

 substance in the German patent literature and then 

 to proceed in the same manner as a ch.ef would do 

 if he wished to make some new kind of pudding. 

 This point of view is due to an entire lack of under- 

 standing on the part of the non-scientific person of 

 the principles undertying scientific processes. Essen- 

 tial details are carefully excluded from patent speci- 

 fications, and it is safe to say that an independent 

 worker would, in most cases, have to devote some 

 months to experiments on the scientific scale before he 

 could find the correct conditions for applying a process 

 to the commercial scale. Prof. Thorpe pertinently 

 remarks in concluding his letter : — " Do the Govern- 

 ment imagine, therefore, that any works research 

 laboratory is going to solve these problems and adapt 

 them to commercial conditions within any reason- 

 able period of time? If they do, thev are greatly mis- 

 taken. The object can be achieved, but only by en- 

 listing the services of every trained organic chemist 

 in this country. The Government must organise the 

 knowledge and skill which is, from the industrial 

 point of view, now wasting in our universities, uni- 

 versity colleges, and technical schools ; moreover, it 

 is only by a scheme such as this that the nation will 

 be able to pick out those men who are fitted by 

 temperament to be directors of commercial processes." 



It is a fine instance of taking things quietly that 

 the Rev. W. M. L. Evans, rector of Saxby, in North 

 Lancashire, should write to the Times of January 28 

 pointing out that the pheasants of the parish were 

 very much excited on the morning of Sunday, January 

 24, when the naval engagement was in progress. 

 From the way in which the pheasants were " all 

 over the place with their fuss," the clerk of Saxby 

 inferred " there be rare goings on in the North Sea 

 the morn." Without precise records of hours, obser- 

 vations of this sort are not of much scientific value, 

 but they suggest that those who have time and are 

 familiar with the normal ways of birds should keep 

 an eye on similar occurrences. It is well known that 

 birds have a quick and discriminating sense of hear- 

 ing, and there is nothing essentially improbable in 

 supposing that the Saxby pheasants heard news 

 which failed to reach the parishioners. Several corre- 

 spondents describe in the Times of February i obser- 

 vations in support of Mr. Evans's account of the 

 disturbance of pheasants by the North Sea cannonade ; 

 and instances are given of similar effects produced on 

 the birds upon other occasions and in other places, 

 including New Zealand, by distant explosions and 

 earthquakes. It may be premature to believe in the 

 extraordinary sensitiveness of the Saxby pheasants, 

 and the case is not strengthened by a reference to the 

 NO. 2362, VOL. 94] 



geese of the capitol, but critical and comparative 

 observations on the sense of hearing in birds would 

 ! be interesting. It is certain, said Bewick, "that 

 i nothing can stir in the night, nor the least or most 

 distant noise be made, but the geese are roused, 

 and immediately begin to hold their cackling con- 

 verse." It should also be remembered that noises 

 inaudible in one zone are sometimes perceived in 

 another more distant. 



In Popular Astronomy Prof. E. C. Pickering quotes 

 some interesting letters from Profs. Backlund, of 

 Pulkovo, and Schwarzschild, of Potsdam, with refer- 

 ence to astronomers and the war. None of the Pul- 

 kovo astronomers have been called to serve, but Prof. 

 Backlund's son is in the Russian ranks, and of French 

 astronomers, M. Croze, astrophysicist of the Paris 

 Observatory, has been summoned, as well as the son 

 of the director, M. Baillaud, who has six sons and 

 sons-in-law in the war. On the German side, many 

 young astronomers are in the field. Dr. Zurhellen 

 and Dr. Kiihl, who were with the ecHpse expedition, 

 have been interned in Russia ; Dr. Miinch, of Pots- 

 dam, is wounded and a prisoner in France. Prof. 

 Schwarzschild writes that he is himself at Namur, 

 conducting a military meteorological station in the 

 interest of the German aeroplanes and dirigibles. 

 Prof. Bauschinger, director of the Strasburg Observa- 

 tory, is a temporary terminus commander in that city. 

 The Astronomische Nachrichten contains announce- 

 ments of the deaths in the ranks of Dr. J. Liebmann, 

 astronomer at the BerHn Observatory; also of Dr. 

 Adam Massinger, of the Heidelberg Observatory, his 

 death cutting short an elaborate investigation of the 

 nebulae photographed at the observatory. Dr. Martin 

 Matzdorff, assistant at the Strasburg Observatory, 

 a young man of great promise, was killed at Ypres 

 in November. 



Doubtless further particulars will be available when 

 the American mail brings over last week's technical 

 papers, but in the meantime it is probable that the 

 long-distance telephone record, namely, conversations 

 between Washington and San Francisco, both via 

 New York and Boston, is no more than the natural 

 outcome of the gradual extension of telephone lines 

 with "loading coils " on the Heaviside-Pupin principle. 

 That the feat has been accomplished by means of a 

 new device just invented by Prof. Pupin, as one might 

 gather from the telegram sent by the New York 

 correspondent of the Times last week, seems unlikely. 

 The " loaded " telephone line from New York to 

 Denver (a distance of 2000 miles) has been in use 

 for some little time, and the extension of this to San 

 Francisco (making a distance of 3000 miles) is known 

 to have been under construction. Apparently, as an 

 experiment, a considerable ditour was made, no doubt 

 over other "loaded" lines, and Jekyll Island (Georgia) 

 was included in the circuit ; the total distance tele- 

 phoned over is given as 5000 miles — certainly a record. 

 It is interesting to note that Prof. Graham Bell, the 

 inventor of the telephone, and now more than eighty 

 years old, was able to converse over the line. The 

 Times correspondent regards the event as foreshadow- 

 ing the day when New York can talk with London, 



