February ii, 19 15] 



MATURE 



649 



received an addition to its personnel, which must be 

 unusual for a polar vovage, in the shape of a stow- 

 away. 



The Calcutta correspondent of the Morning Post, 

 in a communication dated Januar}- 7, states that the 

 trustees of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, have ad- 

 dressed to the Government of India the following 

 protest against the acts of vandalism perpetrated by 

 the Germans in destroying Belgian museums and 

 buildings of historical interest : "We, the office bearers 

 of the Board of Trustees of the Indian Museum, 

 desire to protest on behalf of our Board against the 

 unnecessary destruction of libraries, art galleries, 

 museums, and buildings of purely historical and 

 artistic value in time of war. We do so with the 

 knowledge that we have the support of our colleagues 

 in other countries and with the conviction that the 

 collective opinion of the governing bodies of scientific 

 and artistic institutions throughout the world should 

 be regarded as a matter of international importance, 

 and that, on the conclusion of the present war, steps 

 should be taken to lay down definite rules under 

 international sanction for the preservation of artistic, 

 historical, and scientific treasures during warfare." 



The North-East Coast Institution of Engineers and 

 Shipbuilders has conferred its honorary membership 

 upon Lord Fisher, First Sea Lord, in recognition of 

 the part taken by him in bringing about the reform 

 of the position of the rank and status of the naval 

 engineer officer. In asking Lord Fisher to accept this 

 honour the institution wrote : "'It was with special 

 satisfaction and pride that the council of this institu- 

 tion learned of the Admiralty order of the 24th 

 December conferring military rank upon the ' old 

 entry ' engineer officers of the Royal Naxy — satisfac- 

 tion, in that it is believed that the change will lead to 

 increased naval efficiency ; pride, in the realisation of 

 the fact that their professional brothers have won so 

 honourable a recognition of their value in the consti- 

 tution of ' our sure shield ' the Navy. Our institution 

 is convinced that it is chiefly to your lordship's keen 

 perception of the dominating importance of engineer- 

 ing science and materiel in the constitution of the 

 modern Navy that the nation is indebted for this wise 

 and generous readjustment of the rank and status of 

 naval engineer officers." 



The explosives industry has experienced a severe loss 

 in the death of Capt. M. B. Lloyd, late of the Royal 

 Artillery, and for the last seven years a director of the 

 well-known firm of Messrs. Curtis's and Harvey. Born 

 in 1S65, Capt. Lloyd entered the Armj- from the Royal 

 Military Academy in 1884, and in 1896 passed first out 

 of the advanced class of the Ordnance College, obtain- 

 ing the Lefroy gold medal and '* honours " in prac- 

 ticallv every subject, including mathematics — a ver}' 

 rare distinction. On the death of Sir Vivian Majendie 

 in 1S98 he was appointed an inspector of explosives 

 at the Home Office, and for a year or more ^was in 

 charge of the recently established testing station for 

 mining explosives on Plumstead marshes, where he 

 did a considerable amount of useful work in connec- 

 tion with the risks due to the presence of gas and 

 NO. 2363, VOL. 94"1 



dust in coal mines, the experience he thus gained 

 proving most valuable when he was subsequ^tly 

 appointed secretary of the Departmental Committee on 

 •■ bobbinite." After leaving the Home Office early in 

 1908, and joining the directorate of Messrs. Curtis's 

 and Harvey, Capt. Lloyd's exceptional qualifications 

 led to his ser\ices being much in demand on technical 

 committees ; he was selected to represent the explosives 

 trade on the War Office Committee on the Shipment 

 of Explosives, on the Departmental Committee on the 

 Heat Test, and on an informal committee appointed 

 to consider the best form of construction for " danger 

 buildings," and was made a member of the Home 

 , Office Committee on celluloid and its dangers. His 

 : premature death will cause a gap difficult to fill. 



I In his paper on the " Fortified Headlands and 

 I Castles on the South Coast of Munster," reprinted 

 I from vol. xxxii., 1914, of the Proceedings of the Royal 

 ! Irish Academy, Mr. T. J. Westropp has discovered 

 ! an almost unexplored field in Irish archaeok^y. 

 I These Irish coastal forts were constructed at various 

 \ epochs. In some, like Howth, near Dublin, and 

 i Shanoan in Waterford, flint instruments have been 

 I discovered; some belong to the Bronze Age; others, 

 j again, were built or occupied by Danes, Welsh, or 

 { Normans. They differ greatly in form, and the 

 i following types are recognisable : simple headland 

 ! forts with a single wall ; complex, with several earth- 

 works or walls ; entrenchments or citadels ; multiple 

 j forts with a single wall ; complex, with several earth- 

 ; with a gangway natural or artificial ; headlands with 

 ; a deep natural hollow at the neck; and fortified shore- 

 ' rocks, usually isolated at high water. This interest- 

 j ing paper is well illustrated with photographs and 

 ground plans. The completion of this investigation 

 along the other parts of the Irish coasts, for which 

 materials are now available, will be. welcome. 



In the latest issue of the Anthropological Publica- 

 tions of the University of Pennsylvania (No. i, vol. 

 vi., 1914) Dr. G. G. Maccurdy has given an account of 

 a collection of twenty-four skulls of the natives of 

 the eastern end of New Britain — or, as the Germans 

 have renamed the island, Neu Pommern. The natives 

 of this island have heads which are very narrowly 

 compressed from si(te to side, but in their general 

 feature are clearly close relatives of the Australian 

 aborigines. Dr. Maccurdy finds their canial capacit}' 

 to be very low, the average for male skulls being 

 i';45 c.c, for female skulls 12 14 c.c. Apparently such 

 an estimate depends on the material used in filling 

 the cranial cavity, for Dr. Krause, employing millet 

 as a measuring medium, in place of the shot used by 

 Dr. Maccurdy, found the cranial capacity to be much 

 lower for the natives of New Britain, viz., 1267 c.c. 

 for males and iiSo c.c. for females. Dr. Maccurdy 

 directs attention to a remarkable observation which 

 \'irchow made on three skulls from a common grave 

 in New Britain. One was that of a man with a 

 capacit}- of 2100 c.c, the other of a woman with 

 a capacity of only 860 c.c. Virchow explained the 

 difference as being due to the fact that the man had 

 suffered from hydrocephaly, while the woman had 

 "been a subject of imbecility. It would be ver\" in- 



