28 



NATURE 



[March 14, 19 18 



Institution af Mining and Metallurgy ; Mr. R. Arthur 

 Thomas, Cornish Chamber of Mines ; and Sir Richard 

 Threlfall, Advisory Council for Scientific and Indus- 

 trial Research; with Mr. A. Richardson as secretary 

 (15 Great George Strtet, Westminster, S.W.i). The 

 Board, after consultation with its Research Com- 

 mittee, has authorised extended lines of research with 

 the view of increasing the recovery of metal in the 

 treatment of ores. 



In his lecture on " Chemical Research in Relation 

 to Industry " (Adelaide : G. Hassell and Son) Dr. Har- 

 greaves says little that is new and nothing that is not 

 true. The arguments he uses apply equally to us here 

 and to our colleagues in the Antipodes. Dr. Hargreaves 

 is Director of the Department of Chemistry of South 

 Australia, which Department he describes as a con- 

 necting link between the industries and the pure man 

 of science, and his lecture deals with two main topics : 

 first, the need for closer co-operation between scientific 

 men and business men ; secondly, the need for paying 

 chemists an adequate salary in order to get the right 

 men. We are, in this country, face to face with the 

 same two questions, and there is a grave risk that 

 Great Britain as a whole will not realise their 

 importance. There are indications that the scien- 

 tific world here is now convinced on both these points, 

 but the majority of business men keep aloof from 

 science, and have been of late too busy with their own 

 difficult problems to apply their minds to an investiga- 

 tion of matters outside their usual routine. Dr. Har- 

 greaves 's lecture is temperately written and contains 

 some useful suggestions. It is to be hoped that a real 

 effort will be made to interest the commercial men in 

 this country in these problems of pressing and national 

 importance, but present conditions make it difficult to 

 start a crusade of the necessary dimensions. 



Mr. W. J. Uglow Woolcock, the registrar and 

 secretary of the Pharmaceutical Society, has been ap- 

 pointed secretary of the Association of British Chemical 

 Manufacturers, 



Mr. F. W. Hodge, head of the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution since 1905, 

 has resigned, and has been succeeded by Dr. J. W. 

 Fewkes, who has been on the Bureau's staff since 1895. 



We notice with regret the announcement of the 

 death of Prof. E. W. Davis, dean of the College of 

 Arts and Sciences and head of the Department of 

 Mathematics of the University of Nebraska, at the 

 age of sixty years. 



The death is announced, at the age of seventy-three 

 years, at Dorchester, Mass., of Mr. Paul S. Yendell, 

 known particularly by his studies of the light-curves 

 and periods of variable stars of the Algol and short- 

 period types. 



We learn from Science that Prof. Rollin D. Salis- 

 bury, head of the Department of Geography and dean 

 of the Ogden Graduate School of Science at the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago, has been awarded the Helen Culver 

 gold medal of the Geographic Society of Chicago. 

 Prof. Salisibury was the first president of the society 

 twenty years ago. 



The meeting of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 

 on April 11 will be held at King's College, Strand, 

 W.C.2, at 6 p.m., and will be a joint meeting with the 

 electrical section of the Royal Society of Medicine. 

 Papers will be read on the subject of " Medical Elec- 

 tricity," and there will be an exhibition of apparatus. 



The Rontgen Society has recently founded an annual 

 lecture in memory of its first president, the late Prof. 



NO. 2524, VOL. lOl] 



Silvanus P. Thompson. The first "Silvanus Thomp- 

 son Memorial Lecture " will* be delivered by Sir Ernest 

 Rutherford at the next meeting of the society, to be 

 held on Tuesday, April 9, at 8 p.m. The council •will 

 be pleased to welcome all interested, and applications- 

 for cards of admission should be made to the hon. 

 secretary of the society, Dr. S. Russ, Middlesex Hos- 

 pital, London, W.i. Further particulars will be an- 

 nounced in due course. 



The sudden death, on Januarv 20 last, in his fifty- 

 fifth year, of Dr. Rollin A. Harris, of the U.S. Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey, is announced in Science, Dr. 

 Harris entered the Tidal Division of the U.S. Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey in 1890, and his " Manual of 

 Tides" appeared in six parts between 1884 and 1907. 

 In 191 1 a monograph by him on "Arctic Tides" was 

 published by the Survey. In addition, Dr. Harris was 

 the author of numerous papers on the theory of func- 

 tions with applications to physics, geodesy, and carto- 

 graphy. 



We much regret to learn of the death of Dr. Lewis 

 Moysey, who Avas lost by the torpedoing of the hospital 

 ship Glenart Castle on February 26. Dr. Moysey had 

 only just joined the ship as one of its medical officers,, 

 and he was not among the survivors. Dr. Moysey, 

 previous to the war, had long been in practice as a 

 medical man at Nottingham. He was a very keen 

 palaeontologist, g-reatly interested in the rarer fossils 

 of the coalfield around his home,- and to the collection 

 of such specimens in the field he had for many years 

 devoted the scanty leisure of a busy professional life. 

 He thus acquired an exceptionally fine series both of 

 plant and animal remains, some of which he described 

 in a number of papers, especially before the British 

 Association, and others he placed in the hands of 

 friends who were specialists in these departments. Only 

 a few weeks before his death he handed over as gifts 

 his entire collections, the plant remains to the Univer- 

 sity of Cambridge, and the animal fossils to the Geo- 

 logical Survey. Dr. Moysey possessed great charm of 

 manner, and his loss will be much deplored among 

 those interested in the palaeontology of the older rocks. 



We regretfully record the death on February 6 of 

 Capt. S. Gordon McDakin (retired), formerly of the 

 Black Watch, but long resident in Dover, and there 

 taking a leading interest in scientific affairs. During 

 many years he presided over meetings of the Dover 

 Sciences 'Society. His latest paper, on "Some Re- 

 markable Mountains," was published in 1909 by the 

 East Kent Scientific Society, which he also addressed 

 on " Coast Erosion " and on " Fissure Flows of Lava." 

 The former subject he brought before his home society, 

 coupled with that of " Sea Temperature," and- later on 

 addressed it on the topic of " Shingle and Conglomer- 

 ates in Reference to Local Deposits." That he was a 

 trustworthy botanist is indicated by his papers on 

 "Verification of Records of Flora" and "Verification 

 of Botanical Records," the latter in partnership with 

 the Rev. J. Taylor. At the initial constituent meet- 

 ing of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies 

 in 1896 Capt. McDakin was one of the Dover dele- 

 gates. His cheerful presence became welcome at everv 

 congress, generally in company with his wife, who 

 encouraged him in his favourite pursuits. Science is 

 apt sometimes to groan a little under its own weight 

 of production. Capt. McDakin was therefore a useful 

 type of man, content to inspire in his neighbours 

 appreciation of scientific work, without appealing to 

 the Press for any isolid monument to himself. 



An Entomological Society of Spain has lately been 

 founded, with its centre for the present at St. Saviour's 

 College, Saragossa. Dr. Hermenegildo Gorrfa, of 



