March 28, 19 18] 



NATURE 



69 



ing worlc in excess of what would have •been learned 

 by an apprentice in the same period under pre-war con- 

 (Ktions. There are three causes for this: — (i) Women 

 have been definitely taught, whereas the apprentice had 

 to pick up the trade ; (2) women have, for the most 

 part, been intensively taught everything in the shop 

 itself under production conditions rather than in the 

 school ; (3) the conditions of the time have spurred on 

 everybody to greater effort, from patriotic motives. 

 Experience has shown that women should be controlled 

 and organised by their own sex if the best results are 

 to be obtained; also that, wherever there has been 

 proper consideration for women's welfare in factories, 

 there has been no decrease in healthy physical develop- 

 ment, and a decided increase in mental capacity. 



Some time ago the council of the Institution of Naval 

 Architects appointed a committee to inquire into the 

 effects of explosions of mines and torpedoes on the 

 structure of merchant ships. This committee, in its 

 report, states that the loss of many cargo vessels has 

 been due to three causes : — (a) The existence of water- j 

 tight doors low down in the bulkheads, which could not 

 be closed after the explosion ; (b) fractures of suction 

 pipes in the attacked compartment permitting water 

 to flow into adjacent compartments ; (c) the penetration 

 of bulkheads adjacent to the attached compartments by 

 fragments of plating, frames, rivets, etc. The com- 

 mittee made several recommendations with the object 

 of minimising these risks, and the Government has 

 adopted and circulated most of these. Speaking in the 

 discussion on Sir George Carter's paper on standard 

 cargo ships, read at the institution's meeting on March 

 20, Mr. Sydney Barnaby, the chairman of • the com- 

 mittee, said the committee had expected to find that the 

 effect of the torpedo on merchant ships would be so 

 severe that their survival could not be hoped for reason- 

 ably. They expected to find that large areas of the 

 shell plating were disturbed and the riveting started, 

 and that possibly bulkheads were carried away by 

 sudden enormous inrushes of water. Their investiga- \ 

 tions showed nothing of the kind. Large as the holes j 

 were, the ship's structure was not affected even in the 

 immediate neighbourhood, and bulkheads had never j 

 given way. In fact, ships were being sunk because 

 watertight compartments were not actually watertight. 



We regret to record the death on March 21 of Dr. 

 R. S. Trevor, pathologist at St. George's Hospital, 

 dean of the medical school, lecturer in pathology, foren- 

 sic medicine, and toxicology, and curator of the 

 museum. 



Science records the death, in his sixty-second year, 

 of Prof. E. A. Engler, president of. the Academy of 

 Science of St. Louis. Prof. Engler was professor of 

 mathematics at Washington University, St. Louis, 

 from 1881 to 1901, and dean of the school of engineer- 

 ing there from i8q6 to 190 1. He was for ten years 

 president of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. 



The death is announced, in his sixty-first year, of 

 Sir John Anderson, K.C.B., Governor and Commander- 

 in-Chief of Ceylon since 1916. In 1901 Sir John 

 .Anderson was in attendance on King George, then 

 Duke of Cornwall and York, as representative of the 

 Colonial Office, during the Royal Colonial tour. From 

 1904 to 191 1 he was Governor of the Straits Settle- 

 ments andiHigh Commissioner for the Federated Malay 

 States. 



The annual general meeting of the Ray Society was 

 held on March 14, the president. Prof. W. C. Mcintosh, 

 in the chair. The report of the council and the 

 Account of income and expenditure were read and 

 adopted. Sir David Prain was elected a vice-president 



NO. 2526, VOL. lOl] 



in -succession to Prof. E. B. Poulton, retiring by 

 seniority, Prof. Mcintosh was re-elected president. Dr. 

 S. F. Harmer treasurer, and Mr. John Hopkinson 

 secretary. 



The annual gold medal of the Institution of Naval 

 Architects has l^en awarded tb Prof. G. W. Hovgaard, 

 of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for his 

 paper on "The Buoyancy and Stability of Submarines," 

 and the premium to Mr. J. J. King-Salter, of Sydney, 

 for his paper on "The Influence of Running Balance 

 of Propellers on the Vibration of Ships." As already 

 announced, the Martell scholarship for 1917 and the 

 Earl of Durham's prize have been awarded respec- 

 tively to Mr. H. C. Carey and Mr. H. D. Leggett. 



A JOINT meeting of the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers and the Electrical Section of the Royal 

 Society of Medicine will be held at the Cancer Hospital, 

 Fulha'm Road, S.W., on Thursday, April 11, at 7.30 

 p.m., instead of at King's Cbllege, as previously an- 

 nounced. The following papers will be read : — Dr. 

 E. P. Cumberbatch, "Diathermy: the Use of Elec- 

 tt-icity for Heating the Tissues of the Body in 

 Disease " ; Dr. R.. Knox, " Single Flash (Instantaneous) 

 Radiography : its Possibilities and Limitations." There 

 will also be an exhibition of electro-medical apparatus. 



The annual general meeting of the Chemical Society 

 was held at Burlington House on March 21, when the 

 Longstaff medal for 19 18 was presented to Lt-.-Col. 

 \. W. Crossley, C.M.G., for his work in the 

 field of hydroaromatic compounds. Prof. W. J. Pope 

 delivered his presidential address, and at the conclu- 

 sion of his address it was announced that the following 

 new members of council had been elected : — As new 

 vice-presidents. Prof. F. G. Donnan and Prof. W. P. 

 Wynne; and as new ordinary members of council, 

 Mr. J. L. Baker, Prof. J. C. Irvine, Sir Herbert 

 Jackson, and Mr. E. W. Voelcker. 



The annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute 

 will be held on Thursday and Friday, May 2 and 3. 

 On the opening day the retiring president (Sir William 

 Beardmore, Bart.) will induct into the chair the presi- 

 dent-elect (Mr. Eugene Schneider), Sir William Beard- 

 more will be presented with the Bessemer medal for 

 1918, and the president will deliver his inaugural ad- 

 dress. On May 3 the award of grants from the Andrew 

 Carnegie Research Fund in aid of research work will 

 be announced. Twenty-one papers are included in the 

 list for the meetinf^. and selections from them will be 

 read and discus.'-ed. 



The death is announced, in his sixty-seventh year, of 

 Dr. Samuel G. Dixon, professor of bacteriology and 

 microscopic technology at the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, Philadelphia, since iSgo, and president of that 

 institution since 1896. For more than twenty years 

 he was professor of hygiene at the University of Penn- 

 sylvania. His principal work was done in the pre- 

 vention and treatment of tuberculosis, and his con- 

 troversy with Prof. Koch over the priority of discovery 

 of a method of preventing that disease in the lower 

 animals created considerable stir in the scientific world 

 some years ago. Of late years Dr. Dixon had ren- 

 dered exceptional service in connection with the De- 

 partment of Health of the State of Pennsylvania, of 

 which he was placed at the head as commissioner when 

 it was established in 1905. 



.The following are among the lecture arrangements 

 at the Royal Institution after Easter : — Prof. John 

 Joly, two lectures on scientific signalling and safety at 

 sea ; Ptof . .Arthur Keith, five lectures on British anthro- 

 pologists ; Lt.-Col. C. S. Myers, two lectures on pre- 

 sent-day applications of experimental psychology ; Sir 

 James Frazer, two lectures on (1) the folk-lore of bells. 



