April 25, 1918] 



NATURE 



149 



in which many a manufacturer in the belligerent 

 countries has found himself during the war with 

 regard to both raw materials and partly manu- 

 factured products. 



Numerous other committees have been formed, 

 but the foregoing notes will be sufficient to indi- 

 cate the far-reaching scope of the National 

 Council's activities and the practical character of 

 the work it proposes to undertake. Throughout 

 the programmes of work laid down, but especially 

 in that of the Botanical Raw Products Committee, 

 it is interesting to note that the problems to be 

 solved are of immediate practical importance, and 

 that close co-operation with traders and manufac- 

 turers in solving them is considered essential. 



T. A. H. 



The British Science Guild is organising a coiT^jre- 

 hensive British Scientific Products Exhibation, to be 

 held at King's College, London, for four weeks during 

 the coming summer. The exhibition will comprise 

 a large display of products and appliances of scientific 

 and industrial interest which prior to the war were 

 obtained chiefly from enemy countries, but are now 

 prodiiced in the United Kingdom. Much has been 

 accomplished by our manufacturers since the opening 

 of the war in industries in which previously we had 

 been falling behind, and it is beheveti that the exhibi- 

 tion will have a sitimulating influence upon scientific 

 and industrial research by bringing home to the public 

 the supreme importance of science in industry. Par- 

 ticulars of the exhibition will be issued siiortly. 



According to Press reports, platinum has been dis- 

 covered in some quartz deposits in the Ober Rosbach 

 district of the Taunus Mountains (Germany). Steps 

 have already been taken to work the deposits. 



The death of Mr. Daniel Macalister on April 12 

 is announced in Engineering for April 19. Mr. Mac- 

 alister was the engineer and superintendent of the 

 Greenock Corporation Water Department, and had 

 also acted as the resident engineer during the con- 

 struction of the James Watt Dock. He joined the 

 Institution of Civil Engineers in :882, and held the 

 institution's Miller prize. 



We regret to record the death of Mr. Richard B. 

 Prosser, which occurred on March 26. Mr. Prosser 

 was born in Birmingham in 1838, and was regarded 

 as one of our hest authorities on the history of in- 

 vention. He was connected for about twenty years 

 with the Patent Office Library, and became super- 

 intendent examiner of specifications in 1883. An 

 account of his career appears in Engineering for 

 April 19. 



By way of supplement to tlie leaflet entitled, " Birds, 

 Insects, and Crops," the Royal Society for the Pro- 

 tection of Birds (23 Queen Anne'5 Gate, S.W.i) has 

 issued a series of twelve "Bird-Ally" postcards, each 

 bearing on the front a quotation as to the value of 

 birds on the land, w-hile the back is left free for 

 writing. The postcards, which can be had for 4^d. a 

 packet, should be useful at the present time, when 

 the Board of Agriculture has warned growers of 

 probable insect plagues. 



The death is announced, in his eighty-sixth year, of 

 Mr. E. T. Wilson, a well-known medical man, of 

 Cheltenham. In 190 1 Mr. Wilson was tihe president of 



NO. 2530, VOL. lOl] 



the Medical Section when the Britisih Medical Associa- 

 tion met at Cheltenham. He contributed numerous 

 papers to the medical periodicals, and was the author 

 of "Sanitary Statistics of Cheltenham." He founded 

 a naturalists' society at Cheltenham, and was in- 

 terested in the collection of Neolithic flint implements. 

 His son, Dr. E. A. Wilson, was a member of Captain 

 Scott's Antarctic Expedition, and died on the journey 

 from the South Pole. 



The subject of the Jackson ian prize of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons of England for 19 19 is to be 

 "The Investigation and Treatment of Injuries of the 

 Thorax received in War." The John Tomes prize 

 of the college for the period 1915 to 1917 has 

 been awarded to Mr. J. G. Turner for his 

 work on the subject of dental pathology. In con- 

 sequence of the temporary removal of the pathological 

 specimens of the museum of the college for greater 

 safety, the delivery of the Erasmus Wilson lectures, 

 and the demonstrations, are to be discontinued for 

 the duration of the war. 



By the death, at the age of seventy-seven, of CoL 

 George Adolphus Jacob, India has lost an accom- 

 plished scholar. Belonging to a well-known Anglo- 

 Indian family, which included the famous founder of 

 Jacob's Horse, he entered the Indian service at the 

 age of sixteen in the Bombay Presidency, where he 

 mastered the Marathi language, and later on devoted 

 himself to the study of Sanskrit. His chief work was 

 done in philosophical literatuVe — a monumental con- 

 cordance to the principal Upanishads and the 

 Bhagavad Gita, and his manual of Indian Pantheism, 

 the best introduction to the Vedanta. His oflicial work 

 was the Directorship of Military Education, and he 

 acted as examiner in Sanskrit and Marathi for the 

 University of Bombay. The University of Cambridge 

 conferred on this eminent scholar the honorarv degree 

 of Litt.D. 



In the Nieuwe Courant Dr. I. P. Lotsy recenllv 

 directed attention to the hybridisation experiments of 

 Mr. R. Houvvink, a private breeder of Meppel, Holland, 

 who has tested Darwin's view that our domestic fowls 

 are derived from Gallus bankhiva. He has obtained 

 fertile hybrids of this species ivith G. Sonnerati, and 

 also with G. furcatus. The latter hybrid was again fer- 

 tile with G. bankhiva, whence it would appear that all 

 three species may be among the ancestors of domestic 

 breeds. Domesticated rabbits have been found fertile 

 both with wild rabbits and with hares, and hybridisation 

 experiments are also in progress with jackals, foxes, and 

 wolves, in order to determine the ori^MU of domestic 

 breeds of doi,''s. l\xpfrinicnts on tin- 1 lossinq- of wild 

 and domestiiai.il pii^- aic Niih^idi^i il li\ \\m- Dutch 

 Government. 



The Times of April 19 and 20 contained letters bv 

 Mr. W. Baden-Powell and Mr. R. B. Mars-ton direit'- 

 ing attention to the Order about .to be made hv iIk 

 Board of Agriculture and Fisheries authorising th< 

 taking of salmon kelts, subject to rertain coiuiiiion^. 

 It is suggested by both correspon<lenK iliat an (.\((1- 

 lent opportunity is thus afforded for obtaining evidenet 

 with regard to the rather obscure questions whether 

 and to what extent kelts feed in fresh water, and 

 also whether they destroy the young of their own 

 species. Many angler^ would probably be glad to 

 talie out the stomachs and digestive organs of the 

 fish they kill and send these, with full particulars, to 

 scientific men appointed by the Board. Hitherto it 

 has been illegal to take kelts, and so the evidence 

 with regard to .their feedijg habit- i- m r\ unsaii-- 

 factory and meagre. Mr. W^ J. M. .\I< nzie>, in tin 



