May 30, 19 1 8] 



NATURE 



249 



contained in them; were infested, thus indicating that 

 the moths had gained* access to them in the factory 

 prior to packing. By means of a thermo-couple the 

 temperature in the centre of the biscuits during baking 

 was tested, and found to rise to a minimum of just 

 above 100° C. It is considered improbable that insect- 

 eggs, if present in the dough, could survive this tem- 

 perature. The infestation of the biscuits must take 

 place, therefore, during the cooling and prior to the 

 tins being soldered. The authors suggest that a strong 

 draught of screened cooled air should be passed over 

 the biscuits immediately they have been baked; this- 

 would cool them more rapidly, and render it 

 practically impossible for the moths to oviposit on 

 them. Further, the packed tins might be punctured^ 

 heated to a lethal temperature, and then soldered up ; 

 but against this there are certain technical difficulties, 

 and also the question of expense. 



Mr. D'Arcy Power has been appointed Bradshaw 

 lecturer of the Royal College of Surgeons of England 

 for the ensuing year. 



The Royal Society's Croonian lecture will be de- 

 livered by Major W. B. Cannon on Thursday, June 20, 

 the subject being "The Physiological Basis of Thirst." 



The Bathgate memorial prize of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons of Edinburgh, consisting of a bronze 

 medal and books, has been awarded to Miss J. A. 

 Sang. 



The medal of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, 

 has been awarded to Senator G. Marconi and Dr. 

 T. C. Mendenhall. The presentations were made at 

 the meeting of the.institute on May 15. 



At the ordinary scientific meeting of the Chemical 

 Society to be held on Thursday, June 6, Dr. Horace T. 

 Brown will deliver a lecture entitled "The Principles 

 of Diffusion : Their Analogies and Applications." 



Sir James Dewar has been awarded the medal of 

 the Society of Chemical Industry in recognition of 

 the conspicuous services which, by his research work 

 in both pure and applied science,' he has rendered' to 

 chemical industry. 



The seventieth annual general meeting of the 

 Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History 

 Society will be held in the Municipal Hall, Taunton, 

 on Tuesday, July 23, under the presidency of ProK 

 F. J. Haverfield, who will deliver a short address 

 on "The Character of the Roman Empire as Seen 

 in West Somerset." 



The eighth geophysical discussion arranged by the 

 British Association Geophysical Committee will be held 

 at the Royal Astronomical Society on Wednesday, 

 June 12, at 5 p.m., Rear-Admiral J. F. Parry, Hydro- 

 grapher of the Navy, in the chair. The subject will 

 be "The Tides," and the opener will be Prof. H. 

 Lamb, who will be followed by Prof. Love, Mr. Proud- 

 man, and others. 



The following, officers and new members of council 

 of the Institution, of Electrical Engineers have been 

 elected for the ensuing year :—Prestdf«t : Mr. C. H. 

 Wordingham. Vice-Presidents: Mr. W. A; Chamen, 

 Mr. R. A. Chattock. Hon. Treasurer: Mr. J. E. 

 Kingsbury. Ordinary Metrt^ers of Council: Mr. 

 H. W. Clothier, Mr. D; U. Dunlop, Sir R. A. 

 Hadfiekl,.. Bart., Prof. E, W. Marchant, Mt. C. C. 

 Peterson, and Mr. J. Sayers. 



The officers of the Linnean Society elected for the 

 ensuing, year are .-^President : Sir David Praln. 

 Treasurer: Mr. H. W. Monckton. Secretaries: Dr. 



NO. 2535, VOL. lOl] 



B. Daydon Jackson, Mr. E. S. Goodrich, Dr. A. B. 

 Rendle. The new members of council are : — Mr. S. 

 Edwards, Prof. J. B. Farmer, Mr. C. C. Lacaita^ 

 Mr. R. Innes Pocock, and Miss A. Lorrain Smith. 



The British Medical Journal announces the death 

 on March 3, at sixty-six years of age, of Prof. C. 

 Blarez, professor of chemistry in the University of 

 Bordeaux. We learn that Prof. Blarez published more, 

 than two hundred memoirs on pure or applied 

 chemistry, and was the author of a course of organic 

 chemistry in three volumes, and of monographs on 

 the urine and on milk. His last publication was a 

 treatise on wines and spirits embodying the results of 

 forty years' work. 



A STRONG earthquake visittxl La Serena, the capital 

 of the province of Coquimbo, in Chile, at i p.m. on 

 May 20, but the damage to the town seems, according 

 to the telegram of the Times correspondent, to have 

 resulted from fires rather than from the shock itself. 

 The disturbed area was of considerable extent, the 

 shock being felt at Valparaiso, about 210 miles, and. 

 Santiago, about 2C0 miles, to the south of La Serena. 

 As a seismic district the province of Coquimbo is 

 one of the most sensitive in Chile, but there is nothing 

 in the brief account to indicate that the recent earth- 

 quake was of unusual severitx'. 



We regret to leiirn of the death of Prof. Victor 

 Commont, of the Normal .School at Amiens, in his 

 fifty-second year. Prof. Commont was an accom- 

 plished geologist and anthropologist who devoted the 

 leisure of a busy life to the detailed study of the river 

 deposits in the valley of the Somme, where Boucher 

 de Perthes first brought Palaeolithic implements to the 

 notice of the scientific world. Prof. Commont 's re- 

 searches added precision to the earlier work, and his 

 classic papers on the succession of implement-bearing 

 deposits in the Somme valley form models to be fol- 

 lowed wherever similar investigation's are undertaken. 

 In the neighbourhood of Amiens he identified deposits 

 of all periods from that of the earliest Palaeolithic man 

 to that of the Iron age, and in numerous sections he 

 clearly discovered their relationships. He also devoted' 

 much attention to the implements themselves, and had 

 an unrivalled knowledge of the successive types. In 

 1913 Prof. Commont visited London to examine some 

 of the typical localities in the Thames valley, and to 

 study the newly found collection from Piltdown,. 

 Sussex. His premature death is indeed a serious loss 

 to f)rehistoric research. 



In the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Insti- 

 tute (vol. xlvii., July-December, 1917) Mr. Sidney Ray 

 contributes an elaborate article on "The People and 

 Language of Lifu, Loyalty Islands." Capt. Cook 

 missed the islands of the Loyalty group when he 

 discovered. New Caledonia in 1774, as did D'Entre- 

 casteaux in 1793. Missionary work has gone on since 

 1840 in Mar^, and since 1845 in Lifu, but since the 

 annexation of the Loyalty Islands by France in 1864 

 there has been trouble with missionaries of the Pro- 

 testant Church, and at present there is only one 

 English missionary in the island. Mr. Ray's paper 

 gives a series of glossaries and notes on the culture of 

 the inhabitants. The use of a ceremonious language 

 employed when addressing or referring to a person of 

 high rank is an interesting and peculiar custom in 

 Lifu and Nengone, but is strangely absent in the 

 neighbouring island of Uvea. 



Dr. Walthr Collinge, in the Scottish Naturalist 

 -for May, directs attention to the very unsatisfactory 

 methods commonly in use by economic ornithologists 

 for estimating the f6od contents of the stomach ot' 



