July ii, 1918] 



NATURE 



11^ 



the origin of the features of "The Moon's Face," 

 in a presidential address to the Philosophical Society 

 of AVashington in 1892. In 1890 he had described 

 the history of the Niagara River for the Commis- 

 sioners of the State Reservation, and in 1907, when 

 schemes for utilising the water-power of the 

 falls threatened the normal continuation of their 

 erosive action, he reported on their rate of re- 

 cession both on the Canadian and on the American 

 side. Almost simultaneously his unfailing judg- 

 ment was called on to investigate the disastrous 

 earthquake of 1906 at San Francisco. Among his 

 later work may be cited an experimental study on 

 river-transport (U.S. Geol. Surv., Professional 

 Paper 86, 19 14). 



Dr. Gilbert was a man of strong build and fine 

 presence, equally considerate to his colleagues and 

 to the younger workers whom his methods and 

 personality inspired. Those who were privileged 

 to meet him in various lands will readily acknow- 

 ledge that he was and remains one of those who 

 have well deserved the title "great." 



Grenville a. J. Cole. 



NOTES. 



The report of the council of the British Association 

 was received and adopted at the statutory meeting 

 of the general committee held on Friday last, July 5. 

 Much disappointment was expressed that no ordinary 

 meeting had been held for the second year in suc- 

 cession, and a resolution was adopted unanimously 

 asking the council to arrange for a meeting in London 

 next year if it should not be possible to meet at 

 Bournemouth. It was left to the council to decide 

 whether the meeting should be of the usual kind, 

 with the various sections of the Association in session, 

 or should take the form of a conference at which some 

 of the national aspects of scientific work would be 

 presented. We urged the desirability of a London 

 meeting several months ago, and are' glad, therefore, 

 that the general committee has expressed itself so 

 decidedly in favour of it. 



Sir Edward Schai-er, professor of physiology in 

 the University of Edinburgh, wishes it to be known 

 that he is adopting the name of Sharpey before the. 

 surname of Schafer. 



VVe regret to see the announcement of the death, on 

 June 29, at sixty-five years of age, of Prof. Alfred 

 Senier, professor of chemistry and lecturer in medical 

 jurisprudence and hygiene ' in l^niversity College, 

 Galway. 



Prof. J. N. Langi.ev, professor of physiology in the 

 University of Cambridge; Sir F. W. Dyson, 

 Astronomer Royal ; Prof. Horace Lamb, professor of 

 mathematics in the University of Manchester; and 

 Sir E. Rutherford, Langworthy professor of physics 

 in the University of Manchester, have been elected 

 foreign members of the Reale Accadcmia dei Lincei, 

 Rome. 



We regret to record the death on June 24 of Prof. 

 i". P. Treadwell, professor of analvtical chemistry at 

 the Polytechnic Institute, Zurich.' Prof. Treadwell 

 was a native of the United States, where he was born 

 in 1857. He came early to Europe, and entered the 

 University of Heidelberg in 1875, graduating three 

 years later. For some time he acted as lecture as- 

 sistant to Bunsen, and then proceeded to Zurich, where 

 XO. 2541, VOL. lOl] 



he served in a similar capacity under Victor Meyer. 

 Eventually, in 1894, he received the appointment to a 

 professorship, which he retained until his death. Dur- 

 ing his long stay of more than thirty years at Zurich 

 Prof. Treadwell became a well-known and respected 

 figure in the town. His name is familiar in this 

 country and abroad by reason of his two-volume 

 treatise on analytical chemistry, of which eight 

 editions have appeared. That he retained an active 

 interest in the branch of chemistry to which he had 

 devoted himself is shown by the fact that not long 

 ago, with a collaborator, he worked out a new method 

 for estimating thiocyanic acid and hydrogen sulphide 

 iodometrically. 



Among the points discussed by Lord Moulton in his 

 -presidential address to the Institute of Gas Engineers 

 on June 4 was the question of replacing the existing 

 statutory illumination standards for coal-gas by 

 standards based upon calorific value. With the use 

 of the incandescent mantle now almost universal, it 

 has become immaterial whether gas possesses illumin- 

 ating power or not. The effect of the mantle depends 

 on the calorific value of the gas, not on its light- 

 giving properties. Provided that the gas will give 

 out the requisite heat to raise the mantle to its proper 

 degree of incandescence, the illumination obtained is 

 from six to eight times that given by gas of statutory 

 quality when used without the mantle. The illumin- 

 ating projx^rties, moreover, are conferred uix)n gas by 

 the heavy hydrocarbons (olefines and benzene), which 

 could be better used in other ways — partly as fuels, 

 partly as a source of the impKartant hydrocarbons 

 which yield us our dyes, explosives, and other chemical 

 products. That a large portion of these valuable sub- 

 stances should be sacrificed in imparting to coal-gas 

 a property which has ceased to be of value is a loss 

 to the community which should not be allowed to 

 continue. 



At a symposium of the Zoological Society of America 

 two addresses (reported in Science, May 17, pp. 473- 

 81) were deHvered on the value of zoology. In one 

 of these Prof. M. F. Guyer, of Wisconsin University, 

 deals with the utilitarian value, shrewdly premising 

 (i) that widening the intellectual horizon and casting 

 out the twin devils of superstition and ignorance are 

 more useful gains than those which make for material 

 well-being; and (2) that nowhere outside zoologv 

 "are there greater opportunities for developing that 

 questioning, impartial, problem-solving attitude of 

 mind which must obtain, if truth and sanity are to 

 rule the world." He then proceeds to give vivid 

 illustrations of the contributions zoology has made to 

 the problems of health and disease, agriculture and 

 animal husbandry, the conservation of natural re- 

 sources, the utilisation of fisheries, and human eugenics. 

 The other address, by Prof. H. B. Torrey, of Reed 

 College, deals with the value of zoological science to 

 the individual — the mythical average man — as organ- 

 ism, as citizen, and as personality. He justlv sets great 

 store on the educative value of getting, or trying to 

 get, a clear view of distinctively biological concepts, 

 such as organism, growth, development, behaviour, 

 adaptability, evolution. These are all vivid, dynamic 

 conceptions, the lack of which has often been a handi- 

 cap, even to minds of the first rank. He indicates 

 that amelioration of human life must have a scientific 

 foundation (though other than cognitive factors may 

 also be fundamental), and that zoology includes a vast 

 realm of important facts bearing on or directly touch- 

 ing this complex life of ours. On another tack he 

 IX)ints out that zoology is rapidly progressive, with 

 problems for all comers to work at, a wholesome 

 stimulation to all intellectual combatants. In bio- 



