September 13, 1917] 



NATURE 



2Q 



■ war they will be able to present a united front 

 the problems which await solution. The very in- 

 itntial Association of British Chemical Manufac- 

 lers is now firmly established and doing much good 

 ide-work. It is a hopeful sign that a healthy spirit 

 give-and-take is abroad, and the amalgamations 

 , hich have been announced from time to time — notably 

 that recently made public of the firms engaged in the 

 explosives industry — are pregnant with meaning for the 

 future. One of the most important industrial problems 

 of the immediate future is the relation between capital 

 and labour. A body provisionally termed the Wages 

 Committee of Chemical Manufacturers, but which will 

 shortly have a more national title, has been called into i 

 being for this purpose, and has already received the 

 support of the majority of chemical employers. Its ; 

 immediate object is the adjustment of wages questions ^ 

 arising out of the present abnormal cost of living, but 

 ultimately it will probably act together with the trade i 

 union representatives as the clearing-house for all ques- j 

 tions affecting the relation of masters and men in the i 

 industry on the lines suggested by the Whitley Com- 

 mission. Although the association and the Wages ! 

 Committee are necessarily separate bodies they will 

 work together in the closest harmony. We have re- 

 ceived particulars of the formation of a new body with 

 the title of the National Association of Industrial 

 Chemists, which appears to be a trades union of indus- 

 trial chemists. The objects of the new body are the 

 economic, intellectual, and social advancement of in- 

 dustrial chemists, and the promotion of the interests 

 of its members by collective action. A start has been 

 made in the Sheffield district, where the new union 

 has received general support. The development of the 

 new association will be watched with interest. 



>N an article in the issue of the Scientific American 

 August 18 Mr. C. H. Claudy gives a brief account 

 the way in which the resources of science are being 

 bilised for war by the United States. He explains 

 V the National Research Council, the constitution 

 which has already been described in these columns, 

 is acting as the Department of Science and Research 

 of the Council of National Defence — which means that 

 practically every research laboratory and practically 

 every man of science is at the service of the United 

 States, and to a large extent now engaged in war 

 work. The National Research Council includes the 

 chiefs of the technical bureaus of the Army and Navy, 

 heads of Government bureaus engaged in scientific 

 research, and groups of investigators representing edu- 

 cational institutions, research foundations, and repre- 

 sentatives of industrial and engineering research. The 

 representatives of the Government were appointed by 

 the President. The chairman. Dr. G. E. Hale, the 

 director of Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, is giving 

 his entire time to the work in Washington. The work 

 of the council is being done by about thirty-one com- 

 mittees, and naturally no details of the results of their 

 labours are available for publication. As an example 

 of the activities of the. council it may be said that the 

 Physics Committee is engaged in an exhaustive study 

 for detecting submerged submarines and mines, in 

 studying and devising range-finders of various types 

 and instruments for the discovery of invisible aircraft 

 and sapping parties, as well as in making improve- 

 ments in wireless and other instruments used in the 

 air. The greatest research laboratories, outside those 

 of the universities, are maintained by some of the 

 large manufacturing establishments. Several of these 

 have not only offered their services, but have turned 

 over whole staffs of experts, as well as the most com- 

 plete of laboratory equipments, to the work of the 

 council. Mr. Claudy sums up the work of the council 

 by saying it can be considered as a clearing-house for 



NO. 2498, VOL. 100] 



men of science, a mobilising office for scientific facili- 

 ties. " It provides the short cut between the man whd 

 knows the problem and the men who may find th 

 answer. It has made a solid unit out of the laboratoi \ 

 and research facilities of the country and provided itself 

 with such complete information that there is practic- 

 ally no question which Army or Navy can ask of 

 science that it cannot supply the best man, the best 

 equipment, to attempt to find the answer." 



We notice with regret the announcement in the 

 Times of September 8 that Prof. .Adolf von Baeyer, 

 foreign member of the Royal Society, and Liebig's 

 successor in the chair of chemistry at the University of 

 Munich, has just died in his eighty-second year. 



During the past season Dr. Smith Woodward has 

 spent six weeks, partly in association with Prof. Elliot 

 Smith and Major C. Ashburnham, in exploring the 

 Piltdown gravel. Although a large amount of undis- 

 turbed material was sifted and carefully examined 

 round the periphery of the pit in which the original 

 discovery of Eoanthropus was made, nothing was found 

 except one unimportant fragment of the tibia of a 

 deer. 



The Times announces the death on September lo, on 

 the eve of his eighty-seventh birthday, of Mr. Percy G. 

 Westmacott, one of the notable engineers of the middle 

 of last century. Mr. Westmacott was a pioneer in the 

 use of hydraulics, specially for cranes, lock-gates, 

 bridges, and grain elevators, etc., the swing bridge at 

 Newcastle being one of the best-known examples of hi^ 

 inventions in this line. He collaborated throughout in 

 the construction and development of the famous 

 Armstrong gun. He was president of the Institution 

 of Mechanical Engineers in 1883 and 1884, and only 

 gave up his close association with engineering work 

 in 1887 owing to ill-health. 



The ninety-ninth annual meeting of the Socidt^ 

 Helv6tique des Sciences Naturelles is being held this 

 week at Zurich. The following lectures are included 

 in the programme : — Prof. A. L. Perrier (Lausanne), 

 The orientation of molecules in physics and crystallo- 

 graphy : a sketch of a fruitful hypothesis and its con- 

 sequences ; Prof. F. Baltzer (Bern), The development 

 and heredity of bastards; Prof. R. Chodat (Geneva), 

 A botanic voyage to Paraguay ; Prof. E. Bleuler 

 (Ziirich), The newest psychological directions in 

 psychiatry and their importance in other subjects; 

 Prof. E. Argand (NeuchStel), the phases of alpine fold- 

 ing; Friednch Schmid (Oberhelfenschwyl), The zodi- 

 acal light, a chapter in meteorological optics. 



The loss of its librarian, Mr. E. E. Riseley, who 

 was killed in action on August i, will be severely felt 

 bv the Linnean Society. Mr. Riseley was bom at 

 Abbots Ripton, on February 15, 1889, the only son of 

 his parents, and at \he age of fifteen became library 

 clerk to the Zoological Society; there he acquired an 

 excellent knowledge of zoological literature and library 

 methods, which stood him in good stead when he 

 became assistant librarian to the Linnean Society in 

 the spring of 1914- From the autumn of that year he 

 was the librarian, and his energy resulted in great 

 improvements in the arrangement of the books, whilst 

 his quickly gained knowledge of the special volumes 

 in the library, made his services greatly appreciated, 

 and a long career seemed to be his, when it was 

 suddenly cut short by his death. 



By the death of Prof. Eduard Buchner, professor of 

 chemistry, Breslau University, on the Western front 

 near Verdun, Germany has lost one of her most dis- 

 tinguished workers in the field of biochemistn,-. It was 

 in 1897 that Buchner made the memorable observation 



