September 27, 191 7] 



NATURE 



71 



>outh Kensington, in the Geological and Mineral Gal- 

 It ries, on Saturday, September 29, at 3 p.m. The 

 demonstration will be conducted by the acting honorary 

 secretary of the society, Mr. W. F. Gwinnell. 



We regret to record the death of Mr. F. O. Erich- 

 sen, which is reported by cable from Buenos Aires. 

 A brief account of his career appears in Engineering 

 for September 21. He was educated at Rugby School, 

 nnd after pupilage with Messrs. James Simpson and 

 o., of London, became chief of their outdoor erection 

 itpartment, m which capacity he was responsible for 

 the erection and duty trials of many large pumping 

 plants, both at home and abroad. Mr. Erichsen was 

 appointed a director of his firm in 19 14, and was an 

 associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 

 and a member of. the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers. 



We regret to note that Engineering for September 

 21 records the death of Mr. B. W. Head, on Septem- 

 ber 12, in Orange River Colony, at the early age of 

 forty-two. After serving an apprenticeship to en- 

 gineering, Mr. Head went to Cambridge, where he 

 took a double first-class in the Mechanical Science 

 Tripos. The work of his firm, Messrs Jeremiah Head 

 and Son, was chiefly connected with steel-works plant, 

 and Mr. Head took an active part in developing this 

 work, both in this country and in America. He was 

 a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and 

 of the Iron and Steel InsEitute. 



Dr. Addison, Minister of Reconstruction, delivered 

 an address on September 22, in the Town Hall, 

 Huddersfield, on " Social Reconstruction after the 

 War." He insisted that in the past this country has 

 not made enough use of brains. How highly trained, 

 scientific men have overcome the ditficulties of supply- 

 ing our armies can never be sufficiently described, and 

 ^^et before the war those men had been paid salaries, 

 in some cases by people who ought to have known 

 better, that were a disgrace to the community. One 

 Jesson of the war has been that it pays to employ 

 irains and to pay for them properly. Later Dr. Addison 

 emphasised the need for a closer association between the 

 iaboratory and the factory. Science must be brought 

 more into industry. One of the chief reasons why 

 J:he Germans invaded our markets is that they organ- 

 ised their buying and selling on comprehensive lines. 

 We must do the same. The steps being taken will 

 remove some of the difficulties in respect of our com- 

 mercial intelligence. As a whole, we get what we 

 .pay for. When men in this work are paid about the 

 wages of clerks we get value for what we pay, but we 

 do not get what we want. Dr. Addison went on to 



• explain that he had had prepared a precise and scien- 

 tific examination of great groups of factories in this 

 •country which shows how efficient plant, method, and 



management yield striking results as compared with 

 places where those conditions do not prevail. In one 

 case, although wages had increased 20 per cent., the 



• cost of production had fallen by 29 per cent. 



Dr. a. W. Bishop, who died at Nottingham on Sep- 

 tember 9, was born at Highg'ate on November 25, 1867. 

 He received his early education at Highgate Grammar 

 School, and later, at the Royal School of Mines, 

 showed a distinct ability in chemistry. From 1887 to 

 1890 Dr. Bishop worked in the laboratory of the late 

 Prof. A. von Baeyer in Munich, and obtained the de- 

 gree of Ph.D. "magna cum laude." At Munich he 

 worked chiefly under the direction of Claisen, with 

 whom he investigated the preparation and reactions of 

 d-oxymethylenecamphor, and his thesis, " Ueber den 

 Formylcamfer," was the result of work carried out 

 with extreme care and ability. In 1890 he became 

 assistant to Prof. W. H. Perkin at the Heriot-Watt 

 NO. 2500, VOL. 100] 



College, Edinburgh ; and in February, 1894, he took 

 up the appointment of professor of chemistry in H.H, 

 the Maharaja's College, Trivandrum, Travancore, S. 

 India. He later became principal of the college, and 

 in 1911 was appointed Director of Public Instruction, 

 from which post he retired in 1915 on account of ill- 

 health, having completed rather more than the ordinary 

 full-time service. On returning to England, he 

 worked under Prof. W. J. Pope in the Cam- 

 bridge University Chemical Laborator>', and later 

 joined the research department of Sir Jesse 

 Boot at Nottingham. It was always a great 

 disappointment to Dr. Bishop that his position in 

 Travancore did not give him any facilities for continu- 

 ing research work, and he looked forward to taking up 

 chemical investigation again alter his retirement. For 

 the greater part of his time in India his work largely 

 consisted in directing first collegiate education, and 

 later the whole of the Education Department in 

 Travancore was under his control. He also did a con- 

 siderable amount of work for the L'niversity of Madras, 

 of which he was a fellow, a member of the Senate, and 

 a member of the Board of Studies in Physics and 

 Chemistry. During the short time that remained to 

 him after leaving India, Dr. Bishop was engaged in 

 the research which he so greatly loved, and less than a 

 week before his death, in a letter to the present writer, 

 he expressed unabated enthusiasm for his work. His 

 connection with India brought him many friends, and 

 whilst they regret his sudden death, they will always 

 remember him with sincere affection and esteem. 



In Folk-Lore (vol. xxviii.. No. 2) Sir James Frazer 

 tells how, on Christmas Day, 1916, a solemn act of 

 anathema was pronounced against the Greek states- 

 man, M. Venizelos. In this case the victim was repre- 

 sented by a bull's head, at which stones were thrown 

 and curses uttered. Sir James Frazer produces many 

 instances in which stones are flung as a form of curs- 

 ing, as in the well-known case of Shimei and King 

 David. The bull's head finds a parallel in the ritual of 

 ancient Egypt, where, according to Herodotus, black 

 oxen were sacrificed, and then the head of the victim 

 was laden with curses. After this rite it was sold to 

 Greeks, if any happened to be present; if not, it was 

 flung into the river. 



In the September issue of Man Mr. A. C. Breton, 

 describing the Tsimhian Crest Poles at Hazelton and 

 Kishpiox, British Columbia, remarks that these in- 

 teresting totemistic objects are now decaying, and are 

 not likely to be replaced. The principal post at Kish- 

 piox had the form of a flagstaff, 80 ft. high, painted 

 with a long black stripe proceeding from a black head 

 with white eyes, at the base of the staff, and this 

 tepresented a snake. On a small enclosed platform in 

 front of this were two carved wooden figures — one the 

 " Grizzly Bear under the sea," the other a finback 

 whale. A good specimen of a similar pole is preserved 

 at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Now that atten- 

 tion has been directed to the few remaining examples 

 it may be hoped that the Government of British Colum- 

 bia will arrange for the removal of these interesting 

 objects to some place of safety. 



Prof. Elliot Smith has reprinted from vol. vii. of 

 the Proceedings of the British Academy his lecture on 

 " Primitive Man." He gives an interesting review of 

 the problem as it stands at present, anxi makes some 

 suggestions which deserve attention. Thus he lays 

 emphasis on the proposition that "man's mental and 

 moral attitude is, in a large measure, deterrhined by 

 those primitive instincts and customs which he shares 

 with his simian ancestors, but also by the influence, 

 conscious and unconscious, of the atmosphere of tradi- 

 tions amidst which he has grown up. At no stage of 



