November 15, 191 7] 



NATURE 



211 



ing .period he has laboured with enthusiasm and ability 

 to make the museum an educational force in the com- 

 munity. He succeeded in making the museum both 

 attractive to non-scientific visitors and a centre of 

 student and scientific activity. He raised the scientific 

 status of the institution, and reorganised the whole of 

 the valuable collections, and the fine ethnological de- 

 partment of the museum owes a great deal to his 

 knowledge, study, and enterprise. 



The Admiralty has issued the following particulars 

 -of the unmanned, controlled high-speed craft to which 

 we referred last week (p. 190) :— The electrically con- 

 trolled motor-boats used on the Belgian coast are twin 

 petrol-engined vessels partially closed in, and travel at 

 a high speed. They carry a drum with between thirty 

 and fiftv miles of insulated single-core cable, through 

 which the boat is controlled electrically. The fore part 

 •carries a considerable charge of high explosive, prob- 

 ably from 300 lb. to 500 lb. in weight. The method of 

 operating is to start the engine, after which the crew 

 leave the boat. A seaplane, protected by a strong fight- 

 ing patrol, then accompanies the vessel at a distance of 

 three to five miles, and signals to the shore operator 

 the helm to give the vessel. These signals need only 

 be "starboard," "port," or "steady." The boat is zig- 

 zagged while running; this may be either intentional 

 I or unintentional. On being steered into a ship the 

 ! charge is exploded automatically. The device is a very 

 [ old one. A boat similarly controlled was used in 

 H.M.S. Vernon (the torpedo experimental ship) so far 



back as i{ 



The only new features in the German 



boats are petrol engines and wireless telegraphy signals, 

 neither of which existed then. 



The first report of the Conjoint Board of Scientific 

 Societies shows that many subjects of national import- 

 ance have engaged the attention of the board since it 

 was constituted in June of last year. Forty-eight lead- 

 ing scientific and technical societies are represented 

 upon the board, and the expenses are met by contribu- 

 tions from them. The receipts at the end of September 

 last amounted to 652/. 6s. 8d., the expenses to 

 270Z. 12s. 3d., and the balance at that date was 

 381Z. 14s. 5d. There are ten sub-committees concerned 

 respectively with the International Catalogue of Scien- 

 tific Literature, the application of science to agricul- 

 ture, technical optics, education, the prevention of over- 

 lapping among scientific societies, the metric system, 

 anthropological survey, iron-ore, the water-power of the 

 lunpire, and timber for aeroplane construction. The 

 Sub-committee on Agrirultureemphatically believes that 

 .1 great future awaits the development of electrical 

 applications to agriculture in the United Kingdom. 

 I'he board recommends, therefore, that the Board of 

 Agriculture be asked to grant the necessary funds for 

 ■lesigning, constructing, and testin^f practically an elec- 

 irical tractor and certain other agricultural machines. 

 The Sub-committee on Education, in conference with 

 representatives of the Council of Humanistic Studies, 

 has arrived at a reasonable statement as to the essen- 

 tial place of science in education. It has also com- 

 municated to Sir Joseph Thomson, for the use of the 

 Hovernment Committee on Science in the Educational 

 -^vstem of Great Britain, two resolutions referring to 

 he importance of training teachers to give inspiring 

 nd attractive courses in science, and the need for 

 (lequate salaries to be paid to such teachers. Dr. 

 I i. W. Walker having stated that in working on the 

 iiagnetic survey of the country he had found evidence 

 .f disturbance in certain areas which he considered 

 might be explained by the presence of iron ores, the 

 board, upon the recommendation of the Iron-ore Sub- 

 committee, has arranged for a detailed magnetic survey 

 of (i) the neighbourhood of Melton Mowbray, and (2) 



NO. 2507, VOL. 100] 



that of Strachur and Lochgoilhcad. The survey will 

 be accompanied by (i) a detailed geological and petro- 

 logical investigation of the rocks in each area, and (2) 

 a determination of the magnetic permeability of the 

 rocks and minerals occurring in each area. The re- 

 port refers, among other matters, to the establishment 

 of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Re- 

 search, of the Department of Technical Optics at the 

 Imperial College, and proposals by the British Associa- 

 tion for the formation of a Geodetic Institute, with 

 which the board has expressed itself entirely in sym- 

 pathy. 



Under the 'title of " Links between North and 

 South," Prof. Flinders Petrie, in the October issue of 

 Man, traces a connection between the Teutonic god- 

 dess Brynhild and Ishtar of Babylon. "The position 

 seems to be that a warrior goddess, with lovers, but 

 never married, who forced her way into hell, was an 

 idea of a Central Asian people; that this was trans- 

 formed into Ishtar by the peoples who pressed down 

 in prehistoric days into Babylonia ; that it was carried 

 in some form westward by the Huns, and transformed 

 into Brynhild by the Norse ethics and customs; and 

 it was finally treated by the Germans much as Malory 

 treated the Arthurian legends. Such are a few of the 

 dim links between North and South which may some 

 day serve to join up the two great streams of ancient 

 history." 



The second number of "Recalled to Life" was 

 issued in October. It is a journal devoted to the care, 

 re-education, and return to civil life of disabled sailors 

 and soldiers, and contains valuable matter dealing 

 with treatment and training and with administrative 

 matters such as pensions. In the present number 

 Col. Sir John Collie discusses neurasthenia and allied 

 disorders. Major Horton-Smith Hartley deals with, 

 tuberculosis in its relation to the war, and Sir William 

 Osier offers some remarks on the problem of the 

 crippled. 



The method of determining the surface tension of 



a liquid in air by allowing drops of the liquid to form 



slowly at the lower end of a thick-walled capillary 



tube and counting the number which fall off is so 



simple that it is very unfortunate that a satisfactory 



theory of the process has never been given. Lord 



Rayleigh, showed that the mass m of the drop of a 



liquid of surface tension T which falls from a tube 



of outer radius r is given by tn^=CTr, where C is 



a constant which varies from 37 to 4-2, according to 



I the properties of the liquid and the radius of the tube. 



I The problem is a dynamical one, and its ultimate 



i solution will be facilitated by the recent kinematograph 



j pictures of the formation of falling drops which have 



been taken for M. F. L. Perrot, and are reproduced 



in his article on the subject in the Revue generale des 



Sciences for October 15. They show that the drop 



before it breaks away is connected to the liquid above 



I it by a thin filament of considerable length, which 



! breaks simultaneously in two places. We hope M. 



Perrot will succeed in placing the method on a sound 



basis. 



The following works are in preparation for" appear- 

 ance in Messrs. Longmans and Co.'s Monographs on 

 Physiology:— ''The Physiology of Reflex Action," 

 Prof. C. S. Sherrington; "The Phvsiological Basis of 

 the Action of Drugs," Dr. H. H. Dale; "The Nature 

 of Muscular Movement," Dr. W. M. Fletcher; "The 

 Cerebral Mechanisms of Speech," Dr. F. W. Mott; 

 "Tissue Respiration," Dr. C. Lovatt Evans; "The 

 Physiology of Muscular Exercise," Prof. F. A. Bain- 

 bridge; and "The Vaso-Motor System," Prof. W. M. 

 Bayliss. 



