230 



NATURE 



[November 22, 1917 



that it may be found possible to take steps after the 

 discussion to obtain some authbritative pronouncement 

 on the matter from ithe trade as a whole that will put 

 an end to ithe present hesitating and unsatisfactory 

 attitude towards the question. 



We regret to record the death of Mr. Wilson Noble 

 on October 31, at sixty-two years of age. Mr. Wilson 

 Noble was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 

 From 1886 to 1895 he was Conservative M.P. for 

 Hastings. He devoted much of his time to electrical 

 investigations, particularly in connection with X-rays, 

 and having a very fully equipped laboratory was able 

 to render great service in the medical applications of 

 radiography in the early days of the discoverv. He 

 held the position of president of the Rontgen Society 

 in 1900, and was the author of some important papers 

 on X-ray technique. 



News has been received of the sudden death last 

 week, at fifty-nine years of age, of Prof. Emile Durk- 

 heim, the distinguished philosopher and sociologist, 

 editor of the Annee Sociologique, and professor of 

 pedagogics at the Sorbonne. The loss of his only son, 

 a young philosopher of great promise, in the fighting 

 at Salonica at the end of 19 15, and a long uncertainty 

 as to his fate, had visibly affected Prof. Durkheim's 

 health, but he was able to continue his courses to the 

 end of the scholastic year. In November, 1916, a 

 nervous breakdown obliged him to discontinue his 

 work, and in spite of temporary improvements he never 

 recovered. 



2ND Lieut. L. P. Sidney, whose death, at twenty- 

 four years of age, is reported in the Times, was an 

 observer in the Royal Flying Corps. He was the son 

 of Mr. L. P. Sidney, assistant secretary of the Iron 

 and Steel Institute, and studied for a time at the 

 National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, in the en- 

 gineering department under Dr. Stanton, and in the 

 metallurgical department under Dr. Rosenhain. On 

 leaving Teddington he spent a year in iron and steel 

 analysis with Mr. F. W. Harbord, and when the war 

 broke out he was in the service of Messrs. Bell 

 Brothers, Middlesbrough, as metallurgist. 



We learn from Science that Mr. J. Y. Bergen, 

 author of several well-known text-books of botany and 

 physics, died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., on 

 October 10, at sixty-six years of age. In 1887 Mr. 

 Bergen became teacher of physics in the Boston Latin 

 School, and later for many years he was instructor 

 in biology in the Boston English High School. In 

 collaboration with Prof. E. H. Hall, of Harvard 

 University, he \yas the author of "A Text-book of 

 Physics," which has passed through several editions. 

 He was also the author of " Elements of Botany," 

 " Essentials of Botany," and " Foundations of Botany," 

 including a condensed flora for school use. Other 

 successful text-books with special adaptation for 

 schools of particular grades of scientific equipment 

 were prepared by Mr. Bergen in collaboration with 

 Dr. O. W. Caldwell and Prof. B. M. Davis. 



The inaugural lecture in connection with the George 

 Herdman chair of geology at the University of Liver- 

 pool was delivered by Prof. P. G. H. Boswell on 

 Friday last, November 16. In a short introductory 

 address, the Vice-Chancellor (Sir Alfred Dale), 

 who presided, remarked that many of the Uni- 

 versity chairs were memorials of those who 

 had done their work or whose work was nearly 

 done, but the chair they were now inaugurating 

 was one established in memory of youth, and of a 

 work that was just begun. It had been established 

 by Prof, and Mrs. Herdman in memory of their son, 

 George Andrew Herdman, who fell rather more than a 



NO. 2508, VOL. 100] 



year and a half ago in France. He was young, and an 

 undergraduate at Cambridge. But he had already 

 given something more than mere promise, and older 

 men who knew him regarded him as one who not only 

 would maintain, but also might possibly increase, the 

 honours he had inherited with his name.- — The subject 

 of Prof. Boswell's lecture was "Sands: considered 

 Geologically and Industrially under War Conditions." 



Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dver has presented to the 

 library of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a collec- 

 tion of about a hundred personal letters addressed to 

 him by Charles Darwin between the years 1873 and 

 188 1. Those of more general interest have been already 

 published. In one he writes, "It is a dreadful evil 

 to be so ignorant of botany as I am," and many of 

 them contain allusions to experiments and discoveries 

 of the utmost interest. These letters constitute a very 

 valuable addition to the now extensive collection of 

 original documents to the Kew Library. 



We learn from Kew Bulletin, No. 6, that the island 

 of Ascension has suddenly been clothed with verdure, 

 a grass, Enneapogon mollis, having appeared in great 

 abundance on the lower parts of the island. The 

 account is illustrated by a photograph showing men 

 cutting a luxuriant crop of the grass, v^'hich has con- 

 verted what Sir Joseph Hooker described as a 

 "scorched mass of volcanic matter, in part resembling 

 bottle-glass and in part coke and cinders," into a com- 

 parative paradise. The grass, which is apparently an 

 annual, has not been reported from the island before, 

 but is a native of tropical Africa, and seeds may have 

 reached the island through the agency' of birds, or 

 have been wind-borne. It appeared after some good 

 showers, rain being of very rare occurrence in Ascen- 

 sion. 



During the present war more use has been made 

 of electrical treatment than at any previous time. 

 Cases that are seldom or never seen in times of peace, 

 such as shell-shock and trench-foot, are receiving their 

 trial of electric treatment, as well as neurasthenia and 

 various neuroses, so that more detailed information 

 of the value of this form of treatment will be obtained. 

 Cases of nerve injury are also numerous, and much 

 experience is being obtained of the uses of electricity 

 in their diagnosis and treatment. The Archives of 

 Radiology and Electrotherapy proposes to publish re- 

 ports from the electrical departments of various war 

 hospitals, and in the October number (vol. xxii., 

 No. 5) an account is given by Lieut. Burke 

 of that of the Horton War Hospital, Epsom. The 

 report of the Radium Institute of work from January, 

 1915, to December, 1916, is also included. Of 580 

 cases of cancerous disease treated (excluding rodent 

 ulcer) twenty-six were apparently cured. 



The West Indian colonies, in common with the rest 

 of the world, have their bread problem. How this 

 is to be met is the subject of an official inquiry, and 

 an interim report of the British Guiana Flour Substi- 

 tutes Committee, published in the Bulletin of the 

 Department of .\griculture, Trinidad and Tobago 

 (vol. xvi., part 2), indicates the lines upon which action 

 can be most usefully itaken. Analyses collated by the 

 committee show that the products of tropical origin 

 which most nearly approach wheat flour in food value 

 are rice, guinea-corn, and maize. These materials 

 can be employed alone only in the preparation of cakes. 

 Without wheat flour they do not give a satisfactory 

 bread. Other products of relativelv higher starch con- 

 tent which are of local origin, e.g. cassava, sweet 

 potatoes, tannias, and eddoes, can also be employed in 

 this way, but they yield an article of lower food value 

 and wider nutrient ratio. It is possible, however, by 

 the addition of a proportion of meal obtainable from 



