248 



NATURE 



LNovember 29, 191 



h\ the fall in births niore than 500,000 potential lives, 

 while Germany during the same period has lost 

 2,600,000, and Hungary 1,500,000. At the outbreak of 

 war the population of the Central Empires was about 

 two and a half times as great as that of the United 

 Kingdom, but their losses of births have been appar- 

 ently ten times as great. The reason for this differ- 

 ence may be that while the poorer classes in this 

 country have never experienced more favourable condi- 

 tions, the Germans, if all indications are to be believed, 

 have suffered to such an extent iis to affect seriously 

 the general health of the population. The infant mor- 

 tality in Germany has been some 50 per cent, higher 

 than in this country. 



The Revue Scientifique announces the death on 

 November 4, at fifty-eight years of age, of Prof. R. 

 Nickles, professor of geology in the University of 

 Nancy. Early in his career he investigated the geology 

 of the provinces of Alicante and Valencia, in Spain, 

 and in 189 1 this was the subject of his doctoral thesis. 

 He also published important memoirs on the Lower 

 Cretaceous ammonites which he had collected in Spain. 

 While professor at Nancy he collaborated with the 

 Geological Survey of France, and devoted special atten- 

 tion to the coalfields buried under Mesozoic strata in 

 Lorraine. By purely scientific work he was able to 

 indicate the most likely spots for successful borings, and 

 the result was the discovery of valuable coal-seams 

 at a depth between 700 and 800 metres. Prof. Nickles 

 communicated several notes on this subject .to the 

 Academy of Sciences from 1905 to 1909, and the value 

 of his researches was acknowledged by the Geological 

 Society of France, which awarded to him the Gosselet 

 prize in 191 1. 



By the death early in November of Lieut. Cyril 

 Green on , the Palestine front a botanical career of 

 much promise is cut short. Cyril Green was the 

 youngest son of the late Rev. T. Mortimer Green, 

 registrar of University College, Aberystwyth. At this 

 college, where he studied botany under Prof. R. H. 

 Yapp, 'he graduated in science in 191 1, receiving a 

 first class in botany honours. In 1912 he joined the 

 staff of the Department of Botany at University Col- 

 lege, London, where he showed marked abilities as a 

 teacher. Green's investigations lay especially in the 

 field of plant ecology, and included a detailed survey 

 of Borth Bog, an area of no little botanical interest. 

 He also worked at the physiological anatomy of water 

 plants. Since the outbreak of the war he had been 

 appointed head of the Department of Botany in the new 

 Welsh National Museum at Cardiff, a position which 

 was to have been held open for him until the conclu- 

 sion of hostilities. Already before the war Green 

 held a commission in the London University O.T.C., 

 and was transferred to the Royal Sussex Regiment. 

 Severely wounded in action in France in May, 1915, 

 he. was, on recovery, attached to an officers' cadet 

 battalion as instructor. In June, 1917, he was sent 

 to Egypt, and ifell in action in the recent advance in 

 Palestine. This Egyptian campaign had a special 

 interest for Green, as it brought him in contact with 

 a flora of which he had previously gained some know- 

 ledge in botanico-antiquarian studies carried out by him 

 ill connection with the Department of Egyptology at 

 University College. The last correspondence received 

 by his colleagues related to this flora. His brother, 

 Capt. H. M. Green, of the Welsh Regiment, has been 

 posted as missing since Suvla Bav. 



The proposed organisation of the clay industries, dis- 

 cussed at a meeting of employers at the Guildhall on 

 November 23, would undoubtedly have a beneficial and 

 far-reaching effect if properly carried out, as seems 

 highly probable. The keynote of the speakers (among 



NO. 2509, VOL. 100] 



whom were Messrs. H. Lewis, J. H. Whitley, and G. J, 

 Wardle) was cordial co-operation between capital and 

 labour, with the ideal of substituting for the proved 

 general inefficiency of individualism a sense of indus- 

 trial solidarity for national service. Mr. Wardle inti- 

 mated that the scheme does not propose to pool capital 

 or profits, but rather technical knowledge, the in- 

 adequacy and restricted diffusion of which have been a 

 very serious obstacle to British industry. Men of 

 science long ago proclaimed this disadvantage, but 

 their strenuous efforts to bring about an improvement 

 failed almost entirely. Now, under the stress caused 

 by a terrific world-conflict, a flood of .new light has 

 been thrown on many matters which used to be sub- 

 jects for bitter controversy. Standardisation would un- 

 questionably tend to check waste, but, as Mr. Wardle 

 remarked, it must not stand in the way of invention 

 and new processes. It is noteworthy that Mr. Lewis 

 handsomely acknowledged that no grant of public 

 money had been more usefully employed, or was likely 

 to be productive of greater results in the future, than 

 that voted for research purposes. This is certainly no 

 less true of money provided for research in connection 

 with the clay industries than of contributions made 

 towards research in other directions. 



Prof. Leonard Hill has in Monday's Times, 

 November 26, an interesting letter on scientific ration- 

 ing. He points out that as a machine the efficiency 

 of a man is about 25 per cent., three times as much 

 heat being produced as external work done. During 

 complete rest in bed, fasting, the energy spent in the 

 internal work of the body is determined. This aver- 

 ages one Calorie per kilogram of body-weight per 

 hour for all average people — about half the expendi- 

 ture of the man doing light work. All unproductive 

 people, idlers, old, and invalid, can save a large part 

 of the food they eat by. lying in bed warm and at rest. 

 With regard to different classes of workers, the same 

 measure of meat is not suitable for them all, because 

 meat, far more than carbohydrate or fat, stimulates 

 the living cells to live at a vigorous rate. Prof. Hill 

 states that experience shows that the higher class of 

 brain-workers, the organising and driving power of the 

 nation (which must not be lessened), secures its energy 

 most easily out of a diet containing a higher propor- 

 tion of meat, and that carbohydrate is utilised very 

 well by producers of mechanical work. He says that 

 the Yapp ration, considering the difficulty of securing 

 all the rationed foods, affords scarcely more than half 

 the energy necessary for productive labour. "At cur- 

 rent prices flour yields more than 700 Calories for a 

 penny, meat and cheese about 100, margarine 300. 

 To ration bread and flour, then, should be the last 

 measure of emergency ; the physiologist cannot con- 

 ceive rationing these while luxury trades continue and 

 fields are not fully cultivated or ships built to the 

 utmost; while spirits are distilled from foodstuffs for 

 munitions, and great stores of alcohol are left un- 

 touched; while the problem of transport of potatoes 

 and swede turnips to the urban populations has not 

 been solved; while shipping is not used to the maxi- 

 mal advantage to maintain the importation of cereals."" 



Fas est et ab hoste doceri. In an article on " A Cen- 

 tral Bureau of' Commercial Intelligence" in the 

 November issue of United Empire, Major Cuthbert 

 Christy urges us to follow the exam,ple of Germany in 

 taking steps to turn to account with the least loss of 

 time and energy the resources of the British Empire. 

 The point which he chiefly insists on is what may be 

 comprehensively described as the indexing of know- 

 ledge. The parts of the Empire that he has principally 

 in view in making his present suggestions are those in 

 Africa, especially tropical Africa. "The once 'Dark 

 Continent,'" he says, "is certainly the richest of the 



