December 6, 191 7] 



NATURE 



269 



enjoyed a very remarkable state of sanitation ; typhoid | 

 and the paratyphoid fevers no longer show themselves, , 

 save at a very low degree of frequency. And this, | 

 though all the conditions at the front are united to ) 

 favour the outbreak, spread, and gravity of these { 

 diseases. Immense masses of men crowded at close 

 quarters, in such number as one has never seen the like | 

 of in any war ; incessant renewal of effectives ; a long i 

 war, and almost ceaseless engagements ; near contact j 

 of troops, and constant risk of infection from man i 

 to man, from patients or from germ-carriers; formid- 

 able and continuous contamination of the surface soil 

 by the excreta of germ-carriers ; breeding of flies, etc." 

 Vet, in spite of it all, " these diseases may be con- 

 sidered as practically conquered." _ It is strange to 

 think that one of our " anti-vivisection " societies has 

 been trying to prevent the protection of our own men. 

 Happily, it has failed; the latest returns show that 

 98 per cent, of them are protected. 



In its September issue the Little Journal, published 

 in Boston, U.S.A., by the firm of A. D. Little, Inc., 

 indicates what steps have been taken during the past 

 three years to cope with the shortage of dyes in 

 America. Before the war there were only five con- 

 cerns producing synthetic dyes in the United States. 

 Now, in addition to the coke-oven plants and special 

 phenol makers, there are twenty-three firms produc- 

 ing direct coal-tar products or " crudes," sixty-eight 

 makers of " intermediates," and ninety-eight factories 

 in which the finished dyes are manufactured. Ap- 

 proximately 75 per cent, of the dyes needed by Amer- 

 ican consumers are now being turned out in the United 

 States, and certain of these products are made in 

 suflficient excess to be available for export to friendly 

 countries, and especially to England. There is still 

 a shortage in such old-established dyes as magenta, 

 methylene-blue, auramine, and methyl-violet. Amer- 

 " ican synthetic indigo is being produced, but not in 

 suflficient amount for the needs of the U.S. Navy. 

 At the end of three years there are " crudes " and 

 " intermediates " in abundance. Two large under- 

 takings, the National Aniline and Chemical Company 

 and the Du Pont Chemical Company, which in chemical 

 research are the peers of the great German factories, 

 are embarking on the manufacture of indigo and other 

 essential dyes. The Americans claim with confidence 

 that their dye-producing firms have the talent, the 

 organisations, the capital, and the will. . With these 

 factors in operation the missing 25 per cent, of dyes 

 will soon be provided, and only the odds and ends will 

 eventually be imported. 



In a lecture delivered before the London School of 

 Economics on November 16 Mr. Sydney J. Johnstone 

 gave an account of the localities within the British 

 Empire where the chief key-metals, such as tungsten, 

 molybdenum, thorium and cerium, vanadium, etc., 

 occur. Tungsten is found chiefly in Burma and 

 Queensland, and the Empire now furnishes about 

 35 per cent, of the world's production. The metal is 

 now extracted in the United Kingdom. Molyb- 

 denum is also largely worked in this country, and 

 adequate supplies are available from British Colonies 

 and Dominions, esoecially Australia. Both these 

 metals are of great value for special armament steels, 

 and for the manufacture of high-speed tool steels, on 

 which they confer the property of enabling the steel 

 to retain its hardness when run red-hot. Thoria and 

 ceria, the chief rare-earths in incandescent mantles, 

 are being extracted from the monazite deposits of 

 Travancore and Ceylon, which also contain lanthanum, 

 erbium, didymium, yttrium, and other rare-earths. 

 The monazite in these localities commonly contains 

 about 10 per cent, of thoria, being twice as rich as 

 NO. 2510, VOL. too] 



the similar deposits in Brazil. Occasionally much 

 richer minerals are found in limited quantities in 

 Ceylon — for example, thorianite, which contains as 

 much as 60-80 per cent, of thoria, and has been the 

 subject of much study by the Scientific and Research 

 Department of the Imperial Institute. ~ Mesothorium 

 is a by-product of the working of monazite. Another 

 by-product, zircon, might, it is suggested, be applied 

 for the same purposes as zirconia, i.e. the lining of 

 furnaces and other vessels for which a highly infusible 

 material with a low coefficient of expansion is needed. 

 The chief key-metal which is absent, or found only in 

 small quantities in the Empire, is platinum, which is 

 derived mainly from Russia and Colombia. It is pos- 

 sible, however, that it might be obtained in fair quan- 

 tities, together with palladium, as a by-product in the 

 treatment of nickel-copper ores in Canada. 



Prof. A. Righi, foreign member of the Royal 

 Society, has been elected an honorary member of the 

 Institution of Electrical Engineers. 



Dr. Arthur Keith, conservator of the museum of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, has been appointed 

 FuUerian professor of physiology at the Royal Institu- 



We notice with regret the announcement of the death 

 on Novem,ber 28, at Zomba, Nyasaland, of black- 

 water fever, of Mr. W. C. Mason, Imperial Entomo- 

 logist, at thirty-three years of age. 



Prof. T. B. Wood, Drapers professor of agriculture 

 in the University of Cambridge, is to be appointed a 

 member of the Development Commission in succession 

 to Mr. A. D. Hall, now Secretary to the BoaM of 

 Agriculture. 



Mr. T. F. Claxton, director of the Royal Ob- 

 servatory, Hong-Kong, informs us that, in view of 

 the world situation, it has been decided to discontinue 

 sending the publications of the observatory to the 

 United Kingdom, Europe, and India during the war. 



The death is announced in the Engineer for Novem- 

 ber 30 of Mr. James Buchanan, who was a partner in 

 the well-known Liverpool firm of sugar machinery 

 makers. He was associated with the executive of the 

 Liverpool Munitions of War Committee, and undertook 

 important Government contracts for munitions. He 

 was a member of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers. 



The Committee on Science and the Arts of the 

 Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, has recommended the 

 award of the Elliott Cresson medal to Col. I. N. 

 Lewis for his invention of the Lewis machine-gun, 

 and proposes to recommend the award of the Howard 

 N. Potts medal to Dr. A. E. Kennelly for his inven- 

 tion of the hot-wire anemometer and his application 

 of this device to the measurement of convection from 

 small heated wires; also that of the Howard N. Potts 

 medal to Prof. L. Vessot King for his improved 

 method and researches in hot-wire anemometry. 



Mr. J. C. Merryweather, who died on November 

 24, at seventy-seven years of age, was the principal 

 member of the firm of fire-engine builders. Mr. Merry- 

 weather joined his father in the fire-engine business in 

 1864, and had a great deal to do with the introduction 

 of steam fire-engines. Under his direction, his firm 

 was the pioneer of the motor fire-engine. He was a 

 member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 

 and received the honojir of Commander of the Imperial 

 Order of the Medjidieh in recognition of services ren- 

 dered in connection with the fire protection of the 

 Khedivial palaces. 



