328 



NATURE 



[December 27, 191 7 



PROF. FRANKLIN P. MALL. 



ALL who are interested in the progress of 

 biology will learn with deep regret of the 

 sudden death of Dr. Franklin P. Mall, of Johns 

 Hopkins University, at the age of fifty-five. It 

 was chiefly owing to his precepts and example 

 that, in little more than a score of years, a complete 

 revolution was wrought in the anatomical depart- 

 ments attached to medical schools throughout the 

 length and breadth of the United States. Dissect- 

 ing-rooms were changed from places in which 

 routine teaching and perfunctory investigation were 

 carried on to laboratories where exact methods 

 were applied to the elucidation of definite problems. 

 Prof. Mall was thirty-one years of age when 

 he returned in 1893 from a long course of study 

 under the late Prof. His, of Leipzig, to become 

 the first professor of anatomy in Johns Hopkins 

 University, Baltimore. He designed his own de- 

 partment, selecting a slimly built, cheap, brick 

 construction, and settled down with his students 

 to combine study with research. He devoted him- 

 self to embryological and microscopic investiga- 

 tions, reconstructing his results in the exact model 

 methods practised by Prof. His. His writings 

 cover the whole field of embryology, every contri- 

 bution representing a permanent addition to know- 

 ledge. His pupils left him to fill the various chairs 

 of anatomy as they fell vacant, and carried to their 

 new departments the methods and spirit they had 

 imbibed from Franklin Mall. He took a leading 

 part in the foundation of the excellent journals 

 which have been established in the United States 

 for the publication of anatomical investigations — 

 the American Journal of Anatomy, the Anatomical 

 Record, and the Journal of Morphology. He pur- 

 sued the study of human embryology in a more 

 systematic manner than has ever been accom- 

 plished by any other man. 



Prof. Mall began to collect embryos in the 

 earlier months of development when he settled in 

 Baltimore, and continued year by year to preserve, 

 register, and photograph them ; they were cut into 

 serial sections, examined, reconstructed, and 

 methodically stored, so that student after student 

 could use the same sections for researches of quite 

 diflerent kinds. By 191 3 his collection of embryos 

 numbered more than 1000, many of them showing 

 early stages of diseases and malformations. When 

 he succeeded in persuading the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion of Washington to establish a National De- 

 partment of Embryology, he handed over to it the 

 whole of his embryological collection and accepted 

 the post of director of the department. The names 

 of the workers he enlisted in the service of the 

 department, and the great scientific value of the 

 "Contributions to Embryology," issued by the 

 Carnegie Institution, are ample evidence of the 

 success of his last piece of statesmanship. 



Prof. Mall was a quiet, kind, and charming man, 

 who had set himself a public-spirited but arduous 

 task, and he lived long enough to see it well begun 

 and to leave behind a band of pupils who are will- 

 ing and able to carry it on. 



NO. 2513, VOL. 100] 



NOTES. 

 Prof. A. G. Nathorst, of Stockholm, having on 

 November 7 last reached sixty-seven years of age, has, 

 in accordance with Swedish laws, retired from his. 

 appointment as keeper of the palaeobotanical depart- 

 ment of the Swedish State Museum of Natural History 

 (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseum). His successor has not 

 yet been apooi-nted. 



The efforts of Sir Harcourt Butler in developing the 

 mineral resources of Burma have been successful. 

 There are prospects, says the Pioneer Mail of Novem- 

 ber 3, that the production of wolfram in Tavoy will 

 soon be largely increased. One or two mines which 

 until recently were cut off from communications are now 

 being developed, and promise an outturn of 30 ta 

 40 tons per month. Some rich new finds have been 

 made in old blocks, and with the new road to the 

 Pe Valley belt, extensions of present roads, and 

 rumours of the promotion of new companies in Eng- 

 land, the prospects of the Industry have much im- 

 proved. 



The council of the National Museum of Wales is 

 devoting special attention to the insect collections. 

 Six thousand specimens, of which a large proportion 

 are Welsh examples, have been classified. Experi- 

 ments as to the best methods of mounting and pre- 

 serving small-winged insects and larvae are being car- 

 ried out. There are still, however, several groups 

 almost unrepresented, and an appeal is made to col- 

 lectors to add any specimens of interest, so that Welsh 

 entomology may be adequately represented. 



Two pamphlets on the Channel Tunnel have reached 

 us— one by Mr. Arthur Fell, chairman of the House 

 of Commons Committee on the question, the other 

 by Sir Francis Fox. Mr. Fell strongly criticises 

 the Government for refusing to allow any preliminary 

 steps to be taken by the Channel Tunnel Company. 

 He not only dwells on the economic and military 

 value of the tunnel, but also emphasises the political 

 aspect of the problem. Sir Francis Fox's pamphlet is a 

 reprint from the Geographical Journal. It deals with 

 the engineering aspects of the tunnel. The tunnel is 

 designed to keep within the grey chalk, except near the 

 two coasts, where for a short distance it passes through 

 the gault. The depth below the sea-bed is to be a 

 minimum of 100 ft. The tunnel will consist of two 

 tubes, each 18 ft. in diameter, with cross-tunnels every 

 200 vards. It is oroposed to form a "water lock," 

 a dip in the tubes, which could, in case of emergency, 

 be filled, with water for the length of a mile. The water 

 would not injure the tunnel works, and it could be 

 pumped out only by the machinery at the power station 

 in Kent. Trains could run between London and Paris 

 via the Channel Tunnel in six hours. 



When a person feels that the air of a roorn is dry 

 and oppressive the feeling is generally explained _ as 

 due to the relative humidity or fraction of saturation 

 I of the air being low. The erroneous character of this 

 explanation was pointed out two years ago by Dr. 

 Leonard Hill and his colleagues of the Medical Re- 

 search Committee in a communication to the Royal 

 Society. They ascribe our sensation to the rate of loss 

 of heat from the skin by evaporation, and have con- 

 structed a thermometer with a large bulb covered with 

 moist fabric to ineasure this rate of loss under different 

 conditions as to temperature, saturation, and speed of 

 motion of the air, the bulb being kept at about the tempera- 

 ture of the human bodv. The agreement between the in- 

 strument and the " feel " of the air is found to be fairly 



