488 



NATURE 



[February 21, 19 18 



•and was in the critical battles north of Ypres. 

 Later he took charge of the medical department 

 of the McGill Hospital, and a few days before his 

 death had been appointed consulting physician to 

 one of the British divisions. He was a keen 

 soldier, with a fine spirit of devotion to duty, and 

 ;'a personality which made him beloved by a wide 

 ^circle of friends on both sides of the Atlalitic. 



Among Canadian poets Dr. McCrae had a high 

 place. War poems from his pen have appeared in 

 the Spectator ■asvdi in Punch. "Flanders' Fields " 

 has the true ring— and will live : 



In Flanders' Fields the poppies blow 

 Between the crosses, row on row, 

 That mark our place, and in the sky 

 The larks still bravely singing fly, 

 Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

 We are the dead. Short days ago 

 We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

 Loved and were loved ; and now -we lie 

 In Flanders' Fields. 



Take up our quarrel with the foe, 

 To you from failing hands wfe throw 

 The Torch— ^be yours to hold it high; 

 If ye break faith with us who die. 

 We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

 In Flanders' Fields, 



NOTES. 



The political correspondent of the Daily Mail an- 

 nounces that the Government has sanctioned a scheme, 

 which will involve several millions of pounds, to provide 

 capital to develop the dye industries in this country. 

 It has been realised -for some time that the provision 

 made in 1915, when British Dyes, Ltd., was estab- 

 'lished,is altogether inadequate to plac'e the industry in 

 a position comparable with that of the great German 

 syndicate of dye rtiaTi-ufacturers. The capital of these 

 ■firms is more than 5o,o6o,oooL, whfereas that of British 

 Dyes, Ltd., is only about 2,000,000/., and the whole 

 of our dye manufacturing firms have much less than 

 one-tenth the capital of the German syndicate. It is 

 obvious, therefore, that even if a co-operative scheme 

 is arranged between these separate "'enterprises, much 

 more will have to be done to increase the total capital 

 ■available ' for the industry, build the necessary plant, 

 'a;nd s'ecUre a sufficient number of research themists 

 and chemical engineers to' enable our dye mariiifac- 

 turers to face the severe competition to which they will 

 be subjected at the end of the war. The industry is 

 of prime importance to our national development, for 

 it is bound up with many other manufactures, directly 

 or indirectly, and its ramifications enter into most arts 

 6f pe'aiie as well as' those of war. We are glad to learn, 

 therefore, that the Government is taking the necessary 

 steps to make our position strong enough to withstand 

 the severe assaults which it will haye to bear when 

 ■ commercial competition is not restricted bv conditions 

 of war. 



We learn from a message from the Petrograd corre- 

 spondent of the Times, published in the issue of Febru- 

 ary 20, that the abolition of the Julian calendar and 



;the substitution of the reformed, or Gregorian, calendar 

 has been formally announced by the Government of 

 rtie People's Councils. "Attempts from the time of 

 Peter the Great to effect this reform have alwavs failed 

 through ecclesiastical opposition, but now that the 



'Orthodox Church has been divorced from the State its 

 ©pinions and traditions are entirely ignored." 

 NO. 2521, VOL. 100] 



We regret to see the announcement of the death^ on | 

 February 16, at sixty-four years of age, of Dr. F. M. 

 Sandwith, C.M.G., Gresham professor of physic, and 

 lecturer at the London School of Tropical Medicine. 



The- King has approved the grant of the Polar medal 

 with clasp inscribed "Antarctic, 1914-16" to Sir E. H. 

 Shackleton, Lieut. Frank Wild, Lieut. J. R. Sten- 

 house, and other members of the Endurance and 

 Aurora parties of the ImperialTrans-Antarctic Expedi- 

 tion, 1914-16. 



At the annual meeting of the Optical Society held 

 on February 14, the election of officers and council for 

 the year 19 18-19 was announced as follows : — Presi- 

 dent, Proi. Cheshire; Treasurer, Mr. H. F. Purser; 

 Librarian, Mr. J. H. Sutcliffe; Secretaries, Mr. Wm. 

 Shackleton and Mr. T. Smith. Members of Council, 

 Naval Instructor T. Y. Baker, Mr. P. F. Everitt, Mr. 

 J. W. French, Mr. E. B. Knobel, and Mr. F. C. Watts. 



We learn from 5ct>nce that the U.S. War Depart- 

 ment has established a Chemical Service Section and 

 two lieutenant-colonels have been commissioned — Dr. 

 R. F. Bacon, director of the Mellon Institute, Pitts- 

 burg, to have Charge of the chernical work in France, 

 and Prof. W. H. Walker, of the Massachusetts Insti- 

 tute of Technology, to have charge of the work in the 

 United States. 



The acting-secretary of the Decimal Association 

 sends us the following extract from the New York 

 Tribune of January 22 :^"Adoption of the metric sys- 

 tem of measurements for artillery and machine-guns 

 and maps for the American overseas forces was an- 

 nounced to-day by -the War Department. The change 

 was agreed upon at the suggestion of the Fr&nch 

 Government to avoid confusion in France." 



The President of the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries has appointed a Committee to advise in regard 

 to all electrical questions connected with the carrying 

 out of ej^pCriments in electro-culture, and, particularly, 

 with regard to the construction of apparatus suitable for 

 use on an economic scale and to the making of such 

 electrical measurements as may be necessary in con- 

 nection with the experiments. The members of the 

 Committee are as follows : — Sir John Snell" (chairman), 

 Mr. A. B. Bruce, Prof. V. H. Blackman, Dr. C. 

 Chree, Mr. W. R. Cooper, Dr. W. H. Eccles, Mr. 

 J. S. Highfield, Prof. T. Mather, Dr. E. J. Russell, 

 and Mr. C. T. R. Wilson. Mr. B.W. Phillips, df the 

 Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, will act as secre- 

 tary to the Comm-ittee, and all communications should 

 be addressed -to him at 4 Whitehall Place, S.W.i. 



We regret to note that the death of Mr. John Far- 

 quharson Mcintosh is recorded in Engineering for 

 February 15. Mr. Mcintosh was born in 1848, and was 

 connected with the Scottish railways for fifty-two years, 

 nineteen of which he se'rved as locomotive super- 

 intendent of the Caledonian line. Immediately after 

 his appointment he began to design a series of locomo- 

 tives, beginning with the " Dunalastair " for the Glas- 

 gow and Carlisle passenger service. He was invited by 

 the Belgian Government to prepare designs suitable for 

 the international express service on the State railways 

 from ■ Ostend. Mr. Mcintosh was a member of the 

 Association of Railway Locomotive Engineers, and was 

 president in 1911, in which year also he was created a 

 member of the Royal Victorian Order. 



At the outbreak of the war the Swiss Federal 

 Government seized all the instruments installed in 

 Swiss wireless stations, so that such stations could no 



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