NATURE 



[March 4, 1920 



perfection of old was carried out. Tiie oscillation valve 

 in particular came to its own as a wave generator, an 

 amplifier, and a detector, and wireless telephony 

 passed from its experimental to its practical stages. 

 The human voice is now heard across the Atlantic and 

 from aeroplane to aeroplane. Notable advances have 

 also been made in long-distance wireless telegraphy, 

 especially in the directions of increased speed of trans- 

 mission and carrying capacity of installations. It is 

 mainly due to these improvements that, as announced 

 in the Times of March 2, it has now been found 

 possible to accept commercial messages to America 

 at rates lower than the ordinary cable rates by as 

 much as 4^. per word. A service on these lines was 

 inaugurated on Monday last between the high-power 

 Marconi station at Carnarvon and Belmar CNew 

 Jersey). High-speed automatic transmitters are em- 

 ployed, and the installation is duplexed so that mes- 

 sages can pass simultaneously in both directions. 



A DEPUTATION representing the British Medical 

 Association and the British Science Guild waited upon 

 Mr. Balfour at the Privy Council Office on Tuesday, 

 March 2, to urge that a sum of about 2o,oooZ. 

 should be set aside annually for the purpose of awards 

 for medical discovery on the lines suggested in the 

 report of the joint committee of the two bodies pub- 

 lished in Nature of January 8 (p. 488). The deputa- 

 tion was introduced by Sir Watson Cheyne, and its 

 views were put forward by Sir Clifford Allbutt and 

 Sir Richard Gregory. In 1802 the House of Commons 

 voted Jenner a grant of io,oooL in recognition of the 

 national value of vaccination, and five yeacs later 

 made him a further grant of 20,oooL The proposal 

 is that this precedent should be made the basis of an 

 established system of awards for medical and scientific 

 discoveries as just compensation for financial sacrifice 

 commonly involved in producing them. The Medical 

 Research Committee and the Department of Scientific 

 and Industrial Research have funds from which grants 

 are made to assist research, but they cannot offer 

 reward or even recompense to the investigator 

 who makes a notable discovery with or without any 

 such aid. Organised work on particular problems 

 is necessary, but its character is different from that 

 of the creative genius, who must be left free to follow 

 his own course wherever it may lead. Devotion to 

 such research ought not to signify ultimate pecuniary 

 loss when the results achieved contribute substantially 

 to human welfare and progress, and a modern State 

 may well accept the obligation to make reasonable 

 provision for those who have thus enriched it. Mr. 

 Balfour expressed himself in full sympathy with these 

 views, and promised to put them before the Prime 

 Minister, who, he reminded the deputation, had 

 always been ready to give practical support to 

 scientific work and to show his appreciation of its 

 essential value in national life. 



Much regret will be felt at the failure of the 

 Times aeroplane, with Dr. Chalmers Mitchell as 

 scientific observer, to complete the flight from Cairo 

 to the Cape. On Friday last, February 27, a forced 

 descent at Tabora, in the Tanganyika territory, due to 

 the failure of one of the engines, damaged the machine 

 NO. 2627, VOL. 105] 



beyond repair, and further flight with it has had to 

 be abandoned. Fortunately, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell 

 and his companions are safe, though two of them are 

 hurt. Misfortune has followed the attempt from th« 

 beginning, owing chiefly to engine trouble. On 

 February 20, soon after starting from Mongala, the 

 starboard magneto cut out, and the aeroplane had to 

 return there. Leaving later the same day, an un- 

 intended descent was necessary at Nimule, at the 

 head of the Nile rapids. Then followed two compara- 

 tively short flights to Jinja, where the Nile leaves the 

 Victoria Nyanza, and past the archipelago in the 

 north-eastern part of the lake to Kisumu. The visit 

 to Jinja probably enabled Dr. Chalmers Mitchell to 

 settle the question whether the Ripon Falls, where the 

 Nile discharges from the Victoria Nyanza, are due 

 to a dyke of igneous rock, as has been often 

 asserted, or to a hard band of gneiss. The next stage 

 of the journey from Kisumu to the southern end of 

 Lake Tanganyika was known to present new diffi- 

 culties, but if these had been surmounted the rest of 

 the route would have been near railways, along which 

 there would be better facilities for repairs than 

 between Khartum and the Victoria Nyanza. It is 

 very disappointing that the disaster should have hap- 

 pened after the worst part of the journey had been 

 traversed, yet we are confident that the observations 

 made by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell in the course of his 

 flight will abundantly justify the scientific purpose he 

 had in mind in taking part in it. 



We much regret to see in the Daily Express of 

 March 2 the announcement that Dr. C. Gordon 

 Hewitt, Dominion entomologist, has died in Ottawa. 



The New York correspondent of the Times reports 

 that Major R. W. Schroeder, chief test pilot at 

 Dayton (Ohio), on February 27 ascended to the record 

 height of 36,020 ft. (nearly seven miles) in an attempt 

 to attain a height of 40,000 ft. At the former height 

 the oxygen supply ceased to flow, and Major 

 Schroeder fainted. He raised his goggles to see if 

 the emergency supply was working. "All at once," 

 he says, " it seemed as though a terrific explosion had 

 taken place inside my head. My eyes hurt terribly. 

 I could not open them. I seemed to be peeping 

 through a crack. There was a tremendous rush of 

 air, and I seemed to be falling. ... I do not remem- 

 ber landing." 



The news of the death of the Rev. Watson Failes 

 has been received with deep regret by Old West- 

 minsters and niany former colleagues who remember 

 him with affection. Mr. Failes was a mathematical 

 scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated 

 as nineteenth Wrangler in the year 1871. He was 

 assistant master at Bromsgrove in 1874 and 1875, 

 and at Dulwich from 1875 to 1877. In 1877 he went 

 to Westminster School, where he remained for thirty 

 years. On the retirement of Mr. Cheyne and Mr. 

 Jones he became senior mathematical master, and in 

 1897 he became master of Rigauds. Mr. Failes was 

 an enthusiastic and stimulating teacher; his own 

 solutions, especially of purely geometrical problems, 

 were models of lightness and elegance. He was the 



