2IO 



NATURE 



[April 15, 1920 



His subject will be " Preventive Medicine : The 

 Importance of an Educated Public Opinion." 



The Wilbur Wright lecture of the Royal Aero- 

 nautical Society for the present year will be delivered 

 on Tuesday, June 22, at the Central Hall, West- 

 minster, by Comdr. J. C. Hunsaker, U.S.N., who 

 will take as his subject "Naval Architecture in Aero- 

 nautics." 



Under the auspices of the National Union of 

 Scientific Workers a public meeting, presided over by 

 Mr. H. G. Wells, is to be held at 8 o'clock on 

 Wednesday, April 28, in the lecture-theatre of Birk- 

 beck College, Breams Buildings, E.C.4, addressed by 

 Prof. F. Soddy on "The Public Support of Scientific 

 Research." The address will be followed by a 

 discussion. 



The Scottish Shale Oil Scientific and Industrial 

 Research Association has been approved by the 

 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research as 

 complying with the conditions laid down in the 

 Government scheme for the encouragement of indus- 

 trial research. The association may be approached 

 through Mr. W. Eraser, C.B.E., Scottish Oils, Ltd., 

 135 Buchanan Street, Glasgow. 



A COMMUNICATION has been received from the 

 Decimal Association criticising the recent report of 

 the Royal Commission on Decimal Coinage. The 

 association maintains that the report cannot be 

 accepted as final for the following reasons, among 

 others : — The Commission ignores the fact that eleven 

 of our Colonies or Dependencies have already adopted 

 decimal coinage, and that our non-decimal Dominions 

 have repeatedly advocated the establishment of the 

 decimal principle in currency. Further, the report 

 exaggerates the difficulties which would be caused by 

 the abolition of the penny, and takes no account of 

 the altered and daily decreasing purchasing power of 

 that coin. The Decimal Association considers that 

 the first minority report represents the actual opinion 

 of the community, and that the decision given in the 

 main report is short-sighted and unpopular. For 

 these reasons the association intends to persist with 

 its active propaganda in favour of the reform. 



In Ancient Egypt (part i., 1920) Prof. Flinders Petrie 

 describes the hoard of personal ornaments found some 

 ten years ago at Antinoe, in Upper Egypt. Unfor- 

 tunately, the hoard was not preserved intact, and the 

 valuables are now scattered in London, Berlin, Detroit, 

 and the Pierpont Morgan collection. The greater part 

 of the treasure, now described by Dr. Dennison, is 

 dated by coins to the time between Justinian and 

 Mauricius Tiberius, the latter half of the sixth century. 

 The finest object is a great necklet with fourteen 

 inserted coins from Theodosius to Justinian, and a 

 barbaric imitation of a gold coin of Valentlnian III. as 

 a centre-piece, the taste for making imitations of coins 

 for ornament being familiar in North Europe. Prof. 

 Petrie attributes the dispersal of the collection to the 

 present Egyptian law of treasure-trove. If the Govern- 

 ment would pay, as dealers do, the local prices, 

 collections could be purchased much below the value 

 NO. 2633, VOL. 105] 



in Europe, and the profit would go to the State, not 

 to the dealer. 



The probability of the Norse discovery of Spits- 

 bergen before the voyage of Barents in 1596 is the 

 subject of an article by Dr. F. Nansen in Naturen 

 for January-February, 1920. It has long been a 

 matter for discussion whether the Svalbard of the 

 Icelandic annals was Spitsbergen, and the weight of 

 evidence favours the belief that it was. Dr. Nansen 

 reproduces an Icelandic map published in the sixteenth 

 century, before Barents 's discovery, which certainly 

 suggests that Svalbard was the coast of Spitsbergen.^ 

 At the same time, it does not preclude the possibility 

 of its identification with north-eastern Greenland; but 

 this explanation is improbable, in view of the courses^ 

 given for reaching Svalbard from Iceland. Dr. Nansen 

 believes that the Norsemen found Svalbard by chance, 

 some vessel having been driven out of its course by a 

 gale. He thinks that the greater attraction of the 

 fisheries on the coast of Norway, particularly the 

 Lofoten Islands, diverted attention from Svalbard, 

 which was eventually forgotten. There is no evidence 

 whatever that Barents made any use of Norwegian' 

 knowledge in his voyage in 1596. The article contains 

 a good reproduction of the map known as Barents 's 

 chart, published in 1599 by Cornelius Claesz. 



A well-known and much-advertised institute of 

 mind-training has sent us particulars of a laboratory 

 of applied psychology which it has organised and 

 equipped. For a specified fee the laboratory, it is 

 stated, "will enable those who need vocational guid- 

 ance to discover with scientific accuracy their strong 

 and weak points, and to obtain expert advice on the 

 choice of a career. , . . Those living at a distance 

 can have tests forwarded by post." Vocational 

 psychology is the youngest branch of the youngest of 

 the sciences ; it is not ten years since the publication 

 of the well-known books by Taylor and by Miinster- 

 berg upon industrial psychology and so-called scientific 

 management. Many, therefore, will doubt whether 

 any laboratory can yet state the vocational qualifica- 

 tions of a given individual " with scientific accuracy " 

 either by post or otherwise, much less whether an 

 institute organised for profit is the proper place for 

 such investigations. At the same time the new ven- 

 ture is a striking testimony to the advance made 

 by psychology, both during and since the war, 

 into fields of practical application ; and, clearly and 

 ably written as they are, the two pamphlets issued 

 by the new laboratory, on "Choosing a Vocation" 

 and on "Choosing Employees," may do useful ser- 

 vice in acquainting both employers and applicants 

 for employment with the possibility of scientific 

 method in vocational guidance, and with the prob- 

 ability that, when established by disinterested research, 

 such methods will be as superior to the current 

 methods of personal preference or of phrenological 

 advice as the prescriptions of a properly qualified 

 medical specialist are superior to the pills of a wise 

 grandmother or the potions of a local herbalist. 



We have on several occasions referred to articles in 

 the Cologne Post— a daily paper published by the 



