May 27, 1920] 



NATURE 



399 



the problems only the ability and interest of the 

 scientific workers should be taken into account, 

 nationality and institutional rivalry beinfjf submerged 

 for this purp>ose. Co-operation would eliminate un- 

 necessary duplication of money and energy, and point 

 the way to the best use of funds now available and 

 to the utilisation of further endowments. The director 

 of the museum is also organising a party consisting 

 of an ethnologist, archaeologist, botanist, and necessary 

 staff, which will be stationed in 1920-21 at the Mar- 

 quesas, Austral, Tongan, and Hawaian Islands to 

 establish standards of the physical form, material cul- 

 ture, traditions, and languages of the Polynesians 

 which may serve as a basis for the determination of 

 the significance of changes produced by the overlapping 

 of other races. A similar expedition is projected for 

 1921-22 westward to the Caroline Islands, to deter- 

 mine through what place or places the Polynesians 

 reached their present settlements. Funds sufficient 

 for one year's work, contributed by Bayard Dominic 

 to Yale University, have been placed at the disposal 

 of the museum trustees. The urgent need for a 

 scientific study of the fast-changing Pacific is plain. 

 It has been recognised in Australia, where a com- 

 mittee, appointed by the Universities of Melbourne 

 and Sydney, has reported in favour of the establish- 

 ment of fellowships in Pacific studies. If America 

 studies eastern Polynesia, Australia still has Papua 

 and the Western Islands. 



The preliminary programme of the annual meeting 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, to be held at Cardiff on August 24-28, has 

 been issued from the offices at Burlington House. The 

 previous meeting in that city was held in 1891, and 

 there has been no meeting of the association in Wales 

 since that date. The present president. Sir Charles 

 Parsons, will hand over his office to Prof. W. A. Herd- 

 man, professor of natural history in the University of 

 Liverpool, who will give in his presidential address a 

 general survey of oceanography, and deal in detail with 

 certain special problems and recent investigations, with 

 particular reference to sea-fisheries, a topic not only of 

 prime interest in connection with the food supply of 

 the country, but also of special concern to the ports 

 of the Bristol Channel. The programme announces 

 a discourse at one of the general evening meetings 

 by Sir Daniel Hall, of the Ministr\' of Agriculture, on 

 "A Grain of Wheat from the Field to the Table," 

 another pregnant subject at the present time. Sir 

 Richard Glazebrook, lately Director of the National 

 Physical Laboratory, will also deliver a discourse. 

 A scientific exhibition in connection with the meeting 

 is announced to be given in the museum exhibition 

 room at the Cardiff City Hall, where the general re- 

 ception room for the meeting will also be established. 

 The sections will meet mostly in the University 

 College and the Technical College, which, with the 

 City Hall, belong to the fine range of public buildings 

 which surround Cathays Park. Scientific excursions 

 will be organised in connection with the work of 

 several of the sections. A civic reception by the Lord 

 Mayor is announced, as is also a garden party for 

 members, given by Lord Treowen, president of the 

 NO. 2639, VOL. 105] 



National Museum of Wales (which has its headquarters 

 at Cardiff). Among other fixtures is a special service 

 in St, John's Church, Cardiff, on the Sunday after 

 the meeting, at which Dr. Barnes, Canon, of West- 

 minster, will preach. 



Prince Albert will preside at the Royal Aeronau- 

 tical Society's Wilbur Wright lecture, which will be 

 delivered at the Central Hall, Westminster, on 

 June 22, at 8.30 p.m., by Commander Hunsaker, 

 upon the subject of " Naval Architecture in Aero- 

 nautics." 



The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 

 has conferred the Hayden memorial medal for 1920 

 on Prof. T. Chrowder Chamberlin, professor emeri- 

 tus of the University of Chicago, in recognition of 

 his distinguished services to geological science. This 

 medal is presented every three years for distinguished 

 accomplishments in geology or palaeontology. 



The twenty-fifth annual congress of the South- 

 Eastern Union of Scientific Societies will be held at 

 Eastbourne on June 2-5. On the evening of Wed- 

 nesday, June 2, the president-elect, Sir Edward 

 Brabrook, will deliver his presidential address. Other 

 items in the programme are : — ^The Glaciation of the 

 South Downs, E. A. Martin ; First Steps in a Local 

 Survey, C. C. Fagg; Recent Discoveries in Insect 

 Mimicry, Prof. E. B. Poulton ; Report of Mosquito 

 Investigation Committee; and Migration of Lepido- 

 ptera, R. Adkin. 



The possibilities of cotton-growing in South 

 America are discussed at length by Mr, G. McC. 

 McBride in the Geographical Review for January 

 (vol. ix., No. i). Up to the present South America 

 has produced annually scarcely 2 per cent, of the 

 world's total output. Mr. McBride shows reasons 

 for believing this could be greatly increased. The 

 principal increase must come from the eastern high- 

 lands of Brazil. In the Sao Paulo region it is already 

 competing with coffee, which suffers more than cotton 

 from frosts. Labour and transport are the factors 

 which limit its growth at present, but as these are 

 gradually overcome Brazil will be able to export 

 cotton on a considerable scale. Other possible cotton 

 lands occur in the plains of northern Argentina and 

 Paraguay, and in the coastal valleys of Peru. 



Towards the end of March last a meeting was held 

 in Brussels of the scientific committee of the Solvay 

 International Institute of Physics, and it was resolved, 

 upon the recommendation of the executive committee, 

 to resume the work of the institute, which had been 

 interrupted by the war. New physical councils will 

 be summoned from time to time, similar to those 

 formed in 191 1 and 1913. The president referred to 

 the debt which the scientific committee owed to Dr. . 

 R. B. Goldschmkit, of Brussels, for the services 

 rendered bv him to the institute during the early 

 vears of its foundation. The members of the com- 

 mittee were Prof. H. A. Lorentz (president), Haar- 

 lem; Mme. Curie, Paris; Sir W. H. Bragg, London; 

 M, Brillouin, Paris; Prof. H. Kamerlingh Onnes, 

 Leyden; Prof, Knudsen, Copenhagen; Prof. A. 

 Righi, Bologna; Sir Ernest Rutherford, Cambridge; 

 and Prof, E. Van Aubel, Ghent. 



