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NATURE 



[June 3, 1920 



A SUDDEN flood swept through the Lincolnshire 

 town of Louth on Saturday afternoon, May 29, caus- 

 ing immense havoc in its path. The torrent took the 

 course of the small stream known as the River Lud, 

 which runs through the town,, and rose 15 ft. in half 

 an hour. The disaster, which occurred shortly before 

 5 o'clock, is described as a huge wall of water 

 sweeping down upon the town and carrying away 

 bridges and buildings opposed to its course. The 

 River Lud in normal times is a stream from 12 ft. 

 to 15 ft. wide, and about 2 ft. or 3 ft. deep. The 

 flood is said nowhere to have been less than 8 ft. 

 to 10 ft. high and fully 200 yards wide. It was 

 apparently accompanied by no warning sound, and 

 the torrent of water is said to have exceeded the 

 rate of 40 miles an hour. The loss of life is 

 reported to be from 25 to 40 persons, and the damage 

 to property is roughly estimated at 250,000?. to 

 500,000?. A heavy thunderstorm had raged for two 

 hours in the afternoon. The disaster was, without 

 doubt, due to intense thunderstorm rains swelling 

 the river far beyond the capacity of its channel. 

 The " Meteorological Glossary " published by the 

 Meteorological Oflice describes a " cloud-burst " as a 

 term commonly used for very heavy thunder-rain, 

 and in . this sense the term seems applicable to the 

 cause of the Louth disaster. 



The liew by-laws of the Chemical Society came 

 into force on June i, and women are now eligible for 

 fellowship of the society. 



The annual visitation of the Royal Observatory, 

 Greenwich, will be held on Saturday next, June 5. 

 The observatory will be open for inspection by invited 

 visitors at 3.30 p.m. 



Dr. Frederick G. Cottrell has been nominated 

 by President Wilson as Director of the U.S. Bureau 

 of Mines, Department of the Interior, in succession 

 to Dr. Van. H. Manning, resigned. 



The Stewart prize of the British Medical Association 

 has been awarded by the council to Dr. Harriette 

 Chick, who has been an assistant in the department 

 of experimental pathology at the Lister Institute since 

 1906, and has published numerous papers on bacterio- 

 logy and physipal chemistry. 



By the courtesy of the council of the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers, the next ordinary scientific 

 meeting of the Chemical Society on June 17 at 8 p.m. 

 will be held in the lecture-hall of the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers, Storey's Gate, Westminster, 

 S.W.I, when Prof. J. C. McLennan, of Toronto Uni- 

 versity, will deliver a lecture on "Helium." 



A JOINT meeting of the Association of Economic 

 Biologists and the Imperial Entomological Conference 

 will be held at the Rothamsted Experimental Station, 

 Harpenden, on June 4. The party will leave St. 

 Pancras Station by the 10 a.m. train and, on arrival 

 at Harpenden, proceed direct to the park, where the 

 experimental plots will be demonstrated by Dr. W. E. 

 Brenchley. 



Sir William J. Pope has accepted the nomination 

 of the council of the Society of Chemical Industry to 

 be president for the year 1920-21. Prof. H. Louis has 

 NO. 2640, VOL. 105] 



been elected foreign secretary in succession to the late 

 Dr. Messel, and Dr. C. C. Carpenter has been ap- 

 pointed the society's representative on the governing 

 body of the Imperial College of Science and Techno- 

 logy. 



At the meeting of the Franklin Institute, Philadel- 

 phia, on May 19, the Franklin medal awarded to 

 the Hon. Sir Charles A. Parsons was received by 

 Sir Auckland Geddes, British Ambassador; and Mr. 

 W. A. F. Ekengren, Swedish Minister, also received 

 a Franklin medal for Prof. Svante A. Arrhenius. 

 Papers were presented on " Some Reminiscences of 

 Early Days of Turbine Development " by Sir 

 Charles A. Parsons, and on " The World's Energy 

 Supply " by Prof. Arrhenius. 



The national memorial to the late Capt. F. C. 

 Selous at the Natural History Museum, Cromwell 

 Road, South Kensington, will be unveiled by the 

 Right Hon. Viscount Grey of Fallodon, K.G., on 

 Thursday next, June 10, at 3.30 p.m. The presenta- 

 tion will be made by the Right Hon. E. S. Montagu, 

 M.P., chairman of the committee. The granite of 

 the bas-relief which forms the memorial is from the 

 Matoppo Hills, the burial-place of Cecil Rhodes and 

 Sir Starr Jameson, and was presented to the Selous 

 Memorial Committee by the Government of the Union 

 of South Africa. 



The Imperial Entomological Conference was opened 

 in London on Tuesday, ' June i, by Lord Harcourt. 

 The official delegates to the conference are : — Canada, 

 South Africa, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and Swazi- 

 land, Mr. C. P. Lounsbury; Australia, Prof. R. D. 

 Watt; New Zealand, Dr. R. J. Tillyard; India, Mr. 

 C. F. C. Beeson ; Queensland, Mr. F. Balfour 

 Browne; British Guiana, Mr. G. E. Bodkin; Ceylon, 

 Mr. F. A. Stockdale; East Africa Protectorate, Mr. 

 T. J. Anderson; Federated Malay States, Mr. P. B. 

 Richards; Gold Coast, Mr. W. H. Patterson; Im- 

 perial Department of Agriculture for the West Indies 

 and Leeward Islands, Mr. H. A. Ballou ; Mauritius^ 

 Mr. G. G. Auchinleck; Northern Rhodesia, Dr. 

 Aylmer May ; Southern Rhodesia, Mr. R. W. Jack ; 

 Seychelles, Dr. J. B. Addison; Sierra Leone, Mr. H. 

 Waterland ; Straits Settlements, Mr. P. B. Richards ; 

 Sudan, Mr. H. H. King; Trinidad, Mr. F. W. Urich; 

 and Uganda, Mr. C. C. Gowdey. 



In the May issue of the Fortnightly Review Mr. 

 Edward Clodd gives an account of the prevalence of 

 occultism at the present day. This results from the 

 fact that though man calls himself Homo sapiens, 

 his instincts and elemental passions and emotions 

 remain primitive. Prof. Elliot Smith in a recent 

 paper on " Primitive Man " remarks that, " so far 

 as one can judge, there has been no far-reaching and 

 progressive modification of the instincts and emotions 

 since man came into existence beyond the acquisition 

 of the necessary innate power of using more complex 

 cerebral apparatus which he has to employ." Plus 

 fa change, plus c'est la mime chose. The influence 

 of the present movement, and the mischievous play 

 on the hopes and fears of crowds of dupes of all 

 classes of society, are strongly reprobated. " Its 

 exponents lack the harmlessness of the cranky theory- 



