3i8 



NATURE 



[November 20, 19 19 



ising new methods of ranging by sound and 

 observation, and by his force of character Keeling 

 was particularly successful in gaining the con- 

 fidence of the artillery in these methods, and it 

 would be difficult to over-estimate the effect on 

 many operations which he thus exercised. He 

 was present at the Somme battle, the attack on 

 Cambrai, the great German attack in 1918, and 

 the subsequent British advance. 



Keeling returned to Egypt in April, 1919, as 

 head of the Survey of Egypt, having also been 

 appointed chairman of the newly formed Board 

 of Cotton Research, and with his accustomed zeal 

 had already started to develop geodetic and other 

 lines of work in the Department. He was a man 

 of unbounded energy, who combined foresight 

 and skill in administration with a sound scientific 

 training, and his loss is a serious one to Egypt. 

 He had only recently been married, and the sym- 

 pathies of all are with his widow. 



H. G. Lyons. 



ATOTES. 



A CONFERENCE of delegates representing the Mediter- 

 ranean nations is about to meet at Madrid to organise 

 an international scheme of fishery investigations and 

 to set up a central office for the co-ordination of the 

 results and their publication in French, Spanish, 

 Italian, and English. Four exploring ships arc to be 

 at the disposal of the office — the Hirondelle 11. be- 

 longing to the Prince of Monaco, a speciallv built 

 Italian ship, and two other vessels provided by France 

 and Spain. In the meantime, while the fujll scheme 

 is being elaborated, the Italian Government is 

 beginning investigations in the Dardanelles. In the 

 main, the object of the researches will be the develop- 

 ment of the sea-fishing industries, and the results 

 primarily sought will relate to the life-histories of 

 edible fishes. Hydrographic work will also be carried 

 out. Several big expeditions have made investigations 

 of this nature in the past, but there is still much to 

 be discovered, and sustained research is, of course, 

 imperative in the study of variability of the produc- 

 tivity of the fisheries. 



We note with great regret that Mr. S. D. Chalmers 

 died on Friday, November 7. Born at Wallsend, near 

 Newcastle, New South Wales, Mr. Chalmers had a 

 brilliant career at the University of Sydney, whence 

 a travelling fellowship took him to Cambridge. There 

 he graduated as thirteenth Wrangler in a very strong 

 year. After holding lecturerships in mathematics at 

 Owens College, Manchester, and at the Royal Naval 

 College, Greenwich, he became the first head of the 

 newly organised department of technical optics at the 

 Northampton Polytechnic Institute at Clerkenwell, a 

 post which he held until his premature death at the 

 age of forty-two. Since 1903 Mr. Chalmers's work 

 had been entirely devoted to optics, and his activities 

 were largely identified with the Optical Society of 

 London, of which he was for a time honorary secre- 

 tary, and in 1900-10 president ; and also with the two 

 Optical Conventions of 1905 and 1912. His published 

 work, his teaching, and his personal advice and 

 example have done much for the optical industry ot 

 this country, and it is greatly to be regretted that 

 one of the ablest workers in this field has been lost 

 to us at a time when that industry needs all its 

 strength. During the war Mr. Chalmers not only 

 assisted the industry by personal advice and help, and 



NO. 2'5l2, VOL. 104] 



by a large amount of responsible testing work, but he 

 also organised and supervised a special training work- 

 shop in which girls were trained to become skilled 

 grinders and polishers of lenses. There can be no 

 doubt that his untimely death is to be ascribed to 

 the excessive strain of these activities, followed by the 

 further strain arising from a combination of a pressure 

 of many students and an inadequacy of staff. 



All those interested in the afforestation question in 

 this country, and cognisant of the vital economic and 

 social problems bound up with it, will have been 

 relieved at the answer given bv Mr. Bonar Law, in 

 reply to Sir Philip Magnus, on the subject of the 

 Commissioners to be appointed under the Forestry Act. 

 It will be remembered that the Forestry Bill was 

 passed by the House of Commons in August last, 

 having been previously accepted by the House of 

 Lords. The Art provided for the appointment of a 

 Central Forestry Commission, consisting of eight 

 Commissioners who should be responsible for the 

 forest policy in Great Britain and Ireland, and anxiety 

 as to the non-appointment of the Commissioners was 

 being felt. The names of the eight Commissioners 

 were announced in last week's Nature. The member 

 of the Commission who has had a technical and 

 scientific forestry training is Mr. R. L. Robinson, the 

 Cabinet having accepted the principle that at les.st 

 one Commissioner should possess a scientific training 

 in forestry. We should like to have seen a representa- 

 tive of the purely scientific side of forestry upon the 

 Commission, and also a second expert member pos- 

 sessing a practical and wide knowledge of forestry 

 conditions throughout the British Empire and other 

 parts of the world outside western continental Europe. 

 The advice such a member could tender on manv 

 points of vital importance in connection with the 

 afforesting of the great waste areas in this country 

 would prove invaluable. This is a weak spot in the 

 Commission, a disability which, it may be hoped, will 

 be quickly realised bv such a broad-minded, energetic, 

 and capable administrator as the chairman. Lord 

 Lovat, has already proved himself to be. In other 

 respects the selection of the Commissioners gives ever\' 

 promise of assuring the fulfilment of the desired 

 results. 



We much regret to record the death, on Novem- 

 ber 14, at eighty years of age, of Dr. John Aitken, 

 F.R.S., a frequent contributor to our correspondence 

 columns, and distinguished for his lifelong researches 

 on the nuclei of cloudy condensation and related sub- 

 jects of meteorological physics. 



The ninety-fourth course of juvenile lectures founded 

 by Faraday at the Royal Institution will be delivered 

 this Christmas by Prof. W. H. Bragg on " The World 

 of Sound." 



Announcement is made in the Times that Prof. M. 

 Planck, Berlin University, and Prof. H. Stark, Griefs- 

 wald University, have been respectively awarded the 

 iqi8 and 1919 Nobel prizes for physics, and Prof. F. 

 Haber, Berlin University, the 1918 Nobel prize for 

 chemistry. 



Prof. Wm. Berryman Scott, president of the 

 American Philosophical Society, sends us the follow- 

 ing congratulatory message from Princeton : — " I am 

 very glad to congratulate you, officially upon the com- 

 pletion of the first half-century of Nature's career, 

 to express the cordial wish and hope that that career 

 may long continue in ever-increasing honour and use- 

 fulness, and to give some appreciation of the very 

 great services which the journal has rendered to 



