November 2 7, 1919] 



NATURE 



339 



graphic and various other "fine" chemicals, cptical 

 L^lass, laboratory porcelain, scientific and optical in- 

 ^u•Llments, synthetic drugs and perfumes, coal-tar 

 dyes, and dyestuff intermediate products. The method 

 of prohibition is by means of an Order of the Board, 

 but such Orders are to be subject to the approval of 

 a Trade Regulation Committee, consisting of four 

 political heads of Departments, three permanent 

 ' officials, and ten Members of Parliament. Licences 

 for the importation of any of the prohibited articles 

 may be granted, either generallv or in respect of 

 specific quantities or shipments. The proposals appear 

 to be carefully and fairly devised to meet v.hat is 

 admittedly a difficult situation. Thev have been 

 referred to as measures injurious to scientific teaching 

 and research, but if the industries producing the 

 articles in question are not to be strangled out of 

 existence in this country they must for a time be pro- 

 tected against "dumping"; while the power to allow 

 importation when this appears necessarv should art 

 as a check upon excessive prices and prevent scarcity 

 of particular products. The measure in question is 

 eminently one in which verv much will depend upon 

 judicious administration. 



Amongst the younger generation of naturalists 

 in this country there would seem to be a great dearth 

 of men well qualified by training and experience to 

 >tudy entomology, not merely as a pastime or for the 

 pleasure and delight they may find in it, but as one 

 of those sciences of life which are of the greatest 

 present value to the State and to humanity at large, 

 and full of potentialities for the future. There was 

 a time when, to one seeking a profession or other 

 means of livelihood, the prospect presented by entomo- 

 logy looked very black indeed, but, according to a 

 l( Iter from .Sir Alfred Keogh which appeared in the 

 Tillies of November 20, a number of reasonably well- 

 paid posts are now open to trained young entomo- 

 logists. The difficulty in finding men properly qualified 

 to fill them need not be a cause of surprise when it 

 is considered that until recently there was scarcely a 

 professional post of the kind in this country outside 

 the British Museum, and that the few in the museum 

 Wire by no means well-paid. They appear to 

 be no better paid now. Another correspondent, whose 

 letter signed "F.R.S." was published by our contem- 

 porary on Saturday last, points out that the pay of 

 an assistant in the museum begins at little more than 

 one-third of the pay of a lieutenant in the R.A.M.C., 

 and never, while he remains an assistant, does it reach 

 a higher level than the pay at which that lieutenant 

 begins. He might have added that an assistant in 

 the Natural History Museum very rarely has a chance 

 to get beyond that stage, since the higher apooint- 

 iii'Mits are so extremely few in both number and pro- 

 portion compared with those in other branches of the 

 Civil Service. There is one only in entomology, which 

 js the second largest department, and the other depart- 

 ments in the same branch of the British Museum are 

 scarcely better off in that respect. It is astonishing 

 that, at a time when the value of science is becoming 

 daily more and more appreciated even by the general 

 public, this state of affairs should continue to exist 

 in one of our leading scientific institutions. 



At the invitation of Lord Glenconner, a very dis- 

 tinguished company assembled at his house in Queen 

 Anne's Gate on Monday last to hear an exposition of 

 the subject of relativity by Sir Oliver I^odge. To 

 give a non-mathematical explanation of the principle 

 and show how it leads to the prediction of changes in 

 the perihelion of Mercury's orbit, which are unex- 

 plained by Newtonian theory, the deflection of a 

 ray of light from a star passing neat the sun, and 

 NO. 2613, VOL. 104] 



the displacement of lines of solar and stellar spectra 

 towards the red, was obviously impossible, and Sir 

 Oliver did not attempt it. He limited himself to a 

 statement of the close agreement between the pre- 

 dicted and measured deflections of star places derived 

 froin the photographs of the total solar eclipse of 

 May 2q last, and to an explanation of the effect on 

 dynamical principles. If gravitation is assumed to 

 affect the refractive index of the aether, so that at 

 every point /i~i = 7)^/c^, where /i is the refractivitv, 

 V the velocity of free fall from infinity, and c 

 the velocity of light, this condition would give the 

 Einstein deflection. Gravitation cannot increase the 

 velocity of light, but Sir Oliver thought that there 

 might be a kind of gyrostatic effect upon a beam 

 coming, from infinity the result of which would be a 

 deflection such as has been observed. He preferred 

 to endeavour to explain the observations on dynamical 

 principles before bringing in a new theory. Prof. 

 .Schuster, however, at the close of the address, urged 

 that the best way to deal with ;i theory was to accept 

 it as a working hypothesis and put all its consequences 

 to the test. The announcement of the eclipse results 

 has brought the relativity principle into prominence 

 in the general Press, and many people have con- 

 sequently become interested in it. For several vears 

 scarcely a volume of N.^turf. has been yvithout con- 

 tributions on the principle, and we would direct par- 

 ticular attention to two articles in our columns of 

 Tune II and iS, 1914, by Mr. E. Cunningham, a Royal 

 Institution discourse by Prof. .A. S. Eddington in the 

 issues of March y and 14, iqiS, and one by Sir Oliver 

 Lodge in those of September 4 and 25 last. 



.As was to be expected, the results of the Eclipse 

 Expedition confirming Einstein's theory of gravitation 

 have called forth discussion, .support, and opposition 

 from those who find their own particular point of 

 view, physical or metaphysical, in agreement with or 

 in opposition to Einstein's. On the physical side 

 further contributions to the question of the displace- 

 ments predicted in the solar spectrum are eagerly 

 looked for, and we are glad to note that Sir Jo.seph 

 Larmor had something of value to communicate to 

 the Royal Society on this point last week. On the 

 metaphysical side the columns of the Times have been 

 opened to Mr. Frederic Harrison, reminding us of the 

 views of Comte on the relativity of space and his 

 opposition to the conception of an aether filling all 

 space. At the same time Mr. Thomas Case stoutly 

 defends the view that Newton's definitions and com- 

 ments on absolute space and time are sound philo- 

 sophy and firm foundations of his fame ; while Prof. 

 Wildon Carr points out that all the modern relativist 

 arguments can be found in Descartes' " Princi|)les." 

 .At a meeting of the Cambridge Philosophical .Society 

 on November 24 Prof. Eddington gave an exposition 

 of Einstein's theory to a crowded and eager audience 

 of students. In the discussion following. Prof. Hobson 

 remarked that the abstractness of a theory of the 

 physical universe is in no sense an objection to its 

 validity, any theory or hypothesis being in its essence 

 an abstract scheme built up by the mind to fit those 

 phenomena which have been examined up to date. 



The chairman of council of the Royal Society of 

 .Arts, Sir Henry Trueman Wood, in an interesting 

 and thoughtful address at the annual meeting on 

 November 19, reviewed the progress which has been 

 made in the development of our natural resources and 

 in the application of science to industry since the 

 foundation of the society more than a hundred and 

 sixty years ago. He pointed to one outstanding fact, 

 that "all our progress was accomplish<d by indi- 

 vidual action, not by State organisation or control." 



