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NATURE 



[January 22, 1920 



of the potato were many of exceedingly fine quality 

 and disease-resisting properties, and they have been 

 taken up by growers all over the country. His most 

 successful varieties in this connection were perhaps 

 Templar, Bishop, and Rector. Dr. Wilson's experi- 

 mental work on oats was equally successful, and he 

 was hoping shortly to place on record a full account of 

 his investigations. Many other plants at different times 

 claimed his attention with equally interesting results. 

 Handicapped by lack of means and assistance, he 

 never spared himself. His unflagging enthusiasm and 

 remarkable energy deserved better and more liberal 

 support, and had it been forthcoming there is not the 

 slightest doubt that the nation would have greatly 

 benefited by his researches. 



F.«HER JOHANN Nepomuk Strassma[ER, S.J., the 

 distinguished Assyriologist, who died on January 1 1 

 at the Jesuits' Church, Mount Street, London, W., was 

 born in Bavaria in 1846. Soon after the beginning 

 of Bismarck's Kulturkampf against the Catholic 

 Church in Germany, Strassmaier left his native land 

 in 1872 and came to England, where he remained for 

 the rest of his life. From his early youth he had been 

 deeply interested in Oriental studies, and in London 

 his attention was soon directed to the numerous Baby- 

 lonian tablets in the British Museum, which had 

 not yet been interpreted and translated, and among 

 which were manv astronomical texts. Strassmaier was 

 fortunate enough to become associated with Father 

 Epping, S.J., who undertook the necessary calculations 

 and the scientific discussion of the texts interpreted by 

 Strassmaier. The first results of their labours were 

 published in a book, " .\stronomisches aus Babylon " 

 {1889), which was followed by several papers in the 

 Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie. They showed clearly that 

 the astronomers of Babylon during the two or three 

 centuries before Hipparchus (if not earlier) possessed 

 a considerable amount of accurate knowledge of the 

 motions of the sun, moon, and planets. Epping died 

 about 1895, but some years later his work was taken 

 up by Father Kugler, who published his " Babylonische 

 Mondrechnung " in 1900, and began to issue his great 

 work, " Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel," in 

 1907. Kugler repeatedly bore testimony to the great 

 patience and skill of Strassmaier in deciphering many 

 text, which but for him might have remained unread 

 for ever, as they were gradually deteriorating owing 

 to damp and other climatic influences. 



The Lord President of the Council has approved the 

 appointment of Col. Sir Frederic Nathan, K.B.E., 

 late R.A., to be Power .'Mcohol Investigation Ofticer 

 under the Fuel Research Board of the Department of 

 Scientific and Industrial Research. The appointment 

 of the Power Alcohol Investigation Officer has been 

 made as a result of the consideration given by the 

 Committee of Council for Scientific and Industrial 

 Research to the report of the Interdepartmental Com- 

 mittee on the Production and Utilisation of Alcohol 

 for Power and Traction Purposes, which recommended 

 the establishment of a small permanent organisation 

 under the Department of Scientific and Industrial 

 Research to continue investigations into these 

 problems. The Fuel Research Board proposes to begin 

 NO. 2621, VOL. IO4I 



by bringing the work already being done as regards 

 both the production and the utilisation of alcohol into 

 proper focus. Sir Frederic Nathan, who before the war 

 was Superintendent of the Royal Gunpowder Factory at 

 Waltham Abbey, and later works manager of Messrs. 

 Nobel's Explosives Factory, Ardeer, was the officer in 

 control of alcohol under the Ministry of Munitions tiuring 

 the war, and chairman of the Production Section of the 

 Interdepartmental Committee referred to above. Prof. 

 Pierce Purcell, who was Secretary of the Irish Peat 

 Inquiry Committee, has also been appointed to act as 

 Peat Investigation Officer under the Fuel Research 

 Board. The duties of the Peat Investigation Officer 

 will be to keep the Board informed of all progress in 

 connection with research into the utilisation of peat, 

 to continue and extend experiments on the mechanical 

 cutting and winning of peat, and to make arrange- 

 ments for careful tests of the use of peat as a fuel 

 under boilers. 



Prof. R. T. Leiper, reader in helminthologv in the 

 University of London, has been awarded the Straits 

 Settlement gold medal by the Senate of the University 

 of Glasgow. The medal was founded some years ago 

 by Scottish medical practitioners in the Malav Stages, 

 and is given periodically to a graduate in medicine of 

 the Scottish universities for a thesis on a subject of 

 tropical medicine. 



The council of the British Medical .Association is 

 prepared to consider an award of the Middlemore 

 prize (value 50/.) and an illuminated certificate for the 

 best essay on '" Perimetry (inclusive of Scotometrv) : 

 Its Methods and its Value to the Ophthalmic Sur- 

 geon." The competing essays must reach the Medical 

 Secretary of the .'Association, 429 Strand, W.C.2, on 

 or f)efore April 30 next. 



Mr. C. T. Kingzett writes to suggest that airnren 

 rising to great altitudes should carrv bottles of water 

 which, by being emptied at such heights, could then 

 be sealed, and would enable samples of the air there 

 to be secured for purposes of analysis. The late M. 

 Teisserenc de Bort obtained specimens in this way and 

 had them analysed, but found no difference from 

 normal air. His specimens were obtained from regis- 

 tering balloons beyond the reach of any manned bal- 

 loon or aeroplane. Glaisher no doubt also obtained air 

 from the highest points he reached in his ascents about 

 1862. 



The death of Mr. Alexander Izat on January 2 is 

 announced in Engineering for January 16. Mr. Izat 

 joined the Indian Public Works Department in 1863, 

 and had much to do with the development of the 

 Indian railways. For several years he was on the 

 Legislative Council of the Lieutenant-Governor of the 

 United Provinces; he was made a Companion of the 

 Indian Empire in 1898, and served for several years 

 as a member of council of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers. At the time of his death he was in his 

 seventy-sixth year. 



We learn with regret that Prof. George Macloskie, 

 professor of biology, Princeton University, U.S. -A., 

 died on January 4 in the eighty-fifth year of his age. 

 Prof. Macloskie was born at Castledawson, Ireland, 



