638 



NATURE 



[February 12, 1920 



but few survivors of the original group of students 

 of the Royal College of Chemistry. 



The Carnegie Corporation of New York has an- 

 nounced its intention to give five million dollars for the 

 use of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and 

 the National Research Council. It is understood that 

 a portion of the money will be used to erect in 

 Washington a home of suitable architectural dignity 

 for the two beneficiary organisations. The remainder 

 will be placed in the hands of the academy, which 

 enjoys a Federal charter, to be used as a permanent 

 endowment for the National Research Council. This 

 impressive gift is a fitting supplement to Mr. Car- 

 negie's great contributions to science and industry. 

 The Council is a democratic organisation based upon 

 some forty of the great scientific and engineering 

 societies of the country, which elect delegates to its 

 constituent divisions. It is not supported or con- 

 trolled by the Government, differing in this respect 

 from other similar organisations established since the 

 beginning of the war in England, Italy, Japan, 

 Canada, and Australia. The Council was organised 

 in igi6 as a measure of national preparedness, and its 

 efforts during the war were moltly confined to assist- 

 ing the Government in the solution of pressing war- 

 time problems involving scientific investigation. Re- 

 organised since the war on a peace-time footing, it is 

 now attempting to stimulate and promote scientific 

 research in agriculture, medicine, and industrv, and 

 in every field of pure science. 



Sir Henry Fowler has been elected president of 

 the Institution of Automobile Engineers for the ses- 

 sion 1920-21, and Dr. Blackwood Murray, Lt.-Col. 

 D. J. Smith, and Mr. Geo. Watson vice-presidents. 



The National Sea Fisheries Protection Association 

 has decided to form an organisation, to be known as 

 the British Fisheries Guild, with the following 

 objects : — (i) To gather and diffuse information upon 

 all matters relating to fish and fisheries, and to col- 

 lect and circulate statistics relative thereto; (2) to 

 unite, encourage, and maintain all interests relating 

 to fish and fisheries, and to affiliate local or other 

 organisations with similar objects; and (3) to deal 

 with all questions relative to fish and fisheries, 

 whether scientific or economic in character. 



\t the meeting of the Royal .Anthropological Insti- 

 tute to be held on February 17 Mr. J. Reid Moir will 

 exhibit and describe certain flint implements and 

 flakes found in the Boulder Clay in pits north of 

 Ipswich and at Claydon. Prof. J. E. Marr is of the 

 opinion that this deposit represents part of the large 

 sheet of Boulder Clay of the Ipswich sheet. Mr. 

 Moir's examination of the form and technique of these 

 implements has led him to the conclusion that they 

 may with probability be referred to the Mousterian 

 phase of culture. 



Mr. F. H. Carr has just been elected to a .seat 

 on the board of directors of the British Drug 

 Houses, Ltd. After holding for several vears the 

 Salters' research fellowship, first at the Pharma- 

 ceutical Society's research laboratory and afterwards 

 at the Imperial Institute, where he specialised on the 

 NO. 2624, VOL. 104] 



active principles of drugs and became a leading 

 authority on alkaloids, Mr. Carr was appointed chief 

 of Messrs. Burroughs Wellcome and Co.'s Chemical 

 Department. In 1914 he was appointed a director 

 of Boots Pure Drug Co., from which position he 

 resigned at the end of the war. 



k Radio Research Board has been established bv 

 the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research 

 to co-ordinate and develop researches into wireless 

 telegraphy and telephony at present being undertaken 

 by Government Departments. The members of the 

 Board are : — .Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry B. 

 Jackson, G.C.B., F.R.S., chairman; Comdr. J. S. Sal- 

 mond, R.N., Lt.-Col. A. G. T. Cusins, C.M.G., Wing- 

 Comdr. A. D. Warrington Morris, C.M.G., Mr. E. H. 

 Shaughnes.sy, and Prof. J. E. Petavel, F.R.S. — repre- 

 senting the .Admiralty, War Office, .Air Ministry, Post 

 Office, and Department of Scientific and Industrial 

 Research respectively — and Sir Ernest Rutherford, 

 F.R.S. 



Eleanor .Anne Ormerod, the distinguished student 

 of economic entomology, lived at Torrington House, 

 St. .Albans, from 1887 until her death in 1901, and t 

 was during her residence there that she achieved the 

 final success of her great project to convince the 

 general agricultural public that an accurate knowledge 

 of the life-history of injurious insects was worth 

 having, because it provided the only sure foundation 

 for preventive and curative measures. To com- 

 memorate her residence in the county, the Hertford- 

 shire Natural History Society has lately put up a 

 tablet at the gate of Torrington House on Holvwell 

 Hill, which will help to keep alive the memory of 

 Miss Ormerod 's splendid record of unselfish work. 



Influenza is still far from assuming anything 

 approaching an alarming epidemic, although tlvj 

 Registrar-General's return for the week endeil 

 January 24 showed a slight increase. In London the 

 deaths were 24, which is rather more than in any 

 week since the commencement of last autumn, but the 

 deaths in the week ended January 31 are nine fewer 

 •than in the preceding week. The deaths for the 

 ninety-six great towns of England and Wales, includ- 

 ing London, in the week ended January 24 were 85, 

 also the highest in any week since last autumn, 

 but the following week shows a decrease of 19. 

 Both December and January were remarkably 

 mild, which, guided by the weather associated with 

 previous epidemics, is scarcely in favour of lessening 

 an outbreak. So far as can be judged at present, the 

 general health over England kand Wales seems highly 

 satisfactory. 



January was very mild over the British Isles with 

 the exception of the first week, when the mean for 

 the United Kingdom generally was nearly 2° F. below 

 the normal. The weekly weather reports issued by 

 the Meteorological Office show that the mean tem- 

 perature for the second week was, taking the British 

 Isles as a whole, 4° above the normal, and in the 

 third week the excess was 23°, whilst for the closing 

 week the excess for the whole kingdom was i-6°, a 

 deficiency of temperature occurring in Ireland. In 

 each week the rainfall was in excess of the normal 



