7o6 



NATURE 



[February 26, 1920 



is a great danger that many irryjortant sides of 

 meteorology will be neglected. Safeguards are 

 that the Director of the Meteorological Office should 

 be directly under the Minister of the Department con- 

 cerned, and on no account under other permanent 

 officials, and that the Meteorological Office should 

 have its separate vote and account in the Estimates. 

 Hitherto the expenses have been controlled by the 

 Meteorological Committee, a body on which several 

 Government Departments as well as the Royal Society 

 are represented ; there seems to be no reason why 

 this arrangement should not be continued. The work 

 of the Meteorological Office concerns not only Govern- 

 ment Departments, but also such bodies as county 

 councils, municipal bodies, organisers of engineering 

 undertakings, and the general public; and probably 

 none of these know how great a use may be made 

 of meteorological information. 



The public is chiefly concerned with forecasts, and 

 probably the mistrust of forecasts which undoubtedly 

 exists in the public mind is due to the delay that 

 occurs before the forecasts are available. Those that 

 appear in the daily papers are based on observations 

 at 6 o.m. of the previous day, but if forecasts based 

 on the I a.m. or 7 a.m. observations were sent to 

 everv telegraph office in the country and posted up, 

 and 'could be obtained by telephone subscribers, it 

 would probablv prove a great boon, especially to agri- 

 culturists, and' do much to dispel the present mistrust 

 of weather forecasts. 



During the past year the Meteorological Office 

 forecasts have been issued from the Air Ministry, and 

 in the .Mr Estimate there appears a sum for the 

 Meteorological Office. From this it appears as though 

 the Office is to pass under the Air Ministry. In former 

 times when anv change was made in the status of the 

 Office an official inquiry was held, but no such inquiry 

 has apparently taken place as a prelude to the present 

 change, and no public announcement of anv kind has 

 been made. There seems no reason for the change. 

 The Meteorological Office had done work on the upper 

 air long before the war, and it was its work which 

 proved that long-di.stance night flying was a practical 

 possibility. Meteorology must be a national Service, 

 but the policy of handing it over to one Ministry 

 without a separate vote and account would be 

 disastrous, not only to meteorology as a science, but 

 also to the State at large. 



The following resolution was adopted at the 

 meeting: — "The Roval Meteorological Society observes 

 that, in the .Mr Estimates for iqig-ao published last 

 December there appears a sum of i2,oooi. as a supple- 

 ment to the grant in aid of the Meteorological Office. 

 It would appear from this that it is intended that 

 the finances of the Meteorological Office shall pass 

 under the control of the Air Ministry. 



"The Meteorological Office deals with a variety of 

 problems of high scientific and practical importance, 

 some of which have no bearings on the work of the 

 Air Ministry, but are closely connected with the work 

 of other Government Departments. While recoi?nising 

 to the full the great benefits to the meteorology 

 of the upper air likely to accrue from a close associa- 

 tion with the Service to which a knowledge of the 

 upper air is so essential, and which possesses such 

 facilities for its investigation, this society cannot but 

 feel misgiving that there may be a tendency for other 

 branches of meteorology to receive less than their due 

 attention if one Government Department has the sole 

 control of the finances and management. The society, 

 therefore, is of opinion that the Meteorological Com- 

 mittee should continue to have full control of the 

 expenditure. 



" It has been the practice in the past, before anv 



NO. 2626, VOL. 104] 



change was made in the body administering the Meteoro- 

 logical Office, for an inquiry to be held by a Depart- 

 mental Committee. Reports of three such inquiries 

 have been published, the last being that issued in 1904 

 of a Treasury Committee presided over by Sir Herbert 

 Maxwell, Bart. The Treasury did not adopt the 

 whole of the recommendations of this Committee, but 

 on May 20, 1905, it issued a minute constituting 

 the Meteorological Committee as it has since existed. 

 The society is of the opinion that before the future 

 constitution of the Meteorological Committee and the 

 status of the Meteorological Office are finally settled, 

 it is desirable that an inquiry by a representative 

 committee should be held." 



PRE-HISTORY OF MAN IN BRITAIN. 



Flint Impleme.nts from the Chalky Bollder Cl.\y 

 OF Suffolk. 



MR. J. RE ID MOIR described to the Royal 

 Anthropological Institute on February 17 some 

 interesting flint implements and flakes found in two 

 pits situated to the north of Ipswich, and in a pit 

 at Claydon, to the north-west of that town. In each 

 of these pits Boulder Clay of considerable thickness 

 is exposed, and this deposit, in the opinion of Prof. 

 J. E. Marr, who has visited the sections, is in situ, 

 and represents part of the large sheet of Boulder Clay 

 of the Ipswich district. Mr. Reid Moir found many 

 of the specimens described in situ in the Boulder 

 Clav, and the others, handed to him by workmen 

 employed in the pits, are of such an order as to 

 make it certain that these implements were also 

 derived from the Boulder Clay. The specimens are 

 in nearly everv case made from flakes, and exhibit 

 very little change of surface or signs of abrasion. 

 The two principal types are rddoirs and pointes ; 

 primitive flake-implements and large scrapers are 

 also represented in the series. The technique of these 

 artefacts is in many ways comparable with that of 

 Early Mousterian times, and it is probable that these 

 Boulder Clav specimens are referable to this cultural 

 phase. The' implements appear to have been lying 

 in or upon a land surface before being incorporated 

 with the morainic material in which they are now- 

 found. One well-made and deeply ochreous flake 

 found in the Boulder Clay appears to be of Chellean 

 age. It exhibits reflaking along its edges, and this 

 flaking is patinated in the peculiar manner of some 

 of the Boulder Clay artefacts. 



In the discussion which followed the reading of 

 the paper all the speakers united in dwelling upon 

 the importance of the contribution made by Mr. Reid 

 Moir to the study of the pre-history of man 

 in Britain. Prof. .Xrthur Keith pointed out that 

 the conclusions which followed from the results of 

 Mr. Reid Moir's investigations could only be described 

 as revolutionary, and would involve a reconsidera- 

 tion of the evidence relating to the antiquity of 

 Stone-age implements. Mr. Reginald Smith .said 

 that the pointe was considered to be the typical im- 

 plement of the Mousterian stage of culture. _ Archaeo- 

 logists would have to consider the possibility of its 

 occurrence in other periods. The peculiar patination 

 which occurred on certain of the specimens found by 

 Mr. Reid Moir in the Ipswich Boulder Clay occurred 

 at Northfleet, and was usually considered to be 

 typical of the Le Moustier period. Mr. Smith also 

 pointed out that some thirty-five years ago Dr. 

 Skertchlev had raised the question of the occurrence 

 of palaeolithic implements below the Boulder Clay. 

 Dr. Barnes remarked that a considerable number of 

 flakes must be examined before it can be concluded 



