March i, 1917] 



NATURE 



after the introduction of cocaine by KoUer, he in- 

 vestigated the action of this drug upon the eye. He 

 devoted himself chiefly to the clinical side of his 

 subject, and with great success. He was a member 

 of several foreign ophthalmological societies and a 

 constant visitor to international congresses. In this 

 manner he became well known amongst Continental 

 ophthalmic surgeons, and they were always made wel- 

 come as his guests. At the time of his death he was 

 engaged upon two very important projects. The 

 foundation of a really representative British Journal 

 of Ophthalmology has already been successfully accom- 

 plished, chiefly as the result of his energy and en- 

 thusiasm. He was also actively promoting the affilia- 

 tion of certain provincial ophthalmic societies with tlie 

 London Society. Mr. Jessop was a lover of the arts, 

 and his collection of Whistler prints is unique. 



Bv the death, in his seventieth year, of Dr. J. F. 

 Fleet, India has lost one of the most learned members 

 of the Civil Service. At an early period of his career 

 in the Bombay Presidency he acquired a profound 

 knowledge of Sanskrit and of the local dialects, par- 

 ticularly of the ancient Kanarese. His most important 

 work, published in iS88, was vol. iii. of the *" Corpus 

 Inscriptionum Indlcarum," in which, for the first 

 time, the chronology,- of the Gupta period, one of the 

 most difficult problems in the histor\- of ancient India, 

 was finally settled. Besides numerous papers in 

 scientific journals, he contributed the article on epi- 

 graphy to the last edition of the "Imperial Gazetteer 

 of India," and those on " Hindu Chronology " and 

 ■ Indian Inscriptions " to the eleventh edition of the 

 '■ Encyclopaedia Britannica." He also engaged in the 

 controversy, not yet finally settled, on the date of the 

 Kushan Emperor Kanishka. 



Bv the death of Mr. R. H. Tiddeman on 

 February 20, we have lost a field geologist of long 

 experience and rare sagacity. Born on February 11, 

 1S42, he was appointed by Sir R. Murchison an 

 assistant geologist on the Geological Survey of the 

 United Kingdom in 1864. He was promoted to 

 geologist in 1870, and retired in 1902. For more than 

 twenty years Tiddeman was engaged in surveying 

 the Carboniferous rocks of Westmorland. Lancashire, 

 and Yorkshire, and during this period he rnade the 

 observations which enabled him to lay before the 

 Geological Society in 1872 a classic paper of far- 

 reaching consequence on the evidence for an ice-sheet 

 in those counties. Later on he was temporarily 

 engaged in North Wales, where he determined the 

 Carboniferous age of some red rocks in the Vale of 

 Clwyd, which had previously been regarded as Trias. 

 From 1895 until his retirement he assisted in survey- 

 ing the southern part of Glamorganshire. He was 

 author of the Geological Survey memoir on the water- 

 supply of Oxfordshire, a task for which his residence 

 at Oxford after his retirement proved convenient, and 

 was editor and in part author of the memoir on the 

 Burnley coalfield. Contributions were furnished by 

 him to upwards of nine other memoirs dealing with 

 the north-west of England and North and South 

 Wales. In his unofficial work his investigations in 

 the Victoria Cave, and his philosophic work on reef- 

 knolls and succession of episodes in the Carboniferous 

 limestone, take first place. His views on the relative 

 age of the deposits of the Victoria Cave and the 



► Boulder Clay were long in receiving the appreciation 

 due to them. In iqii, partly in consideration of his 

 long record of useful work, but especially in recog- 

 nition of his observations on the fauna and structures 

 of reef-knolls, he was awarded the Murchison medal. 

 He was elected president of the Yorkshire Geological 

 Society in 19 14, and served on the council of the 



NO. 2470, VOL. 99"] 



Geological Society of London in 1905-10. He leaves 

 a widow and two daughters. 



The Minister of Munitions, after consultation with 

 the Admiralty and the Home Office, has appointed two 

 committees — an owners' committee and a work- 

 men's committee — to deal with certain problems con- 

 nected with the Scottish shale industry-. Prof. John 

 Cadman will represent the Ministrj-, and will act as 

 chainnan of the two committees when they meet in 

 joint session. Sir George Beilby has been appointed 

 to act as technical adviser, and Mr. Hugh Johnstone 

 will be a member of the committee and act as secre- 

 tary. 



The annual general meeting of the Institute of 

 Metals is to be held on Wednesday, March 21, and 

 Thursday, March 22, in the rooms of the Chemical 

 Society. The meeting on the Wednesday will com- 

 mence at 8 p.m. and that on Thursday at 4.30 p.m. 

 A special feature of the meeting will be a general 

 discussion on metal melting, over which the president 

 of the institute. Sir George Beilby, the head of the 

 new Government Board of Fuel Research, will preside. 

 The seventh annual May lecture of the institute will 

 be given at the Institution of Civil Engineers, Great 

 George Street, Westminster, on May 3, at 8.30 p.m., 

 by Prof. W. E. Dalby, on " Researches made Possible 

 by the Autographic Load- Extension Optical IndicatCH".'* 



An important programme of mining development 

 is being undertaken by the Duchy of Cornwall, the 

 principal object being the recoven,- of wolfram. This 

 mineral is at present in great demand for the pro- 

 duction of tungsten, a metal which constitutes from 

 18 to 20 per cent, of the modern high-sf>eed cutting 

 tool. The scene of the operations is on the extreme 

 eastern edge of Cornwall, a few miles to the west 

 of Tavistock, and the work on which the Duchy is 

 engaged falls into three parts. The first is at Kit 

 Hill, which forms the westerly part of Hingston 

 Down, and rises nearly iioo ft. above sea-level. Here 

 a cutting is being driven north and south across the 

 surface of the hill. For the greater part of the course 

 i it runs through granite, and in this section it has cut 

 through a number of promising lodes of wolfram 

 and tin. These lodes, which run roughly east and 

 west, are vertical, and contain a varying number of 

 veins of mineral. The largest disclosed so far is 

 about 20 ft. wide. The second area on which the 

 Duchy authorities are working is further east on 

 Hingston Down. At the Plantation shaft a consider- 

 able quantity of wolfram has been blocked out, and 

 work is to be pressed forward vigorously. The third 

 part of the enterprise is represented by the mine and 

 ore-dressing works at Gunnislake CUtters, situated on 

 a steep bank beside the river Tamar, a mile or so from 

 the Hingston Down Mines. Work will be resumed 

 on the mine in due course, but at present attention 

 is being paid to the remodelling of the mill, which 

 stopped work in 1909, being idle until recently, and 

 consequently deteriorated. 



The extent to which aluminium, which thirty years 

 ago was merely a scientific curiosity, has become a 

 war metal of the first importance is well illustrated 

 by a recent order made by the Minister of Munitions 

 under the Defence of the Realm Acts and the 

 Munitions .\cts, requiring that all persons shall in 

 the first seven days of each month, beginning in 

 March, send in to the Director of Materials, Hotel 

 Victoria, S.W., monthly returns of all aluminium 



(a) held by them in stock or otherwise under their 

 control on the last day of the preceding month ; 



(b) purchased or sold by them for future deliverv- and 

 not vet delivered on such last dav ; (c) delivered to 



