May io, 191 7] 



NATURE 



21 1 



maximum and minimum values is 43-6°. At Camden 

 Square, April, i860, was almost equally cold; the mean 

 temperature was 43-9°, and the mean minimum 35-3°. 

 In 1888 the mean maximum temperature in April was 

 52-4°, which was equally cold for the daytime. The 

 Greenwich records for the last seventy-six years do not 

 show a lower April mean, from maximum and mini- 

 mum temperatures, than 44-3°, which occurred in 1887 

 and 1908, so that April this year was lower than pre- 

 vious records by 1°. The lowest April mean tempera- 

 ture from the hourlv observations is 43-3° i" i860, and 

 in 1879 and 1888 the mean was 435 • At Camden 

 Square the mean deficiency of temperature for the five 

 months December, 1916, to April, 1917, was 36°, each 

 month being colder than the normal. The same series 

 of observations shows 1878-79 to be correspondingly 

 cold, whilst for 1890-91 the mean temperature for the 

 live months was lower, and 4° less than the average. 

 At Greenwich the coldest corresponding five months 

 also occurred in 1890-91, when the mean was 376°, and 

 4° below the average. Other low mean temperatures 

 for correspondinsr periods were 37Q° in 1878-79; 380° 

 in 1844-4,; 38-5° in 1846-47; 386° in 1854-55; 387° 

 in 1887-88; 39-2° in 1885-86; and 395^ in 1894-95. 



The Ontario Nickel Commission, appointed by the 

 Ontario Government on September 9, 1915, to inves- 

 tigate the resources of the province in connection with 

 nickel and its ores, has recently presented its report, of 

 which a summary has reached this country. The 

 Commissioners are the chairman, Mr. G. T. Hollo- 

 way, an English metallurgist; Dr. W. G. Miller, the 

 provincial geologist of Ontario; Mr. McGregor 

 Young, a Toronto barrister; and Mr. T. W. Gibson, 

 Deputy Minister of Mines, who acted as secretary In 

 order that the report might be placed before the 

 Legislature at the earliest possible date, 150 advance 

 copies were struck off without the last chapter, 

 which is a bibliography of nickel, and the index. The 

 report proper contains more than 600 pages, and is 

 well illustrated with cuts, diagrams, and maps. The 

 Commissioners print a summary of the report and 

 their conclusions on the main points of the investiga- 

 tion at the forefront of the volume. After references 

 to the various countries they visited, including the 

 United States of America, Great Britain, France, 

 Noruay, Cuba, Australia, and New Caledonia, and 

 to numerous mines, works, plants, smelters, etc., on 

 both sides of the Atlantic, and also to their interviews 

 with Mr. Bonar Law, then Secretary of State for the 

 Colonies, they address themselves to the two questions 

 which have been uppermost in the various discussions 

 concerning Ontario's nickel industry during the last 

 twenty-five years, viz. : — (i) Can nickel be economic- 

 ally refined in Ontario? and {■£) are the nickel deposits 

 of Ontario of such a character that this province can 

 compete successfully as a nickel producer with any 

 other country? The Commissioners without hesita- 

 tion answer both these questions in the affirmative. 

 The full report will be studied with much Interest by 

 metallurgists in this country. 



Through the death of Major P. G. Bailey in action 

 on April 26 another scientific career of promise has 

 been cut short. Educated at Dulwich, he entered 

 Clare College as an exhibitioner in 1905. Three years 

 later he graduated with first class honours in the 

 Natural Sciences Tripos. Though he passed an exam- 

 ination for the Eastern Civil Service, he felt that he 

 had a bent towards research work, and instead of 

 taking up the appointment offered he went through 

 the agricultural course at Cambridge. Genetics at- 

 tracted him ; he became a Development Research 

 scholar, and was soon immersed in animal breeding. 

 One of the investigations on which he was engaged 



NO. 2480, VOL. 99] 



was that of the inheritance of wool characters in 

 sheep, a preliminary account of which (with F. L. 

 Engledow) appeared in the Journal of Agric. Science 

 for September, 19 14. It was with the idea of gaining 

 further experience that he accompanied the British 

 Association to Australia in 19 14. He was also busy 

 with investigations on poultry and rabbits, the first- 

 fruits of which appeared in a paper (with R. C. Pun- 

 nett) "On the Inheritance of Size in Poultr}" 

 (Journ. Genetics, vol. iv., 1914). The outbreak of war 

 found him in Australia. On his return he obtained 

 a commission in the Royal Field Artillery, and had 

 been at the front for more than two years before his 

 death. Bailey was a careful and conscientious worker, 

 with a great reserve of quiet enthusiasm. Tie brought 

 to his work the straightforward honesty which char- 

 acterised him in the affairs of life. He had the intel- 

 lectual strength to recognise facts and the courage to 

 face them, endowments which would have carried him 

 far in the line of his choice. Though rather shy and 

 diffident, he had a great charm of manner, and for 

 those who knew him well his going has made a 

 grievous gap. 



At the Royal Society on Thursday last the fifteen 

 selected candidates, whose names were given in 

 Nature of March i, were elected by ballot fellows of 

 the society. 



The Bakerian lecture of the Royal Societ}' will be 

 delivered by Mr. J. H. Jeans on May 17 upon the 

 subject of the configuration of astronomical masses 

 and the figure of the earth. 



Prof. Victor Gregoire (Louvain), Prof. T. H. 

 Morgan (New York), and Prof. Hans Schinz (Zurich) 

 have been elected foreign members of the Linnean 

 Societ)'. 



The Pereira prize of the Pharmaceutical Society has 

 been awarded to Miss Iv\- Roberts, and the silver and 

 bronze medals of the society have been awarded re- 

 spectively to Mr, H. Jephson and Miss Doris Gregory. 



Sir William Osler will deliver the annual oration 

 of the Medical Society of London in the rooms of the 

 society, 11 Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, W. i, 

 on Monday next, May 14. His subject will be "The 

 Anti-Venereal Campaign," 



General G. W. Goethals has, we leam from 

 Science, notified Governor Edge, of New Jersey, that 

 he will accept the position of State engineer, created 

 under a special Act during the present session of the 

 Legislature. General Goethals will have supervision 

 over the projected system of highways, which will cost 

 about 3,900,000!. 



During the evening of May i a great earthquake 

 was registered in European observatories. In Italy 

 seismographs continued in motion for three and a half 

 hours. Father Alfani estimates the distance of the 

 origin from Florence at about 7000 miles, and sug- 

 gests the Pacific coast of South America as the seat 

 of the disturbance. 



The second Sydnev Ringer memorial lecture, which 

 is delivered biennially, will be given by Prof. A. R. 

 Cushriy at University College Hospital Sledical School 

 on Friday, May 25. The subject will be "Digitalis 

 and Auricular Fibrillation." The lecture will be open 

 to all qualified medical practitioners and medical 

 students. 



The Angrand prize of the Bibliotheque Nationale 

 of Paris, of the value of cooo francs, is to be awarded 

 in 1918 for the best work published during 1913-17 on 

 the pre-Columbian history, ethnography, archaeology, 



