428 



NATURE 



[July 26, 1917 



house-sparrow is, unfortunately, very far from scarce 

 in agricultural districts, and at present immense 

 flocks from the towns and villages are adding to 

 its number, the majority of which will remain until 

 well into September. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death 

 on July 22, at sixty-one years of age, of Mr. Alfred 

 Mosely, C.M.G., whose work for industrial and educa- 

 tional efficiency is widely known. In the year 1903 

 Mr. Mosely organised an Educational Commis- 

 sion of leading representatives of science and 

 education, including such men as Profs. Arm- 

 strong, Ayrton, and Ripper, to visit the United 

 States. The twenty-six separate reports p>ib- 

 lished in 1904 in the volume on this Educational 

 Commission covered the whole field of education, from 

 the kindergarten to post-graduate university work, 

 and they provided the public with a very valuable 

 statement by competent observers of the provision 

 made for progressive education in America. In 1907 

 Mr. Mosely sent several hundred English school 

 teachers to America to study the educational methods 

 adopted in the United States and Canada, and himself 

 about the same time made prolonged tours in those 

 countries, during one of which he arranged for a 

 return visit of 1000 school teachers to this country 

 in 1908-9. Mr. Mosely was the author of a number 

 of pamphlets and, reports on industrial and educa- 

 tional matters and economics. 



According to a paragraph in L'Economista d'ltalia 

 of July 13, the Italian Roj-al Geological Commission 

 has just presented the report of its work to the 

 Government. The Commission recommends that 

 immediate steps be taken to enable the Reale Ulficio 

 Geologico to accelerate the preparation and publication 

 of the geological map of Italy, which is a vital neces- 

 sity in view of a recrudescence of activity being 

 manifested in mineral prospecting and hydro-electric 

 developments. Recommendations have also been 

 made for the publication of the results of artesian 

 well and mineral surveys which have been carried out 

 in the country, since much importance is attached at 

 present to a knowledge of the hydrological and geo- 

 logical data. It is also considered desirable that the 

 collection of samples of Italian fossil-fuels at the 

 Royal Geological Museum should be made as complete 

 as possible, and that the authorities should proceed 

 at once to publish the sheets (now completed) of the 

 geological map which concern the mountainous re- 

 gions, in view of the attention now being paid to the 

 more extensive utilisation of Italy's water resources 

 for powefrraising. 



The Indian Forester for May contains an article 

 on the organisation of the Chinese Forest Service, 

 which came into existence in January, 1916, as a 

 subordinate branch of the Ministry of Agriculture and 

 Commerce at Peking. The heads of the service, 

 styled "co-directors," are Mr. Forsythe Sherfesee, for 

 six years employed in, and lately director of, the Philip- 

 pine Forestry Bureau, and Mr. Ngan Han, who studied 

 forestry in Cornell and Michigan Universities several 

 years ago. There are other Chinese in the service, 

 who have received a technical training in the United 

 States, and an expert from Kew, Mr. W. Purdom, 

 acts as botanist, and is chief of one of the six divisions 

 into which the service is organised. In this article 

 an ambitious iprogramme of afforestation, education, 

 propaganda, etc., is sketched out, but no details are 

 given of any work that has been actually accom- 

 plished. The amount of funds available is not men- 

 tioned, and no information is given as to how the 

 existing forests are to be brought under Government 

 control, or of how land is to be acquired for afToresta- 



NO. 2491, VOL. 99] 



tion. In the course of two or three years we may 

 learn in what directions forestry can be developed in 

 China. 



In his presidential address to the conference of dele- 

 gates of the British Association, held at Burlington 

 House on July 5, Mr. John Hopkinson dealt with the 

 work and aims* of the corresponding societies. Mr. 

 Hopkinson first suggested, nearly forty years ago^ 

 that delegates from the different societies should hold 

 an annual conference at the British Association meet- 

 ings, and it must have been some satisfaction to him 

 to preside over what is now an important annual event 

 for many of the representatives of the scientific socie- 

 ties in this country. He gave a review of the work 

 of the British Association as affecting the correspond- 

 ing societies, dealing in turn with the various sec- 

 tions of the association. His address was so varied 

 in its scope that each member of his audience must 

 have felt that some of it at least had particular refer- 

 ence to his or her special study. It was not the 

 address of a specialist, but on general lines, as might 

 have been expected from a naturalist who has been 

 so long the secretary of an important provincial society. 

 Among the subjects dealt with were meteorology, 

 geological photographs, bird protection, Desmids and 

 Diatoms, maps, free trade, Kent's Cavern, the teach- 

 ing of Greek, museums, and forestry. Mr. Hopkin- 

 son concluded that the chief aim of all of us should be 



To make the world within his reach, 

 iiomewhat the i etler tor his being, 

 And gladder lor his human speech. 



Prof. J. H. Barnes, whose death was announced 

 in Nature of July 5, was educated at Five Ways 

 Grammar School and the Birmingham University. 

 After obtaining his degree, he spent some time in 

 research work under Prof. Frankland, and in 1906 

 was appointed agricultural chemist to the Punjab and 

 in charge of the Lyallpur College, one of the new 

 agricultural colleges' of India, of which two years 

 later he was appointed principal, and which post he 

 held until a few months before his death, when he 

 was appointed chief chemist at the Pusa Institute to 

 the Government of India. He was responsible for a 

 considerable amount of agricultural research work, 

 some of which is destined to make a great addition to 

 the resources of the country, notably in the cul- 

 tivation of the sugar-cane and wheat-growing. Dur- 

 ing the last few years he had been responsible for the 

 experiments dealing with the reclamation of the alkali 

 barren lands, which he had shown by his experi- 

 ments to produce even record crops of wheat for India, 

 and may revolutionise agriculture in certain of these 

 districts!! At the same time, he instituted a series of 

 experiments showing the means of preventing various 

 insect pests which are the great drawback to the 

 methods of storing wheat. For his work on the 

 Indigo Commission he was accorded the thanks of the 

 Government of India. All this was carried out under 

 great personal disabilities, for early in his official life 

 he was attacked by malarial fever, from which 

 periodically he suffered severely, especially during 

 the last year or so of his life, which was eventually 

 cut ofi by an attack of enteric fever on June 2. _ He 

 was greatly loved and respected by all, especially 

 by his Indian students, who at the time of his leaving 

 the Lyallpur College collected funds to institute a 

 scholarship at the college as a permanent memorial 

 of his service there. 



With Dr. C. O. Trechmann, who died on June 29, 

 at his residence, Hudworth Tower, Castle Eden, 

 passed away one of the small band of private collectors 

 of minerals and one of the still smaller brotherhood 

 of crystallographers in this country. He was born 

 at Hartlepool, co. Durham, in 185 1. His father, who 



