50 



NATURE 



[March 20, 19 19 



has long been felt, and the recent traffic delays in 

 cable messages have accentuated the position. It is 

 scarcely likely that the construction of stations will 

 proceed on the lines decided upon some time before 

 the outbreak of the war. For one thing, the develop- 

 ments which are said to have been made in long- 

 distance wireless communications during the past four 

 and a half years will bring about a modification of the 

 engineering features of the original scheme, while the 

 changed political situation will doubtless lead to some 

 alteration in the location of stations. It is also a 

 decided gain that some attempt at co-ordination is 

 now being made in this country. Hitherto, while no 

 fewer than five home Departments have been directly 

 concerned in the matter, the Post Office has been the 

 only Department to act for the State. The result has 

 been long-drawn-out correspondence with other offices, 

 very commonly culminating in nothing being done. 

 Under the new plan each of the Government Depart- 

 ments concerned will be represented on the recently 

 appointed Telegraph Communication Board. Thus the 

 individual delegates, meeting round a table, will be 

 able ta thresh things out comparatively quickly and 

 in a far more satisfactory manner than hitherto. 



One result of the war is that the military objections 

 to the construction of a tunnel between this country 

 and France have been overcome, and the work 

 may be sanctioned within a short time. In 1875 the 

 Channel Tunnel Co. obtained powers for preliminary 

 works at St. Margaret's Bay, Dover, and at the same 

 time the French Submarine Railway Co. made 

 surveys and started a heading at Sangatte. But in 

 1883 a Joint Select Committee of the two Houses of 

 Parliament decided that it was inexpedient that sanc- 

 tion should be given for the construction of a tunnel. 

 Investigations have, however, continued, the pro- 

 moters believing that opposition would in time be over- 

 come. The chalk clilfs on the two sides of the 

 Channel are similar in all respects, and rest on a 

 stratum of grey chalk 200 ft. thick, which is im- 

 pervious to water. This overlies Gault, also im- 

 pervious. The tunnel is to be constructed in the grey 

 chalk, except that at one end it may possibly enter 

 the Gault. The excavation is easy, and no excep- 

 tional engineering difficulties are anticipated. Two 

 parallel tunnels, 20 ft. in diameter, will be constructed 

 for up and down traffic. One or both ends will be 

 carried some distance inland. The total length will 

 be thirty-three miles, about twenty-four being under 

 the sea. It is estimated that the tunnel can be com- 

 pleted in six or seven years at a total cost of 

 20,ooo,oooZ. Electric traction will be adopted, which 

 diminishes the difficulty of ventilation, and the transit 

 will occupy about forty minutes. A small difference 

 in the track gauge here and in France presents no 

 difficulty. But the French loading gauge is wider 

 than ours, so that some trains could not pass over 

 our lines unless an alteration is made on our side. 

 The variety of loading gauges on different lines in this 

 country is very objectionable. 



Our contemporary the Chemist and Druggist for 

 March 8 is dissatisfied with the attempt made in our 

 article on "The Profession of Chemistry" (February 27) 

 to differentiate chemist and pharmacist. Exception is 

 taken to "the desire to monopolise for professional 

 chemists the title which, first of all, indicates the 

 seller of poisons and dispenser of medicines. It is 

 as unreasonable to claim the monopoly of the word 

 ' chemist ' for a small class of persons as it would be 

 to restrict the title ' engineer ' to those who build a 

 bridge or the word ' doctor ' to those men who hold a 

 medical degree." Unreasonable or not, it has to be 

 done, sooner or later, in the interest of the public, 



NO. 2577, VOL. 103] 



not of "a small class of persons." English is a 

 strange language; the meanings of words are often 

 curiously varied in course of time and whilst rich 

 in many ways, in others it is remarkably deficient. 

 Etymologically, "apothecary " is the keeper of a shop, 

 a "pharmacist" or "pharmaceutist" one who has to 

 do with medicines; the meaning of "druggist" is clear 

 to everyone ; " chemist " has no original meaning. 

 Having the choice of three terms with definite, well- 

 understood connotations, the sellers of drugs and 

 poisons may surely be satisfied ; they may well agree 

 to relinquish the vague fourth term to those who are 

 chemists in fact. "Doctor" is the equivalent of 

 " Dozent " and well known to be a courtesy title like 

 "esquire," no more descriptive as applied to medical 

 practitioners, though a volume might be written on its 

 history and the strange and careless way in which a 

 spvecialised meaning has been attached to it, whilst 

 "esquire" has lost its original value. The medical 

 man, it may be said, who is neither a physician nor 

 a surgeon is even worse off than the chemist, having 

 no name which is distinctive of his status. 



The lively discussion which was waged over the 

 Foxhall human mandible in the sixties of last 

 century is likely to be again revived by the adver- 

 tisement inserted by Mr. Reid Moir in the personal 

 column of the Times and in last week's Nature. Mr. 

 Moir, as is well known, has discovered and described 

 many worked flints ia the detritus bed which under- 

 lies the Red Crag of Suffolk, but no particle of man's 

 body has yet been found at the same geological horizon 

 with the exception of the Foxhall jaw, which, it is 

 alleged, was derived from the detritus or coprolite bed. 

 The mandible was in the possession of Dr. R. H. 

 Collyer, who described it in the Anthropological 

 Reviezv of 1867 ; Dr. Collyer is said later to have gone 

 to the United States, and with him the disputed 

 specimen disappeared. It will be interesting to see If 

 Mr. Moir's advertisement will succeed in recovering 

 the missing mandible. Dr. Collyer's figure shows 

 very plainly that the mandible belonged to a man of 

 the modern type, and Is remarkably similar In form 

 to the equally hotly contested Moulin Quignon speci- 

 men found by Boucher de Perthes in the earlier 

 Palseollthic strata near Abbeville In 1863. When Dr. 

 Hugh Falconer and Mr. George Busk- subjected the 

 Moulin Quignon jaw to certain tests, they also applied 

 them at the same time to the Foxhall specimen, and 

 came to the conclusion, because of the amount of 

 organic matter contained in them, that neither speci- 

 men could be regarded as contemporary with the 

 strata in which It was alleged to have been found. 

 The criteria which they applied, however, cannot be 

 regarded as definitely deciding the authenticity of these 

 two human "documents." 



The opposition raised both Inside and outside the 

 House of Commons, by members of the medical pro- 

 fession particularly, against the proposal in the 

 Ministry of Health Bill to reconstitute the Medical 

 Research Committee under the direction of a Com- 

 mittee of the Privy Council rather than under the 

 Health Ministry was apparently not without its effect. 

 Dr. Addison has, indeed, now issued a memorandum 

 on the subject, setting out the advantages likely to 

 follow the adoption of the proposed scheme, and the 

 disadvantages which would result from its rejection. 

 The claims made on behalf of the scheme of recon- 

 struction are briefly that, in the realm of medical 

 research, there will be obtained complete concentration 

 In a central body acting for the United Kingdom as 

 a whole, and not only for England and Wales, the 

 area In which the new Ministry will operate; also 

 that. In respect of all medical research questions, a 



