March 2;, 19 19] 



NATURE 



69 



mercial treaties or otherwise to secure an effective 

 and permanent control or command of an 

 adequate supply of phosphate rock, and that 

 arrangrements should be made in advance for the 

 importation of large quantities of phosphate rock 

 immediately on the termination of the war." 



There is more in this recommendation than 

 meets the eye. Certain of the forfeited Colonial 

 possessions of the Germans contain valuable 

 deposits of phosphate rock, and others are known 

 which ought to be, and doubtless would be, ex- 

 ploited if a demand were created. It Is to be 

 hoped that the Government may be in a position 

 to act promptly upon this recommendation, and 

 thus enable at least some portion of the large 

 and valuable plant created by the war to be 

 utilised before it is too late, for the benefit of 

 chemical industry and the welfare of agriculture. 



NOTES. 



The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. is to be con- 

 gratulated on having established experimental wire- 

 less telephonic communication between Clifden, Co. 

 Galway, in Ireland, and Cape Grace, in Canada. 

 This is not surprising after the company's feat last 

 year of establishing wireless communication between 

 England and Australia — a distance of 12,000 miles. 

 The improvements which have been made in 

 thermionic valves — for instance, the reduction of the 

 air-pressure in the valve to the one-hundred-millionth 

 of a millimetre of mercury — have increased their 

 sensitivity enormously. In addition, by connecting 

 them "in cascade" there appears also to be no limit 

 to the sensitivity that can be attained. The Australian 

 results were obtained by using three small Marconi 

 Q-tvpe valves' in cascade. Wireless telephonic trans- 

 mission is specially interesting, as it is free from many 

 of the defects of ordinary telephony, in which sound 

 distortion presents serious difficulties over long cables. 

 There seems no reason to doubt that in a short time 

 wireless telephony will be established between every 

 country on the globe. The necessity for well-thought- 

 out international laws to regulate this traffic is there- 

 fore pressing. 



Viscount Harcourt deserves the thanks of all 

 interested in the restitution of our museums for his 

 persistent worrying of the Government and for his 

 letter to the Times of March 22. In answer to his 

 question on March 19 he was informed that the 

 London Museum would be restored to the public in a 

 few weeks. "Temporary buildings are to be erected 

 in the suburbs for the staffs now in occupation " of ! 

 the Imperial Institute and the Tate Galkry, "but the I 

 new accommodation cannot be available for at least i 

 six months." The Education Department, it is i 

 expected, will soon return to Whitehall. There is, | 

 however, "no immediate prospect" of vacating the 

 National Portrait Gallery, Hertford House, or the 

 remaining galleries of the National Gallery and the 1 

 British Museum. As regards the last institudon, an 

 article in the Times of March 21 did well to remind 

 the public that the greater part of the old building j 

 is now accessible. The situation, no doubt, is difficult, 

 as Sir Alfred Mond has explained in a long statement 

 to the Press, but the agitation has succeeded in 

 speeding up the Government, and once more we may 

 exclaim, "Thank God, there is a House of Lords! " 



The absence of recognisable meteorites from the 

 series of stratified rocks is a notable fact, possibh 

 due to the disintegration of the meteoric substance, 



NO. 2578, VOL. 103] 



which even in our museums displays a deplorable 

 tendency to decay. The British Museum has, how- 

 ever, recently acquired among slices and fragments of 

 various recent falls or finds a slice weighing 

 3625 grams of the meteoric iron which was found 

 in January, 1905, on Claim No. 7, Skookum Gulch, 

 9i miles S.E. of Dawson, Klondike. This, as well 

 as another meteoric iron found in 1901 on Gay Gulch, 

 in the same neighbourhood, was lying deep down 

 in the so-called "white-channel gravels," which are 

 the oldest high-level gravels of the district, and are 

 believed by Mr. R. G. McConnell to be of Pliocene 

 age or older. The original specimens are in the 

 Museum of the Geological Survey at Ottawa, where 

 they have been examined by Mr. R. A. A. Johnston 

 (1915), who infers from their similar structure and 

 composition that they formed part "of a single 

 meteoric shower which took place back in Tertiary 

 time." 



An address on "Acute Pneumonic Tuberculosis" 

 will be delivered by Sir W. Osier before the Tuber- 

 culosis Society at 8.30 p.m. on Monday, April 28. 



News has reached us of the death on March 8, at 

 thirtj'-seven years of age, of M. Jacques Danne, editor 

 of the well-known French journal Le Radium. 



We learn with regret from Tuesday's Times that 

 Sir E. C. Stirling, F.R.S., professor of physiology in 

 the University of Adelaide, and director of the South 

 Australian Museum, died on March 20 at seventy 

 years of age. 



Next Thursday, April 3, Prof. A. Findlay will 

 deliver the first of a course of two lectures at the Royal 

 Institution on colloidal matter and its properties. The 

 Friday discourse on April 11 will be delivered by Sir 

 J. J. Thomson on piezo-electricity and its applications. 



The Paris correspondent of the Times announces 

 the death on March 19, at seventy-seven years of 

 age, of Prof. F. H. Hallopeau, member of the Paris 

 Academy of Medicine, and author of a treatise on 

 general pathology and numerous papers on thera- 

 peutics and dermatology. 



The death is announced, in his seventy-sixth year, 

 of Prof. Charles L. Doolittle, who was professor of 

 astronomy at Lehigh University from 1875 to 1895, 

 and at the University of Pennsylvania from 1895 to 

 1912. Prof. Doolittle was treasurer of the Astro- 

 nomical Society of America from 1899 to 1912, and 

 was the author of notable papers on the variation of 

 latitude, the constant of aberration, and related 

 subjects. 



The Regional Association will hold its next con- 

 ference at Malvern on April 9-16. The object of the 

 conference is to study the Malvern region from the 

 physical, historical, and social points of view and to 

 facilitate the interchange of ideas of all who are 

 interested in the study of their environment. A series 

 of lectures and excursions has been arranged. The 

 local secretarv is Mr. E. W. Harris, The High School, 

 Malvern. The first annual report of the association, 

 a copy of which has been sent us from the office, 

 II Tavistock Square, W.C.i, shows that a consider- 

 able amount of work has been done in the past year 

 in spite of difficult circumstances. In many parts of 

 the country the intensive survey of regions has been 

 undertaken. It is hoped that «5ome of these surveys 

 will soon be readv for publication in view of their 

 important bearing "on local schemes of social better- 

 ment and reconstruction. 



The annual general meeting of the Ray Society 

 was held in the rooms of the Geological Society on 

 March 13, the president. Prof. W. C. Mcintosh, in 



