.50 



NATURE 



[July 3, 1919 



the Meteorological Office. At 50° N. and 25° W. 

 daily observations for itwenty-eight years in June show 

 that westerly and south-westerly winds greatly pre- 

 dominate, whilst easterly winds are rare. Similar 

 conditions are shown in 50° N. and 40° W., bjjt north- 

 westerly winds are more frequent than further to the 

 eastward. Wireless reports for several days past pub- 

 lished by the Meteorological Office show a great 

 amount of northerly wind, moderate to strong in force, 

 ranging from 10 to 30 nautical miles an hour, and 

 fair weather with a good deal of cloud over the-eas'tern 

 portion of the North Atlantic. Probably better pro- 

 gress would be made in proximity to the 40th parallel 

 than bv following the Great Circle track, as lighter 

 head-winds would be experienced on the outward 

 passage. 



On the motion for the third reading of the Dogs 

 Protection Bill in the House of Commons on June 27, 

 its rejection was moved by Sir Watson Cheyne and 

 seconded bv Sir Philip Magnus. The ground on which 

 this amendment was based was the "unnecessary and 

 vexatious obstacle to medical research " that would 

 be imposed by at, the delay involved in additional 

 certificates being frequently a matter of great import- 

 ance. The Minister of Health (Dr. Addison) con- 

 curred in this view, and pointed out that there was 

 no breach of faith on the part of the Government in 

 reconsidering its amendment passed at the Report 

 stage. He held that Parliament had no right to stop 

 or needlessly to embarrass such research work as that 

 on rickets. ' The Bill was rejected, the voting being 

 62 for the third reading, loi against. 



Sir Norman Lockyer has been elected an associate 

 of the Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et 

 des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in the section of mathe- 

 matical and physical sciences. 



The death is announced, on June 27, of Dr. 

 R. Dancer Purefoy, past president of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons^ Ireland, and a member of the 

 Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Dublin Society. 



Sir John Tweedy has been asked to deliver the first 

 Thomag Vicary lecture (on anatomy and surgery, in- 

 stituted by the' Barbers' Company) to the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons of England. Prof. Elliot Smith and 

 Dr. F. Wood Jones have been appointed by the 

 college Arris and Gale lecturers. 



The death is announced, on July i, in his seventy- 

 eighth year, of Sir John T. Brunner, Bart., the well- 

 known ' chemical manufacturer, who was associated 

 with the late Dr. Ludlvig Mond in the foundation 

 of the alkali works of Brunner, Mond, and Co. 

 around Northwich, which are now among the largest 

 of their kind in the world. 



A SERIES of earthquake shocks caused much injury 

 and loss of life in the districts of Florence and 

 Bologna on June 29. The Exchange Telegraph Co. 

 reports that the Ximenian Observatory at Florence 

 has been greatly damaged ; and Father G. Alfani, 

 director of the observatory, states that the shocks are 

 the worst which have been experienced in Italy since 

 iSgs. 



It is announced in Science that the seismological 

 library of Count F. de Montessus de Ballore, director 

 of the Seismological Service of Chile, has recently 

 been purchased by Dr. J. C. Branner.and presented 

 to Stanford University. This is probably one of the 

 most complete collections of seismological literatiire 

 in existence, and it .is accompanied by a manuscript 

 catalogue containing nearly 5000 titles. 



NO. 2592, VOL. 103] 



The council of the Royal Society of Arts has 

 awarded the society's silver medal for the following 

 papers read before the society during the past ses- 

 sion : — E. C. de Segundo, The Removal of the 

 Residual Fibres from Cotton-seed, and their Value for 

 Non-textile Purposes ; Sir Frank Heath, The Gk)vern- 

 ment and the Organisation of Scientific Research ; 

 W. L. Lorkin, Electric Welding and its Applications ; 

 W. N. (Boase, Flax : Cultivation, Preparation,. 

 Spinning, and Weaving; Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, 

 Aviation as affecting India; and Prof. J. C- 

 McLennan, Science and Industry in Canada. 



The Imperial War Conference, after considering the 

 report of a committee of which Sir James Stevenson^ 

 Bart., was chairman, made a recommendation in 

 favour of the constitution of an Imperial Mineral 

 Resources Bureau. This body has now been set up 

 and charged with the duties of collecting information 

 regarding the mineral resources and metal require- 

 ments of the Empire, and of advising the various 

 Governments and others concerned from time to time 

 what action might appear to be desirable to enable 

 those resources to be develoj>ed and made available 

 to meet the requirements of the Empire. The 

 Governors of the Bureau have been appointed, one 

 by the Home Government (the representative of which 

 is the chairman of the Bureau), one by each of the 

 five self-governing Dominions, one each by the 

 Government of India and the Secretary of State for 

 the Colonies, with six representatives of the mineral, 

 mining, and metal industries appointed by the Minister 

 of Reconstruction after consultation with the principal 

 institutes and institutions representing those indus- 

 tries. The Governors have now received their charter 

 of incorporation, and are engaged in putting into 

 effect their scheme of organisation In order that the 

 Bureau may be able successfully to discharge its 

 functions and Issue information of an up-to-date 

 character, the Governors are seeking the closest co- 

 operation and assistance of the various Government 

 Departments, scientific Institutions, societies, and 

 other bodies with which the Bureau hopes to be asso- 

 ciated. The offices of the Bureau are at 14 Great 

 Smith Street, Westminster, S.W.i, and all 

 communications should be addressed to the 

 secretary. 



A REPRINT has recently been issued in booklet form 

 of the article entitled '' Patent Law and the Legal 

 Standard of Novelty," first published in the Engineer 

 for April 11 last. " " Historicus," the author of the 

 article, directs attention to the fact that it was owing 

 to a blunder committed by the Courts In the eighteenth 

 century that the legal standard of novelty was raised 

 from that of the practice of the art to that of absolute 

 novelty within the realm. To this blunder has it 

 been due that upon the shoulders of the Inventor has 

 been placed an onus of proof which he is to-day 

 unable to bear. The subject Is considered under 

 the following headings :—(i) Is the legal standard of 

 novelty a practicable one from an administrative point 

 of view, or reasonable from the economic one? (2) To 

 what extent can relief be granted from the legal 

 requirement? (3) What modifications would It neces- 

 sitate In the law and practice of letters patent? The 

 opinion is expressed bv " Historicus " that an official 

 examination which would satisfy legal requirements 

 is an administrative impossibility, and, further, that 

 relief from the unduly high standard of novelty pre- 

 vailing to-day is the primary need of the inventor. 

 Such relief could, it is pointed out, be readily afforded 

 him if the law and practice of letters patent were 

 founded on the assumption that the applicant for pro- 

 tection intended "to make good" at the earliest op- 



