246 



NATURE 



[May 18, 1916 



in regard to policy and procedure. Afterwards the 

 two sub-committees met and formulated their lines of 

 policy, after which they passed to the consideration 

 of various applications for financial aid in connection 

 with contemplated researches of industrial importance. 

 Grants in aid have already been made by the Advisory 

 Council towards the cost of carrying out certain 

 metallurgical researches. 



Prof. Henri Lecomte, Prof. Edmond Perrier, and 

 Prof. Pier' Andrea Saccardo have been elected foreign 

 members of the Linnean Society. 



Dr. R. Hamlyn-Harris, director of the Queensland 

 Museum, has been elected president of the Royal 

 Society of Queensland for the year 1916-17. 



The Bakerian Lecture of the Royal Society will 

 be delivered on Thursday next. May 25, by Prof. 

 C. G. Barkla, .on "X-rays and the Theory of Radia- 

 tion." 



The twenty-first annual congress of the South- 

 Eastern Union of Scientific Societies will be held at 

 Tunbridge Wells on May 24-27. The retiring presi- 

 dent is Dr. J. S. Haldane, and the president-elect the 

 Rev. T. R. R. Stebbing. 



We regret to announce the death of Prof. H. C. 

 Jones, professor of physical chemistry in Johns Hop- 

 kins University, and author of many books and papers 

 on inorganic and physical chemistry. 



An extraordinary general meeting of the Chemical 

 Society was held at Burlington House on May 11, to 

 consider the question of the removal of the names of 

 nine alien enemies from the list of honorary and 

 foreign members of the society. No decision was 

 reached, and the meeting was adjourned. 



During recent excavations in Kent's Cavern, Tor- 

 quay, the proprietor, Mr. W. F. Powe, has obtained 

 a molar tooth of a nearly adult mammoth (Elephas 

 primigenius). In the Pleistocene hyaena dens as a 

 rule the remains only of young individuals of the 

 mammoth occur, the smaller animals having been the 

 more easy prey. The accumulated bones and teeth in 

 Kent's Cavern were introduced at different times, both 

 by hyaenas and by man. 



Dr. C. a. Catlin, who died recently at Providence, 

 Rhode Island, had been chemist to the Rumford 

 Works in that city for forty years, and was widely 

 known as the inventor of various chemical processes 

 and applications, many of which relate to the manu- 

 facture of phosphates for dietetic purposes. He was 

 born at Burlington, Vermont, in 1849, and graduated 

 in 1872 at the University of Vermont, which conferred 

 on him in 1913 the honorary degree of Sc.D. 



Dr. C. a, Davis, one of the foremost American 

 authorities on peat, died last month in Washington 

 at the age of sixty-four. After graduating at Bowdoin 

 College, Maine, in 1886, he spent several years as a 

 teacher of science in various schools and universities. 

 Since 1907 he had been employed by the U.S. Govern- 

 ment as a peat expert, in connection first with the 

 Geological Survey and afterwards with the Bureau of 

 Mines. He was editor of the Journal of the American 

 Peat Society, and author of " Peat in Michigan " and 

 "The Use of Peat for Fuel." 



The control of the Imperial Institute will, by the 

 new Act which has recently passed through both 

 Houses of Parliament (see Nature, April 27, p. 184), 

 rest with the Colonial Office. By the establishment 

 of an Executive Council a board of management will 

 be created, which, subject to the control of the Colo- 



NO. 2429, VOL. 97] 



nial Office, will be responsible for the operations of the 

 institute. The relationship between the Colonial 

 Office and the institute will thus be analogous to that 

 between the Colonial Office and a Crown Colony. 

 Matters of important policy will have first to receive 

 the sanction of the Colonial Office, but, subject to 

 this, the Executive Council will possess a general 

 executive authority. 



It has long been known that cats may be carriers 

 of diphtheria and transmit the disease to human 

 beings. A notable instance of this is recorded in the 

 National Medical Journal. An outbreak of diphtheria 

 occurred in an orphanage, and of seventy-one cases 

 sixty-nine occurred on the boys' side. Sanitary de- 

 fects and contamination of water and food were 

 eliminated. Attention was then directed to the cats in 

 the establishment, and on bacteriological examination 

 it was found that four .cats on the boys' side har- 

 boured the diphtheria bacillus, but the animals on 

 the girls' side were free from infection. The cats 

 were destroyed, and after this only ten more cases of 

 diphtheria occurred, and these within a few days, 

 showing that infection had taken place before the 

 destruction of the cats. No further cases developed. 



A note in the Times of May 11 states that at the 

 monthly meeting of the Central Executive Committee 

 of the Employers' Parliamentary Association a resolu- 

 tion was passed urging the necessity (i) of increasing 

 the number of chemists trained in research work, 

 and (2) of making special effort to enlist the co- 

 operation of manufacturers who hitherto have been 

 lamentably apathetic in regard to scientific industrial 

 research and training. The resolution was brought 

 forward in connection with the consideration of the 

 report of the sub-committee of the Advisory Committee 

 to the Board of Trade on Commercial Intelligence, 

 with respect to the measures for securing after the 

 war the position of certain branches of British in- 

 dustry. 



The fourteenth annual session of the South African 

 Association for the Advancement of Science will be 

 held at Maritzburg on July 3-8 inclusive, under 

 the presidency of Prof. L. Crawford, professor of 

 mathematics, South African College, Cape Town. 

 The sections, with their presidents, will be as fol- 

 lows : — A (Astronomy, Mathematics, Physics, Meteoro- 

 logy, Geodesy, Surveying, Engineering, Architecture, 

 and Irrigation), Prof. J. Orr; B (Chemistry, Geology, 

 Metallurgy, Mineralogy, and Geography), Prof. J. A. 

 Wilkinson; C (Bacteriology, Botany, Zoology, Agri- 

 culture, Forestry, Physiology, Hygiene, and Sani- 

 tary Science), Mr. I. B. Pole Evans ; D (Anthropology, 

 Ethnology, Education, History, Mental Science, 

 Philology, Political Economy, Sociology, and Statis- 

 tics), Mr. M. S. Evans. 



The Illuminating Engineering Society, in common 

 with other scientific and technical institutions, has 

 been considering the encouragement of researches of 

 special utility at the present time, and at the annual 

 meeting, at which Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson pre- 

 sided, a report on the subject was presented by the 

 Committee on Research. A number of problems are 

 mentioned which will receive attention, in order of 

 urgency, at the hands of the committee. Among these 

 are included researches on the qualities of glassware 

 required for illuminating purposes, the study of light- 

 ing appliances (globes, shades, reflectors, etc.), and 

 the investigation of the conditions of illumination 

 required for various industrial processes. Attention is 

 also directed to the need for a series of standard 

 colours of specified tint and reflecting value, the 

 standardisation of so-called "artificial daylight," and 



