May 25, 1916] 



NATURE 



265 



greatly increased, and the proposal made by Sir Robert 

 Hadfield as to the necessity of a Central Imperial 

 Bureau of information is one that will receive the 

 support of everyone acquainted with the actual state of 

 affairs revealed as the war has progressed. 



On the invitation of Sir Alfred Keogh, rector of 

 the Imperial College of Science and Technolog)-, about 

 fifty members of the Commercial Committee and other 

 members of Parliament visited the college on May 18. 

 Mr. Arthur Acland, the chairman of the Executive Com- 

 mittee of the governing body, welcomed them on behalf 

 of the governors, and gave a short historical account 

 of the college, with particulars of the stafl, students, 

 and buildings. Referring to education at public 

 schools, Mr. Acland said that boys came to the college 

 very ill-prepared to take up scientific studies ; 

 this no doubt was largely due to the bias in favour of 

 the classical as against the modern or scientific side 

 still existing in most schools, and he urged upon the 

 members of Parliament present the necessity of a full 

 inquiry into our public-school system. Dealing with 

 higher education, he showed how technical training 

 had suffered in the past from lack of funds, and the 

 haphazard manner in which successive Governments 

 had dealt with it. In this country- there were no bene- 

 factions to education on the scale of those given in 

 the United States, nor large State grants as in Ger- 

 many. He referred to the sites still unbuilt upon in 

 the Imperial College owing to want of money, and 

 made a strong appeal for the development of scientific 

 institutions generally. It was important that develop- 

 ment should be systematic, with a view to the future 

 needs of the Empire. On the conclusion of Mr. 

 Acland's speech, the committee proceeded to inspect 

 the departments, including those of chemistry, 

 physics, fuel technology, engineering, mining, metal- 

 lurgy, geology and oil technology, and plant physi- 

 ology and pathology. After the tour the members 

 met at the Imperial College Union, and the rector, 

 in reviewing the purposes of the college, illustrated 

 the country's recent dependence on Germany for 

 highly trained men of science by mentioning that when 

 he first came to the college students who had been 

 trained in botany were obliged to go to places like 

 Munich for training in plant physiology and patho- 

 logy, and that a regular employment agency for 

 economic botanists for the British Empire existed at 

 that time in Berlin. This was now changed by the 

 action of the college. He urged industrial people to 

 bring their industrial problems to the college, where 

 they would be worked out for them. On beRalf of 

 the commercial committee. Major Chappie and Sir 

 Archibald Williamson expressed their thanks and the 

 great pleasure the visit had afforded them. 



The annual visitation of the Royal Observator}', 

 Greenwich, will be held on Saturday, June 3. 



Sir Alfred Ewing, F.R.S., Director of Naval Edu- 

 cation, has been appointed principal of the University 

 of Edinburgh, in succession to the late Sir William 

 Turner. 



On Thursday, June 22, the Royal Society's Croonian 

 lecture will be delivered by Prof. S. J. Hickson. on 

 " Evolution and Symmetry in the Order of the Sea- 

 p>ens." 



We learn from the Times of May 20 that the 

 archaeologist. Dr. P. V. Nikitine, vice-president of the 

 Russian Academy of Sciences, died on May 18 in 

 Petrograd. 



The Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies died on May 18 at 

 Hampstead at ninety years of age. Mr. Davies was 



NO. 2430, VOL. 97] 



an original member of the Alpine Club, and made the 

 first ascents of the Dom and the Taschhorn. He was 

 elected one of the members of the first London School 

 Board in succession to Huxley. He was associated 

 with F, D, Maurice in the foundation of the Work- 

 ing Men's College in 1854, and was for a time prin- 

 cipal of Queen's College, Harley Street, London, W. 



The band of the Coldstream Guards will play at the 

 Royal Botanic Gardens on Saturday and Sunday after- 

 noons during the season, commencing June 3. Future 

 arrangements include the National Rose Show and 

 other events of botanical, social, and charitable pur- 

 pose. 



The death has occurred of Dr. T. J. Burrill, who 

 was professor of botany at the University of Illinois 

 from 1870 to 1912. From 1891 to 1894, and again 

 in 1904, he was also acting-president of that institu- 

 tion. He was president of the American Microscopical 

 Society during 1885 and 1886, and its secretary from 

 1886 to 1889. He ser\-ed as a botanist in connection 

 with the U.S. Agricultural Experiment Station from 

 1888 to 1912. At the time of his death Dr. Burrill 

 had almost completed his seventy-seventh year. 



Mr. H. Floy, who died recently in New York in 

 his fiftieth year, had considerable repute as an elec- 

 trical engineer in connection with hydraulic and high- 

 tension long-distance transmission work. From 1892 

 to 1898 he was associated with the Westinghouse 

 Company, and had afterwards practised independently 

 as a consulting engineer. He was a member of the 

 jur\- of awards at the St. Louis Exposition, and was 

 the author of several works on electrical subjects, as 

 well as of a large number of contributions to 

 technical journals. 



The death is announced of Mr. L. I. Blake, who 

 was professor of physics and electrical engineering at 

 the Rose Polytechnic Institute, Terre Haute, Indiana, 

 from 1884 to 1887, and at the. University of Kansas 

 from 1887 to 1906. At various periods he was con- 

 structing electrical engineer on the U.S. Lighthouse 

 Board, and chief engineer (after\^-ards consulting 

 engineer) of the Submarine Signal Co., of Boston. 

 He was also director and engineer of the Blake- 

 Marscher Electric-Static Ore Separating Co., and 

 was a member of several American scientific societies. 

 He was in his sixty-second year at the time of his 

 death. 



C.^PT. R. J. Smith, of the Lancashire Fusiliers, who 

 was killed in action on May 5, at the age of twenty- 

 nine, was the eldest son of Mr. O. Smith, of Jiggins- 

 town House, Naas, Co. Kildare. He was 

 educated at Mount joy School. Dublin, was a 

 graduate of Dublin University, and secured a 

 science scholarship in the Royal College of 

 Science for Ireland, receiving the associateship 

 of that college in 1908. He taught in Kilkenny Col- 

 lege in 1909, and then in the Technical Institute, 

 Newry, Co. Down, from which he entered the works 

 of the British Westinghouse Company, Manchester, 

 as an engineer. He owed 'his rapid promotion in the 

 Army to the technical knowledge which he was so 

 fully able to apply. 



Lieut. R. L. Valentine, of the 7th Batt. Royal 

 Dublin Fusiliers, who died on April 30 from wounds 

 received near Loos, was a scholar and an associate of 

 the Royal College of Science for Ireland, where he 

 devoted himself especially to natural history and 

 geology. He was the youngest son of Mr. W. J. M. 

 Valentine, of Dublin, and received his earlier educa- 

 tion at the High School. Dublin. When the war 



