JU^E I, I916] 



NATURE 



285 



part of the route the watch-towers erected by the 

 Chinese to protect their western marches in Kansu 

 against the Huns were examined. These travels in- 

 volved more than 11,000 miles marching over moun- 

 tain and desert, and Sir Aurel Stein gratefully acknow- 

 ledges the kind treatment he received from the Rus- 

 sian officials. The explorer and the Indian Grovem- 

 ment, who organised the journey, are to be heartily 

 congratulated on the successful completion of a task 

 which will supply much new information on geo- 

 graphy, history, art, and linguistics. 



The provisional programme of the eighty-sixth 

 annual meeting of the British Association, to be held 

 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne from Tuesday, September 5, 

 to Saturday, September 9, under the presidency of Sir 

 Arthur Evans, F.R.S., is about to be issued. The 

 inaugural meeting will be held in the Town Hall on 

 September 5, at 8.30 p.m., when the president will 

 deliver an address to the association. Evening dis- 

 courses will be delivered in the Town Hall on Thurs- 

 day, September 7, by Prof. W. A. Bone, F.R.S., who 

 will deal with some recent advances in combustion, 

 and on Friday, September 8, by Dr. P. Chalmers 

 Mitchell, F.R.S., on "Evolution and the War." The 

 reception-room will be in the College of Medicine. 

 Some of the section-rooms will be in the same build- 

 ing, and the remainder will be conveniently accessible 

 from it. The following are the presidents of sections : — 

 A (Mathematical and Phvsical Science), Dr. A. N. 

 Whitehead. F.R.S. ; B (Chemistry), Prof. G. G. Hender- 

 son ; C (Geologv), Prof. W. S. Boulton ; D (Zoologv), 

 Prof. E. W. MacBride, F.R.S. ; E (Geography), Mr. 

 D. G. Hogarth; F (Economic Science and Statistics"), 

 Prof. A. W. Kirkaldy; G (Engineering), Mr. G. G. 

 Stonev; H (.\nthropology ) . Dr. R. R. Marett; I 

 (Phvsiologv-), Prof. A. ' R. Cushnv. F.R.S.; K 

 (Botanv), Dr. A. B. Rendle, F.R.S.; L (Educational 

 Science), Rev. W. Temple; M (.\griculture), Dr. E. J. 

 Russell. 



A VERB.ATiM report has just been published (London : 

 Harrison and Sons ; price 6d.) of the proceedings of 

 th^ conference on the Neglect of Science, of which an 

 account was given in Nature of May 11 (p. 230). The 

 conference was successful in eliciting some notewx»rthy 

 utterances from leading representatives of many de- 

 partments of national activity, and was fortunate in 

 securing Lord Rayleigh as the chairman. The chief 

 claim of the first resolution was that science " should 

 form part of the entrance examination of the Universi- 

 ties of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as of the newer 

 universities." Lord Rayleigh is Chancellor of the 

 University of Cambridge, which still makes, not 

 science, but Greek an essential subject of entrance 

 examinations ; and the purpose of the meeting over 

 which he presided was to urge the need for reform. 

 It is of particular interest, therefore, to give Lord 

 Rayleigh 's views upon the sirpposed advantages of 

 compulsory classical study for the average boy in a 

 public school. "I believe it is true," he said, "there 

 is a certain type of mind for which a classical educa- 

 tion on more oc less existing lines is perhaps the best 

 thing that can be found; but when it comes to the 

 majority of schoolboys, I think it is nothing less than 

 an absurdity to talk about impressing them with the 

 language and literature of the ancients. It is well 

 known that such a result is not achieved with the 

 average boy. I myself was an average boy, in class- 

 ical matters anyhow, and I can speak from experience. 

 I was not behind the average ; but I know that the 

 long vears which I gave to classical work were to a 

 ver>- large extent thrown away, although I have no 

 dcnibt I got something from it; but anv idea of attain- 

 ing to an appreciation of the language aiKl literature 



NO. 2431, VOL. 97] 



of the Greeks, in my own case, and in the case of 

 most of my friends, was mere moonshine. . . . You 

 pretend to take a literary education by Greek, and 

 you end by getting none at all. My own belief is that 

 modern languages to a very large extent serve the 

 purpose if p>roperly taught and properly iasisted upon, 

 as they very frequently are not now." 



The death is announced of Prof. Paul Lemoult in 

 tragic circumstances. Until the outbreak of war he 

 occupied the chair of chemistrj' at the University of 

 Lille, and was at the same time director of the School 

 of Commerce of the North, and chief engineer to the 

 chemical works of La Pallice, near La Rochelle. 

 ! When Lille was occupied by the enemy some of the 

 ' industries w-ere transferred to the Lyons district, and 

 I under the direction of Prof. Lemcoilt a picric acid 

 ! works was erected, which very Soon was able to con- 

 ' tribute substantially to the production of this explo- 

 sive. On Monday, May i, a fire" broke out in the 

 ; works, and very soon assumed serious proportions. 

 j Lemoult was soon on the spot, but, in spite of his 

 \ efforts, the fire spread to the storehouse, which con- 

 tained 150 tons of picric acid. The explosion which 

 ensued destroyed the factory, and Lemoult lost his life. 

 i Paul Lemoult was born in 1871, and after passing 

 through the Lyceum at Poitiers he was admitted to 

 the Ecole Normale in 1891. He then entered the 

 laboratory of Berthelot as preparateur. He obtained 

 his doctorate in 1898 for a thesis on the polymerisation 

 of c\-anogen compounds, for which he obtained the 

 Jerome Ponti prize. He afterwards took a post at 

 the celebrated colour factory of St. Denis, where he 

 remained several years, when he was appointed to 

 the University' of Lille. His wide knowledge of tech- 

 nical matters was greatly valued by the industrial 

 community among which he lived, and the confidence 

 which he inspired led to his appointment as director of 

 the School of Commerce of the North. He made 

 t several valuable contributions on organic chemistry to 

 ! the Comptes rendus of the Paris Academy of Sciences. 



! In 1879 the arrangements for the transport of the 

 ; obelisk from Alexandria to New York were undertaken 

 by the Government of the United States. The work 

 ' was completed, and the obelisk was erected at New 

 I York in October, 1879. During the course of the 

 operations Lieut. -Commander H. H. Gorringe, who 

 ; was in command of the expedition, made a collection 

 I of Egyptian antiquities, which were removed to 

 i America, but after his death the coUectioa 

 was completely lost to sight, and has only 

 i recently been examined by Prof. S. A. B. 

 ! Mercer, who gives an account of it in part ii. 

 (1916) of Ancient Egypt. It turns out to be of excep)- 

 tional interest, containing a number of fine terra-cotta 

 ■ figurines of Harpocrates and Isis, dating from the 

 j Roman period. The gems of the collection are a 

 j beautiful bronze figure of Ptolemy Lathyros, an ex- 

 I cellent example of Ptolemaic art ; a number of bronze 

 I figurines of the Roman period, and statues of Osiris, 

 : Sekhmet, Neith. and Isis of the twenty-srxth dvnastv. 

 i In the same issue of Ancient Egypt Prof. C. G. 

 ; SeKgman describes a remarkable ivor>' comb of t±»e 

 i prehistoric period, with a representation of the hippo- 

 potamus goddess, Taurt, which seems to be the earliest 

 ; representation of this di\Tnity, and indicates that her 

 cult orevailed in a time earBer than is usually sup- 

 posed. 



The visit of the British Association to Winnipeg in 

 ' 190Q gave a welcome strmnkis to ethnographic work 



in Canada, of which an account is given bv Mr. A. C. 

 ' Breton in JVfan for .April. The Dominion Government 



has contributed liberallv to this work by establishiag 

 ' an Anthropological Division of the Geological Survey, 



