;86 



NATURE 



[July 6, 191 6 



tar products and dyestuffs, and has appointed Prof. 

 A. G. Green, F.R.S., to take charge of it. Prof. 

 Green recently resigned the chair of tinctorial chemis- 

 • try at Leeds University in order to direct the research 

 department of the largest Lancashire firm of dyestuff 

 manufacturers. His sub-department will be under 

 the general direction of Prof, Knecht, who is head of 

 the department of applied chemistry, and is expert 

 in the use of dyestuffs, as Prof. Green is expert in 

 their manufacture. With two such distinguished 

 chemists in command, the Manchester School of 

 Technology should be able to render invaluable assist- 

 ance to producers and users of dyes, and so to assist 

 materially in the development of this specially 

 important branch of British chemical industry. 



Prof. Paul Janet, of the Sorbonne, gives in the 

 Revue gdnirale des Sciences a short account of the 

 work of the late Prof. Eric Gerard, of the Montefiore 

 Electrotechnical Institute, Li^ge. He was born in 

 Liege on September 22, 1856, and, after graduating 

 as an engineer at the University there in 1878, com- 

 pleted his studies at Paris. In 1881 he returned to 

 Li^ge as professor of applied electricity at the School 

 of Mines, and two years later was made director of 

 the newly founded Montefiore Institute. His great 

 abilities, both as an administrator and as a teacher, 

 rapidly raised the institute to the prominent position 

 it has occupied for so many years, and his " Lemons 

 sur TElectricit^," which appeared in 1890, was recog- 

 nised as a masterpiece throughout the electrotechnical 

 world. He represented Belgium on all international 

 electrical commissions, and his opinions had great 

 weight with his colleagues. When Li^ge was 

 attacked by the Germans in 19 14 he was recuperating 

 after the term's work at his country house, sixteen 

 miles south-east of Liege, and only with difficulty got 

 away to Holland. Early this year he came to 

 England, but on his health giving way he returned 

 to Paris, and died there on March 28 without having 

 seen his own country. 



At the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 

 held on July 3 the following Honorary Fellows were 

 elected : — British Honorary Fellows : — Sir Francis 

 Darwin, Cambridge; Dr. J. W. L. Glaisher, Trinity 

 College, Cambridge; Prof. J. N. Langley, professor of 

 physiology, Cambridge; Prof. C. Lapworth, emeritus 

 professor of geology, University of Birmingham ; 

 Prof. A. Macalister, professor of anatomy, Cambridge ; 

 Prof. A. Schuster, emeritus professor of physics. 

 University of Manchester. Foreign Honorary 

 Fellows: — Prof. C. Barrois, professor of geology and 

 mineralogy, Lille; Prof. D. H. Campbell, professor 

 of botany, Leland Stanford University, Cal., U.S.A.; 

 Prof. M. E. Gley, professor of physiology, Paris; 

 Prof. C. Golgi, professor of anatomy, Rome ; General 

 W. C. Gorgas, U.S. Army Medical Department; 

 Prof. G. B. Grassi, professor of comparative anatomy, 

 Rome; Prof. E. C. Pickering, professor of astronomy, 

 Cambridge, U.S.A. ; Prof. E. Warming, emeritus 

 professor of botany and keeper of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens, Copenhagen. The following prizes of the 

 societv were presented :— The Keith Prize Award for 

 the biennial period 1913-1915 to Dr. J. H. Ashworth 

 for his papers on " Larvae of Lingula and Pelago- 

 discus " and on " Sclerocheilus," published in the 

 Transactions of the Society, and for other papers on 

 the morphology and histology of Polychaeta ; and the 

 Neill Prize Award for the biennial period 1913-1915 

 to Dr. R. Campbell for his paper on "The Upper 

 Cambrian Rocks at Craigeven Bay, Stonehaven," and 

 " Downtonian and Old Red Sandstone Rocks of Kin- 

 cardineshire," published in the Transactions of i!he 

 Society. 



NO. 2436, VOL. 97] 



The Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for 

 the current year has been awarded to Prof. Elias 

 Metchnikoff, For.Mem.R.S., "in recognition of the 

 value of his investigations into the causes of immunity 

 in infective diseases, which have led to important 

 changes in medical practice, and to the establishment 

 of principles certain to have a most beneficial influence 

 on the improvement of public health." The annual 

 report of the council, published in the Journal of the 

 Society for June 30, refers to the award as follows : 

 " The discoveries of Prof. Metchnikoff in regard to the 

 nature of immunity to infective diseases have con- 

 i tributed, more than the work of any other living 

 man, to the control of such diseases, and to the 

 consequent improvement in the health of great Euro- 

 pean jjopulations, and the safeguarding of those who 

 have to face the dangers of bacterial infection, 

 whether on the battlefield or as pioneers in tropical 

 climates. For many years, as professor of zoology 

 at Odessa, he was an ardent student of lower forms 

 of life. It was by the study with the microscope of 

 the cell activities of sponges and transparent marine 

 organisms that he arrived at his discovery of phago- 

 cytosis. These researches into the development and 

 metamorphoses of invertebrates prepared the way for 

 his great discovery, as he was led by the observation 

 of the action of the mesoderm cells in the embryonic 

 organs of echinoderms to the knowledge that the 

 white blood-cells or phagocytes devour the invading 

 microbes in vertebrates also, and he was thus able 

 to show the universal applicability of his generalisa- 

 tion. Prof. Metchnikoff's services to zoology and 

 pathology are of world-wide repute, and have already 

 been recognised by the award of the Nobel Prize for 

 Medicine, and of the Copley Medal of the Royal 

 Society." 



Two methods of mounting fossil vertebrates are 

 described in the Museums Journal for June. One of 

 these includes the skeleton of Stenomylus, a diminu- 

 tive relation of the camel. This has been recently 

 mounted in the British Museum of Natural History 

 in a standing posture, and partly embedded in 

 plaster. The other is that of the skeleton of an 

 extinct reptile, Thescelosaurus neglectus, which is 

 exhibited in the United States National Museum 

 "almost in the position in which the bones were 

 found." It is not clear, from the description here 

 given, whether the term "almost" refers merely to 

 slight restoration or implies a remounting, as in the 

 original matrix. In the latter case the method has 

 nothing to commend it, but rather the reverse. 



The annual report of the Zoological Society of 

 Scotland appears this year in a slightly abbreviated 

 form, owing to the falling off of income incidental 

 to the war. It is devoutly to be hoped that the 

 society has weathered the worst of the storm, for 

 the newly established Zoological Park bids fair to 

 excel even its rival in London, at least in so far as 

 sumptuousness in the housing of the animals is con- 

 cerned. In this, of course, the natural advantages of 

 the site play an important part. Diminishing funds 

 have made strict economy an urgent necessity, but it 

 is to be hooed that no further curtailments will be 

 needed. The Carnegie Trustees have generously 

 promised the sum of io,oooZ. for the purpose of build- 

 ing and equipping an aquarium in the park, but^ it 

 is not the intention of the council to proceed with 

 the work until after the war. 



The report of the director of the Aquarium of the 

 Zoological Society of New York, which has just 

 reached us, has some interesting comments^ on the 

 use of metal tanks for the transport of live fish. 



