118 NATURE 
[APRIL 2, 1914 
and its future progress have been materially assisted 
by the gift of 5000/1. by Lady Wernher, and the 
further gift of 50001. by Lady Wernher and her co- 
executors. This sum of 10,000]. has been invested as 
the ‘Sir Julius Wernher Memorial Fund,’’ and the 
interest accruing is available for the ordinary purposes 
of the institution. The council has established as a 
personal memorial, a ‘Sir Julius Wernher Memorial 
Lecture,’’ to be delivered and published triennially. 
The first lecture will be delivered before the Inter- 
national Congress of Mining, Metallurgy, Engineer- 
ing, and Economic Geology, to be held in London in 
July, 1915. The subject of the lecture will be “‘The 
Metalliferous Mining Industry in its Relation to the 
Development of the British Empire,’” and the name 
of the lecturer and other particulars will be duly 
announced. The total membership on December 31, 
1913, Was 2372, as compared with 2258 in the previous 
year. ‘‘ The Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa, 
Ltd.,”’ gold medal has been awarded conjointly to Mr. 
A. J. Clark, and Dr. W. J. Sharwood, for their paper 
on the metallurgy of the Homestake ore, and its 
premium of forty guineas to Mr. L. H. Cooke. 
A FEW days before his death Sir John Murray was 
gathering material in the library of the Royal Society 
of Edinburgh in preparation for his presidential 
address at the Meteorological Congress, which is to 
be held in Edinburgh during next September. The 
sudden and tragic end of a project just begun is 
infinitely lamentable, and one naturally asks what will 
become of Medusa Villa as a centre of scientific 
activity. The terms of Sir John- Murray’s will have 
been so far made public as to bring a great relief to 
all who knew and appreciated the work which was 
always being carried on under his direct supervision. 
The books and collections, especially those bearing on 
deep-sea deposits, oceanography, and limnology, are 
to be kept together, along with furniture, instruments, 
fittings, etc., in the Villa Medusa, so that scientific 
work may be carried on there for twenty years. A 
certain number of shares in the Christmas Island 
Phosphate Company (Limited) are to be devoted to 
this purpose, the dividends being applied in scientific 
research or explorations or investigations which are 
likely to lead to an increase of natural knowledge, 
particularly along the lines indicated above. The 
carrying out of this project is left in the hands of his 
children. Very liberal powers are given in regard to 
special schemes, such as a scientific exploration: of 
Canadian lakes or oceanographic expeditions. Should 
a case of substantial expenditure arise, it is suggested 
that the Challenger Society or the Royal Society of 
London or the Royal Society of Edinburgh might be 
consulted. Provision is made for the disposal of the 
collections and the library and the Christmas Island 
shares after the lapse of twenty years; or the arrange- 
ment may be brought to an end at an earlier date if 
the dividends should seriously decrease. In the 
obituary notice last week reference was made to the 
bathymetrical survey of the fresh-water lochs of Scot- 
land. It should have ‘been said that while Sir John 
planned, directed, and assisted financially the survey 
of the lochs, a large part of the expense was defrayed 
by Mr. Laurence Pullar, as a memorial to his son. 
NO. 2318, VOL. 93| 
FOLLOWING an article on ‘‘The Spider Sense,”’ 
several letters upon this subject have appeared in the 
Times (March 18-26). Certain people, we are told, 
are able to detect the presence of a spider (or cat) 
by means of a ‘“‘sixth sense.” The use of the term 
“sixth sense’’ indicates the complete innocence of 
psychology that characterises the whole correspond- 
ence. As to the fact, Prof. Meldola (March 26) is fully 
justified in pointing out that the neglect of the ‘‘ nega- 
tive instance’? makes the proffered evidence totally 
unconvincing. Probably many people believe they 
can tell when they are being stared at from behind, 
but a recent experimental test revealed no such ability. 
On the other hand, such sensitivity does not seem 
a priovt impossible. Sensory acuity varies greatly in 
different individuals and in special conditions. Thus 
some blind persons can perceive objects at a distance. 
This seems to be an abnormal development of a 
normal form of cutaneous sensitivity, the sense-organ 
being the skin of the face and the drum of the ear. 
Again, remarkable degrees of hyperzesthesia occur in 
certain stages of hypnosis, and in the present in- 
stances there may possibly be something of the nature 
of hypnotic auto-suggestion. That smell may play 
some part, as suggested by Mr. Ponder (March 25) is 
possible. This sense is imperfectly understood; how, 
for instance, is a hound able to avoid ‘ backs-track- 
ing’’? Even in the human its potentialities seem very 
elastic. Helen Keller, having lost her sense of smell 
for a few days, says: ‘‘A loneliness crept over me as 
vast as the air whose myriad odours I missed.’’ But 
the existence of the ‘‘sense’’ and its nature should be 
quite simply determinable by experiment. Mr. C. 
Sully, assistant lecturer in psychology at King’s Col- 
lege, London, will be glad to hear of a_ suitably 
endowed person willing to act as subject. 
Tue National Geographic Magazine for February 
reprints an important report by Mr. F. K. Lane on 
the conservation of the national undeveloped resources 
of the United States, particularly in connection with 
Alaska. This State contains the largest area of un- 
used and neglected land in the country. Its resources 
are enormous in minerals, torests, and land available 
for cultivation. Hitherto lack of organisation has 
impeded development; but if the scheme now formu- 
lated is adopted this great national estate will become 
highly valuable. 
Tue fourth part of vol. i. of the Sarawak Museum 
Journal is devoted to an elaborate paper by Mr. Sidney 
H. Ray on the languages of Borneo. This collection 
of tribal glossaries was begun by Mr. Ray when he 
visited Sarawak on his return from the Cambridge 
Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits in 
1898-9. Additions were made to these by Dr. A. B. 
Meyer, whose papers on his death in 1911 came 
into Mr. Ray’s possession. He has now published 
these glossaries with notes on the geographical dis- 
tribution of the tribal dialects. It may be hoped that 
these collections will form the basis of a comparative 
study of this little-known group of languages. The 
value of the collection, not only to philologists, but 
also to anthropologists, is much increased by the addi- 
tion of an extensive bibliography of books and papers 
on the Borneo tribes and their dialects. 
