APRIL 9, 1914] 
work shall be designated the director of the observa- 
‘tory, and Mr. W. A. Harwood, the assistant-director. 
At the suggestion of Mr. R. H. Tiddeman, presi- 
dent of the Yorkshire Geological Society, arrange- 
ments are being made by the society to call a confer- 
ence next autumn, in Leeds, to consider the question 
of the glacial geology of the north of England. The 
conference will last a week, and in addition to papers 
and discussions, excursions will be made during the 
day to various centres of importance in connection 
with the glaciation of the north of England. Glacial- 
ists from all parts of the country will be invited to 
_ attend. A committee has been elected to make all the 
necessary arrangements. 
THROUGH the generosity of M. Spendiaroff, of St. 
Petersburg, the International Geological Congress pre- 
sents at each session a prize amounting to about 450 
roubles (47/.) for the best work in some specified field 
of geology. The next prize will be awarded at the 
session in Belgium in 1917 for the best work in petro- 
graphy giving new light on the general problems of 
the science. Two copies, at least, of any work pre- 
sented for the competition must be sent to the general 
secretary of the last congress, Mr. -R. W. Brock, 
Deputy Minister of Mines, Ottawa, Canada, at least 
one year before the next session. 
THE septennial award under the Acton Endowment 
has this year been made by the Royal Institution to 
Prof. C. S. Sherrington, Wayneflete professor of 
physiology in the University of Oxford, for his work en- 
titled ‘‘ The Integrative Action of the Nervous System,”’ 
being a synopsis of his elaborate paper published 
in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Societyon 
experiments in examination of the peripheral distribu- 
tion of the fibres of the posterior roots of some spinal 
nerves. Previous Actonian awards have been made 
to Sir George Stokes, Miss Agnes M. Clerke, Sir 
William and Lady Huggins, and Madame Curie, for 
achievements in the field of physical science. Prof. 
Sherrington is the first investigator in experimental 
biology to receive this distinction for the third of a 
century. 
WE regret to learn that the recent fire at Wellesley 
College, Massachusetts, though happily unattended 
by loss of life, destroyed the results of several years 
of research work. For the last six years Prof. Marion 
E. Hubbard has been investigating the problem of 
variation and heredity in beetles. The disaster swept 
away in a few moments all her notes and specimens, 
as well as a valuable original apparatus she had con- 
structed for the purpose of her observations. Prof. 
Alice Robertson, head of the department of zoology, 
similarly lost all the specimens and notes relating to 
a collection of bryozoa dredged up by the Albatross 
expedition. Prof. C. B. Thompson, of the same de- 
partment, has lost the results of similar work on 
dredgings by the Bureau of Fisheries and the Univer- 
sity of California, together with the memoranda of 
three years’ experiments on the brains of ants and a 
collection of 4000 slides which had taken eight years 
to prepare. 
NO. 2319, VOL. 93] 
NATURE 
141 
THE programme has just been issued of the annual 
meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute, to be held 
on Thursday and Friday, May 7-8. On May 7 the 
retiring president, Mr. Arthur Cooper, will induct 
into the chair the president-elect, Mr. Adolphe Greiner ; 
the Bessemer gold medal for 1914 will be presented to 
Mr. Edward Riley; the president will deliver his 
inaugural address; and a selection of papers will be 
read and discussed. On May 8 the Andrew Carnegie 
gold medal (for 1913) will be presented to Dr. T. 
Swinden, the award of research scholarships for the 
current year will be announced, and other papers will 
be read and discussed. Among the papers that are 
expected to be submitted for reading and discussion 
are :—‘* The Forms in which Sulphides may Exist in 
Steel Ingots,” Prof. J. O. Arnold and G. R. Bolsover ; 
“The Hardening of Metals, with Special Reference 
to Iron and its Alloys,’ Dr. C. A. Edwards and Prof. 
H. C. H. Carpenter ; “‘ Influence of Molybdenum upon 
the Corrodibility of Steel,” Dr. J. N. Friend and 
C. W. Marshall; ‘‘ The Magnetic and Mechanical Pro- 
perties of Manganese Steels,” Sir Robert A. Hadfield 
and Prof. B. Hopkinson; and ‘‘A New Reagent for 
Etching Mild Steel,’ Dr. W. Rosenhain and J. L. 
Haughton. 
Tue President of the Scientific Association of 
Rhodesia regrets in his annual address for 1913 that 
no attempt has been yet made to organise an anthro- 
pological survey of the State. He suggests the pre- 
paration of tribal and linguistic maps as a preliminary 
measure. Some good work is being done by the 
members under the difficulties which attend research 
in a new country. The report publishes two excellent 
ethnological and sociological papers on the Matabele, 
by Mr. P. Nielsen, and the people of the Zambezi 
valley, by Mr. C. I. Macnamara, which give valuable 
accounts of tribal organisation, initiation ceremonies, 
and marriage rites, which deserve the attention of 
anthropologists. 
THE fine collection of glacial boulders now preserved 
in the grounds of Messrs. Cadbury, at Bournville, 
Birmingham, is described by Prof. C. Lapworth in 
part ii., vol. xviii., of the Proceedings of the Cottes- 
wold Naturalists’ Field Club for 1913. After describ- 
ing the advance of the ice-sheet into the midlands, and 
the numerous boulders conveyed by its action into the 
Birmingham district, the writer states that the col- 
lection at Bournville consists of masses of dark igneous 
Plutonic rock, usually known as felsite or andesite, 
identical with the rock which forms a large part of 
the Arenig mountain ranges, several miles west of 
Bala Lake, in the basin of the river Dee, North 
Wales, and fully fifty miles, as the crow flies, from 
Bournville. 
To the March Zoologist Col. C. E. Shepherd com- 
municates the first part of an article on methods of 
determining the position of the auditory sacculus and 
its contained otoliths in various groups of fishes. 
In an article on the effect of geographical distribu- 
tion on the development of species, published in the 
March number of the American Naturalist, Mr. A. C. 
