274 
NATURE 
| May 14, 1914 
and J. Leggat; development of the internal-combus- 
tion engine for power generation at collieries, J. 
Davidson; the geology of the Kent coalfield, Dr. E. A. 
Newell Arber. In addition, certain papers which have 
already appeared in the Transactions of the society 
will be open for discussion. 
Tue death is reported, in his seventy-fifth year, of 
Mr. Newton H. Winchell, State Geologist of Minne- 
sota from 1872 to 1900, and professor of mineralogy 
at the University of Minnesota from 1873 to 1900. 
In 1888 he founded the American Geologist, which he 
continued to edit until 1905. He was the author of 
‘“Geology of Ohio and Minnesota,” ‘‘The Iron Ores 
of Minnesota” (in collaboration with his son, Mr. 
Horace V. Winchell), ‘‘ Elements of Optical Minera- 
logy,’ and ‘“‘The Aborigines of Minnesota.’’ Mr. 
Winchell was three times elected to the presidency of 
the Minnesota Academy of Sciences, of which he was 
the founder. Since 1906 he had been archeologist 
to the Minnesota Historical Society. 
Tue President of the Local Government Board has 
appointed a Departmental Committee ‘“‘to consider 
the present state of the law with regard to the pollu- 
tion of the air by smoke and other noxious vapours, 
and its administration, and to advise what steps are 
desirable and practicable with the view of diminishing 
the evils still arising from such pollution.’”” The Com- 
mittee will consist of :—The Right Hon. Russell Rea, 
MEP) Mr: S: Brevitt,--Prof--]. 1B. “Cohen, +E RS: 
Colonel H. Hughes, C.B., Mr. J. F. MacCabe, the 
Right Hon. Lord Newton, Captain H. R. Sankey, Mr. 
B. Duncomb Sells, Mr. P. C. Simmons, Mr. E. D. 
Simon, Mr. W. B. Smith, Mr. H. O. Stutchbury, Mr. 
Christopher Turner, and Sir Aston Webb, C.B. Mr. 
E. A. Faunch, of the Local Government Board, will 
act as secretary of the Committee. 
In an article published in the Times of May 8 
attention is directed to the great practical difficulties 
presented by the problem of the prevention of the 
spread of sleeping sickness in Uganda, and especially 
to that of obtaining the cooperation of the natives in 
carrying out preventive measures. Whatever the 
chiefs, wishing to stand well with the administration, 
may profess to believe, there can be no doubt that 
the native equivalent of ‘‘the man in the street’’ has 
no faith at all in the assertion of European science 
that the tsetse-fly is responsible for the spread of the 
disease; he points to the indisputable fact that the fly 
was there long before the disease, and he asks why, 
amongst the many hordes of biting flies, mosquitoes 
and other insects, should the tsetse alone be blamed ? 
The further fact that the disease did not appear in 
the country until the Pax Britannica permitted natives 
to make long journeys in safety, and thus enabled 
persons infected elsewhere to enter the country, infect 
the fly, and so start the deadly epidemic, lends colour 
to the sinister suspicion that the Europeans introduced 
the disease into the country in order to establish 
effectually their dominion over its inhabitants. The 
writer in the Times refers to the comparative freedom 
from natural enemies enjoyed by the adult tsetse-fly, 
by reason of its alertness and swiftness of flight, but 
NO. 2324, VOL. (93) 
he seems to have forgotten that the insect passes a 
not inconsiderable period of its existence as a helpless 
pupa, buried close to the surface of the soil, and 
therefore much more easily destroyed. 
An account of some of the discoveries of expeditions 
to Peru in 1911-1912 was given by Prof. H. Bingham 
in Nature of March 26. A new expedition has just 
started for the same region. As in 1912, the expedi- 
tion is under the joint auspices of Yale University and 
| the National Geographic Society. Unlike former ex- 
peditions, it will cover a period of two years, instead 
of being confined to one field season. The plan of 
work will include the making of a topographical map 
of the region north-west of Cuzco, between the 
Apurimac and Urubamba rivers; a _ detailed geo- 
graphical reconnaissance of the more lofty portions 
of the mountains, including a study of the large 
undescribed glaciated region; the establishment of 
two meteorological stations at different elevations for 
the taking of systematic records for two years; a 
study of the distribution and history of food plants 
of this region; the collection of data respecting the 
forms and distribution of vertebrates, particularly 
mammals and reptiles; a survey of the present Indians 
inhabiting this region, including a study of their 
dialects, the collection of anthropometric data, and 
the collection and study of the skeletal remains; an 
archeological reconnaissance of the entire area, and a 
continuation of the studies begun by the first expedi- 
tion, looking toward a geographical interpretation of 
the Spanish chronicles of the era of discovery and 
exploration, with particular reference to the identifica- 
tion of ancient place names, the story of Macchu 
Pichu, and its connection with the history of the 
Incas. 
THE issue of the Journal of the Royal Anthropo- 
logical Institute, July-December, 1913, is largely de- 
voted to the ethnology of Africa. Sir H. H. Johnston 
contributes a masterly survey of the general question. 
One of his most important suggestions is that the 
cattle-keeping communities of the Central Sudan and 
of Bantu Africa owe much of the slight Caucasian 
element in their blood and almost all their culture to 
infiltration from ancient Egypt, rather than to influ- 
ences from Galaland and Somaliland. In the same 
connection Prof. Seligmann’s elaborate article on some 
aspects of the Hamitic problem in the Anglo-Egyptian 
Sudan deserves attention. He supports the suggestion 
made by Dr. J. G. Frazer in the recent edition of his 
‘“Attis, Adonis, Osiris,’ that the killing of the Shilluk 
rain-maker or divine king can best be understood in 
connection with the yearly renascence of vegetation. 
THe Huxley Memorial Lecture, by Prof. W. J. 
Sollas, published in the July-December, 1913, issue 
of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 
is devoted to an account of the exploration of the 
Paviland Cave at the base of the limestone cliffs of 
Gower, looking over the waters of the Bristol Channel. 
It belongs to the Aurignacian period, and the hunters 
who found shelter there were men of large stature. 
members of that Cré-Magnon race which occupied 
during that period the greater part of habitable 
Europe. They possessed highly developed brains, and 
