June 4, 1914] 
NATURE 
351 
and to India, as well as to persons in London, some 
weeks may. elapse before I am able to answer the 
main points in Lieut.-Col. Manners-Smith’s letter. 
I would, however, inform Lieut.-Col. Manners- 
Smith that Mr. James Buckland, who had collected 
all or much of such evidence affecting the Government 
of Nipal, sought to lay this before his Highness the 
Prime Minister of that country, when Maharaja Sir 
Chandra Shamsher Jang visited this country not long 
ago, but Mr. Buckland was not accorded an interview 
and not permitted to submit, with all due respect, the 
case of the rare birds of Nipal, either to the Maharaja 
or to his English advisers. 
I am sincerely glad that any article of mine should 
have directed the attention of the Government and 
British Resident of Nipal to the preservation of the 
Nipalese avifauna, even though that Government may 
‘have already dealt effectively with the question. This 
large independent Himalayan State contains within 
its limits some of the most wonderful birds 
in the world, none of which are in any degree 
whatever harmful to man, and most of which are of 
exceptional interest and beauty. The whole of 
the fauna of Nipal stands out as being perhaps the 
most remarkable of any Asiatic State. The independ- 
ence of Nipal is scrupulously respected by the British 
Government, the country is not thrown open to access 
on the part of foreigners, and it might well be the 
national ambition of the Nipalese Government that 
their land should become a refuge for the wonderful 
birds and mammals still existing in tropical Asia, 
which are rapidly being exterminated elsewhere. So 
soon as | have the information asked for, I will for- 
ward it for publication in the columns of NATURE. 
H, H. Jonnston. 
Atomic Yolume Gurves of the Elements. 
In his interesting review of Prof. Letts’s book on 
‘‘Some Fundamental Problems of Chemistry,’ in 
NaturE of May 21, Prof. Meldola states that an 
atomic volume curve which includes the inert elements 
is there published for the first time. 
Will you allow me to say that in our book on 
‘Systematic Inorganic Chemistry,” first published in 
1906, Dr. Lander and I included an atomic volume 
curve in which the inert elements were shown; and 
that in our 1g1r edition the curve was amended to 
indicate the position of helium, then recently liquefied, 
so that lithium was seen no longer to occupy the crest 
of the first wave. I may add that in Kipping and 
Perkin’s ‘‘ Inorganic Chemistry ” (1911) a curve similar 
to ours appears. M. Caven. 
University College, Nottingham, May 2s. 
[ aM sorry inadvertently to have done an injustice 
to Drs. Caven and Lander, whose claim for priority 
over Dr. Letts for having constructed an atomic 
volume curve comprising the inert elements is cer- 
tainly justified. At the time of writing the review I 
was remote from libraries, and I had an impression that 
the Letts curve had been published by its author 
long before its inclusion in the work noticed, in which 
it is referred to as the ‘‘new curve” (p. 63). 
R. MELpota. 
Transmission of Electric Waves Round the Bend of 
the Earth. 
I BEG leave to amend a sentence in my letter which 
appeared in Nature of May 28. I wrote that the exist- 
ence of a most favourable wave-length for transmission 
to a given distance appeared to be contradicted by the 
diffraction theory. A more leisurely study of Prof. 
MacDonald’s paper shows me that I have in this 
NOw2327;, VOL.93)| 
respect misinterpreted his integrals, and that it is not 
impossible that the existence of an optimum wave- 
length may yet be explained by his analysis. ‘This 
emendation in no way affects the table of ratios I 
gave or the wording of the conclusion drawn there- 
from. W. Ecc es. 
University of London, University College, 
June tr. 
SCIENCE AND THE STATE. 
At a time when our Government is embarking 
on large schemes of social legislation at a 
heavy cost to the community, it seems a fitting 
Opportunity to direct attention to one branch of 
the public service which has hitherto failed to 
obtain official recognition or financial support. 
It is difficult to realise what our state of civil- 
isation would have been were it not for scientific 
researches conducted mainly at their own ex- 
pense by private individuals. The progress which 
has changed the conditions of our life from those 
prevailing in the so-called barbaric ages has been 
effected largely at the expense of a body of re- 
formers who have sacrificed their own prosperity 
for the benefit of the community in a way which 
no modern Cabinet Minister would dream of 
doing, and who have been rewarded for their 
enthusiasm by neglect and discouragement. 
The position of these workers has been ably 
put forward in the article on “Sweating the Scien- 
tist,” which appeared in Science Progress for 
April, and was mentioned in the Notes column 
of NaTurE on April 30 (p. 219). A further con- 
tribution on the same subject appeared in the 
form of correspondence by Sir Ronald Ross in the 
British Medical Journal from February 7 to March 
28. Let us take Sir Ronald Ross’s experiences 
first, and let us then extend the case to the uni- 
versity workers mainly considered in Science 
Progress. 
Sir Ronald Ross was in the Indian Army Medi- 
cal Service from 1881 to 1899, and not only did 
he discharge his official duties efficiently, but, 
at great trouble and expense to himself, he insti- 
gated his series of investigations on malaria 
and its transmission by mosquitoes—a task which 
prevented him from accepting a civil post which 
was offered him. The success of his researches 
led to the foundation in 1899 of the schools of 
tropical medicine in London and Liverpool, and 
though the scheme received every encouragement 
from Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and Mr. Austin 
Chamberlain, practically the whole of the money 
was raised by private subscription, although we 
do read of at least one Government grant of 
3,550l. in 1899. As against this, we contrast 
the action of the German Government in financing 
the Hamburg Tropical School. 
Sir Ronald Ross became chief lecturer of the 
Liverpool School, and thus had to resign his 
Indian commission on a small pension of under 
3001. The work of the school was of an alto- 
gether exceptional character, involving expedi- 
tions to West Africa, teaching of students, publi- 
cation of reports, and maintenance of experts on 
Government committees. In the expeditions Sir 
