JUNE 11, 1914] 
NATURE 
381 
K6nigl. Preussisches Aeronautisches Observatorium 
Lindenberg (Kreis Beeskow). 
Dr. F. J. Brcke, professor of mineralogy in the 
Imperial and Royal University of Vienna (Austria) ; 
Dr. T. C. Chamberlin, professor of geology in the 
Iniversity of Chicago (Illinois), U.S.A.; Dr. F. J. 
Loewinson-Lessing, professor of mineralogy and geo- 
logy in the Polytechnic Institute of St. Petersburg 
(Russia); Dr. A. P. Pavlow, professor of geology and 
palzontology in the Imperial University of Moscow 
(Russia); and Dr. W. B. Scott, professor of geology 
in the Princeton University, Princeton (New Jersey), 
U.S.A., have been elected foreign members of the 
Geological Society of London. Dr. P. Choffat, Geo- 
logical Survey of Portugal, Lisbon, and Dr. Charles R. 
Van Hise, president of the University of Wisconsin, 
Madison (Wisconsin), U.S.A., have been elected 
foreign correspondents of the society. 
Tue Elliott Cresson medals have been presented by 
the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, this year as 
follows :—To Prof. Karl P. G. Linde, for his scien- 
tific investigations of the processes of refrigeration 
and the liquefaction of gases, and his inventions of 
machinery for applying these processes in the manu- 
facture of ice and for the purposes of cold storage; to 
Dr. E. F. Smith, for his work in the field of electro- 
chemistry, his contributions to the literature of chem- 
ical science, and his service in university education ; 
to Prof. J. M. Eder, for his researches in photo- 
chemistry and his contributions to the literature of 
that science and of the graphic arts; to Mr. Orville 
Wright, for the work accomplished by him, at first 
together with his brother Wilbur and latterly alone, 
in establishing on a practical basis the science and 
art of aviation. 
Tue Dorset Field Club intends this month to re- 
open the Dewlish Trench, about which there has been 
much discussion. This trench is in chalk, and is 
filled with fine sand below, and above by loam with 
bones of Elephas meridionalis. An open gash in soft 
chalk is so exceptional as to lead the Rev. Osmond 
Fisher to suggest lately that this must be an artificial 
elephant-trap; other geologists take it to be natural, 
though formed in some way not clearly understood. 
Should it prove to be an elephant-trap, several inter- 
esting questions are raised. Elephas meridionalis is 
not definitely known as Pleistocene; it occurs in 
Pliocene or pre-Glacial strata, and seems to have 
disappeared from Britain at the incoming of the cold. 
The association of this elephant with man would be 
a new point, though some supposed ‘‘eoliths’’ have 
been picked up near the trench. The infilling of the 
trench is peculiar. The bones belong to several in- 
dividuals, and if they were trapped it seems to have 
been for the meat alone, for the tusks remain. Below 
the elephant-layer is fine dust-like desert sand, with 
highly polished flints. The circular sent to us by the 
Earthworks Committee of the Dorset Field Club 
shows that the work will be properly done. Mr. 
Charles Prideaux will camp on the spot, which will 
be carefully enclosed. The trench will be opened 
from end to end, until the undisturbed challk-bottom 
reached. All fossils and flints will be carefully 
NO. 2328, VOL. 93] 
is 
| collected and examined. The Dorset Field Club pro- 
poses to visit the trench on June 30. 
THE Amnauer Hansen, of Bergen, a vessel of about 
fifty tons, but replete with all up-to-date apparatus 
for the investigation of the hydrography of the sea, 
started from Plymouth on June 2 on a two months’ 
cruise in the Atlantic. The scientific work of the 
cruise will be conducted under the direction of Prof. 
Helland-Hansen, director of the Marine Biological 
Station at Bergen, and he will also have the advan- 
tage of the advice of Prof. Fridtjof Nansen, who, with 
his son, accompanies the party. The vessel, which is 
only some 25 yards in length, is worked partly by 
motor and in part by sail. It has been built to stand 
any weather, being constructed somewhat after the 
plan of the Norwegian lifeboats. From Plymouth the 
Amnauer Hansen will proceed in a _ south-westerly 
direction across the Atlantic for approximately five 
hundred miles, and then return eastward to Lisbon, 
where the party expects to arrive in a fortnight. 
From Lisbon the vessel will proceed to the Azores, 
and thence return, according as time permits, either 
by way of the English Channel or along the west 
coast of Ireland and Scotland, and vid the FarGées to 
Bergen. During the cruise a detailed survey will be 
made in regard to such hydrographical factors as 
temperatures, currents, circulation, salinities, dissolved 
gases, penetration of light, points which in due time 
will prove to be not only of theoretical but of practical 
importance. The boat is manned by a crew of six 
and the scientific staff consists of Messrs. Grein, 
Grondahl, Gaarder, and Birkeland. The expenses of 
the cruise have been partly defrayed by the Nansen 
Fund. 
By the death of the great French electrometallurgist, 
Paul Héroult, which took place at Antibes on May 9, 
at the early age of fifty-one, modern metallurgical 
industry loses a figure of outstanding importance. 
Héroult’s fame chiefly rests on the invention of the 
process which bears his name for the manufacture of 
aluminium, an invention which had the effect of 
creating a new industrial metal, but his work in the 
field of the electrometallurgy of steel, though less 
widely known, is scarcely less important. Héroult’s 
early interest in aluminium was concerned with 
aluminium-bronze, for which it was supposed there 
might be a ready market, and his first patent in this 
direction was taken out in 1886. It was in 1888 that 
he tackled the problem of making pure aluminium, 
in conjunction with Dr. Kiliani, and in that year 
were founded the first aluminium works at Neu- 
hausen.  Héroult’s master-discovery was that of a 
suitable solvent for alumina, and this he found in 
fused cryolite, 3NaF.AIF;. The establishment of the 
works of la Société Electrométallurgique frangaise at 
Froges (Isére), followed soon after that of the Swiss 
works, and since then the manufacture of aluminium 
by the Héroult process. has become an established 
industry in most of the chief countries of Europe. 
Héroult commenced his work on the manufacture of 
steel in the electric furnace in 1899, and in the follow- 
ing year a small trial furnace of 3000 kg. capacity 
was working successfully at La Praz. The part 
Héroult has since played in the development of the 
