October 17. miiS 



NATURE 



1 29 



NOTES. 



\\ 1 notice with much regrel thai among the victims 

 of the sinking of the Itish mail-boa! Leinster, which 

 was torpedoed bj a German submarim on Octobei io, 

 was Sii \V. II rhompson, K.B.E., King's professor 

 of Institutes of Medicine, ["rink) 1 ollege, Dublin, and 

 scientifii ad\ isei to the Ministn of' I ■ 



Dr. Raymond Peari has resigned his position of 

 biologist of the Maim- Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, On Maine, having been appointed pro- 

 fessor of biometr) and vital statistics in the school 

 of hygiene and public health, Johns Hopkins Uni- 



A branch of the National Union of Scientifii 

 Workers was formally constituted al Liverpool 

 meeting held at thi I niversitj on Octobei to. The 

 branch resolved to give general support to any schemes 

 of federation of existing organisations of workers in 



oil represi ntation 

 at the general meeting of the union. 



Prof. W. A. Husk, with t li ■ concurrence of the 

 authorities of the Imperial 1 oil . • ol Science and 

 Technology, has asked to be relieved of his duties as 

 consultant to the Fuel Research Board on October - 1 -'. 

 in order to !"■ fi e during the coming winter to 

 devote his att< ntion to plans now undei consideration 

 for the post-war development of the department of 

 chemical technology al the colli 



Tm- American Academ\ ol Medicine is offering a 

 prize to be awarded in 1921 for an essay from a fund 

 raised in honour of Dr. C. Mclntire, who for the 

 period of twenty-five years was secretary of the 

 academy. The subjeel of thi ■ — . 1 % is, "What Effect 

 has Child-labour on the Growth of the Body?" and 

 the competition is open to all. The essays must reach 

 ih. Secretary of the American \cademy of Medicine 

 by, ai latest, January t, m?i. 



The Tin and Tungsten Research Board of the 

 Department of Scientifii and Industrial Research 

 invitee proposals from firms and individuals in a posi- 

 tion to undertake research work with the view of 

 increasing the extraction of tin and tungsten from 

 Cornish ores In the introduction of improved processes. 

 Letters in connection with the announcement should he 

 addressed to the Secretary of the Tin and Tungsten 

 Research Board, 15 Great George Street, Westminster, 

 S.W.i. 



We regret to note thai die death of Mr. John Paul 

 Wilson is announced in Engineering for Octoher 11. 

 Mr. Wilson was the late general manager of Palmer's 

 Shipbuilding and Iron Co., Jarrow-on-Tyne, and was 

 seventy-two years of age al the time of his death, 

 which look place on Octoher 4. lie had a long and 

 varied experience in shipbuilding on the Clyde, ai 

 Harrow, and on the Tyne, and foi a time was ship- 

 building director of th«' Anglo-Spanish yard at Bilbao, 

 which yard he designed and laid out to build 7000-ton 

 armoured cruisers in an unprecedi ntedly short time. 



By an Order of the Ministei "I Munitions, dated 

 1 1 1 , on and, af tei Octobei :i no clinical thermo- 

 meter can be sold which does not hear the approval 

 mark ol thi National Physical Laboratory. Up to 



nth from the dale of the Order the laboratory 



will approve thermometers which show no error ex- 



I F. over the scale bi low u>o° 1-'., and 



after 1 li.it dan sue h ;is shov 1 erroi exct 



o .- F. over thai range. The ch rge for testine thi 



thermometers will he ;,L, and !•■ .1 small additional 

 XO. 2555. VOL. I02] 



charge a«certificate -;' vm s! details of the results of the 

 1. si ol an instrument will he issued. 



Several letters havi n iched us referring to Lord 

 Walsingham's suggestion (Nature, September 5, p. 41 

 that species proposed in the German language should 

 11. . 1 he regarded as valid. We do not think any useful 

 purpose would he served in discussion of 



this subject, or by anticipating thi confusion in nomen- 

 clature which, Or. W. E. Hoyli points out, would 

 result in the Inline i! it lie carried int.. -Meet. In the 



interests of scientifii s\siem, Dr. Hoyle suggests that 

 before it is acted upon the proposal 1 1 be sub- 

 mitted i" the International Commission on Zool 

 Nomenclature, which was specially establis iei 

 with such question. 



Tiik death is announced, in his sixty-ninth year, of 

 Dr. William Rent, who from 1903 to 1908 wras ' 

 of the (."ollege of Applied Science ai Syracuse Uni- 

 versity, U.S.A. From 1X77 to 1879 Dr. Rent was 

 editoi of the American Manufacturer and lion World, 

 from 1895 to to", associate editor of Engineering 

 Vents, and from [910 to 1914 editor of Industrial 

 Engineering, fie was vice-president of the American 



Societ) of Mechanii.il Engineers from 188S to 

 and in 1905 was president of the American Society of 

 Healing and Ventilating Kngineers. His publications 

 included 'Tlie Strength of Materials," "Strength of 

 Wrought-iron and Chain Cables," and "The Mechani- 

 cal Engineer's Pocket-book." 



\i cording to the Times, news has reached Vardo 

 that Capt. Roald Amundsen's Polar expedition in the 

 Maud passed Yugor Strait on August 28 and entered 

 the Kara Sea. As was anticipated from previous ex- 

 perience, September proved to be a good month for 

 crossing the Kara Sea. The Maud met with no diffi- 

 culties, and was last heard of by. wireless telegraph 

 from Dickson Island at the mouth of the River Yenisei, 

 where she took on board a quantity of petrol and 

 sailed eastward. The expedition has now left the last 

 outpost of civilisation, and, unless news is ri 1 

 from wandering natives in the Taimir peninsula or 

 around the Lena delta, nothing will be heard of the 

 Maud for several years. 



The Commonwealth Government has now published 

 the official report by Capt. J. K. Davis on die Aurora 

 relief expedition to the Antarctic. It will be renum- 

 bered that the Aurora was sent to the Ross Sea _ to 

 rescue the ten members of the Shackleton expedition 

 hit at Cape Evans. The task was accomplished with 

 Capt. Davis's usual skill in handling his ship in diffi- 

 cult ice conditions. Unfortunately, three members of 

 the expedition had lost their lives during the previous 

 winter- Capt. Mackintosh and Messrs. A. P. Spencer- 

 Smith and Y. G. Hayward. The Aurora left Port 

 Chalmers, N.Z., on December 20, 1916, and returned 

 to Wellington on February 9, 1917, thus making a 

 ,-ecord voyage to tin Antarctic and back". The voyagi 

 was, on ih. whole, uneventful, and no neu discoveries 

 were made. A track-chart of the journej accompanii - 

 the report. 



Tm til-! 1.1 three Chadwick public lectures on 

 sin,, of a New Disease" was delivered by Oi I 

 Crookshank on October 10. The subject is thi- Heine- 

 Mediu disease or infantile paralysis, which may 

 assume various forms. The recent casi ol so-called 

 botulism (see X\rruK. vol. ci., pp. 170 and 209) are 

 probablv examples of a cerebral form oi il Dr. 

 Crookshank reviewed the histon ol irious mysterious 

 outbreaks of sickness with nervous symptoms re- 

 I sine the fifteentl century, and sug- 



