«50 



NATURE 



[OCTOUER 24. 19 I 8 



than justified b) to-day's knowledge, bul was not a 



[gerated hopes. Such a word of caution 



ecessary, for it is mi customarj to think of 



oil-wells is yielding prodigious quantities thai the low 



some live ions a daj per well throughout 



hi world is noi realised. Lasi yeai the importation 



of oil into this country was valued .11 more than 



[6,001 '.00 >/. Even if all the ten wells yii Ided the above 



average, the contribution to our national requirements 



would be very little, and the presenl enterprise musl 



11 regarded more as exploratory than as likely to 



furnish an) adequate proportion of our requirements. 



Prof. \Y. J. Pope, in giving the first Streatfeild 

 memorial lecture ai the Citj and Guilds (•■clinical 

 College, Finsbury, on Octobei 17, selected for his sub- 

 ject "The Future of Chemistry." He reviewed the 

 past and present states ol chemical science and 

 industry, and referred to the good work accomplished 

 by men like Meldola, Armstrong, Streatfeild, and 

 others in training the nun who during the last four 

 ears have been instrumental in establishing a 

 chemical industry on a sound basis, and have enabled 

 us as a nation to produce all ihose mati rials neces- 

 sary for the successful prosecution of the war, man) 

 of which, pi int to 1914, were to be obtained onh from 

 1 ntim countries. These results were rendered possible 

 bv the existence of a small but efficient company of 

 chemists, man) of whom were formerly students at 

 the Citv and Guilds Technical College, Finsbury. 

 I he lecturer, in referring to the splendid prospects 

 which the future held for chemical industry, reminded 

 tin presenl students thai it rested with them how far 

 this rich heritage of possibilities handed down by the 

 labours of two generations of chemists was explored 

 and developed. Sir Edward Husk, in moving a vote 

 of thanks to the lecturer, referred to the indifference 

 which existed prior to the war regarding applied 

 chemistry, an indifference connected, no doubt, with 

 the immense accumulation of wealth and the general 

 prosperity which had favoured us as a nation. We 

 had been sharply roused from our apathy, and no 

 doubt bv this time we all had a just appreciation of 

 the importance of chemical science to national security 

 and prosperity. 



W*E announce with much regret the death on 

 1 ' tober 18, in the ninety-first year of his age, of the 

 Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Fry, G.C.B., F.R.S., "late Lord 

 Justice of Appeal. 



Mr. D'Arcy Power will take "Cancer of the 

 ue" as the subject of his Bradshaw lecture at 

 hi Royal College of Surgeons of England on Thurs- 

 ember 14, at 5 o'clock. 



An address on "Past and Future of the Fight 

 againsl tuberculosis " will be given by Sir Malcolm 

 Morris at hi K-in.i1 Society of Medicine, W'impole 

 Street, at 8 o'clock on Monday, October 28, the occa- 

 sion being the opening of the winter session of the 

 I ub( 11 ul"-! . Society. 



Tin-: engineering ;old medal of the North-Easl Coasl 

 Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders has been 

 awarded 10 Mr. Harry R. Ricardo for his paper 

 entitled "High-speed Internal-combustion Engines," 



which was read before the institution on April 30 



last. 



I 1 11 deadi is announce, 1, .n fifty-om years ol age, 

 Prof, \la\ime Bdcher, professor of mathematics 

 Harvard University since 1904. Prof. Bdcher was 



'fin of the American Mathematical Societ) in 

 nid 1I1. author ol s. \ 1 1 al \\ 1.1 1;- on the theot 5 

 : id 1 ential equations and 1 elati d subjects. 

 Mi. 2556, VOL. I02] 



Mi;. Leonard C. Harvei has returned from thi 

 United States after having 1 arried out for the Directoi 

 of Fuel Research a full investigation into 'l" pro- 

 gress made in recent years in the application ol pul- 

 V( lis. el coal for- metallurgical and general industrial 



purposes im steam-raising in land and marim boilers 



and in locomotives on railways. His report will be 

 issued as a ( rovei nineiii publication bv the Depat "in nl 



ol Scientific and Industrial Research at an earl) d 1 



I in third Ki him of the series arranged by the 

 Industrial Reconstruction Council will be held in the 

 Saddlers' II. ill, Cheapside, E.C.2, on Wednesday, 

 October 30, I he (hair will be taken at 4. 

 Sir Wilfrid Stokes, K.B.E., president of the council, 

 and an address on "The Functions of the Govern- 

 ment in Relation to Industry " will be- given b) Mr. 

 W. L. I lichens, managing director of Messrs. 

 Cammell, Laird, and Co. Applications for tickets 

 should l» made ni tin- Secretary, I.R.C., 2 and 4 

 Tudor Street, E.C.4 



I tie I nited States, like- our own country, is 

 feeling the loss of ils scientific men through the- tin- 

 discriminating and brutal hand of war. Prof. J. F. 

 Kemp records in Science (September 13) the- death 

 ('apt. John Duer Irving, of the 11th U.S. Engineers, 



editor of Economit Geology, and professor of that 



subject in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yah- Uni- 

 versity. Prof. Irving followed his father, tin late 

 R. D. Irving, in paying spe e-ial attention in deposits 

 of metallic ores and useful minerals. Tin father was, 



perhaps, more- drawn towards petrology, anil his work 

 for tin-. U.S. Geological Survey ma\ be- better known 

 than that of the- younger man, who died from pile u- 

 meinia in Flanders at the- age- eif forty-four. It is 

 part of the' tragedv that tin- finest investigations of 

 Prof. Irving will now be published posthumously. \ 

 bulletin b) him ami Dr. S. F. Emmons on the Down- 

 town district of I.eadville-, Colorado, was issued in 

 1907. Dr. Emmons's death left the junior author in 

 charge- of the revision of the great monograph on 

 I.eadville, and the edition now" in hand, recording a 

 large numbi 1 of new observations, will remain for 

 scientific men as Prof. Irving's monument. 



Tin: Wilberforce Museum, controlled by the Cor- 

 poration of Hull, has recently received a promise ed a 

 valuable- addition to its collections in a large series 

 of 'Stuart relics presented by the- Rev. W. C. Piercy. 

 It consists eif a large number of prints and oil paint- 

 ings connected with the Stuart period, a miniature of 

 Henrietta Maria, and a memorial ring of Charles I., 

 .with a tapestry, said to be of Gobelin manufacture, 

 from the Bardo Palace at Turin, representing 

 Charles I., Oueen Henrietta Maria, and Charles II. 

 as a boy. Besides these objects, there is a consider- 

 able collection of books relating te> the Stuarts. These 

 collections will revert to tin museum after the death 

 of Mr. Pie-rev and his wife. 



In the Journal of the Rewal Anthropological Insti- 

 tute (vol. \lviii., part i.) Mr. H. Ling Roth concludes 

 his elaborate- monograph on primitive looms. In its 

 earliest stagi s tin- loom is s,. apparently simple- that 

 ii is verv difficult to decide whether it was due to 

 111 invention, inheritance- from ancestors in a 

 distant region, or transmitted from one raci •" 

 another. Origin or invention musl precede 

 tion or copying, and is consequent!) more remote and 

 obscure than distribution, which in meesi , as< - is - 



iihviiiu- thai it tenets to increase- the- obsturity of 



On the whole, Mr. Roth comes to 

 elusion thai some- looms an- of independent invention, 

 while- others an- an inheritance e>r have beei 

 mitted from one rat 



