[ 324 
of honest work conscientiously performed. As 
Chief Engineer he enjoyed the confidence of suc- 
cessive Postmasters-General, and his attainments 
and qualifications raised the prestige of that post. 
It is a deplorable circumstance that since he 
quitted it, the post of Chief Engineer has been 
degraded and circumscribed, so that now the 
occupant of what should be a post of dignity and 
independent technical responsibility can only 
approach the Postmaster-General through secre- 
taries or other non-technical officials, and is not 
even master over the technical men in the Post 
Office Department. This could never have 
occurred in the days when Sir William Preece was 
Chief Engineer; his efforts to secure adequate 
recognition for the scientific and technical side of 
telegraphic work were persistent and successful 
during the term of his administration. That he 
had the courage of his opinions all who knew 
him intimately are well aware; yet even in his 
severest contentions with opponents he bore no 
malice. A foreign “inventor” who had trifled 
with him he indignantly showed to the door; a 
deserving subordinate who had some technical 
improvement to suggest found in him a_ sym- 
pathetic listener. Doubtless he had the defects 
of his qualities. 
the work of Oliver Heaviside is inexplicable in 
view of the stress he laid at times upon the 
need for technical men to study abstract theory. 
Genial, cheery, thorough, industrious to the last 
degree, Sir William Preece’s name and memory 
will long be cherished. An excellent portrait of 
him by Miss Beatrice Bright adorns the walls of 
the Institution of Civil Engineers. He held the 
distinction of Officier in the Légion d’Honneur, 
and was a Doctor of Science of the University of 
Wales. ‘Spa eeed he 
NOTES. 
Tue President of the Board of Education has 
appointed Dr. Aubrey Strahan, F.R.S., to be Director 
of the Geological Survey and Museum, in succession 
to Dr. J. J. H. Teall, F.R.S., who will retire from 
the post on January 5 next. 
Mr. AusTtEN CHAMBERLAIN has received from the 
Secretary of State for India a contribution of 5ool. 
towards the fund for the enlargement and endowment 
of the London School of Tropical Medicine. The 
fund now amounts to 71,2761. 
At the annual meeting of the Challenger Society, 
held on October 29, Sir John Murray, K.C.B., in the 
chair, the following officers were elected for the ensu- 
ing year :—Secretary, Dr. W. T. Calman; Treasurer, 
Mr. E. T. Browne; Committee, Prof. E. W. Mac- 
Bride, Messrs. D. J. Matthews and C. Tate Regan. 
Ar Dijon on November 9 the centenary was cele- 
brated of the discovery of the element iodine by the 
French chemist, Bernard Courtois, who was a native 
of Dijon.” Prof. Camille Matignon, professor of 
mineral chemistry at the Collége de France, gave an 
address on the history of iodine and its identification 
2298, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
His entire inability to appreciate | 
ment Board, of which he had served as tempor: 
[NOVEMBER 13, 1913. 
as an element. A commemorative tablet is to — 
placed on the house, 78 rue Monge, Dijon, wl 
Courtois was born. 
Ir is announced that the Swedish Acadent 
Sciences has decided to award this year’s Nobel pr 
for physics to Prof. Kamerlingh Onnes, of Leyde 
and the prize for chemistry to Prof. A. Werner, 
Zurich. @Each prize is worth about 7880]. 
THE annual meeting of the Iron and Stee 
Institute 1 be held on Thursday and Friday, May 
7 and 8, 1914. By the kind invitation of the Comité 
des Forges de France, the autumn meeting next year 
will be held in Paris, on Friday and Saturday, Sep- 
tember 18 and 19. The first half of the following: 
week will be devoted to excursions to the chief iron 
mining and manufacturing districts of. France. The 
Bessemer gold medal for 1914 will be awarded to Dr. — 
Edward Riley. ; 
Tue death is announced on November ro, at fifty- — 
seven years of age, of Dr. R. D. Sweetin » Senior 
Medical Inspector of the Local Governm i Boatdle : 
Dr. Sweeting was for twenty years hon. treasurer of the A 
Epidemiological Society of London, afterwards becom-— 
ing fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and 1 vice- ; 
president of the Epidemiological Section. In 1890: he 
joined the Medical Department of the Local Govern. | 4 
inspector during the Cholera Survey of 1885-6. 
On the recommendation of the committee on the 
award of the Hodgkins prize of 3001. for the best — 
treatise on the relation of atmospheric air to tuber- — 
culosis, which was offered by the Smithsonian Insti- — 
tution in connection with the International Congress _ 
on Tuberculosis, held in Washington in 1908, the 
institution announces. that the prize has been equally — 
divided between Dr. Guy Hinsdale, of Hot Springs, — 
Virginia, for his paper on tuberculosis in relation to 
atmospheric air, and Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, of New — 
York City, for his treatise on the relation of atmo- — 
spheric air to tuberculosis. 
Tue following is a list of those who have been — 
recommended by the president and council of the ; 
Royal Society for election into the council at the 
anniversary meeting on December 1 Mie Sir 
William Crookes, O.M. Treasurer: Sir Alfred — 
Kempe. Secretaries : Sir John Bradford, K.C.M.G., i 
and Prof. A. Schuster. Foreign Secretary: Dr. D. H. 
Scott. Other Members of the Council: The Right — 
Hon. A. J. Balfour, Prof. W. M. Bayliss, Dr. F. W. — 
Dyson, Dr. H. J. H. Fenton, Prof. W. Gowland, Dr. 
F. G. Hopkins, Sir Joseph Larmor, Prof. C- H. — 
Lees, Prof. E. W. MacBride, Prof. G. Elliot Smith, 
Prof. J. Lorrain Smith, Sir John Thornycroft, Prof. — 
W. W. Watts, Mr. A. N. Whitehead, Mr. C. T. R. 
Wilson, and Dr. A. Smith Woodward. 
A TABLET to the memory of Capt. L. E. G. Oates, 
of the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, who lost his life — 
in the Scott Antarctic Expedition, has been erected — 
by his brother officers in the Parish Church of Gest- 
ingthorpe, Essex, where his family reside, and was — 
unveiled on November 8. The tablet bears the fol-— 
lowing inscription :—‘‘In memory of a very gallant — 
