94 
NATURE 
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[Ocrozer 5, Tpteae: 
me 
surprise to those who were concerned in that Com- 
mission work. Roughly, it may be said that the 
Commission values obtained in the course of a 
month or two by the method referred to are in 
excess of those now fixed by about two seconds 
of arc both in latitude and in longitude, a‘displace- 
ment which has no effect whatever on the validity 
of that international boundary which was then 
demarcated. 
This is not unimportant, for it need be no longer 
a political secret that the adoption of the crest of 
the Nicolas range.as the boundary in question 
depended on the fact that no part of it was north 
of the latitude of Lake Victoria. The Russians, 
by astronomical deduction, maintained that it did 
in fact bulge over that parallel, but the results of 
the Pamir triangulation, based on those mighty 
peaks which were visible from certain high alti- 
tudes overlooking the Hindu Kush, combined 
with astronomical determinations for latitude of 
the British surveyors, afforded too strong an argu- 
ment to be refuted, and the range was adopted. 
It is therefore satisfactory to find (not that the 
matter was ever really in doubt) that the range is, 
so to speak, in its right place. These results do 
also suggest that more use might be made of the 
system of interpolation. The British officers who 
have been triangulating across the backbone of 
the Andine Cordillera in Peru have indeed made 
use of it, and that must have been just about the 
same time that Lieut. Mason’s party was pushing 
its way through the Hunza defiles. 
T. H. Hovpicu. 
MR. BEDFORD MCNEILL. 
T is with regret that we announce the death on 
September 18, due to cerebral hemorrhage, 
of Mr. Bedford McNeill, the well-known mining 
engineer, at fifty-five years of age. Apart from 
his high reputation as a mining engineer, Mr. 
MeNeill’s name was almost a household word in 
connection with the telegraphic code compiled by 
him, which was issued originally in 1893, and in an 
enlarged and revised form in 1908. This code is 
employed almost without exception by mining 
companies and engineers, to whose use it 
was specially dedicated, and other business men 
have found it extremely practical for cable com- 
munications. 
As a mining engineer Mr. McNeill sraduated at 
the Royal School of Mines in 1880, when the 
school was still in Jermyn Street; and his pro- 
fessional career as consulting engineer, which 
began in the office of the late Mr. John Darlington, 
took him into many parts of the world. He was a 
member of many learned societies, including the 
Institute of Chemistry, the Geological Society, of 
which he was also a Member of Council and 
Treasurer for some years, and the Iron and Steel 
Institute. In 1895 Mr. McNeill was elected a 
member of the Institution of Mining and Metal- 
‘Jurgy, of which he soon afterwards became vice- 
president, and he occupied the presidential chair 
in .1913-14. ‘His inaugural ‘address, in _.that 
capacity dealt with the present and future problems 
NO. 2449, VOL. 98] 
‘Chemistry, the Iron and Steel Institute, etc. 
confronting the mining profession, particularly Sts 
regards the speculative nature of mining and its 
close association with capital. He pointed out that 
mining was likely to become more speculative in 
its character in the future, since, though there were _ 
still large areas’ not yet properly prospected, the 
engineer may ultimately be driven to working that 
class of mineral occurrence which presents no 
visible evidence whatever at surface, and the Jeca- 
tion and working of which will inevitably demand 
higher technical skill and involve greater risk of 
loss of capital than those deposits at present dealt 
with. During Mr. MeNeill’s term of office the 
Institution of Mining and Metallurgy acquired its 
freehold house at No. 1 Finsbury. Circus, which 
was formally opened on January-13, 1914, by the 
Lord Mayor of London, and during his presidency 
also the first steps were taken for securing the 
Royal Charter which has since been granted to 
the institution. His connection with the Royal 
School of Mines was maintained throughout his 
career. 
Mr. McNeill was buried at Hollington, West 
St. Leonards, on September 21. The following 
societies were officially represented at the 
funeral:—The Institution of Mining and Metal- 
lurgy, the Royal School of Mines Advisory Board, 
the Mining Committee of the Advisory Council for 
Scientific and Industrial Research, the Geological 
Society, the Royal School of Mines, the R.S.M. 
Old Students’ Association, and the Mining and 
Metallurgical Club, of which he was vice-president, 
while floral tributes were sent by the nse is 
Ge 
MeNeill’s death creates a gap in the mining and 
kindred professions that will be difficult to fill. 
NOTES. 
Aw account of a new means of delineating internal 
organs in vivo, and the localisation of injuries to them, 
by an electrical method devised by James Shearer, 
M.D. (Washington, D.C.), at present a sergeant in the 
R.A.M.C., is given in the British Medical Journal for 
September 30. It is difficult to realise from the de- 
scription the exact nature of the electrical installation 
used, but the principle is said to be to impose upon 
two alternating electric fields of equal strength at right 
angles: the effect of a third field having its origin in 
the organ under examination. The patient lies on an 
insulated table, and near him. are placed two 
screens of perforated zine plate, one horizontal 
and the other vertical, connected to two separate 
batteries. A sheet of waxed paper is then 
put upon a cylinder which is set in rapid 
rotation, and a’needle scribes upon this paper a tracing 
of the organ under examination, showing at the same | 
time any lesions in it. Prints can afterwards be taken 
from the record by contact printing with photographie 
paper. Five illustrations are given in the British 
Medical Journal showing respectively pictures of the 
brain, kidney, cacum and appendix, intestine, and 
liver of injured patients submitted to the process. The 
brain picture is as clear a delineation of the blood- 
vessels as is given in text-books of anatomy, but how 
it could possibly have been produced by a tapping 
needle upon a rapidly revolving cylinder cannot readily 
be conceived. .Without further details to enable -electro- 
physiologists to repeat Sergeant Shearer’s work it is 
