I1l2 
Delhi to report the result of his journey to Lord 
Hardinge. 
We cannot discuss the many interesting 
results of this remarkable journey. In _ the 
Pei-shan Sir Aurel Stein remarks that in- | 
scribed slips of wood, thrown out of ancient 
office-rooms, were often found in refuse-heaps, 
covered only by a few inches of gravel or 
débris, their preservation in such condition pre- 
supposing a remarkable dryness of climate during 
the last two thousand years. On the other hand, 
he points out that the final abandonment of the 
K\hara-Khoto settlement was brought about by 
difficulties of irrigation, and “it was not possible 
to determine by conclusive evidence whether this 
failure of irrigation had been the result of desicca- 
tion in the Etsin-gol delta, or had been caused by 
some change in the river-course at canal-head, 
unable to cope. But there seemed to me good 
reason to believe that the water-supply now reach- 
ing: the delta during a few summer months would 
no longer suffice to assure adequate irrigation for 
the once cultivated area.’’ Obviously the problem 
of the changes of climate during the historical 
period will need much further investigation before 
it can be finally solved, and in the present frag- 
mentary state of our information the question 
should not be treated in a spirit of confident 
dogmatism. 
It has been arranged that the Indian Govern- 
ment, which liberally contributed to the expenses 
of the journey, shall receive a considerable portion 
of the finds, which will be deposited in the new 
Museum of Indian Art and Ethnography which 
has been planned at Delhi. We are now so accus- 
tomed to the periodical reports of Sir Aurel Stein’s 
explorations that we may fail to appreciate the 
remarkable courage, tenacity, and executive ability 
which he has shown in opening up a new region 
and in reconstructing a hitherto unknown chapter 
in the history of man. 
NOTES. 
| Mr. Runciman announced in the House of Commons 
on Tuesday that he had decided to combine the exist- 
ing Commercial Intelligence Branch of the Board of 
Trade and the Exhibitions Branch into a new and 
enlarged Commercial Intelligence Department. The 
reorganisation of the department is now proceeding. 
A RoyaLt Commission has been appointed ‘“‘to in- 
quire into the supply of wheat and flour in the United 
Kingdom; to purchase, sell, and control the delivery 
of wheat and flour on behalf of his Majesty’s Govern- 
ment; and generally to take such steps as may seem 
desirable for maintaining the supply.”’ The names of 
the members of the Commission are :—The Earl of 
Crawford (chairman), Alan Garratt Anderson (vice- 
chairman), Sir Henry Rew, K.C.B., Sir George Salt- 
marsh, H. W. Patrick, Hugh Rathbone, Oswald 
Robinson, J. F. Beale, and T. B. Royden. Com- 
‘munications intended for the Commission -should be 
addressed to the secretary at Trafalgar House, W.C. 
Tue Harveian oration of the Royal College of 
Physicians of London will be delivered on Wednesday. 
October 18, by Sir Thomas Barlow. 
NO. 2450, VOL. 98] 
NATURE 
[OcToBER 12, 1916 
Tue Thomas Hawksley lecture of the Institutiom 
of Mechanical Engineers will be delivered by Mr- 
H. E. Jones on Friday, November 3, upon the subject 
of ‘‘The Gas Engineer of the Last Century.” 
WE learn from the Times that Prof. W. von Wal- 
deyer, professor of anatomy in the University of Berlin, 
has been raised to hereditary nobility on the occasion 
of his sixtieth birthday. 
Tue death is announced, at seventy-seven years of 
age, of Mr. Herbert Jones, known by his work in 
archeology, particularly with reference to the Roman 
occupation of Britain, and investigations relating ‘to it 
at Silchester, Carlisle, Roxeter, and Greenwich. 
Dr. Le Roy C. Coorey has died at his home at 
Poughkeepsie, N.Y., at the age of eighty-three. He 
was professor of physical science at the N.Y. State 
Normal College from 1860:to 1874. In the latter year 
, : | he became professor of physics and chemistry at Vassar 
with which the settlement for some reason was | y hin y 
College. He held that post until 1894, when he was. 
| appointed to the chair of physics in the same institu- 
tion. He retired in 1907. He was the author of 
several text-books of physics and chemistry. In 1899. 
he was elected president of the N.Y. State Science 
Teachers’ Association. 
Tue death is announced, in his fifty-seventh year, 
of Dr. C. S. Prosser, head of the department of geo- 
logy in the Ohio State University, with which he 
had been connected since 1899. | He had previously 
occupied the chair of natural history at Washburn 
College, Topeka, Kansas, and of geology at Union 
College, N.Y. He was an assistant-geologist of the 
U.S. Geological Survey, and of the State Geological 
Surveys of Kansas, New York, Ohio, and Maryland. 
In addition to many official reports, he had published 
works on the stratigraphic geology and palzontology 
of Pennsylvania, New York, Kansas, Nebraska, Mary— 
land, and Ohio, the Devonian of New York, Penn- 
sylvania, and Maryland, and the Permian of Nebraska, 
Kansas, and Oklahoma. . 
WE regret to note in Engineering for’ October 6 
the death, on October 1, in his seventy-sixth year, of 
Sir W. Theodore Doxford, at his residence, Grindon 
Hall, Sunderland. As a shipbuilder Sir Theodore 
greatly assisted in the development and improvement 
of cargo-carrying steamers. In 1895 the output of the 
works on the Wear with which his name is associated 
exceeded that of any other shipbuilding establishment 
in the country. Sir Theodore became a member of the 
council of the Institution of Naval Architects in 1896, 
and was president of the NorthEast Coast Institution 
of Engineers and Shipbuilders in 1886-87. He’ toolr 
an active part in the public life of the district in which 
his works were located, and was a Deputy-Lieutenant 
of the county of Durham, 
Mr. J. AckwortH PLomMER has presented to the 
Geological Department of the British Museum an un- 
usually fine portion of a Hippurite from the Chalk 
of Boughton-under-Blean, near Faversham, Kent. The 
specimen is part of the conical valve of the shell, 
which must have measured from 2 to 3 ft. in length, 
with a maximum diameter of about 8 in. The shell- 
substance is more than 2 in. in thickness, and of the 
usual open texture. The fossil seems to belong to a 
species, Radiolites mortoni, which is already known 
by fragments from the English Chalk, and by finer 
specimens from the Cambridge Greensand. The rarity 
of Hippurites in the Chalk is curious considering their 
immense abundance in the limestones of corresponding 
age in central and southern Europe, and in certain 
