134 
had already written, with Dr. G. Hickling, a paper 
on the problematical Parka decipiens, which was read 
before the Geological Society, but is not yet published. 
He obtained a commission in the Black Watch in 
December, 1914, and while on service at home and 
abroad collected geological specimens for the Sedgwick 
Museum. 
Tue council of the Chemical Society has arranged 
for three lectures to be delivered at the ordinary scien- 
tific meetings during the session 1916-17. The first 
of these lectures, entitled ‘‘ Alloys of Copper and Tin, 
Aluminium and Gold,” will be delivered on January 18 
by Col. C. T. Heycock, F.R.S. On March 15 Dr. 
Horace T. Brown, F.R.S., will lecture on ‘‘ The Prin- 
ciples of Diffusion : their Analogies and Applications”? ; 
, and the third lecture, entitled ‘Some Main Lines of 
Advance in the Domain of Modern Analytical Chem- 
istry,’ will be given on May 17 by Mr. A. Chaston 
Chapman. The ordinary scientific meetings com- 
mence at 8 p.m. In order to afford facilities to fellows 
for meeting each other informally, the council has 
again arranged to hold three informal meetings during 
the session, on October 19, 1916, and on January 11 and 
May 10, 1917. The council will gladly welcome any 
offers of assistance from fellows willing to show ex- 
periments and apparatus at these meetings, and such 
offers should be made to the assistant secretary not 
later than the Monday previous to the meeting. 
Tue gift of the Wright aeronautical patents to the 
British nation has caused some comment in the Press. 
Without in any way underestimating the magnificent 
pioneer work of the brothers Wright, it must be ad- 
mitted that the majority of the ideas covered by their 
patents are now out of date. One of the main patents 
is connected with the warping of the wings, and the 
interconnection of the warp and rudder controls. At 
the present time warping has been almost entirely 
superseded by the use of wing flaps, which are more 
effective aerodynamically, besides being much easier 
to design from a mechanical point of view. Patents 
connected with automatic stabilisers are also useless, 
for machines can now be built which are inherently 
stable, both longitudinally and laterally, so that the 
necessity of an automatic stabiliser is removed. The 
Wrights themselves seemed to think that such a 
stabiliser was unnecessary. The action of the Wright 
Company in accepting 15,op0l. compensation instead 
of proceeding with their action against the War Office 
for infringement was highly laudable at a time when 
the co-operation of all aeronautical firms was so much 
needed. It seems doubtful, however, whether the gift 
of their patents to the nation will produce any great 
benefit at the present stage of the development of 
aeronautics : 
Tue thirteenth memorandum of the Health of Muni- 
tion Workers Committee, which has just been issued, 
deals ‘vith juvenile employment. It is pointed out that 
the hours of work are extremely long—sixty hours a 
week—and that in many cases this limit has been 
exceeded, and the weekly hours have been extended to 
sixty-seven hours, or even longer. The long hours of 
work react unfavourably on the health of the workers, 
not only owing to the physical strain involved in the 
work, but also because the limited opportunities for 
recreation often lead to deterioration of character. 
These harmful effects are clearly more liable to occur 
in the young, whose development is still incomplete 
and whose character is not yet formed and stable. 
The committee recommends the abolition of Sunday 
work, and, except in special circumstances, of night 
work. It does not feel justified, however, under the 
NO. 2451, VOL. 98] 
NATURE 
[OcToBER 19, 1916 
present conditions, in suggesting the limitation of the 
hours of work to less than sixty hours weekly for those 
under sixteen, and sixty-five hours for those above 
sixteen years of age. A further excellent suggestion 
is the appointment of visitors, whose work is directed 
to improving the physical and moral welfare of the 
boys in factories by organising facilities for recreation, 
by personal supervision, and by direct association with 
the boys; this plan has already been adopted in at least 
one factory. . 
Tue Secretary of State for India has authorised the 
Indian Committee of the Imperial Institute to inquire 
into andreport on the possibilities of extending further 
the industrial and commercial utilisation of Indian raw 
materials in this country and elsewhere in the Empire. 
The committee has already commenced its work and 
has appointed a number of sub-committees to deal 
with the more important groups of materials, to con- 
sider the results of investigations and inquiries already 
conducted by the Imperial Institute, and to obtain the 
views of leading merchants, manufacturers, and other 
users of the raw products of India. One of the im- 
portant aspects of the committee’s work will be to 
suggest openings for the employment of those Indian 
materials which before the war went to enemy coun- 
tries. The Indian Committee of the Imperial Insti- 
tute includes Lord Islington (Under-Secretary of State 
for India), Sir Marshall Reid (member of the India 
Council), Prof. Wyndham Dunstan (director of the 
Imperial Institute), Mr. L. J. Kershaw (secretary, 
Revenue and Statistical Department, India Office), 
Sir John Hewett (formerly Lieutenant-Governor of the 
United Provinces), Mr. G. B. Allen (of Messrs. Allen 
Bros. and Co. and Messrs. Cooper Allen, Cawnpore), 
Mr. Yusuf Ali (late Indian Civil Service), Sir R. W. 
Carlyle (lately member of the Viceroy’s Council), and 
Sir J. Dunlop Smith. Mr. C. C. McLeod, chairman 
of the London Jute Association, is chairman of the 
committee, and the secretary is Mr. A. J. Hedgeland, 
of the Imperial Institute. 
Mr. F. R. Row _ey, the curator of the Royal Albert 
Museum, Exeter, has contributed some valuable notes 
to the Museums Journal for October on objects pre- 
served in arsenious acid glycerine jelly. His 
method is an adaptation of, and an _ improve- 
ment on, that devised by Prof. Delépine. The 
advantage of this method of preservation is 
purely one of convenience, since it affords a means of 
avoiding the introduction of spirit, or other fluid 
preservative, among dry preparations. The successful 
preservation of colour varies according to circum- 
stances, but experiments with seaweeds have given 
extremely satisfactory results. So far, however, this 
medium has failed in regard to flowers. : 
Tue relationship between the geographical distribu- 
tion of megalithic monuments and ancient mines is 
discussed at length in an able essay by Mr. W. J. 
Perry in the Memoirs and Proceedings of the Man- 
chester Literary and Philosophical Society, 1915-16. 
The author contends that the weaving of linen, the 
use of pearls, precious stones and metals, and of conch- 
shell trumpets, are all accompaniments of the mega- 
lithic culture, which had its origin in Egypt. Thence 
it spread through Europe to Britain, on one hand, and 
eastward through India and the East Indian Archi- 
pelago, and thence out across the Pacific by way of 
the Carolines, Solomons, New Hebrides, Fiji, and 
Easter Island to America. The agents in this distri- 
bution were the Phcenicians, and the part they played 
in this is discussed at length by Prof. G. Elliot Smith 
in an appendix to Mr. Perry’s paper. Herein evi- 
