NOVEMBER 16, 1916] 
NATURE 
213 
AN inter-departmental committee, presided over by 
Mr. Harcourt, has now arranged the respective spheres 
of work and co-operation, in dealing with commercial 
inquiries, of the new Commercial Intelligence Depart- 
ment of the Board of Trade and the Imperial Institute, 
which in recent years has become a central department 
for information and investigation respecting the sources 
and uses of the raw materials of the Empire. In 
future the Technical Information Bureau of the Impe- 
rial Institute will answer all commercial inquiries re- 
specting the sources of supply, technical uses, and value 
of raw materials within the Empire, and will be respon- 
sible for supplying all information required in order 
to bring the producer overseas in touch with the manu- 
facturer at home. Inquiries as to immediate supplies 
may be addressed either to the Board or to the Insti- 
tute, as may be most convenient, but the Commercial 
Intelligence Department of the Board of Trade will 
as a rule be prepared to deal with inquiries for imme- 
diate supplies of well-known raw materials which can 
be obtained at once through ordinary trade channels. 
In answering those inquiries in which special statis- 
tical or trade information is required, in addition to 
technical information, the Board and the Institute 
have arranged to co-operate. Investigations of the 
possible industrial uses of raw materials will, as here- 
tofore, be dealt with by the Imperial Institute. The 
arrangement proposed by the committee has now been 
accepted by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
the President of the Board of Trade, and the Execu- 
tive Council of the Imperial Institute. 
Dr. Henry Heap, F.R.S., has been appointed a 
member of the committee to inquire into the position 
occupied by natural science in the educational system 
of Great Britain. 
WE regret to announce the death on November 13 
of Mr. Charles Smith, master of Sidney Sussex Col- 
lege, Cambridge, and author of many well-known 
works on mathematics, at seventy-two years of age. 
Tue Stockholm correspondent of the Morning Post 
states that the Nobel prize for physiology for 1916 will 
probably be awarded to Prof. H. J. Hamburger, of 
Groningen University. It is stated that the Swedish 
Academy of Sciences has decided not to award this 
year the Nobel prizes for physics and chemistry. 
Mr. R. N. Downe, organiser of agricultural edu- 
cation to the Lindsey County Council, Lincs., has 
been appointed director of the first Government farm 
colony for ex-service men in the East Riding of York- 
shire. An account of the Government scheme for the 
establishment of this land-settlement colony was given 
in NaTurE of October 26, p. 152. 
AT a recent meeting of the Optical Society the elec- 
tion to honorary membership took place of Sir Frank 
Dyson, Astronomer Royal, Prof. R. A. Sampson, 
Astronomer Royal for Scotland and professor of astro- 
nomy in the University of Edinburgh, and Prof. H. C. 
Plummer, Royal Astronomer of Ireland and Andrews 
professor in the University of Dublin. 
Tue Maria Mitchell Memorial Astronomical Fellow- 
ship at Harvard Observatory, value trool., is offered 
to a woman for the year beginning September 15, 1917. 
The fellowship at all times must be used for purposes 
of serious study, and the fellow should be as free as 
possible from other responsibilities. Application must 
be in the hands of the secretary of the committee, Mrs, 
Charles S. Hinchman, 3635 Chestnut Street, Phil- 
adelphia, Pennsylvania, on or before April 1, 1917. 
THe next award of the quinquennial Cartwright 
prize of the Royal College of Surgeons of England will 
NO. 2455, VOL. 98] 
be for the five years ending December 31, 1920. The 
prize consists of a medal in bronzé and an honorarium 
of 851. The subject for the competing essays is ‘‘ The 
Treatment of Injuries of the Jaws, and the Restoration 
by Mechanical Means of Parts of the Jaws Lost as 
the Result of Injury or Removed on Account of 
Disease.’ Further particulars of the competition are 
obtainable from the secretary of the college. 
Ir had been proposed to establish a whaling station 
with its accompanying works near Fiskebickskil, on 
the Gullmar fjord, north of Gothemburg, .but the 
Swedish Government has now placed its ban on any 
such handling within Swedish terrritory of right whale, 
sperm whale, or beaked whale. This decision will be 
welcomed by the workers at the neighbouring biological 
station of Kristineberg, as well as by all naturalists 
who wish for some limit to be set to the chase of these 
interesting and threatened animals. 
Tue introductory lecture of a course of twelve lec- 
tures (the Swiney Lectures on Geology) on “The 
Mineral Resources of Europe ’’ was delivered by Dr. 
J. S. Flett, at the Royal Society of Arts, on Tuesday, 
November 14. The remaining lectures will be given 
on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, at 5 p.m., until 
Friday, December 8. The subjects to be dealt with 
are coal resources, petroleum, iron ores, copper, tin, 
manganese, lead, the precious metals, and the salt 
deposits of Germany, France, and Britain. The lec- 
tures will be illustrated by lantern-slides, and admission 
to them is free. 
Ar the anniversary meeting of the Mineralogical 
Society held on November 7 the following were elected 
officers and members of council :—President, Mr. W. 
Barlow ; Vice-Presidents, Prof. H. L. Bowman and Mr. 
A. Hutchinson; Treasurer, Sir William P. Beale, 
Bart.; General Secretary, Dr. G. T. Prior; Foreign 
Secretary, Prof. W. W. Watts; Editor of the Journal, 
Mr. L. J. Spencer; Ordinary Members of Council, 
Capt. W. Campbell Smith, Dr. J. W. Evans, Dr. 
F. H. Hatch, Mr. J. A. Howe, Mr. T. V. Barker, 
Mr. G. Barrow, Prof. C. G. Cullis, Mr. F. P. Men- 
nell, Mr. H. Collingridge, Mr. T. Crook, Dr. G. F. 
Herbert Smith, and Dr. H. H. Thomas. 
Capt. R. W. NicHors, who was killed in action on 
October 23, at thirty-one years of age, entered the 
service of Messrs. Arthur Guinness, Son, and Co., 
Ltd., at the age of fifteen. On the formation of the 
Guinness Research Laboratory in 1901 Capt. Nichols 
was employed as assistant to Mr. F. Escombe. In all 
work in connection with this he showed conspicuous 
ability. He left the service of Messrs. Guinness about 
five years ago, and, after a short service with an 
English firm, emigrated to Canada, and soon obtained 
a position at the Agricultural Station at Ottawa, where 
he was employed up to the time of joining the Army. 
Capt. Nichols was an extremely keen worker, and his 
cheerful temperament gained him a great number of 
friends. His loss will be deeply regretted by all his 
associates. 
“In the Scottish lighthouse service there have been 
for many years a number of lightlkeepers interested in 
natural history, especially in bird-life, who have con- 
tributed valuable records on the migratory movements 
of birds to the annual reports on Scottish ornithology. 
One of these has just passed away in the person of 
Mr. J. M. Campbell, who was, besides, keenly in- 
terested in the study of marine life, for which his 
nine years’ residence on the Bell Rock afforded him 
ample opportunities. In 1904 he published a well- 
written volume on the ‘‘Natural History of the Bell 
Rock,” in which he described, month by month, the 
