DEcEMBER 7, 1916] 
NATURE 
273 
income tax and excess profits tax. | Money so 
allotted by traders must be devoted to a research 
or to an association for research under partial 
State control. ; 
Speaking next on the subject of technical edu- 
cation, Lord Crewe said there had been confer- 
ences with local authorities with the view of bring- 
ing the conditions under which public money was 
granted to educational institutions more up to 
date. -The new regulations would simplify ad- 
ministration and stiffen instruction. Special in- 
creases would be made in the Estimates of the 
Board of Education to assist local authorities, and 
improved arrangements would be made for the 
training of teachers and for scholarships for 
selected industrial students. 
There: would also be (in addition to the block 
sum to cover five years’ expenditure mentioned 
above) an annual Vote in the Estimates for various 
purposes, and a sum would be set aside to meet 
cases in which assistance was required by the in- 
dividual worker, or by professional societies which 
stood in need of funds to carry on research work. 
Sir J. J. Thomson, on behalf of the deputation, 
_ thanked Lord Crewe for his address. 
The following official statement has been issued 
as to the constitution of the new department :— 
The Government have decided to establish a separate 
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research for 
Great Britain and Ireland under the Lord President of 
the Council, with the President of the Board of Educa- 
tion as vice-president. They have also decided, sub- 
ject to the consent of Parliament, to place a large sum 
of money at the disposal of the new department to be 
used as a fund for the conduct of research for the 
benefit of the national industries on a co-operative 
basis. 
The Board of Inland Revenue have decided, with 
the approval of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that 
no objection shall be offered by their surveyors of 
taxes to the allowance, as a working expense for 
income-tax purposes, of contributions by traders to 
industrial associations which may be formed for the 
sole purpose of scientific research for the benefit of the 
various trades; and the allowance would be equally 
applicable as regards traders’ contributions specifically 
earmarked to the sole purpose of the research section 
of an adapted existing association. 
In both cases the allowance would be subject to cer- 
tain conditions, e.g. the association or the research 
section to be under Government supervision and the 
trader’s contribution to be an out-and-out payment, 
made from his trade profits and giving him no pro- 
prietary interest in the property of the association, etc. 
In order to enable the department to hold the new 
fund and any other money or property for research 
purposes, a Royal Charter has been granted to the 
official members of the Committee of the Privy Coun- 
cil for Scientific and Industrial Research under the 
title of the ‘‘ Imperial Trust for the Encouragement of 
Scientific and Industrial Research.’’ The trust is em- 
powered “‘to accept, hold, and dispose of money or 
other personal property in furtherance of the objects 
for which it has been established, including sums voted 
by Parliament to that end.” The trust can take and 
hold land, and can ‘‘accept any trusts, whether sub- 
ject to special conditions or not, in furtherance of the 
said objects.” : 
A substantial gift has already been made to the 
No. 2458, VoL. 98] 
trust by two members of the Institution of Mechanical 
Engineers for the conduct of a research:in mechanical 
engineering to be approved by the department in the 
hope that this example will be followed by other mem- 
bers of the institution. : 
Mr. H. Frank Heath, C.B., has been. appointed 
permanent secretary of the new department, to whom 
all correspondence should be addressed until December 
31 next at the offices of the Board of Education, White- 
hall. On and after January 1, 1917,. all correspond- 
ence should be addressed to the Secretary, Department 
of Scientific and Industrial Research, Great George 
Street, Westminster, S.W. 
NOTES. 
Prors. Paut Parxteveé, of Paris, and Vito Volterra, 
of Rome, have been elected honorary members of the 
Royal Institution. : 
THE sum of troool. has been left tg the Paris 
Academy of Medicine by Dr. Magnan, a former presi- 
dent of the academy, for the foundation of a triennial 
prize for the best work on a subject relating to 
psychiatry. 
A COMPETITIVE exhibition of artificial limbs is to be 
held in Bologna in February next, and the Rizzoli 
Orthopedic Institute of Bologna, under the: auspices 
of which the exhibition is to take place, offers a prize 
of 2o0ol. in connection with it. 
A NEW medical periodical entitled Archives médicales 
belges is to be published at the beginning of next 
year. It will contain reports of the medical work done 
by exiled Belgians, and be issued by the medical de- 
partment of the Belgian War Ministry. 
Mr. F. W. Lancuester, the new president of the 
Junior Institution of Engineers, will deliver his in- 
augural address to the institution on Monday, Decem- 
ber 11, on ‘Industrial Engineering : Present Position 
and Post-War Outlook.” 
A COMMITTEE has been appointed to promote a memo- 
rial at the Middlesex Hospital to Mr. F. Clare Mel- 
hardo, late secretary-superintendent of the hospital. 
The memorial is to take the form of the raising of a 
fund for the permanent endowment of the Bland- 
Sutton Institute of Pathology. 
ApMIRAL Sir Henry Jackson, K.C.B., F.R.S., First 
Sea Lord of the Admiralty, has been appointed to the 
vacant post of President of the Royal Naval College, 
Greenwich, and has been succeeded as First Sea Lord 
by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, K.C.B. 
WE regret to announce the death, on November 30, 
at a nursing home in London, of Prof. J. Wrightson, 
president of the College of Agriculture, Downton 
(1880-1906), honorary professor of agriculture at the 
Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, and professor 
of agriculture and agricultural. chemistry in the Royal 
College of Science, South Kensington, from 1882 to 
1898. 
Dr. Eric MjOserG, assistant in the Entomological 
Department of the Swedish State Museum, has re- 
ceived leave of absence for three years in order to 
prepare and conduct an expedition to the interior of 
New Guinea. His intention is to penetrate into the 
country by aeroplane, taking as his starting point one 
of the small islands in Geelwink Bay, at the north- 
~west end of the country. Dr. Mjéberg recently left 
for America to carry out a lecture tour by which he 
hopes to raise large sums to cover some of the heavy 
expenses of his expedition. ; 
