312 
or, to be strictly accurate, the carrier of the 
disease, has been stamped out in the island. 
The methods used for getting rid of the fly com- 
prised :—(1) Clearing of vegetation, felling of 
forest, clearing of woodlands and secondary 
jungle growth, so as to admit light and air into 
the haunts of the shade-loving tsetse. (2) Drain- 
age of swamps and clearing of the banks of 
streams. (3) Extermination of pigs, dogs, and 
cattle. 
For the protection of those at work in the fly 
areas the Maldonado method of trapping the fly 
was adopted. The members of the fly brigade 
wore canvas, back and front, covered with a viscid 
preparation made in Reading. (It would appear 
to be composed, like fly-papers, largely of boiled 
linseed oil.) By this means at the beginning of 
the campaign as many as 500 flies could occa- 
sionally be caught by a single man in a day, and 
the average caught by the gang was about 17,000 
a month in 1911, less than 6000 a month in 1912, 
while in the first three months of 1914 only 14 
flies were caught by 297 men, and in the last nine 
months of the year none. 
The mission is to be congratulated on the suc- 
cess of its efforts. Jar WoeWeede 
CLEMENT REID, F.R.S. 
HE death of Mr. Clement Reid on December 
10 is a severe loss alike to geological and 
to botanical science. Born on January 6, 1853, 
Reid joined the Geological Survey in 1874, and 
began field-work in the south-west of England, 
but was soon transferred to the eastern counties. 
Here, in mapping the Cromer Forest Bed and other 
plant-bearing formations exposed on the coast, he 
entered upon the investigation of our Pliocene and 
Pleistocene flora, which thereafter he pursued 
with characteristic enthusiasm and _ ability 
throughout his life. Devising ingenious methods 
for separating out the seeds of plants from any 
material in which they lay hidden, he showed the 
significance of these inconspicuous fossils as in- 
dicators of past climate; and he soon became re- 
cognised as our leading authority on this sub- 
ject. In the “Cromer” memoir of the Geological 
Survey (1882) he firmly established his capability 
both as an investigator and as an expositor. His 
next field-work was in Yorkshire, first on the 
north-eastern moorlands and then in the Holder- 
ness country, after which it was carried south- 
ward into Lincolnshire, the results being pub- 
lished in the “Holderness” memoir (1885). This 
done, he: was sent to map the South Downs and 
the coastal tract of Sussex; and he worked west- 
ward thence through Hampshire and part of the 
Isle of Wight into Dorset and Wiltshire, 
» describing this country in several more memoirs, 
published between 1898 and 1903. Meanwhile, 
he had also produced a_ collective ‘‘General”’ 
memoir on the Pliocene deposits of Britain 
(1890), during the preparation of which he visited 
Belgium and North Italy for the study of the 
equivalent deposits there. 
Besides his official work, Reid had by this time 
No. 2460, vor. 98] 
NATURE 
[DECEMBER 21, 1916 
contributed many notable and widely discussed 
papers to scientific societies and periodicals, deal- 
ing mainly with the paleobotany of the later geo- 
logical periods; with the climatal conditions indi- 
cated by geological formations; and with subjects 
in the debatable territory where geology and 
archeology meet. In 1899 he summed up his 
knowledge of past botanical conditions in a book 
full of acute observation and suggestion, entitled 
“The Origin of the British Flora”; and, in 1913, 
he dealt similarly, in a small book, with our “ Sub- 
merged Forests.” His critical study of the fossil 
Characee, in collaboration with Mr. J. Groves, 
of which the first-fruits are in course of publica- 
tion, has now been lamentably arrested. 
In his later researches Reid was ably assisted 
by his wife (previously Miss E. M. Wynne Ed- 
wards), joint-author with him in his description 
of the interesting Pliocene flora of Tegelen, Hol- 
land, and in several other botanical and geologi- 
cal papers. 
On his advancement to the post of district geo- 
logist in 1901, Reid was placed in charge of the 
Geological Survey work in Cornwall and Devon, 
and afterwards in the south-eastern district 
around London. On retiring from official duty 
early in 1913, he went to live at a chosen spot 
at Milford-on-Sea, overlooking the Solent, and 
died there, after a short illness. 
In recognition of his work, Reid was awarded 
by the Geological Society the Murchison Fund in 
1886, and the Bigsby Medal in 1897; and by the 
Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, the Bolitho 
Medal in 1911. He was elected a fellow of the 
Royal Society in 1899. He served terms of office 
on the council of the Linnean Society and of the 
Geological Society, being vice-president of the 
latter from 1913 to 1916. He leaves a widow, 
but no children. 
WILLIAM ELLIS, F.R.S. 
OR the third time in about six months the 
Royal Meteorological Society has to mourn 
the loss of a past president. Mr. William Ellis 
was born at Greenwich on February 20, 1828, and 
succumbed to heart failure on December 11 at 
Blackheath, having spent nearly the whole of his 
long life in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
Royal Observatory. His father, Henry Ellis, was 
an assistant there, and he himself began work 
there as a boy computer in 1841. After several 
years’ experience as an astronomical observer, he 
ieft in 1852 to take charge of Durham Observa- 
tory, returning in 1853 when a vacancy occurred 
on the staff at Greenwich. He was attached to the 
Time Department, and soon afterwards had 
charge of it, including the galvanic batteries and 
circuits, but after eighteen years’ superintendence 
of that work, and more than twenty years as a 
regular astronomical observer on the staff, he was 
transferred, on Glaisher’s retirement, to the Mag- 
netical and Meteorological Department, of which 
he was superintendent for nineteen years, until 
his retirement at the end of 1893, in which year he 
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