SS 
NATURE 
37 


SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1923. 

CONTENTS. —_ 
The-British Empire Exhibition, 1924 37 
Area of Distribution as a Measure of Evolutionary 
By Dr. W. Bateson, F.R.S. 4 5 Sa 
The Internal Combustion alam By H. E. w. Pee | 
Lord Moulton. : F P F re 
SSS ee ae 5.7 
Letters to the Editor :— 
The Spectrum of Neutral Helium. _—Dr. Ludwik 
Silberstein . 4 46 
Echinoderm Larve and their Bering: on Classification, 
—Prof. E. W. MacBride, F.R.S.; Prof. saa 
F. Gemmill ‘ 47 
Age and Area in Biology. _w. Cc. F. Newton 1° 48 
Soaring Flight and the ** Olfactory ” Organs of Birds. 
—Lieut.-Col. W. E. M‘Kechnie 48 
Nature Study and Phenology.—J. E. Clark ond 
I. D. Margary . 49 
Water Snails and Liver Flukes. sili Ww. Stelfox 
Dr. Monica Taylor . R 49 
Effect of Moonlight on the Bistnination of Seeds. _ 
Elizabeth Sidney Semmens. 49 
Medical Education. —Sir G. Archdall Reid, K. B. E. 50 
Breeding Places and Migrations of the Eel. (///us- 
trated.) By Dr. Johs. Schmidt, . 5! 
Theories of Magnetism. By Dr. A. E. Oxtey. , oA 
Obituary :— 
Prof. Oscar Hertwig . P : : ; sf2 RG 
Mr. A. Trevor-Battye . 4 . : . a Se 
Dr. Fridolin Krasser . P : ~ ; a ST 
Prof. Rhys Davids a ‘ : < ; ae 
Current Topics and Events Se te Pe ee 
Our Astronomical Column. . . «. . = . 60 
Research Items . : : 7 Ot 
Exhibition of Physical Apparatus. BC.W:H .) 63 
Scientific Expeditionary Research . . . . 64 
Geography in Education... é : g oy Ge 
Paris Academy of Sciences. Prize AWAKDS .  . 65 
University and Educational Intelligence . ; : 6a 
Societies and Academies... ape a a 
Official Publications Received . : ip ts» OF 
Diary of Societies Pi. ~ , , . 


Editorial and Publishing Offices : 
MACMILLAN & CO., LTD., 
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON, W.C.2. 

Advertisements and business letters should be 
addressed to the Publishers. 
Editorial communications to the Editor. 
Telegraphic Address: PHUSIS, LONDON. 
Telephone Number: GERRARD 8830. 
NO. 2776, VOL. 111] 

The British Empire Exhibition, 1924. 
{hee = is to be held, from April to October 1924, 
; in Wembley Park, six miles by road from the 
Marble Arch, London, on ground occupying about 
150 acres, a great exhibition displaying the immense 
resources, both industrial and productive, of the 
British Commonwealth, which now extends over one- 
quarter of the known surface of the globe and has a 
population exceeding one-quarter of its inhabitants. 
Its main purpose is to promote the exchange of raw 
material and manufactured goods within the Empire, 
an entirely worthy object. As the prospectus says, 
“We possess every kind of climate, every kind of 
mineral wealth, every potentiality that is known to 
the world. We have the best race of men to use and 
develop them.’’ Under the present seriously dis- 
turbed commercial conditions, the value of the general 
trade of the United Kingdom in 1921 was, of imports, 
1,085,500,061/., of which the British Dominions 
supplied 303,859,326/. and foreign nations 781,640,7351., 
and of exports 810,318,848/., of which the British 
Dominions took 292,393,701/. and foreign nations 
517,925,147. e 
In 1913 we imported from Germany 1,731,000l. 
worth of dye-stuffs and 146,000/. 
from Switzerland, and it is estimated that we bought 
from British producers about 100,000/. in value. Yet 
the coal-tar colour industry began here both scientific- 
ally and commercially from the incidental discovery 
by Perkin, while engaged in another organic investiga- 
synthetic worth 
of a mauve colouring matter derived from coal- 
tar. It was in 1854, when Perkin was sixteen years 
of age and a student at the Royal College of Chemistry, 
Queen Street, London, under A. W. Hofmann, formerly 
tion, 
of Bonn University, who was appointed at the instance 
of Prince Albert (the chief promoter of the Great 
Exhibition of 1851) director of the Royal College in 
1845. From 1856 to 1865 Hofmann was chemist to the 
Royal Mint. He afterwards went to Berlin as professor 
of chemistry, where his work covered a wide range of 
Perkin’s discovery, having regard 
to our vast supply of raw material, led to the confident 
anticipation that Great Britain would in future be 
the dye-producing country of the world. But this was 
not to be. Its development, mainly because of the 
lack of facilities here for the supply of adequately 
trained scientific men, and because of the advanced 
condition of German scientific education which had 
been sedulously fostered, took place in Germany, 
and for the future years our textile and other industries, 
to the extent of their output of dyed goods (which 
now exceeds in annual value 200,000,000/.), 
organic chemistry. 
were 
