92 NATURE 
[JANUARY 20, 1923 

director of the Meteorological Office, for contributions 
to all branches of the science, and specially for his 
work as president of the International Meteorological 
Committee. The previous awards were: 1893, Dr. 
Julius Hann, of Vienna; 1903, Dr. R. Assmann and 
Dr. A. Berson, of Berlin, jointly; 1913, Dr. H. Hergesell, 
of Strasbourg. 
Mr. E. A. REEVES, map curator of the Royal 
Geographical Society and director of the society’s 
School of Surveying, has been awarded the Cullum 
Gold Medal for 1922 of the American Geographical 
Society. The inscription on the reverse side of the 
medal reads as follows :—‘‘ Edward A. Reeves, 1922. 
In honour of his substantial achievements in geo- 
graphical surveying. By devising and improving 
instruments and methods he created new standards 
in the field of scientific exploration.’”” Mr. Reeves 
has now been in charge of the Royal Geographical 
Society’s courses of instruction in map construction 
and surveying for twenty years, and during that 
period almost every British explorer, as well as many 
from other countries, have had the advantage of his 
practical knowledge and precise methods. One of 
these pupils was Dr. Hamilton Rice, vice-president of 
the American Geographical Society, who worked 
through the course some years ago and obtained the 
diploma. This society is starting a survey school for 
travellers and explorers under Dr. Rice’s direction, 
and the future instructor, Mr. Weld Arnold, late 
Austin teaching fellow in astronomy at Harvard 
University, is now passing through the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society’s course. The award to Mr. Reeves 
is no doubt in some measure a mark of recognition of 
his valuable services in connexion with these develop- 
ments. 
The annual council meeting of the National Union 
of Scientific Workers was held at the Caxton Hall, 
Westminster, on January 13. Dr. A. A. Griffith, who 
presided, gave an address on ‘“‘ The Support and 
Utilisation of Science,’’ in which he stated that it was 
the general opinion of men of science that the support 
of science in Great Britain is quite inadequate con- 
sidering the needs of the country. He regarded it 
as absurd that science, the greatest and most per- 
manently valuable of all the learned professions, is 
also the worst paid, and outlined a general policy for 
adoption by the Union which aims at remedying this 
condition of affairs. Scientific workers themselves 
must be held largely to blame for their present un- 
enviable position, and would only prove their value to 
the community when they undertook a greater share 
of responsibility in the control of the product of their 
labours. Unity among men of science is the first 
essential of success, he declared. Dame Helen Gwynne- 
Vaughan was unanimously elected president for the 
ensuing year, and the following were elected members 
of the executive committee: Profs. J. McLean 
Thompson and H. Levy ; Drs. H. Jeffreys, G. Senter, 
J. H. Vincent; Messrs. W. L. Baillie, E. G. Bilham, 
F. T. Brooks, L. D. Goldsmith, R. McKinnon-Wood, 
S. W. Melsom, and H. V. Taylor. 
NO. 2777, VOL. 111] 
AT a large gathering of Whitworth scholars and 
exhibitioners held at the Institution of Mechanical 
Engineers on Friday, January 12, the Whitworth 
Society came into being. The president of the In- 
stitution—Dr. Hele-Shaw, himself. an old Whitworth 
scholar—welcomed those present, and took the chair. 
There had been great difficulty in getting into touch 
with Whitworth men, but more than three hundred 
had indicated their desire to support a society if 
formed, and about 120 were present at the meeting. 
The new society will enable old scholars, exhibitioners 
and the prizemen who will come into being under the 
new scheme of award to keep in touch with one 
another. It has no connexion with any existing in- 
stitutions, although there is no doubt that these will — 
welcome its advent. Dr. Hele-Shaw was elected 
president of the new society, and a provisional com- 
mittee was appointed. It will assist greatly if any 
such who have not already received communications 
would send their names and addresses to the secretary, 
the Whitworth Society, Institution of Mechanical 
Engineers, Storey’s Gate, London, S.W.1. It is pro- 
posed to have an annual social function on the 
anniversary of Sir Joseph Whitworth’s birth—De- 
cember 21—and the committee has been asked to 
organise if possible a similar function to take place 
within the next three months. An interesting feature 
of the meeting was the number of men, many occupy- 
ing prominent positions in their professions, who bore 
testimony in speech and in letters to the value which 
Sir Joseph Whitworth’s generosity had been to them 
in their educational training in engineering. 
AccorpDINnG to the Journal officiel de la République 
Frangaise, the “‘ Croix de chevalier du Mérite Agri- 
cole’’ has recently been awarded by the French 
Ministry of Agriculture to 287 agriculturists, both 
men and women, whose families have dwelt on the 
same agricultural holding for more than one hundred 
years and who are themselves still carrying on the 
working ot the land. Exceptional interest attaches 
to two cases on account of the long association of the 
families of the recipients with the property. M. 
André Dupont, of Lacoux (Ain), traces his descent 
back for eight hundred and twenty-two years on the 
same holding; he himself has devoted his life to 
practical agriculture, and for the last thirty-five years 
has done much to extend agricultural co-operation. 
M. Pierre Lascassies-Poublan, of Lucgarrier (Basses- 
Pyrénées), is also an excellent farmer and is president 
of various co-operative societies connected with agri- 
culture. In this case the family has been uninter- 
ruptedly associated with the same land over a period 
of eight hundred and eighty-nine years. 
THE Royal Scottish Society of Arts has awarded 
the following prizes for communications read or re- 
ported on during the session 1921-22: Keith prizes 
to Principal A. P. Laurie for his paper on “ The 
‘Pier Method’ of Building Brick Walls,’ and to 
Dr. Henry Briggs for his paper on “‘A New Mine 
Rescue Apparatus ”’ ; Makdougall-Brisbane medals to 
Andrew H. Baird for his paper on ‘‘ The Universal 
Bosshead-Clamp,”” and to Dr. Dawson Turner and 
