

FEBRUARY 24, 1923] 
fathom. Geodetical measurement makes this fathom 
a little more than 6 ft.,—6-08, say 6 ft. and 1 inch over, 
Longitude he measures on his chronometer, giving 
imal time of 24 hours (h.) in the day, an hour 
of 60 minutes (m.) ; and a minute of 60 seconds (s.) ; 
four seconds of longitude=one minute of longitude at 
the equator, or a mile, an easy range of eyesight. The 
schoolmaster cuts the fathom down to 6 ft. exactly, 
and would sweep it away as a useless load on the 
-schoolboy’s memory, although universal in sounding, 
as in 
“Full fathom five thy father lies.” 
The schoolmaster has his eye, too, on the suppression 
of all the ancient measures of agriculture—furlong, 
rod, pole, perch, rood, chain, ell, palm, hand. But the 
chain as the length of the pitch at cricket is too sacred 
to be assailed. And what is the height in C.G.S. 
centimetres of a horse x hands high? He is obliged 
to cling to the mile, the statute, land, military mile, 
of 8 furlongs, 80 chains, or 1760 yards. 
It is unfortunate the sailor carried the world mile 
on to his own unit, perhaps under a mistaken idea that 
° 
NATURE 

261 

the two miles were undistinguishable. Newton was 
arrested in his speculation on gravity by falling into 
this error. The land soldier mile is the one entitled to 
its name as the length of tooo paces (passus, not 
gradus), millia passum, M.P. on the Roman milestone, 
covered in marching along the road, making 5-28 ft. 
the double pace of the Roman soldier ; this is cut down 
to 5 ft. in our modern drill book, and less still in the 
metric equivalent of the French soldier. 
It is strange to read to-day in the “ Admiralty 
Manual of Navigation,’ 1914, page 1, the earth is 
described as an oblate spheroid, greatest and least 
diameter 3963, 3950 miles (military, soldier, statute). 
In navigation the surface of the ocean is always treated 
as a perfect sphere, and of girth 360 x 60=21600 sea 
miles (S), making the radius of the sphere 3438 S 
miles, the length of the radian along a meridian. 
Besides the solecism of mentioning the military land 
mile as a measure in navigation, the real dimensions 
of the earth are double as stated in the Manual. Can 
we wonder then at an Admiral sending himself and his 
flagship to the bottom by a confusion between radius 
and diameter ? 
The Royal Society. 
MUNIFICENT GIFT FROM SiR ALFRED YARROW. 
rE generous gift from Sir Alfred Yarrow, an- 
nounced in the subjoined letter from him to the 
president of the Royal Society, and gratefully accepted 
by the Society, is a most welcome acknowledgment from 
a great leader of industry of the practical service of 
Scientific investigation. Sir Alfred, who was elected a 
fellow of the Society last year, has always taken an 
active interest in the progress of science and has pro- 
moted its application to industry in many ways— 
directly in his own works and indirectly by gifts to 
educational and scientific institutions. His faith in 
science as the maker of the modern world is unbounded, 
and the words in which he gives expression to it should 
afford scientific workers both pride and encouragement. 
We are at the beginning of a new era of human history, 
and it is to the close association of science and industry, 
in the spirit of Sir Alfred Yarrow’s letter, that we must 
look for strength to meet the difficulties before us. 
The Royal Society, and the scientific workers it repre- 
sents, may be trusted to continue to extend the bound- 
aries of natural knowledge, and if statesmen and 
industrialists have the same progressive aims we can 
look with confidence to whatever the future may 
bring. 
I would ask you to be so kind as to bring before 
the Council, at an early opportunity, the following 
proposals : 
I have, for many years, held the view that the 
“og peg of this country has been greatly hampered 
in the past for the want of better promotion to 
a investigation and its application to practical 
airs. 
I am convinced that the future prosperity of this 
country will be largely geo upon the encourage- 
ment of original scientific research. The birth of 
new industries, and the development of existing ones, 
are due largely to the growth of science, thus securing 
NO. 2782, VOL. 111] 

employment and the welfare of the whole community 
being advanced. 
It is doubtful whether even yet it has been realised 
how completely this country would have been at the 
mercy of our antagonists in the late war, had it not 
been for the research work done by our scientific men 
before the war and during its course. 
I desire to mark my sense of the value of research 
to the community by offering, as a gift to the Royal 
Society, 100,000/. to be used as capital or income for 
the purposes of the Society, as the Council may think 
fit, because I recognise conditions alter so materially 
from time to time that, in order to secure the greatest 
possible benefit from such a fund, it must be ad- 
ministered with unfettered discretion by the best 
people from time to time available. 
Care must, of course, be taken that a gift from the 
fund shall in no case lessen any Government grant. 
In accordance with your practice you would, I 
assume, appoint a Committee to administer the fund, 
and would also frame rules for the guidance of the 
Committee, while reserving the right to alter such 
rules from time to time; and I would suggest that 
they be reconsidered by the Council every tenth year 
so as to meet modern needs. 
I should prefer that the money be used to aid 
scientific workers by adequate payment, and by the 
supply of apparatus or other facilities, rather than to 
erect costly buildings, because large sums of money 
are sometimes spent on buildings without adequate 
endowment, and the investigators are embarrassed 
by financial anxieties. 
“Although I thus give a general expression of my 
wishes, I do not intend, by so doing, to create any 
Trust or legal obligation for their fulfilment. 
In conclusion, I should like to record my firm con- 
viction that a patriotic citizen cannot give money, or 
leave it at his death, to better advantage than towards 
the development of science, upon which the industrial 
success of the country so largely bs ag 
. F. YarRRow. 
