37° 
THE Council of the Institution of Mining and 
Metallurgy has made the following awards: The 
gold medal of the Institution to Mr. Edgar Taylor, 
president, 1909-1911 and 1916-1918, in recognition 
of his services to the Institution since its foundation 
in 1892 and as an evidence of appreciation of his 
honourable record of work in connexion with the 
development of the mining industry, particularly in 
India; ‘‘ The Consolidated Gold Fields of South 
Africa, Ltd.”’ gold medal to Dr. Leonard Hill, in 
recognition of his valuable researches on ventilation 
and for his paper on “ Ventilation and Human 
Efficiency,’’ contributed to the Transactions; and 
“The Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa, 
Ltd.” premium of forty guineas to Mr. H. F. Collins, 
for his paper on ‘‘ The Igneous Rocks of the Province 
of Huelva and the Genesis of the Pyritic Ore-bodies,”’ 
contributed to the Transactions, and in recognition of 
his researches on the subject. 
AN invitation is extended to Farmers’ Clubs, 
Chambers of Agriculture and Horticulture, and other 
bodies interested in agriculture or market-gardening, 
to visit the Rothamsted experimental fields during 
the coming summer. The guide demonstrator is 
Mr. H. V. Garner, who for the past two summers 
has very successfully served in this capacity and 
has been able to make the visits both useful and 
interesting to farmers. Among important items of 
interest are: experiments on the manuring of arable 
crops, especially wheat, barley, mangolds, potatoes ; 
manuring of meadow hay; effect of modern slags 
and mineral phosphates on grazing land, hay land, 
and arable crops; crop diseases and pests; demon- 
strations of good types of tillage implements, tractors, 
etc. At any convenient time between May 1 and 
October 1, there is sufficient to occupy a full day, 
and there is provision for assuring that the time 
shall not be lost, even if the weather turns out too 
bad to allow of close investigation of the fields. The 
director of the Station, Sir John Russell, will be 
happy to arrange full details with organisations of 
farmers, farm-workers, and others wishing to accept 
this invitation. Small groups of farmers are specially 
welcomed ; if possible, arrangements should be made 
beforehand, but it is recognised that farmers’ move- 
ments must often depend on the weather, and no 
one need stay away because he has been unable to 
write fixing a date. 


THE departmental committee recently appointed 
to consider the present system of charging for coal 
gas on a thermal basis has now issued its report as 
a White Paper (Cmd. 1825, 6d.). The main recom- 
mendation is that the method of charging for gas 
on the thermal basis should be continued and extended 
to all statutory gas undertakings within the scope 
of the Gas Regulation Act. Thus is vindicated the 
really scientific method of asking the consumer to 
pay according to the amount of heat he receives. 
In the days of Argand and the flat-flamed fish-tail 
burners, light was produced by the combustion of 
the particles of gas in the surrounding air, and gas 
supply was then maintained at an illuminating 
NO. 2785, VOL. 111] 
NATURE 
| 
1 


[Marcil 17, 1923 
standard. With the advent of the incandescent 
.-mantle, and the increasing use of gas fires, illuminatory 
properties in gas became of secondary importance 
to its heating values, and a calorific standard was 
introduced in 1916. The heat unit in common use 
in Great Britain for expressing the value of fuels 
has been, for many years, the British thermal unit, 
which is the amount of heat required to raise the 
temperature of 1 lb. of water 1° F. under appropriate 
conditions. This unit was used in gas calorimetry, 
and a gas was said to have calorific value of 500 British 
thermal units when 1 cubic foot gave out, when 
burned, sufficient heat to raise the temperature of 
500 lb. (about 50 gallons) of water through 1° F. 
To obtain a conveniently practical unit, the therm, 
which is equal to 100,000 British thermal units, was 
adopted. 
THE Weekly Weather Report for the week ending 
March 3, issued by the Meteorological Office, Air 
Ministry, gives a summary of the weather for the 
several districts of Great Britain for the past winter, 
| comprised by the thirteen weeks from December 3, 
1922, to March 3, 1923. The daily mean temperature 
for the period ranged from 40-1° F. in the east of 
Scotland to 469° F. in the Channel Islands. During 
the winter the extreme readings ranged from 61° in 
the Midland Counties to 15° in the east of Scotland, 
while in England the lowest temperature recorded 
was 22° in the Midland Counties and the south-east 
of England. Total rainfall was greatest in the north 
of Scotland, where the measurement was 18-52 in., 
which is 2-17 in. more than the normal; but the 
greatest excess on the average was 5°47 in., which 
occurred in the south-west of England. There was 
an excess of rain everywhere, the minimum excess 
being an inch in the east of England, where the total 
measurement was 6:53 in. Rain fell with greater 
frequency than the normal over the whole of Great 
Britain: the largest number of days with rain was 
74 in the north of Scotland ; the least, 53 in the north- 
east of England. The duration of sunshine was 
fairly equal to the normal in all districts. At Green- 
wich the mean temperature for the winter, December, 
January, and February, was 42-4° F., which is 2-9° 
above the normal for thirty-five years ; temperature 
ranged from 57° to 24°. Rain fell on 49 days, which 
is 4 days in excess of the normal, and the total measure- 
ment was 6-60 in., which is 1:08 in. more than the 
average for thirty-five years. The duration of 
bright sunshine at Greenwich was 118 hours, which 
is 11 hours fewer than the normal. 
News received in Christiania, according to the 
Times, reports the arrival of Capt. R. Amundsen 
on December 15 at Nome, Alaska, from Wainwright, 
on the north coast, where he is wintering. His visit 
to Nome was to ascertain news of the Maud, which 
is now drifting across the polar basin. Capt. Amundsen 
expects to leave Wainwright or Point Barrow on 
his flight across the Pole to Spitsbergen in the middle 
of June. On March 6 a wireless message from the 
Maud reported her position as lat. 74° N., long. 
170° 30’ E. The ship has drifted about half a degree 
