ApriL 7, 1923] 
NATURE 
477 

It is stated in Science of March 16 that Mr. A. H. | of Liverpool, who proposes to investigate the strati- 
Fleming, of Pasadena, for many years president of 
the board of trustees of the California Institute of 
Technology, and its chief financial supporter, has 
recently given the Institute about 840,o00/. as a 
permanent endowment fund. This gift, with Mr. 
Fleming’s previous donations, make a total of more 
_ than a million sterling, which he has handed over 
- to the Institute. In making this benefaction, Mr. 
Fleming recommends that the Institute should 
_ “ specialise in research in chemistry and physics, under 
the direction of the most competent men obtainable, 
_ with the most liberal provision, in the way of salaries 
and equipment, for the prosecution of such work.” 
He suggests that efforts should be made to seek out 
and assist ‘‘ the superior student,’’ and expresses his 
conviction that ‘‘ the institute should always remain 
a privately endowed institution.” 
Tue Paris correspondent of the Times announces 
that at a conference presided over by M. Le Trocquer, 
Minister of Public Works, on March 31, it was decided 
_ torecommend that Strasbourg time as well as summer 
time should be abandoned, but that during the 
_ summer trains should run half an hour earlier. It is 
hoped that work in Government offices will begin half 
an hour earlier from April 28 to November 3, and that 
business and manufacturing firms will adopt the same 
course. The Brussels correspondent of the Times 
reports that the Royal order fixing the establishment 
of summer time in Belgium for midnight on March 31 
has been revoked, pending an agreement with neigh- 
bouring countries. 
Tue lectures at the Royal Institution after Easter 
begin on Tuesday, April 10, when Sir Arthur Keith 
_ will deliver the first of a course of four lectures on the 
machinery of human evolution. On following Tues- 
day afternoons there will be two lectures by Prof. 
_A. C. Seward on the ice and flowers of Greenland and 
the arctic vegetation of past ages; and three by 
Prof. Flinders Petrie on discoveries in Egypt. On 
_ Thursday afternoons, commencing April 12, Prof. 
A. O. Rankine will give two lectures on the trans- 
mission of speech by light ; there will be three lectures 
by Prof. J. T. MacGregor-Morris on modern electric 
lamps, two by Prof. E. G. Coker on engineering 
problems solved by photo-elastic methods, and one by 
Sir William Bayliss on the nature of enzyme action. 
Two Saturday afternoon lectures will be given by Dr. 
Leonard L. B. Williams, on the physical and physio- 
logical foundations of character, and two by Dr. 
Arthur Hill on the vegetation of the Andes and the 
New Zealand flora. The Friday evening meetings 
will be resumed on April 13, when the discourse will 
be delivered by Prof. W. H. Eccles, on studies from a 
wireless laboratory. Succeeding discourses will prob- 
ably be given by Major W. J. S. Lockyer, Prof. C. V. 
Boys, Prof. F. Soddy, Prof. W. A. Bone, Mr. W. M. 
Mordey, and Prof. H. A. Lorentz. 
THE council of the Geological Society has awarded 
the proceeds of the Daniel Pidgeon Fund for the 
present year to Mr. Howel Williams, of the University 
No. 2788, voL. 111] 

graphy and vulcanicity of Snowdon. 
In view of the need for retrenching expenditure, 
the Government of India has decided to discontinue 
the publication of the Journal and Bulletins of Indian 
Industries and Labour after the issue of Vol. III. 
Part 1 of the Journal and of the Bulletins which are 
now in the press. 
Tue Secretary for Mines has appointed a sub- 
committee of the Explosives in Mines Research 
Committee to carry out investigations on the means 
employed for firing explosives. The members are: 
Sir Frederick L. Nathan, Mr. J. D. Morgan, Mr. 
W. Rintoul, and Prof. R. V. Wheeler. 
Tue following sympathetic message has been sent 
by the King and Queen to Lady Dewar through Lord 
Stamfordham: ‘‘ The King and Queen have heard 
with much regret of the death of Sir James Dewar and 
desire me to express their true sympathy with you 
in your loss—a loss which will be shared by the whole 
world of science.”’ 
THE PRINCE oF WALEs has, according to the British 
Medical Journal, signified his intention of being pres- 
ent at a dinner to be held on May 15, to celebrate the 
one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Medical 
Society of London. Lord Dawson of Penn, president 
of the Society, will preside, and a gathering widely 
representative of the medical profession is expected. 
The Medical Society of London, which was founded 
by Lettsom in 1773, is the oldest medical society in 
England ; the Royal Medical Society, Edinburgh, is 
somewhat older, being founded in 1737. 
Art the annual general meeting of the Ray Society 
on March 16, the following officers were re-elected :— 
President, Prof. W. C. McIntosh; Treasurer, Sir 
Sidney F. Harmer; Secretary, Dr. W. T. Calman. 
Mr. Joseph Wilson was elected a vice-president, and 
Mr. C. H. Beston and Mr. H. Taverner were elected 
new members of council. In the report of the council 
it was announced that the final part of Prof. McIntosh’s 
‘ British Marine Annelids’’ would be published at 
an early date, forming the issue to subscribers for 
the year 1921. On behalf of the Society, congratula- 
tions were offered to the president on the completion 
of this monograph, of which the first part was 
published just half a century ago. The fifth and 
final volume of the ‘“‘ British Desmidiacez,’’ prepared 
by Dr. Nellie Carter, is now ready for press, and will 
be issued to subscribers for the year 1922. 
The issues of the New Leader from. February 9 to 
March 9 contain a series of articles on “‘ The Structure 
of the Atom,” by the Hon. Bertrand Russell. These 
articles provide an interesting popularisation of 
modern work in atomic physics. Thus the idea that 
the universe seems like a clock running down, with no 
mechanism for winding up again, is compared with 
the experience of a tribe of insects which live for only 
a single spring day, and may therefore think it strange 
that there should be ice in the world, since they would 
find it always melting and never being formed. The 
