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baking methods, soup for infants, silver mirrors, etc. 
Liebig gave a popular exposition of his views in his 
“Familiar Letters on Chemistry,’’ a work from which 
many students of science have derived interest and 
inspiration. 
THE season’s excavations at Ur of the joint expedi- 
tion of the British Museum and the University of 
Pennsylvania closed early in March. The chief 
results were described by Mr. C. Leonard Woolley in 
a lecture, reported in the Times of April 2, which he 
delivered at Bagdad before leaving for England. 
The excavations were made in a walled enclosure, 
resembling a citadel, within the walls of the city, in 
which the most prominent building was a ziggurat of 
four stories, the tower of the Temple of Nanna, the 
Moon god, completed about 2250 B.c., and coated 
with blue glazed bricks by Nabonidus about 550 B.c. 
One of the most interesting finds was a headless diorite 
statue of Eannatum, King of Lagash about 2900 B.c., 
which may have been a trophy of war. From its 
earliest beginnings, possibly in 3600 B.c., until it 
was altered by Nebuchadnezzar in about 600 B.c., 
the plan of the Temple remained unchanged. The 
find of a golden statue in a small temple at the foot 
of the tower indicates that this monarch introduced 
a change in ritual, to which reference is made in the 
book of Daniel, and brought the god from the seclusion 
of the sanctuary out into the open to be an object of 
public worship and veneration. 
A QUESTION agitating workers in several branches 
of science at the present day rather more intensely 
than usual is the furnishing of an adequate guide to 
the growing volume of published work. The lapse 
of the International Catalogue and the great increase 
in the costs of production have made the situation 
acute. It has long been recognised that there is a 
vast amount of overlap and of wasted effort, and 
that, if only the various societies and publishing 
bodies would combine, they could provide a better 
service at less cost. This was the line followed by 
Dr. J. R. Schramm, of the National Research Council, 
Washington, in a recent lecture on the indexing of 
biological literature (Science, November 3, 1922). He 
held up Chemical Abstracts as the example to be 
followed, and considered that the Federation of 
American Biological Societies, to which we have pre- 
viously referred, could produce a similar Biological 
Abstracts, equally complete, at an annual expenditure 
per member of 6 to 8 dollars. Dr. Schramm, it will 
be seen, believes that abstracts are what the workers 
want. Prof. Cockerell, in his comments on Dr. 
Schramm’s proposals (Science, January 5, 1923), seems 
to prefer an analytical index, such as is furnished by the 
“Zoological Record.’’ We agree with Prof. Cockerell ; 
but, apart from that, the question is : Will a sufficient 
number of individuals be prepared to pay? The 
experience of the ‘‘ Zoological Record ”’ suggests that 
they certainly will not. This, however, may in part be 
due to the existence of the many competing, though 
less complete, abstracts and indexes, and in part to 
the ignorance and inertia of the workers. If, not only 
the American societies, but also the biological societies 
NO. 2789, VOL. 111] 
NATURE 

[APRIL 14, 1923 
of the whole world, would federate for this purpose, 
so that the proposed Record or Abstracts were virtually 
the only one in existence, and were thus inevitably 
brought before each individual worker, then success 
would be assured. But that ‘“‘if’’ implies the sup- 
pression of vested interests and of the nationalism 
which hampered the International Catalogue. 
Tue theory of the tides is a very strong source of 
attraction for a certain group of unscientific specu- 
lators. One of the latest of these to put his ideas 
into print is Mr. Evan McLennan, of Oregon, from 
whom we have received a pamphlet entitled “‘ Nature 
Notes, Critical and Constructive.” After betraying a 
complete misunderstanding of the theory of the tide- 
generating force on the principle of gravitation, he 
remarks, ‘‘It would, quite probably, be regarded as 
a far greater violation of the principles of science to 
question the theory of gravitation than to swallow 
the inconsistency,” and ‘‘ Of the forty federal institu- 
tions established by our own Government alone for 
the purpose of scientific research and the increase 
and diffusion of knowledge, and of the more than 
1500 investigators paid from the public treasury to 
do this work, there is in all probability not one who 
could be induced by an outsider to give the slightest 
attention to any vital criticism of the Newtonian 
theory of gravitation.’” Wecan assure Mr. McLennan 
that in his own country alone there is a large number 
of scientific men who would enthusiastically give their 
attention to any real inconsistency in the accepted 
theory of gravitation. 
Tue Corn Sales Act came into force on January 1, 
so that it is no longer possible for buyer and seller of 
corn in Great Britain to misunderstand each other as 
to the particular kind of stone in which a transaction 
had been conducted. All such transactions must now 
be in cwts. of 112 lb. The Union of South Africa 
has, according to the March issue of the Decimal 
Educator, adopted the cwt. of too lb., so that the 
same kind of difficulty is likely to be felt in dealings 
between South Africa and this country as we have 
just avoided here with regard to corn. In both cases 
the Decimal Association advises the use of the 50- 
kilogram standard, which is approximately 110 Ib. 
In the same way, to overcome the difficulty of the 
American gallon being only about five-sixths of the 
British gallon, the Association and the Metric Associa- 
tion of America recommend the introduction of the 
litre for all trade in liquids. With regard to our 
coinage, the Decimal Association is concentrating its 
efforts on the introduction of a high-value penny, of 
which ro would go to a shilling, and the withdrawal 
of the threepenny-piece. In place of the latter a 
double-penny nickel coin would be issued. It is not 
proposed that new penny coins should be issued. 
Tur annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute 
will be held at the Institution of Civil Engineers, 
Westminster, on Thursday and Friday, May ro and 
11. The Bessemer medal will be presented to Dr. 
W. H. Maw, and the award of the Andrew Carnegie 
research scholarship for 1923 will be announced. 
