714 
NATURE 
[May 26, 1923 

Current Topics and Events. = ae 
storage house of the Johnson Potato Storage Company _ 
By the death of Mrs. Mond, widow of Dr. Ludwig 
Mond, which occurred on May 16, the Royal Society 
becomes the beneficiary, undér Dr. Mond’s will, of a 
considerable sum of money in furtherance of scientific 
objects. Dr. Mond, as is well known, was a dis- 
tinguished chemical technologist. He worked under 
Kolbe at Marburg, later under Bunsen at Heidelberg, 
finally becoming domiciled in England, where he 
secured the friendship of the leaders of British science, 
as also of many persons in literary and artistic circles. 
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1891, 
and died in 1909. The provisions of his will relating 
to gifts to science provided for the payment to the 
Royal Society, free of duty, of 50,000/., the income 
to be employed in the endowment of research in 
natural science, more particularly, but not exclusively, 
in chemistry and physics, by means of rewards for 
new discoveries and pecuniary assistance (including 
scholarships) to those pursuing scientific investiga- 
tions, and in supplying apparatus and appliances for 
laboratories and observatories, and in such other 
manner as the Royal Society should decide to be 
best calculated to promote scientific research. There 
was also the proviso that the Royal Society’s council 
might allocate amounts for the publication and 
circulation of reports and papers communicated, and 
assist the preparation and publication of catalogues 
and indexes of scientific literature which the Society 
might have engaged in or might undertake in the 
future. To the University of Heidelberg a like sum 
was left, and for kindred purposes. Certain financial 
contingencies entailed that four years might elapse 
after Mrs, Mond’s decease before these two bodies 
entered upon absolute ownership ; notwithstanding, 
the legacies were to carry 4 per cent. interest per 
annum until paid up. - It may be recalled that at 
the Royal Society’s anniversary meeting of 1910 the 
then president referred to Dr. Mond in the following 
terms :—‘‘ The Royal Society has good cause to 
cherish his memory as that of a genial Fellow, who 
took an active interest in its affairs, affording it at all 
times the benefit of his business experience, and ever 
ready to aid financially any of its enterprises which 
seemed to him to stand in need of assistance. By 
his will also he has left a munificent benefaction 
whereby the Society will ultimately be enriched.” 
At the present time the phytopathological service 
seems to be exceptionally vigorous in the United 
States, owing largely to the forward policy adopted 
both by the Department of Agriculture at Washington 
and by the various agricultural colleges and experi- 
ment stations scattered throughout the different 
states. In Phytopathology for March last, the report of 
the fourth annual field meeting of the American Phyto- 
pathological Society makes very suggestive reading 
as to the range of activities of the American phyto- 
pathologist. The three earlier conferences had been 
devoted to potato, fruit, and cereals respectively ; 
meeting this time in the important vegetable-growing 
region around Delaware and Philadelphia, the con- 
ference spent one day inspecting the sweet-potato 
NO. 2795, VOL. 111] 

(with a storage capacity of 125,000 five-eighths bushel 
baskets), and the farms in the neighbourhood, where 
cantaloupes, asparagus, tomatoés, cow peas, soy beans, 
and especially sweet potatoes, were growing. Thenext 
day, inthe New Jersey district, experiments upon 
the control of tomato disease, carried out by a com- 
mercial firm, trials of sweet-potato varieties for 
resistance to fusarium wilt, and cold-storage plants 
and orchards, together with official tests on fungicides, 
were examined, The last day was spent in the ex- 
tensive “trucking sections,” 7.e. regions growing 
vegetables for the market, around Bustleton, where 
the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station 
has a research laboratory. Here experiments upon 
the control of celery leaf diseases, downy mildew 
of the Lima bean, lettuce drop and rhubarb crown 
rot were seen in progress. It is true that in Britain 
the plant pathologist and other agriculturists have 
discussed the problem of potato - growing and 
especially their diseases, under the auspices of the 
National Horticultural Society, but no opportunities 
for the exchange of ideas and the accumulation of 
experience are available in this country to British 
plant pathologists, such as are annually placed before 
some 60 to 70 phytopathologists by this field 
conference. 
THE value of the research laboratories now attached 
to many large firms was emphasised by Sir Richard 
Glazebrook in his ‘‘ James Forrest ’’ lecture to the 
Institution of Civil Engineers on May 4. The work 
of such laboratories is of necessity aimed at improving 
the products of the firm, but it is being realised more 
and more that for this purpose investigations in pure® 
science are also essential. Probably the best-known 
engineering research laboratory controlled by an in- 
dustrial firm is that of the General Electric Company 
at Schenectady. This laboratory has deliberately 
sought entirely new discoveries, new applications of 
materials, and new developments of electricity. From 
it have come the metalised carbon and the drawn- 
wire tungsten filament lamp, the nitrogen-filled high- 
efficiency lamp, the magnetite arc lamp, and the 
Coolidge X-ray tube. The development of each of 
these has involved investigations of great importance 
to pure science ; Dr. Langmuir, of the G.E.C. labora- 
tory, occupies one of the leading places among workers 
on the problem of the constitution of the atom. 
Other American laboratories are the Westinghouse 
Electric and Manufacturing laboratory and that of 
the Eastman Kodak Company; the work of the 
latter on light filters is well .known, and has its 
bearing on the microphotographic work so important 
to engineers. There are few such great laboratories 
in England. But there are pioneers who recognised 
long ago the value of the great work which science can 
do for industry. Manganese steel was produced in 
1882 from the laboratory of Sir Robert Hadfield, as 
the result of a scientific inquiry into the properties 
of alloys. The Brown-Firth laboratories of John 
Brown and Sons, and the laboratories of the Westing- 
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