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the lecture. The late Mr. Busk played a unique part 
in the extension to full-sized aeroplanes of the theo- 
retical methods of calculating aeroplane stability due 
to Prof. Bryan, and lost his life by fire in the air 
while carrying out his experiments. Machines de- 
signed by the methods thus evolved form a large pro- 
portion of the valuable aerial equipment of the Royal 
Flying Corps. Tickets, of which the number is 
limited, may be obtained on application to the secre- 
tary, Aeronautical Society, 11 Adam Street, Adelphi, 
W.C. 
Mr. C. S. Mippremiss, of the India Geological 
Survey, who was a native of Hull, and many years 
ago spent much time in investigating the geology of 
east Yorkshire, has made a valuable addition to the 
geological section of the Hull Museum. He has pre- 
sented his entire collection, the specimens being all 
carefully labelled and catalogued, and most of them 
refer to east Yorkshire. Some years ago Mr. Middle- 
miss had an opportunity of examining the interesting 
sections in the Kellaways Rock at South Cave, which 
were made during the construction of the Hull and 
Barnsley Railway, and were described in the Geo- 
Jogical Magazine at the time. The South Cave speci- 
mens, together with many others from the red and 
white chalk, etc., are included, and in addition there 
is a valuable series of rocks, with a catalogue giving 
full localities, ete. There is no doubt that Mr. Middle- 
miss’s collection will be of great service to local 
geologists. 
Tue British Fire Prevention Committee has done 
much useful war emergency work during the last nine 
months. The general honorary secretary, Mr. Ellis 
Marsland, has issued a statement which shows that 
the committee’s special fire survey force of honorary 
surveyors has surveyed in detail about five hundred 
establishments taken over for war emergency work. 
The character and extent of these establishments 
varied, but often included extensive groups of buildings. 
The committee’s warning service embraces the pre- 
paration and issue of public fire warnings disseminated 
in the form of posters, or as notices reproduced by 
technical societies, etc. More than 25,000 posters were 
issued to auxiliary hospitals at home, in France, in the 
Mediterranean, and in Egypt, as well as translations 
in French, Flemish, Urdu, and Panjabi. Refugees’ 
homes and hostels in four hundred localities received 
about 22,000 warnings in English, French, and 
Flemish. The issue of farmers’ warnings in connec- 
tion with the epidemic of farm fires last autumn 
totalled more than 30,000. The number of warnings 
issued for premises occupied by troops exceeded 25,000. 
The committee’s special fire service force, comprising 
ex-fire brigade officers and firemen, has rendered two 
hundred firemen with the necessary appliances readily 
available for mobilisation in sections within forty-eight 
hours. Fuller particulars of the various activities of 
the committee may be obtained from the office at 8 
Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, London, S.W. 
Britisu zoology has suffered a distressing loss in 
the death of Mr. Charles H. Martin, of Abergavenny, 
who was killed in action on May 3, in the western 
NO. 2376, VOL. 95| 

[May 13, 1915 

battle front of the Allies, at the age of thirty-three. 
Mr. Martin was educate] at Eton and Magdalen 
College, Oxford, took honours in zoology at Oxford, 
and devoted himself with enthusiasm to zoological 
research. He worked chiefly, and in recent times 
almost entirely, at Protozoa, and published important 
investigations on Acinetaria, on Trypanoplasma and 
allied forms, and on the cecal parasites of fowls. 
Latterly he devoted himself to the study of the Pro- 
tozoa of the soil, working in touch with the Rotham- 
sted Experimental Station, and published valuable 
contributions to this subject, either alone or in col- 
laboration with Mr. K. R. Lewin, of the Rothamsted 
Station. He was awarded the Rolleston memorial 
prize for his researches. For a time he was in charge 
of Messrs. Gurneys’ laboratory at Sutton Broad, 
Norfolk, and afterwards assistant in the natural 
history department of the University of Glasgow for 
three years, but on his father’s death he succeeded to 
his estate, and gave-up all appointments. He con- 
tinued, however, to pursue his zoological investiga~- 
tions with characteristic energy, in spite of the many 
distractions and occupations incidental to the life of 
a sportsman and a conscientious country squire, often 
carrying on researches at night after a strenuous and 
fatiguing day. A man of spiendid physique, he joined 
the Officers Training Corps early in his career, and 
obtained a commission in the 3rd Monmouthshire 
(Territorial) Regiment, of which he was an officer when 
he met his death. Possessed of great personal charm 
and of a most kindly, sincere, and generous tempera- 
ment, his untimely but glorious death will be greatly 
deplored by all who had the privilege of being 
acquained with him personally, as well as by those 
who knew him only as one of the most promising of 
our younger zoologists. 
In the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Insti- 
tute for July-December, 1914, the Hon. John Aber- 
cromby discusses a large collection of pottery from the 
Canary Islands and the bearing of it upon the origin 
of the people inhabiting the archipelago. He arrives 
at the following conclusions. The archipelago was 
first colonised in the second, or Berber, stage of the 
Neolithic period by a people who spoke a Berber 
dialect. These colonists probably belonged to the 
short dolicho- and meso-cephalic stock of Hamitic 
type, or to the tall Cro-Magnon type. Both were of 
African origin, and may have arrived together or at 
short intervals. The short-headed people were pre- 
sumably of European origin, but archaeological con- 
siderations show that they may have reached the archi- 
pelago about the same time as the other two elements 
in the population, at any rate before the art of navi- 
gation had ceased to be known. 
IN a reprint from the Proceedings of the United 
States National Museum for April last, Mr. Oliver 
Hay describes remains of two extinct horses, a bison, 
and a musk ox, also extinct, and new to science, 
from the Pleistocene of North America. The author 
believes that it will be necessary to recognise at least 
two distinct species among the progenitors of our 
domesticated horses. One of the two supposed 
species is represented to-day by the large, narrow- 


