328 
NATURE 
[May 20, 1915 

exhibited collection in the geological department of 
the British Museum (Natural History). The specimen 
was obtained from Prof, F. B. Loomis, of Amherst 
College, Mass., who discovered the remains of a herd 
of these small animals which had been suddenly 
destroyed and buried by some local accident. As a 
camel, Stenomylus is remarkable for its extremely 
slender build, which would render it as agile as a 
gazelle. It also has molar teeth with unusually deep 
crowns, so that it would be able to feed on hard and 
dry grasses. It was therefore more completely adapted 
for life on open plains and uplands than the other 
camels which abounded in North America in Oligocene 
and Miocene times. 
E. W. 
at the 
Tue death is announced in Science of Mr. 
Morse, formerly instructor in natural history 
Bussey Institution of Harvard University, whose 
name is associated with his contributions to the 
history of domesticated animals. Mr. Morse more 
recently acted as a specialist in animal husbandry 
in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In addition 
to his official duties as an associate editor of the 
Experiment Station Record, and later as an expert 
in the U.S. Dairy Division, Mr. Morse was instru- 
mental in putting the foundations of animal breeding 
and feeding on firmer bases. He was an active mem- 
ber of the Biological Scciety of Washington, the 
American Society of Animal Nutrition, and the Boston 
Society of Natural History, and a regular contributor 
to several standard year-books and encyclopedias. 
Tue issue of Science for May 7 announces the com- 
pletion of the rebuilding of the Gray Herbarium in 
connection with Harvard University. The work of 
enlargement and rebuilding was begun in 1909, and 
has been carried out a section at a time as the 
generosity of many benefactors made extension pos- 
sible. The herbarium dates from 1864, when the late 
Mr. Nathaniel Thayer gave a building to house the 
botanical collections which Asa Gray had presented to 
the University. The primary ideals followed in re- 
building have been those of safety, permanence, and 
convenience of arrangement, but the elevation of the 
new structure gives the impression of dignified sim- 
plicity and great solidity. During the whole period 
of reconstruction the herbarium and its library have 
been open as usual for consultation. 
ENGINEERS in many parts of the world will notice 
with regret that the name of Dr. Fred Stark Pearson 
appears in the list of those lost in the Lusitania. We 
are indebted to the Engineer for May 14 for the follow- 
ing particulars of Dr. Pearson’s career. He was 
widely known on account of the construction of many 
notable reservoirs for water supply in sub-tropical 
countries, his first great work of the kind being under- 
taken in the Republic of Mexico. He became a direc- 
tor of the Puebla Tramway, Light and Power Com- 
pany, owning five different properties in the Republic 
of Mexico, and from his long and intimate association 
with these enterprises he became acquainted with other 
industrial openings in Latin-America. Gradually he 
took up interests in concessions, and lent his great 
talents to the development of many similar enterprises 
in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Texas. 
NO. 2377, VOL. 95] 

Perhaps Dr. Pearson’s most notable enterprise was in 
connection with the design for, and the construction 
of, the great hydro-electric station at Necaxa, Mexico, 
and the construction of a transmission line to a dis- 
tributing station erected at the city of Mexico, situated 
some ninety-five miles distant. The success achieved 
by Dr. Pearson in connection with these Mexican 
enterprises led to his association with similar projects 
in different parts of the world, and to his becoming 
what he at first never intended to be—a company pro- 
moter and professional director. In addition to his 
membership of the American institutions, he was a 
member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. 

By the death of Lieutenant Thomas Wright, who 
was killed while reconnoitring at night on Sunday, 
May 2, the staff of the faculty of science at King’s 
College, London, has lost one of its most promising 
younger men. Mr. Wright studied chemistry under 
Prof. J. M. Thomson and Prof. Herbert Jackson from 
1908 to 1912, completing his course with the associate- 
ship of the Institute of Chemistry and _ first-class 
honours at the B.Sc. examination. Soon after gradua- 
tion he was appointed demonstrator in chemistry, and 
during his short tenure of this post he displayed the 
greatest energy in teaching science students of all 
faculties and many races. He came of yeoman stock, 
and his practical and intimate knowledge of agricul- 
ture added to the value of his chemical studies, and 
although he was not spared to complete any original 
research, he had already given proofs of an ability, 
power of observation, and keen insight which would 
have been of great value at the present time, when 
the nation so sorely needs numbers of such young 
men of science. In 1914 Mr. Wright gained an Anglo- 
German scholarship on the Cassel Foundation, the only 
one awarded outside Oxford or Cambridge. He was 
to have proceeded to Germany for further study and 
research, but the outbreak of war found him under 
arms as a trooper in King Edward’s Horse. He 
received a commission in the Berkshire Regiment in 
December, 1914, and was sent out to France in 
the early spring. As an officer he displayed the same 
ability, zeal, and initiative which had characterised 
his all too brief career at King’s College. His death 
means a serious actual loss to his college and poten- 
tially to science also, while all who knew him mourn 
that such a promising life should have passed into 
silence. 
In Man for May, Mr. K. A. C. Cresswell supple- 
ments from another field the very interesting paper 
by Prof. J. L. Myres on the causes of rise and fall in 
the population of the ancient world (Eugenics Review, 
vol. vii., p. 15), which was practically confined to one 
field, the Mediterranean. He now extends the survey 
to Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia. He dwells 
on the importance of irrigation in the agriculture of 
these regions, and on the fact that there is historical 
evidence to show that ages of warfare caused the 
decay of the canal and karez systems of water supply. 
He is therefore led to the conclusion that the chief 
cause of the great fluctuations of the population in 
these regions has been the collapse of the irrigation 
system, and that but for this neither war nor mis- 



