488 
NATURE 
[JuLy 1, 1915 

NOTES. 
Tue subject of the address to be delivered by Sir 
William Ramsay at the annual meeting of the British 
Science Guild to be held this afternoon is ‘‘ The 
National Organisation of Science.” Owing to the 
war, the annual dinner of the guild will not be held 
this year. 
THE annual general meeting of the Eugenics Educa- 
tion Society will be held this afternoon at the Grafton 
Galleries, Grafton Street, W., and the presidential 
address will be delivered by Major Leonard Darwin 
upon the subject, ‘““Eugenics During and After the 
War.” 
Sir AtmrotH Wricur has been awarded the 
Lecomte prize by the Paris Academy of Sciences. The 
prize, which is of the value of 2o000l., is *iwarded 
triennially. 
WE notice with much regret the announcement of 
the death on June 26, from heart failure, of Dr. R. H. 
Lock, inspector at the Board of Agriculture and 
Fisheries, sometime fellow of Gonville and Caius Col- 
lege, Cambridge, at thirty-six years of age. 
Mr. TENNANT said in the House of Commons on 
June 23 that practically all the laboratories in the 
country have been placed at the disposal of the War 
Office. Great benefit has been derived by the War 
Office from advice and information received from the 
Royal Society, the National Physical Laboratory, the 
universities, and other bodies, and Mr. Tennant took 
the opportunity of conveying to these scientific and 
learned bodies the thanks of the Army Council. 
In the House of Commons on June 28, Sir Philip 
Magnus asked the Prime Minister whether, having 
regard to the necessity for the purposes of the war 
of organising the services of fellows of the Royal 
Society and of other scientific bodies and also of the 
professors and staffs of our universities and technical 
schools, and of mobilising the scientific and technical 
resources of the laboratories and workshops of such 
institutions, and, having regard to the importance of 
creating a central committee or bureau for considering 
scientific problems that arise out of the war, for test- 
ing and developing inventions from whatever source 
they may originate, and reporting upon them to the 
special Department of State concerned, he will afford 
an opportunity of discussing the subject in the House? 
The reply of the Prime Minister was that opportunities 
would arise for this discussion, 
A USEFUL ethnological collection has been made in 
Siberia by the University of Pennsylvania’s expedi- 
tion, according to news recently received in Phil- 
adelphia from its leader, Mr. H. U. Hall. Last 
summer was spent by the party among the Samoyed 
and Dolgan tribes, and last winter among the Tungus 
and Yakuts, between the Yenisei and Lena Rivers. 
The effect of the war has been felt by the expedition 
in raising the prices of everything and making 
“transportation’’ difficult. 
THE annual meeting of the General Board of the 
National Physical Laboratory was held in the rooms 
of the Royal Society on Tuesday, June 15, when the 
NO. 2383, VOL. 95] 

; annual report and accounts for the year 1914-15 were 
adopted for presentation to the president and council 
of the Royal Society, and the programme of work for 
the coming year was approved. This year the usual 
gathering of visitors at Teddington, to meet the mem- 
bers of the General Board and to inspect the labora- 
tory, will not take place. Twenty-five per cent. of the 
staff are on active service. 
THE council of the Royal Society of Arts has 
arranged with Prof. Vivian B. Lewes to give a short 
course of special lectures during the recess on ‘*‘ Modern 
Munitions of War.’”’ Three lectures will be given, on 
Wednesday afternoons, July 7, 14, and 21. The first 
lecture will deal with ‘‘Guns and Propellants,”’ the 
second with ‘‘ Mines, Shells, and High Explosives,” 
and the third with ‘Poison Gases and Incendiary 
Bombs.”’ The course will be under the Fothergill 
Trust. The lectures will be open to all fellows of the 
society, who can admit their friends personally, or by 
the usual tickets. Tickets will also be issued 
gratuitously to any persons interested in the subject 
who may apply to the secretary, Sir Henry Trueman 
Wood, at the offices of the society. 
Engineering for June 25 announces the death of 
Mr. Charles Colson, C.B., late Deputy Civil Engineer- 
in-Chief of the Admiralty. Mr. Colson, who died at 
St. Leonards on June 8, at the age of seventy-six, 
was connected with the War Department in early life, 
and joined the Admiralty in 1866. For many years 
he was assistant-engineer on the Portsmouth Dock- 
yard extension. In 1883 he was selected to go to 
Malta to design a new graving dock for the Navy at 
that port. He held the post of Superintending Civil 
Engineer of Devonport Dockyard from 1892 to 1894, 
when he was appointed Assistant-Director of Civil 
Engineering Works at the Admiralty. He was the 
author of a book on docks and dock construction which 
has been widely used, and he contributed several 
papers to the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil 
Engineers. 
WE record with regret the death of Mr. Howard 
Marsh, master of Downing College, and professor of ~ 
surgery in the University of Cambridge.. He died at 
The Lodge, Downing College, on June 24, aged 
seventy-five. After receiving his training at St. 
Bartholomew’s Hospital he applied himself to surgery, 
becoming lecturer on surgery at his school. He was 
justly regarded as a leading authority on diseases and 
treatment of joints. He was an active member of the 
council of the Royal College of Surgeons, advocating 
the enfranchisement of the members of the college. In 
1903, when he had reached an age at which many 
consultant surgeons seek retirement, he entered a new 
field of endeavour as professor of surgery in the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge, where his energy and public 
spirit were given full scope. In 1907 he became 
master of Downing, succeeding Dr. Alex. Hill. His 
predecessor in the chair of surgery was the late Sir 
George M, Humphry. 
Ir is a wonderful story, in the Daily Chronicle of 
June 23, of the death of Dr. Chaillou. He was head 
of the anti-rabies department of the Pasteur Institute 
