514 

Munitions, Mr. Lloyd George, said he was fully alive 
to the great importance of securing the co-operation 
of scientific workers, and of utilising so far as prac- 
ticable the laboratories and workshops of our universi- 
ties and technical schools for experiments and for 
making munitions of war. Replying to further 
questions, Mr. Lloyd George added that he hoped in 
a very short time to be able to do something in the 
nature of the work done in France by M. Albert 
Thomas, who was bringing officers from the Front to 
confer with members of the Academy of Science; and 
that he had within the past few days been discussing 
the question of establishing a central committee or 
bureau. 
In the House of Lords on July 2, Lord Bryce urged 
the Government to make every possible effort to utilise 
the services of scientific men, and said that a call to 
co-operation would be welcomed by all British chemists 
and engineers. Replying at the end of the debate, 
Earl Curzon referred to the surprise expressed that, 
considering the great resources of scientific ability in 
this country and the willingness shown by our men 
of science to be of service, more use had not been 
made of them. He fancied, he said, a great deal 
more advantage had been taken of these than was 
known generally. For instance, a committee of the 
Royal Society had rendered valuable aid, and the 
Admiralty and War Office could give a number of 
cases in which offers of scientific assistance had been 
accepted and advantage had ensued. He held out the 
hope that it would be possible to arrange to make still 
greater use of the services of men of science. 
Ar the annual general meeting of the British 
Academy held on June 30, Lord Bryce, president, in 
the chair, the following were elected Fellows of the 
Academy :—Mr. H. Stuart-Jones, Director of the 
British School at Rome 1903-5; Sir Charles Lyall, 
Prof. D. S. Margoliouth, Mr. W. L. Newman, Sir 
James H. Ramsay, Bart., of Banff, and Prof. W. R. 
Scott. 
Amonc the recent additions to the zoological depart- 
ment at South Kensington are some specimens which 
are surely destined to possess historical interest for 
posterity. They consist only of two or three examples 
of harvest-mice and one house-mouse, but they were | 
caught in the trenches in northern France, in that 
part of the trenches, in fact, occupied by some of our 
Indian troops. These specimens were collected and 
presented to the museum by one of the officers of an 
Indian regiment, whose keenness for his favourite 
pursuit of natural history allowed him in the intervals 
of being heavily shelled by the enemy a little relaxation 
in the way of trapping and skinning any animals for 
the national museum in London. 
Tue council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh has 
awarded the Makdougall-Brisbane prize for the 
biennial period 1912-14 to Prof. C. R. Marshall, Dun- 
dee and St. Andrews, for his studies on the pharmaco- 
logical action of tetra-alkyl ammonium compounds. 
The prize and medal were presented at the meeting 
of July 5. These researches of Prof. Marshall’s may 
be described as the direct outcome of investigations 
NO. 2384, VOL. 95| 
NATURE 

[JuLy 8, 1915 

which were published in the Transactions of the Royal 
Society of Edinburgh by Prof. Crum Brown and Sir 
Thomas Fraser in 1869—more than forty-five years 
ago—and have been continued since by various phar- 
macologists, amongst others by two distinguished 
graduates of Edinburgh University working in colla- 
boration, Sir ‘Lauder Brunton and Prof. Theodore 
Cash, whose work was published in the Philosophical 
Transactions of the Royal Society in 1884. 
Tue council of the Salmon and Trout Association 
is seeking data as to the possibility of increasing the 
supply of fly-food in trout streams, and is inviting 
anglers and fishery owners to give details of cases 
in which the valuable water-bred flies have been in- 
creased substantially in mumber by any _ special 
measures such as the introduction, by the planting 
of eggs or larvz, or the liberation of mature flies on 
the banks of-a river or lake; and the improvement 
of a stream or lake by the cultivation of special weeds, 
careful removal of mud, and so on. The tabulation 
of specific results, with an account of the measures 
taken, would be of interest and value, and if sufficient 
information is forthcoming, it is hoped to publish it 
in the association’s quarterly journal, the Salmon and 
Trout Magazine. Communications, addressed to the 
honorary secretary, Sir Wrench Towse, or ‘to the 
editor of the magazine, Fishmongers’ Hall, London, 
E.C., will be acknowledged. 
Tue death is announced, at seventy-seven years of 
age, of Mr. F. E. Kitchener, who served as Assistant 
Commissioner to the Royal Commission on Secondary 
Edueation, and was the author of a ‘Geometrical 
Note-Book,” ‘‘ Naked Eye Botany,” and other works. 
We regret to record the death, at Dulwich, on June 
26, of Mr. A. C. Hurtzig. Some particulars of his 
career are given in the Engineer for July 2. Mr. 
Hurtzig was born in September, 1853, and was 
educated at Ware Grammar Schoo] and at University 
College, London, where he was one of the earliest 
students in the engineering faculty. His early experi- 
ence was gained on railways and harbours in Ireland. 
In 1888 he became chief assistant to Sir John Fowler 
and Sir Benjamin Baker. .Sir John Fowler died in 
1898, and, on the death of Sir Benjamin Baker, Mr. 
Hurtzig became head of the firm. He completed Sir 
Benjamin Baker’s work for the Egyptian Government 
in respect of the raising of the Assuan Dam and the 
building of the Isna barrage, and was engineer of the 
Forth Bridge Railway Company to the time of his 
death. He was a member of the Institution of Civil 
Engineers, and also of the Iron and Steel Institute. 
Mr. C. E. PP. SpAGNOLETTI, a_ well-known 
British electrical engineer, of Italian origin, who 
was born at Brompton in July, 1832, died 
at Hampstead on June 28. He was employed 
by the Electric Telegraph Company from 1847 
until 1855, when he entered the service of the 
Great Western Railway as chief of their telegraphic 
department. He remained chief electrician and tele- 
graph engineer of that railway company for thirty- 
seven years. In 1865 the London Metropolitan Rail- 

