Jury 8, 1915| 

way was opened and worked on the Great Western 
Railway system, and in the same year Mr. Spagnoletti 
brought out his disc-block instrument for controlling 
the traffic on the Metropolitan lines. He was respon- 
sible also for numerous other electrical appliances for 
use on railways. He became consulting engineer to 
the City and South London Railway in 1889. Mr. 
Spagnoletti was president, in 1885, of the Society of 
Telegraph Engineers and Electricians (now the Insti- 
tution of Electrical Engineers), a member of the In- 
stitution of Civil Engineers, of the Royal Society of 
Arts, and of the Physical Society. 
Dr. Ropert Heatu ‘Lock, whose untimely death 
was recorded in Nature of July 1, was born in 1879. 
From Charterhouse he entered Gonville and Caius 
College as a scholar in 1899. After distinguishing 
himself in the Natural Sciences Tripos, he became 
Frank Smart student of the college, and was elected a 
fellow two years later. Lock toolk his degree at the 
time when the rediscovery of Mendel’s work opened 
up new possibilities of research for the botanist. 
Through the influence of Bateson, these possibilities 
were at once recognised in Cambridge, and Lock 
determined to go to the tropics in order to start ex- 
perimental work on Mendelian lines. He proceeded 
to the well-known Botanic Gardens of Peradeniya in 
Ceylon, and for several years was busily engaged in 
breeding work with maize and peas. Both these 
plants, especially the former, lend themselves readily 
to the recording of considerable numbers of observa- 
tions. Lock tool full advantage of this, and the ex- 
tensive data he obtained—in one set of experiments 
with maize more than 50,000 records were made— 
made it clear that for certain characters, such as the 
white and yellow colour of maize seeds, the Mendelian 
rule of segregation was exhibited with remarkable 
accuracy. His experiments with peas confirmed his 
conclusions from those with maize, and he further 
published some interesting results on more complicated 
Mendelian phenomena. He returned to England in 
1905, when he became curator of the herbarium at 
Cambridge, and did valuable work in organising the 
library of the botanical department. At the same 
time he started experiments with Nicotiana, of which 
an account afterwards appeared in the Journal of the 
Royal Botanic Gardens of Peradeniya. In 1908 he 
returned to Peradeniya as assistant-director. Shortly 
afterwards he became acting-director, in which posi- 
tion the demands on his time practically put a stop to 
his own researches, though he did much useful work 
in connection with the rapidly growing rubber indus- 
try. Changes in the administration of the Peradeniya 
Gardens brought him back to England once more, 
when he took up the post of inspector under the 
Board of Agriculture, which he held until the time of 
his death. Lock’s work did much towards laying a 
sound foundation for genetic science, the results of 
which he helped to popularise in a clearly written little 
book. His record makes us regret that the cares of 
administrative work should have prevented his follow- 
ing up his earlier successes in research. 
In a lecture before the British Astronomical Associa- 
tion on Wednesday, June 30, on recent developments in 
NO. 2384, VOL. 95| 
NATURE 


S15 
the applications of electricity to precision clocks for ob- 
servatories, Mr. F. Hope-Jones, chairman of the Wire- 
less Society of London, spoke feelingly of the loss of 
the wireless time-signals in war time. Throughout 
the year 1913 and until early in August last, when all 
privately owned wireless installations were dismantled 
by order of the Postmaster-General, the rhythmic 
signals were observed every night at 11.30; and by 
means of the ‘‘ acoustic vernier”’ the rate of an astro- 
nomical regulator running on test was determined in 
hundredths of a second. Since then the old laborious 
method of testing and rating has had to be reverted to, 
requiring months instead of days. Referring to the 
fight for freedom to listen to the international wireless 
time-service signals without taxation, and its successful 
issue shortly before the war, Mr. Hope-Jones expressed 
the hope that these privileges would be restored in 
their entirety on declaration of peace. When that day 
arrived, it might be necessary for the scientific world 
to act in concert and present this claim with unanimity 
and force. 
TuE Scripps Institution at La Jolla, near San Diego, 
California, is, says Science, to have its facilities im- 
proved. Miss E. B. Scripps has announced to the 
University of California her intention to give during 
the next two years 20,000l. for further equipment. A 
pier a thousand feet in length will be built, at which 
can lie the Alexander Agassiz, the sea-going vessel 
owned by the institution and used exclusively for its 
work. Additional aquarium facilities will be provided, 
all planned to be useful for scientific purposes, but in 
part to be available for public educational objects. A 
salt-water pumping plant and settling basin are also to 
be added. Quarters for scientific assistants and 
graduate students are also to be arranged. The 
Scripps Institution has a site of 177 acres, with half 
a mile of ocean frontage, well-equipped laboratories, 
residences for the scientific staff, a good working 
library, and excellent equipment. The land was given 
by the city of San Diego, while for the most part the 
other equipment has come by the gift of Miss Scripps, 
who has created also an endowment of 30,000l. for its 
work. The State of California gives to the University 
of California 1500/. per annum as a_ contribution 
towards the work of the institution, and the director, 
Mr. E. Ritter, and his staff give their whole time to 
the research work. 
Tue leading article in Engineering for July 2 is” 
devoted to a discussion on French and German guns. 
An explanation has been given by M. R. Arnoux 
before the French Society of Civil Engineers of the 
cause of death produced by the bursting of French 
75 mm. and other high-explosive shells. From 
evidence furnished by a pocket aneroid barometer 
which had been rendered unserviceable by the explo- 
sion close to it of a German high-explosive shell, it 
appears that the explosion had produced, at a distance 
of fewer than 3 metres, a sudden barometric depres- 
sion in the room where the instrument was placed 
of at least 350 mm. of mercury, corresponding to a 
driving velocity of the air of 276 metres per second, 
and to a dynamic pressure of 10,360 kilograms per 
square metre. In the case of men sheltered behind 
