JuLy 15, 1915] 
NATURE 
545 

ANNOUNCEMENT is made that the board of directors 
of British Dyes (Limited) is establishing a Research 
Department, and has invited Dr. G. T. Morgan, 
F.R.S., of the Royal College of Science for Ireland, 
Dublin, to become the head of the department. The 
board has resolved to appoint a Technical Committee, 
which will consist of Dr. M. O. Forster, F.R.S. (chair- 
man), Dr. J. C. Cain, Dr. G. T. Morgan, F.R.S., and 
Mr. J. Turner. An Advisory Council, under the 
chairmanship of Prof. Meldola, F.R.S., is also to be 
appointed, and the following gentlemen have been 
invited to become members:—Prof. J. N. Collie, 
F.R.S., University College, London; Prof. A. W. 
Crossley, F.R.S., King’s College, London; Prof. 
Percy F. Frankland, -F.R.S., the University, Birming- 
ham; Prof. A. G. Green, F.R.S., the University, 
Leeds; Prof. G. G. Henderson, Royal Technical Col- 
lege, Glasgow; Prof. J. T. Hewitt, F.R.S., East Lon- 
don College, London; Prof. F. S. Kipping, F.R.S., 
University College, Nottingham; Prof. A. Lapworth, 
F.R.S., the University, Manchester; Prof. A. G. 
Perkin, F.R.S., the University, Leeds; Prof. W. H. 
Perkin, F.R.S., the University, Oxford; Prof. W. J. 
Pope, F.R.S., the University, Cambridge; Prof. J. F. 
Thorpe, F.R.S., Royal College of Science, South Ken- 
sington; and Prof. W. P. Wynne, F.R.S., the Univer- 
sity, Sheffield. The members of the Technical Com- 
mittee will ex officio be members of the Advisory 
Council. 
BRIGADIER-GENERAL T. E. Witcox has published in 
the Sunday Oregonian, Portland, of May 9, an account 
of an expedition made in 1883, in which he took part, 
for the exploration of the Great Plateau of the Colum- 
bia, a region occupying approximately 22,000 square 
miles in the Washington State. It seems once to have 
formed the bed of Lake Lewis, whose waters were in 
early times held back by the mountain masses now 
broken through at the cascades of the Columbia. The 
original native population was swept away by small- 
pox introduced by the voyageurs of the Hudson Bay 
Company, and only a few remain, who live mostly by 
hunting and trapping. 
Tue National Geographic Magazine is dealing in 
succession with the areas involved in the creat war. 
In the June number an interesting account by Mrs. 
F. C. Albrecht of the frontier cities of Italy is very 
timely. Much attention is naturally given to the archi- 
tectural glories of Verona, with its Duomo and the 
statue of Madonna Verona looking down on the 
women haggling over their vegetables in the market- 
place. In a second article Karl Stieler describes 
Venice, and we can only express a hope that its build- 
ings may be saved from Zeppelin attacks. The num- 
ber contains eighty-seven superb photographs and two 
maps, and supplies an admirable account of a lovely 
country now involved in the perils of war. 
Tue Indian Journal of Medical Research for April 
(vol. ii., No. 4) contains several papers of considerable 
interest in tropical medicine and pathology. _ Major 
Christophers deals with the nature and significance 
of the spleen rate and other splenic indices, with a 
mathematical analysis of the data. A note of some 
NO. 2385, VOL. 95] 

importance by Major Greig deals with a case of infec- 
tion of a reservoir of drinking-water in Calcutta 
through a cholera ‘‘ carrier,”’ i.e., a native who, though 
well, harboured the cholera microbe. Owing to sys- 
tematic bacteriological examination of the water, the 
infection was detected, and the source of it, the 
“carrier,’’ was found and isolated. 
Tue National ‘League for Physical Education and 
Improvement held a meeting at the Mansion House 
on Tuesday, July 6, to inaugurate a campaign to 
prevent the spread of epidemics by insects in war time. 
A series of six lectures upon the subject commenced on 
July 12. Lectures have also been given at the Child 
Welfare and Mothercraft Exhibition at the Passmore 
Edwards Settlement, and the importance of the fly as 
a disseminator of infantile disease has been emphasised 
at the exhibition. The Zoological Society’s exhibition 
on the fly continues, and a lecture will be given at 
the society’s office every Wednesday from July 14 on 
methods of controlling flies. The lectures are open to 
the public, and tickets can be obtained free on applica- 
tion to the society. Prof. H. Maxwell-Lefroy is re- 
sponsible for the statement that flies are increasing 
rapidly, and in his lecture will deal with methods of 
control; the next three months will be important, and 
already the blow-fly has become an intolerable pest at 
the Front. Local exhibitions and lectures are being 
organised at Nottingham, Reading, Cardiff, and other 
places, and the public interest in this problem appears 
to be increasing. 
Tue South African Journal of Science for June con- 
tains an article by Mr. C. W. Mally, which shows the 
good results obtained with poisoned bait in controlling 
house-flies. The bait used is made up of one pound 
of sodium arsenite with ten pounds of sugar and ten 
gallons of water; experience proves this to be an 
extremely effective poison for the house-fly out of 
doors, and only a few applications are needed. The 
liquid is applied with a syringe to non-absorbent sur- 
faces, to pieces of canvas, to manure heaps and 
rubbish tips. Bunches of twigs, of trees the leaves of 
which when plucked do not crinkle and drop off, are 
dipped in the solution and hung up where the flies 
congregate; the flies drink the poison and die literally 
in heaps. In military camps the method has been 
applied with success, and, in the absence of suitable 
trees, pieces of canvas have been sprayed and hung 
up, and the bait has been sprinkled near manure heaps 
and other places where flies gather; the bait is, of 
course, a human poison, but in military camps there is 
no risk in its use. The only alternatives, in Mr. 
Mally’s opinion, are the accumulation of all manure in 
constrictions from which flies cannot escape, or the 
treatment of all manure heaps with chemicals to pre- 
vent flies breeding. The first is expensive, though 
useful, because the enclosures can be so made as to 
let flies in but not out, the manure thus serving as a 
trap; the second is impracticable, because so little is 
known about it. In South Africa the use of arsenical 
baits for fruit flies has shown that an apparently reck- 
less use of arsenic is not attended with risk to human 
beings; the poison bait method is therefore adopted 
where in England the fear of the consequences would 
