AuGuUST 19, 1915] 
NATURE 
679 

about to inspect and report upon the medical schools 
and hospitals of China, on behalf of the China Medical 
Board of the Rockefeller Foundation. 
WE see from Science that an expedition has been 
sent by the St. Louis University to study tropical 
diseases and biology in British and Spanish Hon- 
duras. The expedition consists of Dr. J. P. Coony, 
professor of chemistry; Dr. E. N. Tobey, instructor 
in tropical diseases; and A. M. Schwitalla, a student 
in biology. 
We regret to announce the death of Mr. Robert 
Hammond, a short account of whose career is given 
in Engineering for August 13. Mr. Hammond was 
one of the pioneers of electric lighting in this country, 
and was the first concessionaire of the Anglo- 
American Brush Electric Light Corporation, Ltd. He 
was also associated with Messrs. Greenwood and 
Batley in the manufacture of electric machines, and 
put down the first works in this country in which 
current was distributed from a centre for lighting 
at high tension by incandescent lamps. Mr. 
Hammond put down electrical supply works in a 
great number of towns in this country and abroad. 
He was an ardent exponent of municipal trading; 
his services were often requisitioned as an expert 
witness. By reason of his kindly disposition and 
genial manner he established friendly relations with 
all with whom he came in contact, and his loss will 
be widely felt and deplored by his host of friends in 
all parts of the country. He contributed many papers 
for technical societies; in 1902 he succeeded the late 
Prof. Ayrton in the capacity of honorary treasurer of 
the Institution of Electrical Engineers, a position 
which he held until the time of his death. He was 
also a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers 
and of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. 
Tue death of Mr. Edwin Charles Carnt is 
announced in Engineering for August 13. Mr. Carnt 
took up active work in the firm of the late Mr. John 
S. White at Cowes in 1898, a time contemporaneous 
with the almost world-wide recognition of the 
immense potentialities of torpedo craft. His experi- 
ence as an officer in the Navy, as a member of the 
engineering staff of the dockyards, and as an over- 
seer in private works, together with his personal 
qualifications, marked him out as an appropriate 
engineering manager of such works as White’s. The 
firm, under his dominating energy and wide prac- 
tical experience, quickly stepped into and retained a 
high place among the constructors of high-speed light 
craft of all types. His death took place on the 5th 
inst. 
WE regret to have to record the death, on August 
16, at the age of seventy-seven years, of Mr. F. Victor 
Dickins, C.B., who was registrar of the University 
of London from 1896 to Igor. 
PARTICULARS are given in the Morning Post of 
Monday last concerning Capt. E. Bage, of the Austra- 
lian Engineers, who was killed in action at Kaba 
Tepe some weeks ago. In rg1r he joined Sir Douglas 
Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition, making 
NO. 2390, VOL. 95] 

a record of tidal observations at Adelie Land. In the 
summer of 1912-13 Capt. Bage led his two comrades 
—F. H. Hurley (now serving with Sir Ernest Shackle- 
ton) and E. N. Webb (magnetician)—within fifty miles 
of the south magnetic pole. On the journey back to 
winter quarters they failed to find a food depét, but 
got back to safety after nine weeks of great hardship. 
During the second year of enforced wintering Capt. 
Bage turned his attention to magnetic work and 
astronomy, and made further valuable additions to 
Antarctic science. 
A RevTER message from Zurich states that the 
Laryngologists’ Society has expunged the name of 
' Sir Felix Semon from the list of its honorary mem- 
bers, the reason given being that, although Sir Felix 
was born in Germany, and studied in Vienna and 
Berlin, he wrote a letter to the Times expressing 
detestation of the barbaric methods of the Germans 
in the war. 
THE summer meeting of the Royal Cornwall Poly- 
technic Society will be held at Falmouth on August 31 
and September 1 and 2, when the following com- 
munications will be made:—On August 31, ‘‘ The 
Physical Condition of Cassiterite in Cornish Mill Pro- 
ducts,’’ by the late J. J. Beringer, further explained 
by W. H. Trewartha-James; on September 1, ‘‘ The 
Occurrence of Tin and Tungsten in the West of Eng- 
land,” by J. H. Collins; ‘‘ Development of Mechanical 
Methods in China Clay Mines,” by J. M. Coon; and 
“Prospects for Tin in the United States,” by H. F. 
Bain. On September 2 a paper on “ Piskies : a Folk- 
lore Study,” will be read by H. Jenner, and a lecture 
on “The Fly Problem,” delivered by F. Balfour 
Browne. A feature of the meeting will be a display 
of exhibits illustrating British articles of commerce 
previously either wholly or partly supplied by Germany 
and Austria. 
Tue provincial sessional meeting of the Royal Sani- 
tary Institute will be held at Brighton on September 
3 and 4, when discussions will take place on Indian 
sanitation, camp sanitation, maternity and child wel- 
fare, and on the final report of the Royal Commission 
on Sewage Disposal. 
Wuen the Institution of Electrical Engineers has 
been able to arrange the various historical specimens 
of apparatus which it has collected for its museum, it 
will possess one of the most interesting collections 
of this character. The latest addition has been made 
by H.M. Queen Alexandra, who has given the insti- 
tution a pair of Bell telephones presented to her in 
1878, and made on board H.M.S. Thunderer. These 
instruments were actually used for conversation be- 
tween the schoolroom and her Majesty’s sitting-room 
at Marlborough House for a number of years. The 
Institution of Electrical Engineers is situated on 
Victoria Embankment, and it is therefore quite appro- 
priate that it should possess the original Gramme 
dynamo used for the first experimental lighting of the 
Thames Embankment. There is also in the collec- 
tion one of the Jablochkoff candles used in those days, 
and we believe that, to make this part of the collec- 
tion complete, one of the holders employed for these 
