June 28, 1906] 



NA TURE 



207 



-and at Bridgend people walking in the street were nearly 

 •thrown down. At Newport (Mon.) also the disturbance 

 •was felt distinctly. 



.'\ BANQUET was given by the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers on Monday night in honour of the delegates from 

 1<in<lred institutions in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, 

 Switzerland, and the United .States who arc visiting this 

 •country. Mr. John Gavey, C.B., president of the institu- 

 tion, presided, and there were about 450 guests and delc- 

 Sali's present. The toast of the visiting delegates, proposed 

 by the president, was responded to by Prof. J. L. Farny, 

 representing the .'\ssociation Suisse des Electriciens ; Mr. 

 P. J. B. E. .\uzi5py, Consul-General of France; Prof. 

 E. Budde, president, Verband Deutscher Elektro- 

 teehniker ; Dr. Emil Naglo, rep'resenting the president of 

 the Elektrotechnischer Verein ; Mr. S. S. Wheeler, presi- 

 <ipnt of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers ; 

 and Mr. Guido Semenza, hon. general secretary of the 

 .Associazione Elettrotecnica Italiana, who during his re- 

 sponse presented to the institution, in the name of the 

 Associazione Elettrotecnica, a bust of Alessandro Volta. 

 A conversazione in honour of the visitors was held at the 

 Natural History Museum on Tuesday evening. 



Dr. T. p. Anderson Stuart has been elected president 

 of the Royal Society of New South Wales for the current 

 year. 



The Guy medal in silver of the Royal Statistical Society 

 has been awarded to Dr. W. N. Shaw, F.R.S., for his 

 paper entitled " The Seasons in the British Isles since 

 187S," read before the society in March, 1905. 



The presidency of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union 

 for 1907 has been offered to, and accepted by, Mr. C. 

 Crossland, of Halifax, joint author of the recently-published 

 ■" Fungus Flora of East Yorkshire." 



.'\ SPECIAL meeting of the Faraday Society, to which the 

 public is invited, will be held at the Society of Arts on 

 Monday, July 2, when Prof. Kr. Birkeland, of Christiania, 

 who is at present on a visit to England, will read a paper 

 on the oxidation of atmospheric nitrogen in electric arcs. 

 At the same meeting Mr. F. W. Harbord will communicate 

 a paper, by Dr. Eugen Haanel, of Ottawa, describing the 

 recent experiments on electric iron and steel smelting that 

 were made at Sault Ste. Marie on behalf of the Canadian 

 Government. 



Sir Daniel Morris, K.C.M.G., the Imperial Com- 

 missioner of .Agriculture for the West Indies, has arrived 

 in this country on a short visit, and will attend the forth- 

 coming International Conference on Hybridisation and 

 Plant Breeding to be held in London under the auspices 

 of the Royal Horticultural Society at the end of July. 

 Sir Daniel will read a paper on the hybridisation of the 

 sugar cane, a subject with which he has been actively 

 associated for many years. 



By the regretted death of Lieut. Forbes Tulloch, 

 R..A.M.C., last week, another name is added to the 

 honoured roll of the martyrs of science. Lieut. Tulloch, 

 in association with Lieut. Grey, had been for the past 

 year investigating sleeping sickness at Entebbe, Uganda. 

 In March, while making a post-mortem on an inoculated 

 rat, he accidentally scratched his finger. In a short time 

 fever developed, and an examination of his blood showed 

 the presence of the dreaded trypanosome. Although at 

 once invalided home, the disease ran a very acute course 

 and ended fatally as stated. Lieut. Tulloch had, in co- 

 operation with Lieut. Grey, made the important observation 

 NO. 1913, VOL. 74] 



that trypanosomes multiply in the tsetse fly, and was re- 

 garded as a worker of great promise. His untimely death 

 is much to be deplored. 



On Thursday last, June 21, a p;iper was read before 

 the Royal Society of Antiquaries by Dr. Jonathan 

 Hutchinson, F.R.S., and Mr. E. W. Swanton, on pre- 

 historic remains found during recent years in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Haslemere. The authors commented on the 

 large number of Neolithic implements which had been 

 found, chiefly by Mr. Allen Chandler. Many were obtained 

 from the site of a Neolithic flint factory on Blackdown, 

 gi2 feet above sea-level, and ten miles away from the 

 nearest chalk-with-flints bed. .Among the objects from this 

 spot were rubbing stones and perforated circular hammer 

 stones of quartzite, also a very fine series of the so-called 

 "pigmy flints." The second part of the paper detailed 

 the discovery of a Celtic urn-field adjacent to Haslemere 

 town. Crude flint chips, and in one case a fragment of a 

 bronze fibula, occurred among the fragments of calcined 

 bone in the cineraries. No iron was found, and but one 

 piece of bronze. .A hole in the base of one of the cineraries 

 had been repaired by inserting a plug of lead. Many 

 accessory vessels had been placed around some of the 

 urns ; several in almost perfect condition were ex- 

 hibited, they were of various shapes and sizes, and the 

 paste was of several qualities. In the discussion which 

 followed it was agreed that the pottery belonged to the 

 later Celtic period or early Iron age, e.g. 50 approxi- 

 mately. The vessels and flints from this urn-field have 

 been presented to the Haslemere Museum. 



Mr. George James Snelus, F.R.S., who died on June 18, 

 was the first to eliminate phosphorus during the Bessemer 

 process by the use of a basic lining to the converter. He 

 took out a patent for the idea in JS72, and subsequently 

 made five tons of steel by this method. The process was, 

 however, not brought into commercial operation until after 

 the work of Thomas and Gilchrist. Mr. Snelus's share 

 in the invention was recognised by the Iron and Steel 

 Institute, which in 1883 awarded him, jointly with Sidney 

 Thomas, the Bessemer gold medal. Mr. Snelus, who was 

 born on June 25, 1837. in London, was educated at St. 

 John's College, Battersea, and at Owens College, and 

 subsequently obtained a scholarship at the Royal School 

 of Mines, where he took the associateship in metallurgy 

 and in mining, and received the De la Beche medal for 

 mining. His first appointment was as chemist to the 

 Dowlais Ironworks. In 1S71 he went as expert for the 

 Iron and Steel Institute to the United States to report 

 on the Danks rotatory puddling furnace. He was elected 

 a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1887. He wrote a large 

 number of papers on the metallurgy of iron, which were 

 contributed to the Proceedings of the Iron and Steel Insti- 

 tute, of which society he was an original member, and at 

 the time of his death occupied the position of vice-presi- 

 dent. He possessed unusual talents for experimental re- 

 search. 



In place of the usual autumn meeting, the Iron and Steel 

 Institute will this year hold a joint meeting with the 

 American Institute of Mining Engineers in London on 

 July 23-26. Under the chairmanship of the Lord Mayor, 

 an influential reception committee has arranged an attrac- 

 tive programme of entertainments, visits, and excursions. 

 The King will receive a deputation of the institute's 

 American guests. There will be a banquet in the Guild- 

 hall of the City of London, evening receptions by the 

 president and by the Lord Mayor, and entertainments at 



