Marcu 14, 1912] 
NATURE x6 
Congress will be grouped are:—the bearing upon 
eugenics of (a) biological research, (b) sociological and 
historical research, (c) legislation and social customs; 
and the consideration of the practical applications of 
eugenic principles. An exhibition is being arranged 
which will include charts, pedigrees, photographs, and 
specimens illustrative of heredity, especially’in man; 
relics of Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, and Gregor 
Mendel; and portraits of notable workers. Major 
Leonard Darwin is to be the president of the Con- 
gress. Particulars may be obtained from _ the 
honorary secretary, Mrs. Gotto, 6 York Buildings, 
Adelphi, W.C. 
A SMALL committee has recently been formed in 
Manchester, with Mr. R. H. Clayton as chairman and 
Mr. W. F. A. Ermen as secretary, the object of which 
is to further the movement for the purification of the 
atmosphere from coal smoke. The committee has 
sent circulars to scientific and other societies in Man- 
chester asking them to appoint delegates to a meet- 
ing, at which arrangements are to be made for a 
deputation to go before the City Council. This 
deputation will urge the council to inaugurate a 
separate and independent department with a com- 
mittee formed from the various existing departments 
of the Corporation which are affected directly or in- 
directly by smoke, with co-opted representatives of 
various societies. The duty of this department would 
be to study the various sources of pollution, and to 
investigate the possible applications of existing or 
new methods which might be adopted for the preven- 
tion of the present pollution. 
From the Rendiconti del R. Istituto Lombardo we 
learn that a prize offered by the late Dr. Cagnola for 
‘‘4 well-proved discovery on the directing of flying 
balloons’ has been unawarded. A reference to the 
issues of previous years shows that the same result 
has occurred practically without exception during the 
whole period in which aérial navigation has made the 
greatest progress. There have been recently numer- 
ous discoveries on the directing of flying balloons, 
which have been weli proved by the performance of | 
long-distance flights, and this prize has played no 
part in their successful development. In view of the 
fact that it was founded long before the days when 
aérial navigation became an accomplished fact, it 
should be evident that the title of the prize is suffici- 
ently elastic to cover such developments as improve- 
ments in motors and propellers, even when tested by 
such methods as are employed successfully in our 
own National Physical Laboratory. 
Ir is with sincere regret that we learn of the death 
of Mr. A. E. Hodgson, senior assistant at the Natal 
Observatory, which took place at Durban on 
February 11. Born at Leeds in 1880, Mr. Hodgson 
was trained at the Royal College of Science, London, 
where he afterwards became a demonstrator in astro- 
physics, and later joined the staff of the Solar Physics 
Observatory under Sir Norman Lockyer. In 1903 he 
accepted a post as assistant under Mr. Nevill at the 
Natal Observatory, subsequently becoming 
assistant. Here he performed the routine duties of 
the time service, &c., and also made observations of 
NO. 2211, VOL. 89| 
senior | 
| tific aspects of these excavations in a systematic 
comets, putting into all his work a whole-hearted 
enthusiasm which was ever characteristic of him. 
According to an appreciation appearing in The Natay 
Mercury, Mr. Hodgson, had he lived, would probably 
have been placed in sole charge of the observatory on 
the retirement of Mr. Nevill. He was a fellow of the 
Royal Astronomical and Physical Societies, and his 
early death will be a great loss to those who enjoyed 
his friendship, both in Natal and in this country. The 
funeral took place at Durban on February 12. 
THE arrangements in connection with the Optical 
Convention which is to be held during six days in 
the last fortnight of June this year are making satis- 
factory progress. The Board of Education has con- 
sented to provide space for the exhibition forming 
part of the Convention in the Science Museum at 
South Kensington. The guarantee fund has reached 
1055/., and active steps are being taken to ensure the 
success of the Convention. An exhibition and cata- 
logue committee has been constituted, and is sub- 
divided into twenty-four sections. A committee upon 
papers has been appointed, and it is expected that the 
result of their labours will be the publication after the 
meetings of a valuable volume of Proceedings. Prof. 
S. P. Thompson, F.R.S., is the president of the Con- 
vention, and the list of vice-presidents includes the 
names of many distinguished physicists and astro- 
nomers. Dr. R. Mullineux Walmsley, principal of 
the Northampton Polytechnic Institute, Clerkenwell, 
is the chairman of the executive committee, and Mr. 
J. W. Gordon, 113 Broadhurst Gardens, Hampstead, 
N.W., is honorary secretary. 
On Thursday last, March 7, The Times recorded 
the discovery of an oak-tree trunk during the excava- 
tions for the extension of the Hampstead and High- 
gate Railway at the shaft near the Charing Cross 
District Railway Station. The tree was found at a 
depth of 40 ft. beneath the present surface in a bed 
of sand forming part of the younger gravels of the 
Thames. It was quite black, but perfectly sound. 
The roots and a portion of the trunk some 2 ft. in 
diameter were exposed in a prone position, as if the 
tree had been transported during flood time and then 
stranded. A stag’s horn has been found in the same 
formation. No special importance attaches to these 
particular finds; the really significant circumstance is 
that their existence does not appear to have been 
made known to interested parties until a paragraph 
was written for the daily papers by a passing 
observer. The tree had been found long before, and 
lay in the wooden enclosure which surrounds the 
shaft, and it was not until it was turned out to be 
carted away that attention was directed to it. The 
geology of the shallow deposits underlying London is 
full of interest to all and is of considerable import- 
ance, and it can only be elucidated, now that so large 
| an area is completely built over, by careful observa- 
tion and correlation of the numerous deep foundation 
excavations and tunnels that are constantly being 
made and rapidly obscured. It is much to be re- 
gretted that no official exists to attend to the scien- 
manner, 
