554 



NA TURE 



[October 21, 1922 



Dr. M. O. Forster was entertained at dinner by a 

 number of his chemical friends on October 6 on the eve 

 of his departure to India to take up the duties of his 

 new appointment as director of the Indian Institute 

 of Science at Bangalore. He left England on October 

 13 by the P. pnd O. steamship Morea. 



It is stated in the Chi miker Zeitung of September 14 

 that Prof. Wieland has been appointed to the editorial 

 board of Liebig's Annalen in place of the late 

 Prof. Wislicenus. The board consists, in addition, 

 of Profs. Wallach, Graebe, Zincke, and Willstatter. 

 In the issue of September 26 it is announced that 

 Dr. Noddack has been appointed director of the 

 Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt. 



At the inaugural meeting of the eighty-first session 

 of the Pharmaceutical Society's School of Pharmacy, 

 Bloomsbury Square, on October 4, the Hanbury 

 medal, awarded every two years for the promotion 

 of research in the chemistry and natural history of 

 drugs, was presented to Prof. Emile Perrot, professor 

 of materia medica in the University of Paris. 



The fifth annual Streatfeild Memorial Lecture will 

 be delivered by Prof. C. H. Desch in the Chemical 

 Lecture Theatre of the Finsbury Technical College, 

 Leonard Street, E.C.2, on Thursday, November 2, 

 at 4 o'clock. The subject will be " The Metallurgical 

 Chemist." 



The forty -fifth anniversary of the Institute of 

 Chemistry will be celebrated by a dinner to be held 

 at the Hotel Victoria, Northumberland Avenue, 

 W.C.2, on Friday, November 17. 



On Tuesday, October 10, members of the Circle of 

 Scientific, Technical, and Trade Journalists accepted 

 the invitation of Holophane Ltd. to visit the new 

 showrooms and laboratories, where an address was 

 delivered by Captain Stroud, and a demonstration of 

 the latest scientific devices for distributing artificial 

 light was arranged. In addition to standard types 

 of reflectors for use in streets, factories, shops, etc., 

 several interesting novelties were shown, including 

 the new unit equipped with Chance's daylight glass 

 to produce " artificial daylight." The appearance of 

 coloured surfaces under this light, as compared with 

 that of ordinary electric lamps, was demonstrated 

 in the laboratory, where apparatus for obtaining 

 polar curves of light distribution was also shown in 

 operation. Mr. Leon Gaster, in returning thanks on 

 behalf of the visitors, remarked that the scientific 

 application of light was a subject of general interest 

 to the technical press. Its importance was illustrated 

 by the appointment, in 1913, of a Home Office Com- 

 mittee on Lighting in Factories and Workshops. It 

 was hoped that in future each scientific advance 

 would be brought to the notice of the technical press, 

 which acted as an educational link between the expert 

 and the general public. 



The seventy-sixth annual meeting of the Birming- 

 ham and Edgbaston Debating Society was held on 

 October 4. The visitors included Alderman David 



NO. 2764, VOL. I IO] 



Davis (Lord Mayor of Birmingham), Dr. R. Wakefield 

 (Bishop of Birmingham), Dr. Mclntyre (Archbishop 

 of Birmingham), Mr. C. Grant Robertson (principal 

 of Birmingham University), Mr. C. A. Vince (president 

 of Birmingham Central Literary Association), and 

 Mr. \ithur Brampton (president of Birmingham 

 Liberal Association). Mr. G. Austin Baker was 

 elected president for the ensuing session. Mr. Harry 

 Jackson, the retiring president, delivered an address 

 on " The Trend of Human Development." He 

 showed that whereas in the past the environment 

 and progress of man was limited to tangible things, 

 to-day it extends more and more to regions outside 

 the immediate perceptions of the senses. The views 

 of Einstein, as contrasted with those of Newton, are 

 a typical example and represent a great and intrinsic 

 mental advance. The individual with the super- 

 sensitive faculty in some particular direction must 

 be given the scope and opportunity for the full 

 expression of his genius. Humanity cannot afford 

 to let clever men wear out their genius in providing 

 themselves with the necessities of life. The most 

 advantageous application of national wealth will be 

 the maintenance of those who are able to work in 

 the higher environment of the intellect. 



Mr. A. Radcliffe Brown has sent us a long letter 

 complaining of the review of his book — " The Anda- 

 man Islanders " — in Nature of July 22, p. 106. 

 The gist of the reviewer's criticism was that Mr. 

 Brown spoilt a good plan — namely, of stating his own 

 observations and where they differed from those of 

 his chief predecessor, Mr. E. H. Man — by so carrying 

 it out as to lead the reader to suppose that Mr. Man's 

 work was not worth much. Mr. Brown's defence is 

 that in adopting his plan of procedure he was obeying 

 the instructions of the Anthony Wilkins Studentship, 

 under whose auspices his work was undertaken. The 

 reviewer did not complain of the plan but of the 

 method of carrying it out. Next, with regard to the 

 reviewer's criticism of the unwisdom of adopting the 

 Anthropos Alphabet of Pater Schmidt for his work in 

 supersession of the long-established alphabet com- 

 piled by so competent an authority as Mr. A. J. Ellis, 

 Mr. Brown writes that he has " no hesitation in 

 accepting the Anthropos Alphabet as the nearest 

 approach possible at the present time to a scientific 

 universal alphabet." But at the same time he quotes 

 the fact that Sir Richard Temple published a universal 

 grammar which has not been adopted to any extent 

 by other writers, " doubtless because of the objection 

 they feel to giving up the system of grammar to which 

 they are accustomed." Mr. Brown, having thus the 

 fate of Sir Richard Temple's grammar before him 

 and appreciating the reason for it, might have been 

 warned of the fate awaiting the Anthropos Alphabet, 

 and that the only result in the circumstances of 

 partially adopting it in a work, which he himself 

 says " does not deal with the languages of the 

 Andamans," would be to puzzle, and not enlighten, 

 the student. To the reviewer's criticism of use 

 being made without acknowledgment of information 

 gathered by living predecessors, Mr. Brown raises the 

 defence that any passages bearing such an interpre- 



