December i6, 1922] 



NA TURE 



819 



series of exhibits, including not only the various 

 products manufactured, but also the plant and 

 machinery employed both in the field and in the 

 refinery. A special feature was the exhibition of 

 different types of internal combustion engines in 

 actual operation, burning those grades of fuel most 

 suited to particular designs. The congress was 

 opened by Prof. Sabatier, and the business transacted 

 was of a most comprehensive nature, the industry 

 being considered in both its theoretical and practical 

 aspects. Undoubtedly the most important question 

 raised at this congress was that of the necessity of 

 adopting a uniform terminology to cover the enormous 

 variety of combustible liquids now being marketed. 

 At the present time the utmost confusion reigns in 

 many cases where a name for a given product in one 

 country implies a totally different product in another. 

 Further, the varied methods adopted of testing these 

 products for definite commercial purposes are often 

 productive of results which, while suitable for one 

 country, are quite ineffective for another. In order, 

 therefore, to standardise both methods of comparison 

 and the nomenclature universalis" applicable to definite 

 products for specific purposes, an international com- 

 mission has been set up, composed of delegates of the 

 several countries represented at the congress. The 

 importance of this work cannot be overestimated, 

 particularly from the point of view of European 

 markets, though it is to be hoped that representatives 

 of the American petroleum industry will take a pro- 

 minent part in the framing of the ultimate standards 

 adopted. 



Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, chief of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, has 

 recently returned to Washington from the season's 

 archaeological field-work on the Mesa Verde National 

 Park, Colorado, and reports the unexpected find of an 

 interesting prehistoric ruin to which he has given the 

 name, "Pipe Shrine House." A mound of some 

 magnitude in the neighbourhood of a reservoir called 

 Mummy Lake was investigated, and a rectangular 

 building about 70 feet square and one story high, 

 which is accurately oriented to the cardinal points, 

 and has a circular tower formerly 15 to 20 feet high, 

 like a church steeple, midway in the western wall, 

 was discovered. The tower was probably used for 

 observing the sun as it rises in the east or sets in the 

 west, in order to determine the time for planting and 

 other events. In the middle of the building was 

 found a circular room twenty feet deep and about the 

 same in diameter in which were more than a dozen 

 clay tobacco pipes, numerous stone knives, pottery, 

 idols, and other objects. Pipes of this kind have 

 never before been found on the Mesa Verde National 

 Park ; apparently after the rite of smoking they were 

 thrown into the shrine. South of the building, which 

 was evidently specialised for ceremonials, is a square 

 room or shrine dedicated to the mountain lion, a 

 stone image of which was found surrounded by water- 

 worn and other strangely formed stones. A similar 

 shrine in the north-east corner of Pipe Shrine House 

 contains a small iron meteorite and a slab of stone on 

 which is depicted the symbol of the sun. 



"NO. 2772, VOL. I ioj 



The juvenile lectures at the Royal Institution 

 this Christmas will be delivered by Prof. H. H. 

 Turner, whose subject is " Six Steps up the Ladder 

 to the Stars." The first lecture will be given on 

 Thursday, December 28, on " The Distance of the 

 Stars," followed by " The Discovery of the Planet 

 Neptune," " Photographing the Stars," " The Spectro- 

 scope and its Revelations," " Two Great Streams 

 of Stars," and " The Size of a Star." The following 

 are the lecture arrangements before Easter : On 

 Tuesday afternoons, commencing January 16, there 

 will be two lectures by Prof. F. G. Donnan on 

 " Semi-Permeable Membranes and Colloid Chemistry," 

 two by Mr. R. D. Oldham on " Earthquakes," two 

 by Prof. A. C. Pearson on " Greek Civilisation and 

 To-day," two by Sir Arthur Shipley on " Life and 

 its Rhythms," and two by Prof. C. G. Seligman on 

 " Rainmakers and Divine Kings of the Nile Valley." 

 On Thursday afternoons, the Hon. J. W. Fortescue 

 will give two historical lectures beginning on January 

 18, Prof. I. M. Heilbron two on " The Photosynthesis 

 of Plant Products," Prof. B. Melvill Jones two on 

 " Recent Experiments in Aerial Surveying," and 

 Mr. Theodore Stevens two on " Water Power of the 

 Empire." On Saturday afternoons commencing 

 January 20, there will be two lectures by Sir Walford 

 Davies on " Speech Rhythm in Vocal Music," two 

 by Mr. J. C. Squire on " Subject in Poetry," and 

 six by Sir Ernest Rutherford on " Atomic Projectiles 

 and their Properties." The first Friday evening 

 discourse will be delivered by Sir James Dewar on 

 January 19 on " Soap Films as Detectors of Stream 

 Lines, Vortex Motion and Sound." Succeeding 

 discourses will probably be given by Sir Almroth 

 Wright, Mr. C. F. Cross, Sir John Russell, Dr. A. V. 

 Hill, Prof. A. S. Eddington, Dr. G. C. Simpson, 

 Dr. M. R. James, and Sir Ernest Rutherford. 



The Journal of the Textile Institute has now 

 nearly completed its first year under the new arrange- 

 ment by which its pages are separately arranged 

 and numbered under the three headings of Proceed- 

 ings, Transactions, and Abstracts. The new form 

 of the Journal should appeal to a wide scientific 

 public, and the attention of biologists interested in 

 the raw materials of plant or animal fibre may be 

 directed to the very wide field covered by the 

 abstractors and to the scientific character of the 

 papers appearing in the Transactions. The Journal 

 is now the medium through which a considerable 

 amount of the scientific work carried on by the 

 research associations of the woollen and worsted, 

 the cotton and the linen industries, first sees the 

 light. These newly formed research associations 

 have naturally been busy surveying their wide 

 fields for future effort, and the result has been that 

 a number of very useful general summaries of the 

 state of our knowledge of the chemistry, physics, and 

 botany of the cotton hair have been published in 

 the Journal by members of the staff of the British 

 Cotton Industry Research Association. Preliminary 

 results of new investigations upon the plant fibre 

 also begin to appear, as, for example, the two papers 

 by C. R. Nodder upon plant fibres, dealing mainly 

 with flax and hemp. 



