December 30, 1922] 



NA TURE 



post of Assistant Inspector-General of Forests and 

 Superintendent of Forest Working Plans, which he 

 held for three years from 1896. After holding suc- 

 cessively the posts of Conservator of Forests in the 

 Punjab and Burma and Chief Conservator of Forests in 

 Burma, he became Inspector-General of Forests to 

 the Government of India, an appointment which he 

 held from 1908 till 1913, when he retired from the 

 service of Government. Mr. Bryant succeeded to this 

 post at an important period in the history of his depart- 

 ment. The Forest Research Institute at Dehra Dun 

 had been established two years previously on the 

 initiative of his predecessor, Mr. (now Sir Sainthill) 

 Eardley-Wilmot. It fell to Mr. Bryant to guide the 

 destinies of the Institute in its earlier years, and his 

 handling of this task was marked by sound common 

 sense and careful judgment. A man of cheerful 

 personality, he made a popular chief, and enjoyed to 

 an unusual extent the goodwill of his department. In 

 recognition of his services to Government he was 

 awarded the C.S.I, in 191 1. He is survived by a 

 widow and grown-up family, to whom we extend our 

 sympathy. He had the misfortune to lose one of his 

 sons on active service during the war. 



M. E. Bouty, professor of experimental phvsics at 

 the Sorbonne and member of the Academy of Sciences, 



died in Paris on November 5 in his seventy-seventh 

 year. To the present generation of physicists in this 

 country he was probably best known as the editor of 

 the Journal de Physique and of the Annales de Physique. 

 but to those of thirty or forty years ago he was the joint 

 author of a text-book on physics much appreciated by 

 all who wished to keep themselves up-to-date — the 

 " Cours de physique de l'Ecole Polytechnique " and 

 its supplements. His principal published researches 

 deal with problems connected with the passage of 

 electricity through liquids and gases, but these memoirs 

 by no means represent the whole of his work in the 

 field of research. He succeeded in building up a school 

 of research at the Sorbonne, and much work published 

 by his pupils owed its inspiration to Prof. Bouty. 



The death, on December 10, is announced of Mr. 

 Edward Degen, sometime of the staff of the British 

 Museum and the Melbourne Museum. Mr. Degen \\;is 

 born in Basle in March 1852, and was educated in Basle 

 and Paris. He travelled extensively and collected 

 zoological material in West Africa, Uganda, Abyssinia, 

 and Sakhalin. He was an expert taxidermist and had 

 paid considerable attention to the moulting of birds, 

 and to vertebrates generally. He was a Swiss and a 

 citizen of Basle. 



Current Topics 



It is stated by the Paris correspondent of the 

 Tunes that the centenary of Pasteur was celebrated 

 officially during the afternoon of December 26 at 

 the Academy of Medicine. The French Minister for 

 Health, M. Paul Strauss, was present, and a number 

 of eminent medical men spoke on Pasteur's life and 

 work. The Under-Secretary of Posts and Telegraphs 

 has approved a design, showing a profile of Pasteur's 

 head, for a special fifty-centimes postage stamp to 

 be issued during the coming centenary celebrations. 



It may be remembered that, early in the present 

 year, a proposal to prohibit the teaching of evolution 

 in "the schools of the State of Kentucky failed to pass 

 the State legislature by one vote. In an article which 

 appeared in Nature of May 27 (vol. 109, p. 669), the 

 opinion was expressed that further agitation with the 

 same object might be looked for in the near future. 

 That this apprehension was but too well founded 

 appears by the fact that a " State-wide meeting of 

 protestant ministers " in Minnesota has lately passed 

 resolutions demanding that " the State shall prove 

 its impartiality toward its citizens by dispensing with 

 a subject [i.e. evolution) that is utterly divisive [52c] ; 

 and is, in the judgment of thousands of its taxpayers, 

 utterly false." A reason given for this remarkable 

 action is that " this hypothesis . . . has increasingly 

 shown itself to be a foe to the Christian faith, denying 

 as it does the veracity of the Scriptures." Such 

 attempts at suppression are completely out-of-date, 

 and the importation of religious intolerance into the 

 question cannot but make the judicious grieve. The 

 Minnesota meeting was perhaps not aware that the 

 Catholic University of Louvain sent a special repre- 

 sentative to the Darwin celebration at Cambridge. 



NO. 2774, VOL. I io] 



and Events. 



Yet another appeal has reached us on behalf of 

 the famine-stricken people of Russia, this time from 

 Dr. Nansen's committee by way of the Medical Aid 

 Committee for Sufferers from the Russian Famine. 

 It is addressed primarily to medical men, and, 

 following out, apparently, the principle we have 

 suggested in previous comments on these appeals, 

 of approaching each group or profession on behalf 

 of its co-workers in Russia, it is mainly for the 

 assistance of medical men in Russia. It is stated 

 that the latter, amid thousands of sick and starving 

 people, are helpless for the lack of drugs and medical 

 stores, and medical men here are asked to press for 

 the formation of an international committee on 

 medical relief to fight the effects of the famine. 

 Men of science are needed to attack the sanitarv 

 and biological problems with which Russia and, 

 through her, the whole of Europe are confronted. 

 In the meanwhile supplies of medical and other 

 stores will enable Russian doctors to struggle on 

 with their task. Gifts in kind should be forwarded 

 to the Secretary, Medical Aid Committee, 68 Lincoln's 

 Inn Fields, W.C.2 ; contributions in money to the 

 committee's treasurer at the London Joint City and 

 Midland Bank, 6 Chancery Lane, W.C.2. 



The Library Journal for November 1 contains an 

 article by Mr. E. C. Richardson, director of Princeton 

 University Library, entitled " International Co- 

 operation in Intellectual Work." Mr. Richardson 

 refers to the recent appointment by the League ii 

 Nations of a Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, 

 and writes with appreciation of the practical utility 

 of three enterprises which this committee will 

 necessarily take into consideration. Mr. Richardson 



