I04 



NA TURE 



[March 25, 1909 



In a lecture given at the Bradford Technical College 

 on science and the textile industries, Mr. W. P. Dreaper 

 suggested the formation of central trade laboratories to 

 deal with the pressing need for technical research. The 

 laboratories were to be established privately, and subsidised 

 by, the trade concerned, any associated firm being at liberty 

 to bring forward technical problems for solution. The plan 

 proposed appears only to be practicable in the case of a 

 highly organised trade, since there would be great difficulty 

 in inducing individual firms to support such a scheme, 

 which they would think might easily be to the advantage 

 of their competitors rather than of themselves. On the 

 other hand, when a trade becomes highly organised and 

 centralised its interests tend to become so amalgamated 

 that a central laboratory will be established almost as a 

 matter of course, and there are already several examples 

 of such a development. Any suggestion for widening the 

 basis of technical research is, however, welcome, and we 

 hope that further discussion and inquiry may show Mr. 

 Dreaper's scheme to be feasible. 



The sixty-second annual meeting of the Palseonto- 

 graphical Society was held in the rooms of the Geological 

 Society, Burlington House, on March ig, Dr. Henry 

 WoodwarTl, F.R.S., president, in the chair. The report of 

 the council referred to the completion of the monograph 

 of Cretaceous star-fishes, and to the satisfactory progress 

 of the monographs of Cretaceous lamellibranchs, Chalk 

 fishes, Cambrian trilobites, and British graptolites. Many 

 offers of new monographs had been received, but the 

 council had decided, so far as possible, to complete the 

 works in progress before entering on new undertakings. 

 Sir Archibald Geikie, P.R.S., was elected a vice-president 

 in succession to the late Mr. W. H. Hudleston, and Prof. 

 E. J. Garwood, Mr. C. Fox Strangways, and Mr. F. R. 

 Cowper Reed were elected new members of council. The 

 officers were re-elected, Dr. Henry Woodward as president. 

 Dr. G. J. Hinde as treasurer, and Dr. h.. Smith Woodward 

 as secretary. 



Much interest has been aroused in Sussex by the dis- 

 covery of the greater part of a skeleton of a mammoth 

 (Elepbas primigenius) on the shore of Selsey Bill. The 

 remains were found below high-water mark in the estuarine 

 or fresh-water deposit of black clay, which underlies the 

 raised beach and coombe rock on that part of the Sussex 

 coast. The thick mass of shingle, which usually covers 

 this deposit, was temporarily removed during the recent 

 stormy weather, and the teeth and broken bones were 

 found projecting from the clay. Probably the whole 

 skeleton was originally present, but when found the bones 

 were already much eroded, and they were scattered over 

 an area about 30 feet square. Both upper and lower molar 

 teeth were recovered, and their condition shows that the 

 animal was immature and of small size. Fragmentary 

 remains, both of the mammoth and of Elephas aiitiquus, 

 have been found at various times in the same deposit in 

 Bracklesham Bay, some of these specimens being now in 

 the British Museum. Indications of complete skeletons are 

 rare. They seem to have been recorded only twice in 

 England, the first in the brick-earth of Ilford, Essex, the 

 second in a corresponding deposit at Ealing, Middlesex. 



Tow.iRDS the scientific exploration of Spitsbergen no 

 nation has contributed in a greater degree than Sweden. 

 During the last half-century no less than twenty-four 

 Swedish expeditions have visited it and the adjacent islands, 

 at a cost of at least 75,000!., to which another 25,000/. 

 must be added if the expense of publishing the results be 



NO. 2056, VOL. 80] 



reckoned. Signs are not wanting, however, that much of 

 the valuable work accomplished by the Swedes is unknown 

 to the scientific men of other countries. To remedy this, 

 Profs. A. G. Nathorst and G. de Geer, and Dr. J. Gunnar 

 Andersson, have just published in Ymer (1909, Haft i.) a 

 brief English summary of the work, occupying ninety pages, 

 and have distributed reprints. This comprises a historical 

 sl<etch by Prof. Nathorst, illustrated by maps and views 

 of the Swedish stations ; a list of men of science, physicians, 

 and officers who have taken part in the expeditions ; a 

 classified and annotated bibliography by Mr. J. M. Hulth, 

 containing 376 items ; and a list of sixty maps by Prof, 

 de Geer. In 1908 it was 150 years since the first Swedish 

 naturalist, A. R. Martin, instigated thereto by Linnieus, 

 set foot on Spitsbergen ; but the true foundation of Swedish 

 exploration was laid by Sven Lovin, when in 1837 he 

 undertook a two months' voyage thither on his own 

 initiative and at his own expense. The subsequent record 

 is one of which any country might be proud, and English 

 geographers and naturalists in particular should thank 

 their Swedish colleagues for abandoning their habitual 

 modesty so far as to publish this concise account. 



With great regret we have noticed the announcement of 

 the death of Senhor Joas Barbosa Rodriguez, director of 

 the Botanic Garden and professor of botany in the uni- 

 versity at Rio de Janeiro. Barbosa Rodriguez was born 

 in the State of Minas Geraes in 1842. After a varied 

 career as secretary, drawing master, traveller, manager of 

 a chemical factory, and director of a museum at Manaos 

 he was, in 1889, appointed director of the Botanic Garden 

 at Lagos de Rodrigo de Freitas, near Rio de Janeiro, a 

 post which he held until his death. Numerous and ex- 

 tensive journeys took him over a great part of the Amazon 

 basin, and later on also the southern States, Uruguay and 

 Paraguay. One might have expected that large collections 

 would have resulted from those expeditions ; but his artistic 

 inclinations — he handled pencil and brush with considerable 

 facility — and his predilection for studying plants on the 

 spot and from life led him rather to fill his portfolios with 

 sketches and analyses and his note-books with descriptions 

 from the living material. His favourite plants were 

 Orchidaccae and Palmae, and his publications on them will 

 always ranlc among the most valuable contributions to 

 our knowledge of those families, even if we admit the 

 disadvantages of his method, which involved a certain 

 neglect of the documentary evidence accumulated in the 

 herbaria of Europe. He was a fertile writer, and his 

 publications extend beyond botany into the domains of 

 archaeology, pala-ontology, ethnography, and the Indian 

 languages. He intended to publish a complete icono- 

 graphia of the Orchidacese of Brazil. To that end he 

 amassed a large collection of drawings, all from life and 

 by his own hand ; however, their publication was beyond 

 his means. Only a volume of descriptions appeared, whilst 

 with great magnanimity he placed his illustrations, 

 amounting to between 500 and 600 sheets, at the disposal 

 of Prof. Cogniaux, who had undertaken to elaborate the 

 family for the " Flora Brasiliensis." He was, however, 

 more fortunate with his great work on the palms of Brazil. 

 Congress having passed a special vote for its publication, 

 it appeared in two huge folio volumes (pp. 140 and 114, 

 with 91 and 83 chromolithographs) in the following year. 

 In him Brazil has lost a good botanist and a man of many 

 accomplishments. 



A LETTER from Mr. Edgar R. Waite, curator of the 

 Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand, asking 

 lor information as to the length of skeletons of great whales 



