October 29, 1908J 



NA TURE 



673 



The organising committee of llie Anthropological Con- 

 gress has postponed the date of the fourteenth congress. 

 Instead of being held at Dublin in iqon, it will lake place 

 in iQio. 



The opening meeting of the new session of the Institu- 

 tion of Electrical Engineers will be held on Thursday, 

 November 12, when the president, Mr. W. M. Mordey, 

 will deliver his inaugural address. 



The council of the Institution of Civil Engineers has 

 made the following awards for the year 1907-8 : — Telford 

 gold medals to W. B. Parsons and Dr. H. Lapworth ; a 

 Watt gold medal to Sir Whately Eliot ; George Stephenson 

 gold medals to Sir John W. Ottley, K.C.I.E., Dr. \. W. 

 Brightmore, J. S. Wilson, and W. Gore. 



Prof. R. H. Chittenden, director of tlie Sheffield 

 Scientific School of Yale University, has, we learn from 

 Science, been appointed the University's representative at 

 the Darwin celebration to be held at the University of 

 Cambridge We.xt June. 



The death is announced, at sixty-two years of age, of 

 M. Gustave Canet, president of the Junior Institution of 

 Engineers. M. Canet was president of the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers of France, and one of the founders of the 

 Freiich .Association for the .Advancement of Science. 



The death is announced of M. Paul Berger, the eminent 

 French surgeon. M. Berger was a member of the Paris 

 .Academy of Medicine, and took an active and authoritative 

 part in the discussions of the society. He also belonged 

 to the French Anatomical Society and to the Soci^te de 

 Chirurgie, of which he was president. 



The Pioneer Mail understands that a special pension has 

 been granted by the Government of India to Dr. Eugen 

 Hultzsch, who recently retired from the editorship of 

 Epigraphia Indica, the journal of Indian antiquarian re- 

 search, in recognition of his services to Indian archaeology. 

 Dr. Hultzsch went out to the archaeological department 

 in India in 1886. 



The death is announced of Dr. Cuthbert CoUingwood 

 at the age of eighty-two. Dr. CoUingwood was elected 

 a Fellow of the Linnean Society so long ago as 1853, and 

 was a foreign member of the Physico-Economic Society 

 of Konigsberg. He was the author of " Rambles of a 

 Naturalist in the China Seas," and of various scientific 

 papers in the Transactions of the Linnean Society and 

 other publications. 



The annual Hu.xley memorial lecture of the Royal 

 .Anthropological Institute will be delivered by Prof. W. Z. 

 Ripley, of Harvard University, on Friday, Noveinber 13, 

 at S.30 p.m., in the theatre of the Civil Service Com- 

 mission, Burlington Gardens, W. (by permission of the 

 First Coinmissioner of Works). Prof. Ripley has taken 

 for his subject " The European Inhabitants of the United 

 States." Tickets can be obtained on application to the 

 secretary of the Royal .Anthropological Institute, 3 Hanover 

 Square, W. 



The annual general meeting of the Junior Institution 

 of Engineers was held at the Royal United Service Institu- 

 tion, Whitehall, on October ig, the chairman, Mr. Frank 

 R. Durham, presiding. The report of the council referred 

 to the election of Mr. James Swinburne, F.R.S., as presi- 

 dent in succession to the late M. Gustave Canet. Special 

 reference was made to the foundation of the Durham 

 bursary, due to the kindness of Mrs. F. R. Durham. The 



NO. 2035, VOL. 78] 



award for the year 1908-13 has gone to Mr. L. M. Jockel, 

 of Edinburgh, his thesis being on the subject of electricity 

 in mining. 



We notice with regret the death, in his seventy-fourth 

 year, of Mr. Henry Chapman, who did notable work in 

 the development of the application of machine tools 

 actuated by hydraulic power, the perfecting of torpedo 

 machinery, and with air compressors. He introduced the 

 Giffard injector into this country, and was one of the 

 pioneers of the principle of distributing high-pressure 

 water. Mr. Chapman was elected vice-president of the 

 Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1907. He belonged 

 to the Iron and Steel Institute, and was a member of the 

 Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Institution of 

 Naval Architects. He was decorated by the French 

 Government in 187S as Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, 

 and was promoted to the rank of officer in 18S9. 



The International Electrolechnical Commission held its 

 first council meeting at the new home of the Institution of 

 Electrical Engineers, on the Victoria Embankment, on 

 October 19. The Right Hon. A. J. Balfour welcomed the 

 delegates of eighteen countries, and spoke of the intimate 

 relations existing between theory and practice in electricity. 

 From the report of Colonel R. E. Crompton, it appears 

 that electrolechnical committees have been officially con- 

 stituted in ten countries, while in six other countries com- 

 mittees are to be formed in the near future. The French 

 committee urges the adoption of the metric system, and 

 has also raised the question of a provisional standard of 

 light. The council in committee is also to deal with 

 matters relating to nomenclature, symbols, and regulations 

 for fire insurance for interior electrical wiring. 



Writing to the Times of October 24 with reference to 

 tlie destruction of ancient monuments on Dartmoor, Mr. 

 G. Hubbard states that on Bush Down the sockets may 

 be seen on the side of the hill where an alignment of 

 stones was torn up four years ago, and that portions of 

 another stone alignment on the common land on the same 

 Down have within recent weeks been converted into road 

 metal. It appears to be a common practice with road- 

 makers in the district to collect stones from the moor and 

 to break them up into road metal. One road-maker 

 questioned by Mr. Hubbard said he had no definite instruc- 

 tions as to which stones to use for this purpose, but " he 

 always took those which were handiest." If local authori- 

 ties and landowners would insist that the stones for road- 

 mending should be obtained from roadside quarries, some 

 check would be placed upon these deeds of vandalism while 

 we are awaiting an Act to render such proceedings illegal. 



It will be remembered that on February 20 last Prince 

 Roland Bonaparte placed at the disposal of the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences four yearly sums of 25,000 francs 

 for the encouragement of scientific research among men 

 of science not belonging to the acadeiny. The grants are 

 intended exclusively to encourage discoveries and to assist 

 scientific workers who, having accomplished some success^ 

 ful original research, are unable for want of sufficient 

 funds to undertake or to coinplete investigations. The 

 first grant was made by the academy last June, in accord- 

 ance with the report of a special commission. The three 

 next annual grants will be made on July 15 of each of 

 the three years 1909-11. No grant of less than 2000 francs 

 will be made. Men of science desirous of participating in 

 the awards must apply to the academy, either directly 

 or through a member of the academy, before January i 

 of each year. A precise statement of tlie work proposed 



