674 



NATURE 



[October 29, 1908 



(o Ije cari'ied out, and the amount necessary for its com- 

 |)lclion, must be made. Beneficiaries will be expected to 

 leport to the academy within twelve months how the 

 J,'! ant has been expended, and the results obtained. Non- 

 loinpliance with this rule will disqualify for future grants. 

 1 he first announcement of any results must in all cases 

 be made to the academy. 



The annual dinner of the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers was held at the Hotel Cecil on October 22, 

 u-hen some of the delegates to the International Confer- 

 ence on Electrical Units and Standards and to the Inter- 

 national Electrotechnical Commission were present. Mr. 

 Haldane proposed the toast of "Science and Industries." 

 " A few years ago," he said, " it may have seemed as 

 if the domination of science over 

 what science is applied to had its 

 highest illustration in the applica- 

 tion of pure mathematics to physics. 

 But we seem to have got a stage 

 beyond that. There is a topic which 

 is of fascinating interest, and that 

 is the domination which a new 

 generation altogether of pure mathe- 

 maticians are asserting over the old 

 mathematicians. The conception of 

 number which many people think 

 they are quite familiar with has 

 proved to be quite obscure. In days 

 which are long gone by, people were 

 content to take the motion of a 

 point in space, the line of the curve 

 it described, and accept that as the 

 ultimate standard by which to bring 

 their mathematical theories to the 

 test. On it they based the in- 

 finitesimal calculus, just as physicists 

 have been engaged for the last fort- 

 night in seeking standards on which 

 to base and test their electrical prac- 

 tice. But in these days, when every- 

 thing is questioned, there has arisen 

 a new school which has brushed 

 aside the old notions of space as an 

 exact test to which to refer the 

 mathematical theories of the day. 

 This is a sign of the times and an 

 indication of how men are asserting 

 the necessity of absolute and clear 

 conceptions as the basis of every- 

 thing. Whether we take a great 

 industry like the telephone, or such 

 things as the science of aerial 

 navigation, it requires a great 



deal of science to be applied to it before we get it on to 

 a secure basis. Or, if we take the conceptions of the 

 higher mathematics to-day, we are faced with the same 

 tendency which keeps men always busy, always striving 

 after some more general conception to which to refer 

 back what is being worked at. We cannot stand still. 

 In every nation more and more one is impressed with the 

 special excellences which are being developed, with the 

 way in which new men are coming to the front and new 

 truths are being born. And there is this great satisfaction, 

 that there is no real rivalry in the search after truth. 

 Everyone is proud of the contribution of his neighbour, of 

 whatever race. We must bear in mind that all men of 

 science, of whatever nationality, are converging on a 

 NO. 2035, VOL. 78 1 



common problem 

 science to industry. 



when working at the application of 



There has recently been placed on exhibition in the 

 British Palaeontological Gallery of the Liverpool Museum a 

 slab of Keuper sandstone taken from a quarry at Storeton, 

 Cheshire, which well illustrates almost all the varied traces 

 of life of the Trias found in the neighbourhood. The 

 slab was quarried about 50 feet from the surface, at the 

 level recognised locally as the " footprint beds." It is 

 about 8 inches in thickness, and exhibits impressions on 

 both surfaces — as indentations on what in situ was the 

 upper surface, and in relief on what was the under surface. 

 The impressions consist of well-marked footprints of both 

 fore and hind feet of the labyrinthodont Chirotherium in 



l^pper 'iide. 







U»-'" 



Under side. 

 Footprints and other markings upon a slab of Keuper Sandstone in the Liverpool Museum. 



several well-defined tracks, footprints of the rhyncho- 

 cephalid Rhynchosaurus, and casts of a group of fragments 

 of stems of the fossil genus of plants Equisetites. The 

 type-specimen of E. keupcrina, also from Storeton, is 

 exhibited in an adjoining case, and the casts on the slab 

 are either the same species or closely allied to it. The 

 joints or nodes and the grooving of the stem are distinctly 

 seen. The slab also exhibits good examples on one side of 

 "ripple marks " and on the other of "sun cracks," and 

 altogether forms a rather unique museum specimen. 



In reply to an inquiry as to what hardy flowering plants 

 and shrubs are especially attractive to butterflies, Mr. R. 

 Hooper Pearson has sent us the following information : — 



