NORTHERN NEWS. 
We regret to notice the announcement of the pate of Mr. Herbert 
Druce, the entomologist. 
Professor J. W. Judd has been elected Emeritus Professor of Geology 
in the Imperial College of Science and Technology. 
Sir Archibald Geikie has been elected a member of the Standing Com- 
mittee of the British Museum in the place of the late Lord Avebury. 
Mr. C. Carus-Wilson has favoured us with a copy of his paper ‘ On the 
presence of Copper in the Sandstone at Exmouth,’ which was read at the 
Birmingham meeting of the British Association. 
We have received a photograph of a large case of sea-birds—about 
70 in number—consisting of Guillemots, Razor-Bills, Puffins, etc., and 
a description of the ‘ Case illustrative of Nesting Colonies of Sea-birds on 
the Yorkshire Cliffs,’ recently presented to the Museum at Batley by the 
Hon. Curator, Mr. W. Bagshaw. There is a view of the Bempton Cliffs 
at the back of the case, but the ‘rocks’ upon which the birds are placed 
are certainly a bit ‘ rocky.’ 
The year 1914 being the centenary of the birth of the late Sir John 
Lawes and 1917 that of Sir Henry Gilbert, it is proposed to collect the sum 
of £42,000 to erect a suitable Commemoration Laboratory at the Rotham- 
sted Experimental Station, where additional accommodation is badly 
needed. It is understood that if half of this sum is raised by public 
subscription the other half can be obtained as a Grant from the Develop- 
ment Fund. An appeal is therefore made for £6,000, 
On the instigation of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, Harry Kirk, a 
young farmer of Scruton, Yorks., was fined for offering for sale two owls, 
the species being protected by the Wild Birds’ Protection Act, and a farmer 
named John Sanderson, of Sedbergh, who had been offering peregrine 
falcons for sale, was recently fined for having two birds in his possession. 
His defence was that he bought them from a man who had taken them 
from Cautley Crag, and if he had not bought them they would have been 
killed on account of the damage they did. It was alleged that they had 
been known to take lambs away. 
In a paper read at the Birmingham meeting of the British Association 
on ‘Harbour Projections and their Effect upon the Travel of Sand and 
Shingle,’ Mr. Ernest R. Matthews suggested that in order to modify this 
trapping of the sand, the ground plan of the harbour, instead of showing 
the piers to run out at right angles to the coast, or approximately so, 
should show that on the side facing the direction of the travelling material 
to project from the coast at an angle of 45°, the additional area thereby 
enclosed by the harbour piers could be utilised, among other purposes, 
for that of wharfage. The travelling material would, he stated, pass round 
the harbour projection if the plan of the harbour was on these lines, and 
would supply the coast on the lee side of the harbour with a natural pro- 
tection of sand and shingle. 
Filey is again becoming famous. The latest discovery was recently 
made by a diver while searching for wreckage in deep water off Ravenscar, 
‘He came upon a broad flight of stone steps. These, five in number, 
were of red sandstone, fourteen feet wide, all being firmly fixed by Roman 
concrete. They were carefully examined, and each step was found to 
be ‘‘ footworn in the centre.’’’ Why in the centre only, of a 14-foot step, 
it is difficult to say. And seeing that there has certainly been no change 
of level here since Roman times, it is difficult to understand how they 
could have been well worn in the centre, in deep water, Five steps 
fourteen feet wide, all cemented together, could hardly have fallen into 
the water from the cliff top without damage. Anyway, the Press gives 
particulars of the archeological achievements of the diver’s father, so we 
presume the report must be correct! 
Naturalist, 
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