168 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1338 



the changes to a slow reduction of factorial 

 potency, culminating in complete factorial 

 loss. While in by far the majority of forms of 

 life the germ factors are static, may there not 

 be others in which certain of the factors are 

 increasing in potency and some in which they 

 are dwindling? 



j. e. duerden 

 Rhodes Universitt College, 

 Geahamstown, South Africa 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



CENTRAL HEADQUARTERS FOR BRITISH 

 CHEMISTS 



At a dinner held in honor of Lord Moulton 

 on July 21, Sir William Pope announced that 

 a public appeal was about to be made for 

 funds for the erection of central headquart- 

 ers for British chemistry. According to a 

 statement in Nature none of the chemical 

 bodies has the accommodation for a meeting 

 of more than two hundred persons, or ade- 

 quate library space. The Chemical Society 

 conducts its business at Burlington House, 

 Piccadilly, in rooms provided by the govern- 

 ment nearly fifty years ago, when the member- 

 ship was about one fifth of what it is to-day. 

 The Institute of Chemistry possesses a good 

 building in Russell Square, completed during 

 the first year of the war, but it is barely ade- 

 quate for the present activities of the insti- 

 tute, which has to look to colleges for hos- 

 pitality for any general meeting of unusual 

 interest and for lectures. The Society of 

 Chemical Industry and the Society of Public 

 Analysts hold their meetings at the Chemical 

 Society's rooms. Neither of these bodies nor 

 any other which is concerned with chemistry, 

 such as the British Association of Chemical 

 Manufacturers, the Faraday Society, the Bio- 

 chemical Society, and those devoted to the 

 various branches of technology — brewing, dyes, 

 glass, ceramics, iron and steel, non-ferrous 

 metals, leather, concrete, petroleum, and so 

 forth — possesses accommodation to compare 

 with the spacious halls and headquarters of 

 the Institutions of the Civil, the Mechanical, 

 and the Electrical Engineers, and of the 

 Eoyal Society of Medicine. 



The appeal, which will be made by the Fed- 

 eral Council for Ptu-e and Applied Chemistry, 

 on which practically all the chemical interests 

 of the country are represented, has the cordial 

 support of Lord Moulton, who, as director- 

 general of the explosives supplies, ministry of 

 munitions repeatedly acknowledged the serv- 

 ices rendered during the war by these scien- 

 tific, technical, and industrial bodies. 



The scheme, which aims at providing under 

 one roof, so far as is practicable, a common 

 meeting place, library, and editorial facilities 

 for technical journals, is highly desirable, and 

 indeed imperative, as a matter of supreme im- 

 portance to the welfare of the whole country 

 in relation to questions of defence and the 

 maintenance and development of all branches 

 of industry and commerce which depend on 

 the applications of chemistry. The sum re- 

 quired for building is estimated at £250,000; 

 a similar sum is required for establishing a 

 chemical library and to provide for the com- 

 pilaton and production of works of reference 

 in the English language. 



FORESTRY EDUCATION 



The British Empire Forestry Conference, 

 which met in London during July adopted 

 the following resolutions on forestry educa- 

 tion, which the delegates are to bring to the 

 notice of their respective governments: 



It should be a primary duty of forest authorities 

 throughout the empire to establish systematic 

 schemes of forest education. It has been found, 

 for climatic and other reasons, that it would not be 

 possible for each part of the empire to establish a 

 complete scheme of forestry education of its own, 

 and therefore it is essential that those parts of the 

 empire which are willing and able to establish 

 complete systems should, as far as possible, frame 

 such schemes with a view to combining for meeting 

 the needs of those parts which can only themselves 

 make a partial provision for their requirements. 

 Part of this subject has been dealt with by a com- 

 mittee, whose report, which refers mainly to the 

 higher training of forest officers, is approved by the 

 conference. The main principles embodied in this 

 report are as foUows: 



1. That one institution for training forest offi- 

 cers be established in the United Kingdom. 



2. That students be selected from graduates hav- 



