338 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1345 



F. J. Wilson to the chair of organic chem- 

 istry in succession to Dr. I. M. Heilbron, who 

 was recently appointed professor of organic 

 chemistry in the University of Liverpool. 

 Dr. Caven was for many years lecturer in 

 chemistry at University College, l^ottingham, 

 a position he resigned to become Principal of 

 the Darlington Technical College. 



Dr. Harold St. John, formerly assistant 

 at the Gray Herbarium of Harvard Univer- 

 sity, has accepted an assistant professorship 

 of botany at the Washington State College. 



At the British Empire Forestry Confer- 

 ence in London Lord Lovat dealt with the 

 question of education. According to the 

 London Times he said that higher forestry 

 education subsidized by the state had been 

 carried on until recently at eight or nine edu- 

 cational centers. The Forestry Commission 

 had arrived at the conclusion that the forest 

 authority subsidies should only be granted to 

 those centers of education and research which 

 were directly required to carry out the state's 

 forest policy. Educational centers are re- 

 quired for higher forestry education for the 

 training of men who wished to take up 

 forestry as a career, i. e., the forest-officer 

 class; for education in the theory and prac- 

 tise of woodland management for owners and 

 managers of private woodlands; and for edu- 

 cation in practical forestry for working 

 foresters and foremen who intended to go in 

 for state or private forest service. The 

 Forestry Commission have therefore come to 

 the conclusion that as far as state assistance 

 went their interest should be confined to the 

 following objects: (1) To assist in the estab- 

 lishment of the machinery (stafE equipment 

 and facilities) for a complete course of 

 higher forestry education at one of the uni- 

 versities in the British Isles. (2) To sub- 

 sidize certain specialized courses, of which 

 forestry engineering should certainly be one, 

 which could be taken as a post-graduate or 

 fourth-year course at one of the other uni- 

 versities. (3) To be responsible for the pay- 

 ment of a lecturer in forestry at certain uni- 

 versities and colleges where adequate agri- 

 culture and estate management courses are 



established, and to set aside sufficient state 

 woodland for practical instruction. (4) Sub- 

 ject to certain payments by private owners, 

 to be responsible for the establishment and 

 upkeep of not less than seven or more than ten 

 working foresters' schools. 



A MEMORIAL has been presented to the Ger- 

 man National Assembly urging the formation 

 of an Imperial Chemicotechnical Laboratory, 

 which it is recommended should be formed 

 from the Military Test Bureau which existed 

 during the war. Nature, quoting from the 

 Zeits. des Vereines deutscher Ingenieure says 

 that it is suggested that the functions of the 

 new laboratory should be, inter alia, the ex- 

 ecution of scientific and technical investiga- 

 tions relative to raw materials, and partic- 

 ularly (1) the production of materials of im- 

 portance to the public, e. g., spirit from wood 

 and acetylene instead of from potatoes, and 

 of fatty acids from the products of coal- or 

 lignite-tar or paraffin, and the utilization and 

 improvement not only of cellulose as a sub- 

 stitute for cotton, but also of ammonium 

 nitrate obtained synthetically in large quanti- 

 ties as a fertilizer; and (2) the determina- 

 tion of substitutes for chemical and metal- 

 lurgical products not available in the country 

 or of which there is a shortage, i. e., substi- 

 tutes for paraffin, camphor, and glycerine, for 

 substances used in the preservation of leather 

 and metals, also substitutes for lubricants, 

 rubber, gutta-percha, etc. In addition, the 

 proposed new institute would carry out re- 

 searches of general interest, e. g., on rust- 

 prevention and the corrosion of metals, on the 

 determination of stresses in internal- com- 

 bustion engines, on the effect of winter cold 

 and the upper-air temperatures on implements 

 and raw materials, and on the testing and im- 

 provement of aeroplane and airship fabrics. 

 It is also suggested that scientific and tech- 

 nical investigations should be carried out 

 dealing with the prevention of accidents and 

 the protection of workers in a number of im- 

 portant industries. 



We learn from Nature that Mr. John 

 Quiller Eowett has contributed £10,000 towards 

 the endowment of an Institute for Research 



