272 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1315 



along' one of tlie moving axes ; furthermore, all 

 components of relative velocity, northward, 

 eastward, or upward (and their opposites) give 

 rise to these forces. Dr. Bering's argument 

 from the varying centrifugal force due to the 

 east and west motion of a particle brings to 

 light the gyroscopic forces due to the east-and- 

 west components of velocity, but it does not tell 

 the whole story. Vertical components, and 

 horizontal components in the meridian must 

 also be allowed for. 



There is nothing very new in the results 

 stated above. Problems of moving axes and the 

 effect of the earth's rotation are treated in 

 much detail in advanced treatises like Eouth's 

 "Eigid Dynamics." The equations of motion 

 for these eases can be conveniently ground out 

 by Lagrange's method, but it is always inter- 

 esting and instructive to obtain each term in 

 the result directly, and to examine its geo- 

 metrical and mechanical meaning. 



Walter D. Lambert 



U. S. Coast and Geodetic Sdrvet 



QUOTATIONS 



FEDERATIONS OF BRAIN WORKERS 



In the discussion on the better adjustment 

 of the relations between employers and em- 

 ployed which have occupied so much space in 

 the public press during the last year or so 

 attention has been almost exclusively directed 

 to the relations of industrial employers and 

 manual workers. The interests of other 

 classes of persons whose work is essential to 

 industry have been almost ignored, although 

 the Labor Party has declared its willingness 

 to accept recruits from among brain workers. 

 At the industrial conference simunoned by the 

 Prime Minister last April employers' asso- 

 ciations and trade unions considered a pro- 

 posal for a joint industrial council, and the 

 Society of Technical Engineers at this con- 

 ference moved an instruction to the council, 

 when it should come into existence, to con- 

 sider the position of unions composed exclu- 

 sively of members of technical, management, 

 and administrative grades, and to determine 

 how such unions should be represented on 



the council. The industrial council has not 

 yet come into existence, but meanwhile the 

 Labor Research Department has been making 

 inquiries into the position of professional 

 classes in relation to the labor movement, and 

 at a meeting in London on February 7, a 

 National Federation of Professional, Tech- 

 nical, Administrative, and Supervisory Work- 

 ers was formed. The bodies represented at 

 this conference included the Civil Servants 

 Union, the Association of Local Government 

 Board Officers, the J^ational Union of Clerks, 

 the National Federation of Law Clerks, the 

 National Union of Journalists, representa- 

 tives of scientific, technical, engineering, and 

 chemical workers, together with the Actors' 

 Association and the National Orchestral As- 

 sociation. A representative of the Labor Re- 

 search Department said that it was not pro- 

 posed that the Federation should affiliate with 

 the Labor Party or the Trade Union Con- 

 gress. Among the professions invited to 

 join the new Federation medicine and the law 

 are not included. It appears, however, that 

 for some months past certain technical and 

 scientific professional workers have been 

 taking steps to form themselves into a con- 

 federation, and that representatives of these 

 bodies and several others, after full discussion, 

 have prepared a memorandum proposing that 

 the various societies concerned should be 

 formed into an industrial group, a financial 

 group, a group for the public services, and a 

 group for the other professions. Each group 

 would form a federation, and the four would 

 be combined into a confederation for which 

 draft rides are being prepared. The General 

 Secretary of the Society of Technical Engi- 

 neers last week published a long letter on the 

 subject in The Times, in the course of which 

 he observed that the assumption that a 

 salaried official must ally himself either with 

 the employers or with the work-people ought 

 not to be accepted without further investiga- 

 tion. The position of medicine and the law 

 are similar to each other and difFer funda- 

 mentally from that of the intellectual workers 

 represented by such bodies as the Society of 

 Technical Engineers. The medical profession 



