90 
Sim Bernard Mauer, the Registrar-General 
of Great Britain, delivered a lecture recently 
at the Royal Institute of Public Health on 
“The effects of the war as shown in vital sta- 
tistics.” Dealing with the decline in the birth- 
rate due to the war, he said that in England 
and Wales the births registered in 1913 num- 
bered 881,890. In 1915 they fell to 814,614. 
In 1916 there was a further fall to 780,520, the 
slightness of the fall from the previous year 
being due to the increase in marriages in 
1915, when the number celebrated reached the 
“vecord” figure of 360,885. In 1917 the births 
registered fell to 668,346, a decline from the 
1913 figure of 24 per cent. Up to the present 
there had been lost in England and Wales in 
potential lives, on the standard of 1913, 650,- 
000. He thought that it would be long before 
the birth-rate reached the figure that obtained 
before the war. Serious as this loss is to the 
coming generations in Great Britain, he con- 
tinued, there is reason to believe that it had 
suffered less in this direction than the other 
belligerent nations. In terms of percentages 
of loss on the pre-war population it may be 
assumed that Germany has lost in potential 
lives the equivalent of 4.5 per cent. of its total 
pre-war population, Austria 5 per cent., and 
Hungary 7 per cent. The statement may be 
hazarded that the present war, by the fall of 
births it has occasioned, cost the belligerent 
countries of Europe not less than 123 millions 
of potential lives. While the war has filled 
the graves, it has emptied the cradles. At the 
present time, every day that the war continues 
means the loss of 7,000 potential lives to the 
United Kingdom, France, Italy and the Cen- 
tral Empires. 
TECHNICALLY trained men and women are 
needed for the examining corps of the Patent 
Office. Those are wanted who have a scien- 
tific education, particularly in higher mathe- 
matics, chemistry, physics and French or Ger- 
man, and who are not subject to the draft for 
military service. Engineering or teaching ex- 
perience in addition to the above is valued. 
The entrance salary is $1,500. Examinations 
for the position of assistant examiner are held 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Vou. XLVIII. No. 1230 
frequently by the Civil Service Commission at 
many points in the United States. One is an- 
nounced for August 21 and 22, 1918. Details 
of the examination, places of holding the same, 
ete., may be had upon application to the Civil 
Service Commission, Washington, D. C., or to 
the Patent Office. Should the necessity there- 
fore arise temporary appointments of qualified 
persons may be made pending their taking the 
Civil Service examination. Application for 
such appointment should be made to the Patent 
Office. 
OPPORTUNITIES in government work for 
women include the following, announced by 
the United States Civil Service Commission : 
Bacteriologist: Vacancies in Public Health 
Service, at $1,800 a year. Applicants must 
have graduated from a college or univer- 
sity of recognized standing in a course in- 
eluding biology and bacteriology and have had 
at least two years postgraduate experience in 
practical bacteriologic laboratory methods. 
Biochemist: The United States Civil Service 
Commission announces an open competitive 
examination for biochemist for both men and 
women for duty in Washington or elsewhere, 
at salaries ranging from $1,800 to $3,000 a 
year. Certification to fill the higher-salaried 
positions will be made from those attaining 
the highest average percentages in the exami- 
nations. Competitors will not be required to 
report at any place but will be rated on edu- 
cation and experience and publications or 
thesis to be filled with application. 
TueERE are still many elements of uncertainty 
in the search for oil pools, but some of these 
are reduced to a minimum in regions where 
rock outcrops are conspicuous and the relation 
of the oil pools to the structure of the rocks 
is relatively simple. These are the conditions 
in the Big Horn Basin, Wyo., a report on 
which has recently been published by the 
United States Geological Survey, Department 
of the Interior, as Bulletin 656, “ Anticlines 
in the southern part of the Big Horn Basin, 
Wyo.” ‘The report is one of a series on the ex- 
isting and prospective oil fields of the state, 
several of which have already been published. 
