September 7, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



235 



in Washington by direction of the executive 

 committee. War hygiene will be the central 

 theme of discussion, and Washington is the 

 city where information regarding the sanitary 

 problems of armies is being concentrated. 



The installation of a new aquarium at 

 Woods Hole Station of the Bureau of Fisheries 

 was completed on July 5, under the direction 

 of Superintendent Harron, of the central sta- 

 tion. The aquarium consists of 10 tanks, 

 which are arranged along the western and 

 northern sides of the exhibition room of the 

 hatchery building. The old grotto is entirely 

 displaced. The front of the aquarium is 

 stained to represent Spanish oak. The in- 

 teriors of the tanks are decorated with beach 

 rocks of various sizes secured in the vicinity. 

 The tanks were those used at the San Fran- 

 cisco exposition for the bureau's exhibit, but 

 it was necessary to alter them in order to 

 adapt them to the space allotted at Woods Hole. 

 The aquarium makes a very pleasing exhibit 

 and will be appreciated by the thousands of 

 people who annually visit the station, in addi- 

 tion to serving a useful purpose in the scien- 

 tific and fish-cultural work. 



Dr. MacNamara, a member for North Cam- 

 berwell, in answering a question put in the Brit- 

 ish House of Commons, defined the functions 

 of the Board of Invention and Research as fol- 

 lows: (a) To concentrate expert scientific in- 

 quiry on certain definite problems, the solution 

 of which is of importance to the naval service; 

 (h) to encourage research in directions in 

 which it is probable that results of value to the 

 navy may be obtained by organized scientific 

 effort; (c) to consider schemes or suggestions 

 put forward by inventors and other members 

 of the general public. The board considers all 

 inventions relating to naval warfare and acts 

 in an advisory capacity to the Admirality. It 

 has funds at its disposal for carrying out trials 

 and experiments and possesses fuU facilities 

 for arriving at a decision whether an invention 

 is worthy of adoption or not ; but the adoption 

 of an invention is subject to the approval of 

 the Board of Admiralty. The general superin- 

 tendence of the Board of Invention and Re- 



search is reserved to the First Lord, to whom 

 it has direct access. The Central Committee 

 meets once a week; the panel once every six 

 weeks, and the subcommittees hold meetings at 

 frequent intervals as the circumstances re- 

 quire. The president has attended 54 sittings 

 during the last 12 months. Dr. MaciSTamara 

 also stated that the members of the board who 

 received remuneration for their services were 

 the president, £1,350 a year, in addition to re- 

 tired pay; Vice-admiral Sir Richard H. 

 Peirse (naval member of Central Committee), 

 £1,530 a year; Professor W. H. Bragg (mem- 

 ber of Panel), whilst occupying the post of 

 resident director of research at an Admiralty 

 experiment station, professorial salary of 

 £1,000 a year at the University of London is 

 refunded by the Admiralty to the university 

 authorities; Dr. Dugald Clerk (member of 

 Panel), as director of engineering research at 

 the Admiralty Engineering Laboratory, City 

 and Guilds (Engineering) College, South Ken- 

 sington, is entitled to repayment of out-of- 

 jiocket expenses to an amount not exceeding 

 £600 a year. 



We learn from the Journal of Industrial 

 and Engineering Chemistry that through a co- 

 operative agreement with Cornell University, 

 representatives of the Bureau of Mines have 

 been stationed at Morse Hall, where the elec- 

 tric furnace equipment of the department of 

 chemistry has been utilized in some metallurg- 

 ical work of the bureau. Experiments on the 

 electric melting of brass have indicated that 

 a suitable electric furnace might materially re- 

 duce the metal losses from volatilization and 

 avoid the use of costly crucibles. The bureau 

 is now testing a commercial-size furnace with 

 special attention to its suitability for use on 

 brasses for cartridges and shrapnel cases. 

 Another electric furnace problem studied by 

 the bureau has been the production of ferro- 

 uranium from the uranium oxide obtained as 

 a by-product in the extraction of radium from 

 its ores. Ferro-uranium is used in making 

 uranium steel, which is said to be used by Ger- 

 many for the lining of big guns which will 

 stand up at a rate of fire so rapid that other 

 steels fail. It is undecided whether the work 



