FEBRUARY !4, 1925] 239

tions were familiar to the people of northern India in WE regret to announce the following deaths: the fourth and third centuries B.c., the assumption of Sir Anderson Critchett, Bart., K.C.V.O., surgeon• an Iranian origin for the rulers of Magadha has no oculist to the King, first president of the Council of histori<;al warranty at present, and involves the British Ophthalmologists, president in 1894 and 1899 rejection of important traditional and literary evidence of the Ophthalmological Society of the United as to their descent. Kingdom and in 1913 of the Ophthalmic of Dr. Spooner's research work at Kumrahar needs the International Medical Congress held in London, on February g, aged seventy-nine. no commendation, and he was probably led into his novel speculations about the Mauryas by his intense Dr. Horace T. Brown, F.R.S., distinguished for his work on the chemistry of carbohydrates, on the enthusiasm-the very quality which, combined with assimilation of atmospheric carbon dioxide by leaves, sedulous activity, rendered him so valuable a servant of and on gaseous diffusion through small apertures, on the Government of India. Ave atque vale. S. M. E. February 6, aged seventy-six.

Current Topics and Events. WIDESPREAD interest has been aroused among the truth. Comparatively few men are sufficiently gifted general public by the publication of Prof. Dart's to be able to use the scientific method in seeking for account of the discovery of A ustralopithecus africanus, the truth, but they no longer fear .the results to which <>r the Taungs Man, as the Press has elected to call it leads. Truth is essential, and therefore all en• him, in last week's issue of NATURE. Although the couragement should be given to men of science and discovery dated from November last, the news had of faith. been carefully guarded, and it was only when a cable was received in England on February 4, and appeared MR. HUGHES spoke on the value of science in in the Press on the following day, on the eve of the promoting international co-operation and concord. publication of the article in NATURE, that it became Science may forge new and t errible weapons of known. Notwithstanding the absence of precise destruction, but she is far more eloquent as she points details, the importance of the news was at once recog• to the wastes of strife, to, the retarding of progress, nised by the leading London and provincial daily and to the vast opportunities which are open to papers, which quoted freely from Prof. Dart's article those peoples who will abandon mutual fears and as soon as it was available. In another part of this destroy artificial barriers to community of enterprise. issue, Sir Arthur Keith, Prof. G. Elliot Smith and Dr. Each nation should collect, collate, and safeguard W. L. H. Duckworth discuss the significance of the all data and records made within its territory, and discovery. should make them readily available to other nations. International co-operation in research is absolutely THE debt which the modern civilised world owes necessary, and both national research organisations to science has seldom been acknowledged so generously, and the International Research Council are doing <>r expressed so eloquently, by responsible statesmen good work and opening up a new era of international as by President Coolidge and by Mr. C. E. Hughes, co-operation in science. Scientific method is needed Secretary of State, in their addresses to the recent in government, in making and administering the law. meeting of the American Association for the Advance• The scientific attitude of mind is needed because it ment of Science at Washington, D.C., which have comprises search for pure knowledge, distrust of been printed in a recent issue of S cience. No other phrases and , hatred of shams, willingness single agency, says the President of the United States, to discard outworn beliefs, and, above all, faith in has relied so much upon the work of men and women humanity and zeal for the public good. <>f science as has his government, which has been foremost in employing and most liberal in endowing THE Right Ron. T. R. Ferens, High Steward of science, although it cannot claim to have been Hull, has presented to Hull the princely sum of " impressively liberal " to the scientific workers 25o,oool. as a nucleus towards a University College whom it has employed. The scientific work done for the city. In his Jetter to the Lord Mayor an• under the administrative departments has, he says, nouncing his intention of making the gift, Mr. Ferens been of enormous value to the whole people. Men stated that he had carefully consulted university of science are " the wonder-workers of all the ages " ; professors and others interested in educational the discoveries made by them h ave become common• matters, and was satisfied that the time was arriving places because their number has paralysed the when Hull should join other cities, such as Birming• capacity of the mind for wonderment. Representa• ham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, etc., in giving tives of social and political organisations regard the opportunities to its sons and daughters for higher march of science with awe, and sometimes with fear, education. We believe it was at the meeting of when they ask themselves what will be the next the British Association at Hull, when the retiring revolution to which their schemes will have to be president, Sir Edward Thorpe, and the president, adapted ; but the conviction that science works for Sir Charles Sherrington, were the guests of Mr. Ferens, the public weal, and that at the worst it saves life that the idea was first suggested. In addition to from being very monotonous, restores their confidence. this magnificent gift, a new Art Gallery, costing It has taken endless ages to create in men the courage something like go,oool., together with its site in the that will accept the truth simply because it is the centre of the city, has been presented by Mr. Ferens. NO. 2885, VOL. 115]

©1925 Nature Publishing Group NATURE [FEBRUARY I4, I925

He has given more than I r,oool. towards pictures it. A fortiori it is hopelessly unscientific to pre• for the permanent collection, without which the suppose two or more etl;lers. In his opinion the last probability is the present Art Gallery in the City twenty-five years will rank as one of the most fruitful Hall would not have existed. Other gifts of Mr. and important periods in the history of physics. In Ferens include more than 9oool. for the site for a an hour the lecturer covered a very wide field. He new technical college, amounts set aside for scholar• touched on Rutherford's, Bohr's, and Sommerfeld's ships, playing fields, almshouses, boating-lake, and theory of the atom. He pointed out that the ex• similar objects. planation of line spectra is one of the most satis• factory in the whole range of physics, the numerical LoNGEVITY among scientific men is exemplified accuracy of the theory rivalling the most accurate in a signal manner through the ninetieth anniversary of astronomical calculations. He is of opinion that of the birth of a distinguished zoologist, the Rev. T. the theory of a mechanical ether believed in by R. R. Stebbing, F.R.S., an event which occurred on Faraday and Maxwell is dead. As soon as we pass February 6, and was duly celebrated at his home at beyond the minute range covered by the Newtonian Tunbridge Wells. The record of the Stebbing family mechanics and the classical electro- dynamics, the with the Royal Society, from father to son, is note• picture presented to us by "the quantum dynamics worthy when we recall that 1765, 1845, and 1896 are, takes us by surprise. We find that Nature consists respectively, years of family elections into that body. of a series of abrupt jumps. These jumps are so Born in London, Mr. Stebbing was the fourth son of minute and so close together that they produce the the Rev. Dr. Stebbing, many years acting editor of illusion of continuous motion, and no satisfactory the Athenmum, indeed almost from its foundation in mechanical explanation has yet been given. 1828. Incidentally, we may remark that the third son, Mr. William Stebbing, for long Delane's right• THE fourth annual report of the British Electrical hand man on the staff of the Times, is also alive. and Allied Industries Research Association has now Mr. Stebbing's life studies in zoological science have been published. It is stated that the results obtained been concerned principally with the Crustacea. His last year represent a real contribution to progress in report upon the Amphipoda of the Challenger Expedi• the affected industries, but nothing of a spectacular tion occupies three quarto volumes, comprising 1774 character has been discovered. Hitherto com• pages of letterpress and 212 plates. It was accom• mercial research has been concerned mainly with the panied by a giving a critical report of finding of the values of physical constants. Little everything that had been written respecting these has been done in the way of obtaining new scientific Crustacea from the time of Aristotle to the year r887. knowledge. It is stated that the discoveries of Sir This detailed analysis occupies more than 6oo pages, J . J. Thomson and Sir E. Rutherford are opening up being in fact a complete history of the group. Mr. immense fields of knowledge which may not only Stebbing has always been greatly interested in pro• revolutionise existing methods of design but even moting local scientific societies. His efforts in this alter the nature of the activities of the whole in• connexion in the south-east of England, jointly with dustry. The Association is giving close attention to the late Mr. George Abbott, were referred. to in NATURE the possibilities of work in this direction. It is of February 7, p. 201. Mr. Stebbing was zoological considered, for example, that there is necessity for secretary of the Linnean Society, 1903-1907, and fundamental research on a large scale into the pheno• Linnean medallist, 1908. We proffer our heartiest mena of dielectrics. This of course is of great congratulations to him upon the auspicious occasion interest to the cable and therefore to the whole elec• of a nonagenarian birthday. trical industry. We shall be very interested to note the results of these great schemes of co-operative DR. H. JEANS gave the sixteenth Kelvin Lecture J. research. to the Institution of Elecb"ical Engineers on February 6. He chose as his subject electrical forces and THE late Mr. Thomas L. Gray, who died about a quanta, and gave a masterly resume of the theories year ago, bequeathed the residue of his estate, which of relativity and quanta. Starting with Einstein's is expected to amount to about 7oool., to the Royal hypothesis he stated that the whole theory of gravita• Society of Arts for the purpose of founding a memorial tion and of electromagnetic forces can be worked out to his father, Thomas Gray, formerly head of the by pure geometry. When, however, we come to the Marine Department of the Board of Trade. Accord• theory of quanta we have to determine the magnitude ing to the Society's journal, the bequest is to be of the quantum, and so it is necessary to have recourse known as "The Thomas Gray Memorial Trust," and to experiment. He considers that there is now no the income derived from it is to be devoted to "the room for doubt as to the substantial accuracy of advancement of the science of navigation and the Einstein's relativity theory. It provides a general scientific and educational interests of the British dominating principle, to which all phenomena must Mercantile Marine." It is suggested in the will that conform. It helps us to discover the laws according these objects may be achieved by offering prizes for to which events occur, but has nothing to do with new inventions relating to navigation, by making why they occur. It is unscientific to suppose an grants for scientific research and for lectures on the ether unless there is an absolute necessity for it. subject, and by providing scholarships for students The hypothesis is unnecessary, in Dr. Jeans's opinion, or teachers and offering prizes for essays on and as the explanations are entirely satisfactory without awards for the saving of life at sea. Thomas Gray NO. 288 5, VOL. I I 5] ©1925 Nature Publishing Group NATURE was in charge of the Marine Department during the question of economics is why some people, incli• seventies and 'eighties, when British shipping was or collectively, are better off than others, developing rapidly, and took a prominent part in Mr. Dunlop said that useful and illuminating results formulating the present system of regulation and can be obtained in the tropical world, by contrasting control. one country which is undeveloped and poorly off THE issue of Die N aturwissenschaften for January 16 with another that is relatively highly developed and is devoted to an account of the foundation on January extremely well off. Taking British Guiana in South q, 1845, of the Physikalischen Gesellschaft of Berlin America, and British Malaya in the East, the total by Profs. Beetz, Bri1cke, Karsten, Knoblauch and population and external trade of the former in 1923 Du Bois-Reymond, and its subsequent history. were 3oo,ooo and 6.426,6o7l., while those of the latter Profs. Warburg, Goldstein, Scheel, Pringsheim and were 3t millions and 147,945,86ol. As countries go, Planck are responsible for an interesting and well• both are similar in size (comparable to the area of illustrated account of the Society and its activities. the United Kingdom), both are fertile, and both The five founders are shown in the frontispiece, which have mineral and other resources. The difference in in itself makes an interesting study of professorial extent of development is fundamentally clue to (a) attire. Profs. Clausius, Quincke, Kunclt and Kohl• difference in world geographical position, (b) difference rausch form another group, and separate portraits are in mineral resources, (c) internal geographical dis• given of Profs. Riecke, Warburg, Brlicke, Kirchhoff, advantages in the case of British Guiana. On Helmholtz, Halske, Weierstrass, G. Wiedemann, the whole, British Malaya is also more efficient Kronecker, Schwalbe, Werner Siemens, Hagenbach, industrially than British Guiana. Concerning effi• von Bezold, Foerster, Planck and Goldstein. As the ciency in public administration, Mr. Dunlop directed Society developed out of the physical colloquium attention to the fundamental importance of transport, founded by Prof. Magnus in Berlin in 1843, it is fitting public health, land administration, forestry and :hat Prof. Pringsheim's recent address to the Society scientific research of all kinds in tropical economic on the Magnus effect, its theory as developed by development. Comparison of existing policies .in Prof. Prancltl. and its application by Dr. Flettner, these matters in British Guiana and British Malaya should be given a prominent place and that the shows striking differences. In , Mr. Dunlop original figures of the Magnus paper should be re• said that he used British Guiana and British Malaya produced. as illustrations providing data and proof for demon• strating the nature of the research he was advocating. THE final sale of the Crisp collection of microscopes takes place on Tuesday, February 17, at Stevens's APPLICATIONS are invited for some junwr pro· Auction Rooms, where in rgzo and 1921 the other fessional assistantships at the Meteorological Office. portions of the collection were sold. Irr the catalogue Candidates must hold an honours degree in mathe• which Messrs. Stevens have issued, 371 lots are matics or physics. applications should be detailed, arranged in groups :-(r) Simple microscopes addressed to the Secretary (S. 2), Air Ministry, and small pocket compound microscopes; (z) com• Aclastral House, pound microscopes dating from the seventeenth Tn:;:; Royal A1rcraft Establishment, South Farn· century to the of achromatism in the borough, Hants, is reqt1iring a test assistant for early part of the nineteenth century ; (3) optical aerial photographic work. Candidates should possess cabinets, solar and projection microscopes. The some knowledge of chemistry, preferably photo• various Nuremberg wooden microscopes form graphic chemistry, and be medically fit for flying. another small group. In each group .. the instruments Applications should be marked A. 46 and be sent to are catalogued approximately in chronological order. tbe Superintendent of the Establishment. Illustrations are given of fourteen of the earlier and tnore interesting instruments, including the unique SrR OTTO BErT, Bt., F.R.S. ; Sir Sidney Frederic silver microscope made by G. Adams, a Hooke Harmer, F.R.S., Director of the Natural History microscope, and original examples by Campani, Departments, British Museum; and Sir Frank Marshall, and Lindsay. The whole collection, which Short, Royal Academician, president of the Royal consisted of about 3000 microscopes, was formed Society of Painter-Etchers, have been elected members during the latter half of the last century by the late of the Athen

30, 1889, the centre lay to the east of Jersey. It has trolled by Sir Napier from 1900 until 1924. At the been suggested that the shock was due to the sub• commencement of Sir Napier's official career at the sidence of disused mine-works, but the greatest Meteorological Office, . a quarter of a century ago, known area disturbed by such earth-shakes is less weather observations were obtainable only at the than 150 square miles, and, owing to the small depth central weather offices of different countries, and the of the origin in such cases, the intensity is always area embraced was very much limited. Now the daily great near the centre of the area ·and declines rapidly map obtained embraces practically the whole of the outwards. Northern Hemisphere. It is only a little more than 6o years ago that charting the weather on daily maps AT the annual meeting of the Royal Microscopical was introduced into Great Britain bv Admiral Fitz• Society held on January 21, the following were Roy. Much information is given the periodical elected as officers and members of the Council for the bearing on ships' wireless weather news, by means of ensuing year : Mr. A. Chaston Chapman ; President, which every opportunity is afforded sea men of con• Prof. F. J . Cheshire, Mr. M. T. Denne, Vice-Presidents, structing their own weather charts when at sea. Sir Robert A. Hadfield, Bart., Dr. R. J. Ludford ;. Treasurer, Mr. C. F. Hill; Honorary Secretaries, Mr. IN the January issue of Science Progress Mr. F. W. J. E . Barnard, Dr. J. A. Murray; Members of Council, Shurlock, Principal of Derby Technical College, gives Mr. S. C. Akehurst, Mr. E. W. Bowell, Rev. Canon an account of the Rev. A. Bennet, F .R.S., curate of G. R. Bullock-Webster, Dr. H. G. Cannon, Dr. C. Wirksworth, near Matlock, and inventor of the gold Da Fano, Mr. E. H. Ellis, Prof. R. Ruggles leaf electrometer. Unfortunately, the "Dictionary Gates, Mr. T. H. Hiscott, Mr. J. W. Ogilvy, Mr. of National Biography" gives no account of Bennet D. J. Scourfield, Dr. C. Tierney, Mr. H. Wrighton; and ascribes the invention of the instrument to George Librarian, Mr. R. Paulson, ; Editor, Dr. J. W. H. John Singer. The " Encyclop;:edia Britannica" and Eyre; Curator of Instruments, Mr. W. E. Watson Wiedemann's " Elektricitat" both give the credit Baker ; Curator of Slides, Mr. E . J. Sheppard. to Bennet, and cite his paper in the Transactions of the Royal Society for 1787, in which the instrument AT the last meeting of the Illuminating Engineering is described. It is dated "Wirksworth, Sept. q, Society on Jan. 27, a paper was read by Mr. W. T. J. I 786," and as Singer was born in this year there can Walsh, of the National Physical Laboratory, Tedding• be no question of priority. Mr. Shurlock quotes the ton, dealing with some little-understood aspects of description of the instrument, the method adopted the effect of shadows in lighting problems. It is well for getting an electric charge from the air by means known that the shadows cast by indirect lighting of a flame and the method of doubling the charge systems-for example, when light is received by re• obtained. Bennet's Royal Society papers form the flection from a white ceiling-are so soft as to be basis of his book, "New Experiments on Electricity," inappreciable to the eye. In fact such systems have published at Derby in 1789. He appears to have sometimes been described as " shadowless." Mr. been a master at the Free Grammar School at Wirks• Walsh was able to show that what the eye cannot worth, and there is a quaint portrait of him in the perceive the photometer can detect, and that in fact vestry of the parish church. He became rector of the obstruction of light by a person's body or adjacent Fenny Bentley near Ash bourne in 1796 and died there machinery, etc., m·ay in such cases cause a very in 1799. marked diminution in the available illumination. Similar conditions apply when one is dealing with THE "Arcadia" projector, shown in operation at daylight from a white sky, yielding ill-defined shadows. the King's Cross Cinema on February 4, has several Methods of calculating the ensuing loss of light were novel and distinct features. Hitherto the projection suggested. An interesting example of such effects of " living pictures " has been based on the use of an was afforded by a room with white walls and ceiling automatic shutter alternately opening and closing, which, when empty, appeared to be brilliantly illumin• and presenting a rapid succession of " still " effects. ated; but when the room was occupied by bulky, The shutter causes a rapid alternation of light and dark-coloured machinery the illumination was found darkness and is liable to cause more or less flicker. to be inadequate. .At the conclusion of the meeting The new projector makes use of a complex arrange• it was mentioned that a special course of lectures, ment of rotating mirrors, whereby successive pictures each given by an expert on some special aspect of are imposed, but throughout the process there is illumination, is being arranged to take place at the substantially the same amount of light on the screen, Polytechnic, Regent Street, starting in April next. and it is claimed that this removes one potential cause of eye-strain. In addition the method gives rise WITH its January issue The Marine Observer has to a certain degree of stereoscopic effect. The entered upon its second year. The former Director mechanism of the projector and the method of feeding of the Meteorological Office, Sir Napier Shaw, con• the film also present novel features, conducive to tributes an interesting communication, "A Meteoro• greater steadiness and more silent running, and the logist at Sea," a reflection on meteorology when travers• amount of wear and tear of the film is stated to be ing the Atlantic for the recent British Association very much reduced. A similar projector was demon• meeting in Canada. The reflection roughly compares strated at the Imperial College, South Kensington, official meteorology as undertaken by Admiral Fitz• on February ro, 1921, and described in our issue of Roy in 1855-1865 with official meteorology as con- February 24, 1921, p. 84r. NO. 2885, VOL. I I SJ ©1925 Nature Publishing Group NATURE 243

THE recently amalgamated firms of T. Cooke and ally in physics and physical chemistry, have not induced Sons, Ltd., and Troughton and Simms, Ltd., 3 the scientific apparatus firms and instrument makers to Broadway, Westminster, S.W.r, which went into introduce the new apparatus to general notice. This voluntary liquidation several months ago, inform us has been a real disadvantage to the research worker that this state of affairs has now been satisfactorily in soils. It has usually been possible to persuade a terminated. They wish it to be known that their firm to make a copy of some particular apparatus, facilities for designing and manufacturing high-grade the construction of which was beyond the ordinary scientific instruments and apparatus in large quanti• laboratory facilities, but this is a very expensive way, ties have been retained intact, so that they are able as all the special costs are chargeable to the one to deal with orders as hitherto. apparatus. On the other hand, when an apparatus is listed in a catalogue, not only does it bear a smaller MEssRs. Adam Hilger, Ltd., have recently issued share of the overhead charges, but the publicity usually a handsome catalogue of their various manufactures. results in increased sales, which act in the same direc• It includes thirteen sections and is provided with a tion. Messrs. Gal\enkamp's catalogue is divided into thumb for ready reference as well as a general five sections: soil sampling tools, physical properties of index at the end. The instruments described and soil, soil solution, chemical analysis of soil, and soil illustrated in the sections come under the following meteorology. Each of these sections contains items headings :-Echelon diffraction gratings and Lummer• that well show the recent advances in the technique Gehrcke parallel plates (including echelon gratings of agricultural science. The newer forms of soil having as many as 56 plates) ; spectrometers and sampling tools are to be commended, and in the goniometers; wave-length spectrometers, monochrom• sections on physical properties of soil and soil solution, ators .and specialised spectroscopes; spectrographs; prominence is given to apparatus devised at the accessories for spectrometers and spectrographs (in• Rothamsted Experimental Station. The section on cluding, among other things, heliostats, vacuum tubes, soil meteorology has been carefully thought out and thermopiles and high purity electrodes of copper, iron, should be of considerable use in the development of carbon and nickel) ; spectrophotometers, colorimeters, work that, coming on the border line between meteoro• -and apparatus for sensitometry (including the new logy and soil physics, has been rather neglected. Judd Lewis sector photometer) ; diffraction gratings; micrometers, etc. ; polarimeters and refractometers ; MESSRS. Longmans and Co. have in preparation a Michelson, Fabry and Perot, and Hilger interfero• new and cheaper edition of Thorburn's "British meters; spectroscopic apparatus for high resolving Birds." The work will be in four volumes, illustratEd power; optical work; and the Low-Hilger audiometer. by 192 coloured plates reproduced from new drawings The instruments are well described and appear to be by the author. It is hoped to issue the first volume constructed with the care and with the view of con• in March, the second in the autumn, and the remaining venience in use for which this firm is well known. It is two volumes in 1926. unfortunate that they cannot be produced at a lower price, however, as many to whom they would be of SoME 1900 books on geology, palzeontology, and great value will find some of the charges prohibitive. mineralogy from the libraries of the late Sir Jethro J. H. Teall, and Messrs. T. W. Reader and E. A. MESSRS. Gallenkamp and Co., Ltd., of 19 Sun Street, Walford, are offered for sale in Catalogue No. 123 by Finsbury Square, London, are to be congratulated on Messrs. Dulau and Co., Ltd., 34 Margaret Street, W.r, the new issue of their catalogue of apparatus for the together with a number of other works on fossil examination of soil. Until now, the recent striking plants, anthropology, archzeology, and zoology. Copies advances in the technique of agricultural science,especi- 1 of the catalogue can be obtained on application.

Our Astronomical Column. PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE ASTRONOMISCHE GESELL• Catalogues. For on plotting the differences of R.A., SCHAFT ZONES.-Prof. Schlesinger gave an interesting Allegheny minus A.G., for different magnitudes, the account at the meeting of the Royal Astronomical abscissa being Right Ascension, sine curves are Society on Jan. roofthe reobservation by photography, obtained due to the solar motion. The zero line of at Allegheny Observatory, of some of these zones. these curves is found to alter with the magnitude ; The novelty of the method lies in the size of the plates now as magnitude equation on the photographs is 0 used, some of which are 5° in the side, others rzt • shown to be eliminated in the mean, the effect must The lens is a triple one, and the only form of distortion be due to the equation in the A.G. Catalogues. present is a tendency for bright stars to appear Prof. Schlesinger is on his way to South Africa to displaced away from the centre as compared inaugurate the photographic work with the instrument wrth famt ones ; the amount near the edge is o·o6" which is being sent there from Yale Observatory. per magnitude. As each star is present on at least He hopes to return in time for the meeting of the t-:vo with the .shift in opposite Astronomical Union at Cambridge in July. It may drrectwns, no systematic magmtude error is intro• be mentioned that the rzto x r2t0 plates are a duced. quarter of an inch thick and weigh ro lb. It would Although the scale is only half that of the Astra• only need some 270 of these plates to cover the entire graphic plates, the excellence of the lens is such that celestial sphere, so that the taking of the plates is a the probable error of each star image is only o·r8". much less serious matter than that involved in the Incidentally, the measures give the means. of Astrographic Catalogue. The chief labour lies in the determining magnitude error in the Astr. Gesell. measurement and reduction. No. 2ss 5. voL. nsJ ©1925 Nature Publishing Group