808 NATURE April 20, 1957 voL. 17e

The National Scientific Lending Library lems in India. Thus, in the present issue, we may note that a disease of Norway spruce in Scotland is to a question in the House of Commons REPLYING matched by a contribution on fungal diseases of o~ :April 2, the Parliamenta_ry Secretary to the conifers in the Himalaya ; while a paper on the Works, as representmg the Lord President Mm1stry of effects of age and storage conditions on the suscep• said that the Department of Scientific of the Council, tibility of certain vegetables to attack by tissue• Research had now formed a unit to and Industrial rotting fungi will ·find its application just as much Scientific Lending Library im~lement the _National in some of the provinces of India as in Western move into temporary proJect and this umt would Europe. The Journal is well produced, with abundant in early in ,April. The col• accommodation line and photographic illustrations of good quality. and technological literature lection of foreign scientific Mycologists and pathologists in Britain will no doubt was hoped that full lending had commenced, and it follow the progress of the new Journal with sympa• would develop at a later stage. library facilities thetic interest. Erection of a suitable building for the National Reference Library of Science was under consideration of Churches in connexion with a project for building a new Orientation Patent Office. FROM an account given by a captain in the Parlia• mentary Army in the seventeenth century, it would Sherrington Centenary appear that when a church was to be erected the THE centenary of the birth of Sir Charles Scott builders carefully noted the exact p oint where the i:lherrington, a founder and main architect of the Sun rose on the morning of the feast of the church's physiology of the nervous system, is celebrated this patron saint and then orientated the building year. 1he Royal Society of Medicine, wishing to accordingly. ,Again, Wordsworth in 1823 says that pay tribute to his life and work, proposes to raise a the deviations of the axes of church buildings from a fund towards a Sherrington Lecture, for the further• true east-west line were due to the fact that they ance of knowledge on the nervous system, to be pointed to the sunrise on the day of their patronal delivered from time to time in the Society's rooms in festivals. More recently, this explanation was London. Many will wish to contribute : both those rejected by C. J. P. Cave and others. But now fresh who were his friends, pupils and colleagues, and those, investigations seem to confirm the old tradition. more nwnerous, who, as patients, doctors and The Rev. Hugh Benson, in an article in the Antiquaries scientists, have benefited indirectly from his work. Journal for July-October 1956, points out that a Donations should be made payable to the Secretary, number of readings made by Cave did not take Royal Society of Medicine, I Wimpole Street, London, account of the fact that nowadays the true horizon W.l, and cheques crossed 'Sherrington Memorial'. is frequently concealed by buildings or other obstruc• The appeal issued by the Royal Society of M~dicine tions, and it is necessary to wait for the Sun to bears the signatures of: Sir Russell Brain (president appear above them. Now, especially in winter, as of the Royal College of ) ; Sir Lindor soon as the Sun has risen above the horizon it appears Brown (foreign secretary of the Physiological Society); to move southwards in its journey across the heavens, Prof. J. Fulton (Stirling professor of the history of and so, should there have been any appreciable medicine, Yale University); Mr. W. R. Henderson interval between its actual rising above the horizon (president of the Society of British Neurological and its appearance t o the watcher, the east-west Surgeons); Sir Cyril HinEhelwood (president of the axis of the building would be several degrees out of Royal Society); Prof. E. G. 'I'. Liddell (Waynflete the true. ,A great many of the churches in Oxford• professor of physiology, ) ; Mr. shire have been re-examined, and a large proportion D. W. C. J\.orthfield (president of the Section of are in fact correctly aligned. In the absence of any , Royal Society of Medicine); Sir Clement tradition of precise measurement in the Middle Ages, Price 1hcmas (president of the Royal Society of it is not to be expected that every case should con• Medicine); Sir Charles Symonds (president of the form perfectly, but the fact that so many churches .Asscciation of British Neurologists); Sir Francis are exactly orientated is significant. The acceptance Wal.he (chairman of the Sherrington Memorial of the Julian calendar introduced a further com• Committee, Royal Society of Medicine). plication. The occurrence of crooked naves may be largely explained by the fact that any rebuilding of Indian Journal of Myco/ogica/ Research the chancel would involve a reorientation of the t o the changed position of the THE first issue of the Indian Journal of Mycological east-west axis owing But all R esearch-the official organ of the Mycological sunrise according to the new calendar. What Society of lndia--has just appeared (obtainable from crooked naves cannot be thus interpreted. and west tower the Department of Botany, University College o f about the odd orientation of the nave Science, Calcutta) under the editorship of Dr. S. N. of St. Benet's Church, Cambridge ? is a very good corrective of the Banerjee. In a foreword, the president of the Society, Benson's article Cave, Eeles and others, and it Prof. S. R. Bose, makes a point of emphasizing the assertions made by number of cases popular ignorance·of the fungi in India and expresses would seem certain that in a large did have a connexion with hope that this state of affairs may be remedied by the orientation of churches day of their patronal festivals. the work of his Society. '!he reader will note, perhaps the sunrise on the with some surprise but with understanding, that the first three papers in this initial volume consist of Pacific Science Board : Report for 1955 work carried out in Great Britain under distinguished AMONG the operations during 1955 which are noted exponents in the field of plant pathology. However, in the ninth annual report of the Pacific Science this is after all not so very strange, since science is Board (pp. 58. Washington, D.C.: National Academy international and since India is such a large and of Sciences-National R.esearch Council, 1956) is the varied territory that problems of plant pathology in co-ordinated investigation of Micronesian anthropo• Europe have their counterpart in very similar prob- logy, for which the posts of district anthropologist

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