foundland at the Imperial Defence Conference, and filled the same position at the Coronation and Imperial Conference in 1911. In 1913 he was made K.C.M.G., and in 1917 was a mem- ber of the Imperial War Conference. The same year he received the freedom of the City of London. In 1918 he retired from the premiership and was raised to the peerage. Lord Morris pro- duced an important legal work known as Morris's Reports, an edition of the Newfoundland law reports from 1800 to 1904.
MORRISON, GEORGE ERNEST (1862-1920), British traveller and journalist, Peking correspondent of The Times from 1897 until 1912, when he resigned to become political adviser to Yjian Shih-k'ai, president of the newly proclaimed Chinese republic, was born at Geelong, Victoria, Australia. He displayed early in life a love of adventurous wandering and an insatiable curiosity concerning every phase and aspect of human affairs. Until his service with The Times obliged him to establish his headquarters at Peking, which he came in time to regard as his home, his career was an unbroken series of journeys, in which his love of adventure on unbeaten tracks was usually combined with some practical purpose of exploration. Thus, in 1882, he studied the Kanaka labour question in the South Sea Islands as a sailor before the mast. Later in the same year he crossed Australia on foot, from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Melbourne, covering 2,043 m - in I2 3 days. His next journey, to New Guinea, nearly cost him his life; he returned from it with two spear-heads in his body, which were eventually removed by Professor Cheyne at Edinburgh, under whom Morrison con- cluded his medical studies. In 1887 he took his M.D. and C.M. degrees, but the life of a medical practitioner had no attractions for him. After journeys to the United States and the West Indies he worked for a time in his medical capacity, first at the Rio Tinto mines in Spain and then as court physician to the shereef of Wazan in Morocco. From 1890-2 he was in charge of the hospital at Ballarat. In 1893, wearying of routine work, he set out to travel in the Far East; in the following year he made a journey overland from Shanghai to Rangoon, and de- scribed it in a work entitled An Australian in China (1895). This journey laid the foundation of his reputation and led to the engagement of his services by The Times. In Nov. 1895 he went as special Times correspondent to Siam, where the French Government's claims in the region of the Mekong valley had necessitated negotiations for an agreement with Great Britain. Here he did excellent work; in Feb. 1897 he accepted the appointment offered him by The Times as resident correspondent at Peking, and for the rest of his life all his work and interests became centred in China. He never attained to any degree of oroficiency in the Chinese language, but in the course of numer- ous journeys during the ensuing 20 years he visited every province and dependency of the Empire, with the exception of Tibet, and acquired an intimate knowledge of men and affairs in every part of the country. In 1907 he travelled from Peking to the borders of Tonquin, and three years later from Central China to Russian Turkestan. During the siege of Peking legations by the Boxers in 1900 he displayed conspicuous gallantry and initiative, and was specially mentioned in despatches by Sir Claude Macdonald. In Jan. 1905 he was present at the triumphal entry of the Japanese army into Port Arthur, and subsequently represented The Times at the Peace Conference which resulted in the Treaty of Portsmouth.
At the outset of the revolutionary movement in China (Oct. 1911) Dr. Morrison frankly proclaimed his sympathy with the Republican programme of Sun Yat-sen and the Cantonese Radicals, and advocated the abdication of the Manchu dynasty. In Aug. 1912, six months after the abdication, he became one of several foreign advisers engaged by the Chinese Government, with special duties as political adviser to President Yuan. When, during the stormy period between 1913 and 1916, it be- came evident that Yuan Shih-k'ai intended to restore the monarchy in his own person, there were occasions when Dr. Morrison's position was somewhat delicate, because of the prominent part which he had played as an advocate of Republicanism, but his unfailing tact and good humour, combined with his unquestionable devotion to the best interests of China, enabled him to fill this difficult position and to retain the goodwill and respect even of those who differed from his political opinions. For nearly 20 years his modernized Chinese house, with its famous library of works on China, was a place of pilgrimage for travellers in the Far East, and " Morrison of Peking " was a name familiar in all parts of the world. He died at Sidmouth May 30 1920.
MORTON, LEVI PARSONS (1824-1920), American banker and politician (see 18.882), died at Rhinebeck, N.Y., May 16 1920, his 96th birthday.
MOSBY, JOHN SINGLETON (1833-1916), American soldier (see 18.890), died in Washington, D.C., May 30 1916.
MOSELEY, HENRY GWYN JEFFREYS (1887-1915), British physicist, was born Nov. 23 1887. He was educated at Eton, where he entered as a King's scholar, and at Trinity College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1910 with honours in natural science. His earliest research work was undertaken in Rutherford's laboratory in Manchester, whither he went as lecturer in physics after leaving Oxford. He at once gave evidence of unusual ability both as an original thinker and skilful experimenter. After two years he resigned his lectureship in order to devote more time to research work, and was elected John Harling fellow. The researches with which his name is specially associated were those made shortly before his death. Rutherford had announced the nuclear theory of atomic struc- ture which required each atom to consist of a minute positively charged nucleus about which negative electrons were distributed. It seems also that the charge would increase with the atomic weight of the element. It had been suggested, and Bohr had adopted this view, that the nuclear charge was equal to the atomic number, i.e. to the number of the element in a complete series of the elements arranged in ascending order, but hitherto no atomic property had been discovered which could be definitely represented by this number. Moseley, shortly after the discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals, set to work to examine the X-ray spectrum of a number of elements each of which he made in turn the target of an X-ray tube. He found that his crystal-grating gave a spectrum of two lines for each element and that their frequency increased by definite steps as he passed from one element to the next; indeed, the frequency of vibration associated with each element was a simple function of a number which he found to be identical with the atomic number. It is now generally accepted that this number, experimentally deter- mined by Moseley for a number of elements, defines the physical and chemical properties of the particular element. This number is probably to be identified with the electric charge upon the nucleus of the atom. From the regular progression of the lines in the X-ray spectra of different elements Moseley was able tc indicate the number of elements yet to be discovered, and he cleared up certain anomalies in the periodic tables of the ele- ments. He laid the foundation of what will probably prove to be a new and more precise form of chemistry (see CHEMISTRY, and MATTER, CONSTITUTION OF). Moseley was in Australia with the British Association in 1914 when the World War broke out; he returned to England, obtained a commission in the Royal Engineers, and was killed by a Turkish bullet on the Gal- lipoli peninsula on Aug. 10 1915. (W. G. D.)
MOSS, SIR (HORACE) EDWARD (1852-1912), British director of variety theatres, was born at Manchester in 1852 and in 1877 opened the Gaiety theatre, Edinburgh, first of the Moss's Empire theatres, which by 1912 numbered twenty houses and represented a capital of over 2,000,000. He was the principal pioneer of the changes which have transformed the old music-hall into the modern variety theatre, and in recognition of this fact, and for his charities, he was knighted in 1905. He died at Middleton, Midlothian, Nov. 25 1912.
MOTOR TRANSPORT, MILITARY. Transport by motor vehi- cles has very profoundly modified the art of war. Their employment enables a commander despite the unwieldiness of modern armies to achieve surprise effects which give him victory. The utilization in modern warfare of the enormous
