C O N T E N T S PageThe Moral Basis of W o rld O rde r . . . 1 2 5

The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell. By S ir Edmund Whittaker, F . R . S . ...........................................128

Galen and the Empirical School. By Dr. W . Pagel . 131

“ Statistical Methods.” By Dr. K. Mather . 1 3 2

A Quantum Theory of the O rig in of the Solar System.By Prof. J. B. S. Haldane, F.R.S. ; Prof. E. A. Milne,F.R.S. .......................................................... 133

W ireworm s and Food Production. By Herbert W .Miles ...........................................136

Obituary :

S ir Buckston Browne. By S ir A rthu r Keith, F.R.S. 138

News and V i e w s .................................................. 139

Letters to the Editors :

Nitrogenous Substances Synthesized by Moulds.— Dr. A. H. Campbell, M. E. Foss, Prof. E. L.Hirst, F.R.S'., and Dr. ]. K. N. Jones . . 141

Optical Activity of Excreted Mepacrine.— D. LI. Hammick and W . E. Chambers . 1 4 1

Hydrolysis of Thioesters.— Dr. Youssef Iskander 141

Structure of Colchicine.— M. J. S. Dewar 141

Extensive Penetrating Showers.— Dr. L. Janossy,Dr. G. D. Rochester and D. Broadbent . 142

A re there Four Possible Diamond Structures ?— Dr. Kathleen Lonsdale . . . . 144

British Bees and W ind-borne Pollen.— Dr. V. H. C h a m b e r s ...................................................145

Transmission of Kala-Azar to the Pouch Young of the Common Australian Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula).— J. E. Armytage and Dr. A. Bolliger 145

A W asp Preying on House-Flies and Stable-Flies.— Dr. E. McC. C a l l a n ................................... 146

A Colonial Scientific Service.— K. H. Chapman . 146

S ir Charles Boys.— Ashley G. Lowndes 147

Tissue Induction. By Dr. Gustav Levander 148

Tungshan Oceanographical Survey in 1941. By Dr.S. F. T a n g .......................................................... 149

Role of Isolation in the Differentiation of Plant Species.By G. Ledyard Stebbins, jun................................... 150

Termite-Proofing of Timber . . . . . 151

Magnesium Deficiency of Fruit Trees . 1 5 1

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THE MORAL BASIS OF W ORLD ORDER

ALTHOUGH, as was sta ted by Lord Cranbome in the House of Lords on December 19, the G overn­

m ent is no t yet com m itted to the acceptance of th e D um barton Oaks proposals for the establishm ent of a general international organization, those p ro ­posals m ust inevitably form th e m easure or yardstick against which other proposals will henceforth be judged. Such discussion will be facilita ted by the com m entary on th e proposals which the Government issued in November (Miscellaneous No. 6 [1944], Cmd. 6571. H.M. S tationery Office, 1944, 2d. net). I t should be stim ulated by the unhappy developments in Greece and in Polish-U .S.S.R . relations, w ith all the evidence provided thereby of the necessity of a m oral basis and of a common standard , no t merely o f cultural ideals, b u t also of public conduct, to enable any form of international organization to function.

T hat was th e them e of th e debate opened in the House of Lords on December 19, on a m otion of Viscount Templewood, urging th e strengthening o f the unifying forces of Europe by ensuring to every European citizen the fundam ental rights and liberties w ithout which European civilization cannot continue. W hether or no t we accept th e precise proposals of Lord Templewood, which bore some resemblance to th e D eclaration of th e R ights of Man of which Mr. H . G. Wells gave a first d raft in h is “New W orld Order” , and which some five years ago were discussed w ith th e view of form ulating a charter embodying the principles of liberty of though t and freedom from frustra tion by au thority , there can be little doubt th a t the provision of effective guarantees is, as Lord Cranbome said, a g reat practical difficulty. I t is one th ing for nations voluntarily to pledge them ­selves to m aintain and observe certain rights ; i t is qu ite another th ing to impose the observance of those rights on them by force.

As Lord Cranbome rem inded the House of Lords, and as is stressed in the Com mentary on the D um bar­to n Oaks proposals, under Chapter 9, the organization is concerned w ith prom oting respect for hum an rights and fundam ental freedoms, responsibility for which is vested in th e General Assembly and, under th e au tho rity of th a t body, in an Economic and Social Council. The m ethods by which such objectives are to be achieved are left to those bodies to determ ine, and clearly the questions referred to by Lord Tem ple­wood and others in the debate m ust be fully explored. A t least i t m ay be urged th a t if th e fundam ental problem is th a t of securing the re-acceptance in Europe—and in the world a t large— of a common m oral standard , th a t acceptance m ust be by consent and n o t by force.

The fundam ental m ethod m ust be education, and while the sombre p ic tu re of Europe pain ted in th is debate left no doubt as to th e form idable natu re of th a t task , there was a welcome rem inder of th e spiritual forces on which we can call for aid. The Bishop of Chichester urged th a t the common culture of Europe is based on four common sp iritual trad itions : the

126 N A T U R E F e b r u a r y 3 , 1945, v o l . iss

hum anist, which is largely responsible for the liberal and hum anitarian element in our civilization ; the scientific trad ition , the clearest example of the p a rt played by individual collaboration in European culture ; the trad ition of law and government ; and the Christian trad ition . The last, he urged, is the m ost im portant, and potentially is capable of unifying the four. Referring to the sp iritual quality of the resistance movements and the natural bond existing between patrio tic men in the Church and outside the Church inspired by a passion for freedom and justice, he affirmed his belief th a t the Christian traditions, w ith those of hum anism , science, and law and government, m ay still prove one of the great unifying forces of Europe, and one of the principal agencies for ensuring his fundam ental rights and liberties to every European citizen.

The emphasis thus placed on a m oral and sp iritual basis does not absolve the great nations—Great B ritain , the U.S.S.R., the U nited States, F rance—• from the responsibility of leadership, as was frankly recognized by Lord Cranbome, and bo th points are im plicit in the latest proposals which Lionel Curtis has outlined for giving effect to the A tlantic Charter. H is recent pam phlet* includes the “Open L etter to Lords, Commons and Press” which was included in “F a ith and W orks” . To some extent i t covers the same ground as th a t pam phlet, b u t its argum ent is developed out of discussions which arose on the policy outlined in h is earlier pam phlets in giving a series of lectures on the same lines to m em bers of the Forces of the U nited Nations, m ainly from those of Great B ritain , the Dominions, Ind ia and the U.S.A.

The essential p a rt of Mr. C urtis’s argum ent is to be found in the first chapter, outlining a policy for post­war settlem ent, where the evolution of th is policy from his earlier proposals and criticism s is clearly displayed. Agreeing w ith W alter L ippm ann’s view in “U.S. Foreign Policy” th a t no single democracy is now strong enough to prevent world wars, and th a t only an alliance between the American and the B ritish Commonwealths can keep th e peace for th e nex t generation, Mr. Curtis voices his own conviction th a t the world will n o t begin to develop any real feeling of security from w ar u n til two or more democracies have shown how to merge th e ir external powers in one common au tho rity or union for defence. The danger of world war will be finally ended only when there has come into being an international au tho rity for defence which includes the U nited States w ith other democracies. H e is convinced th a t the root cause of world wars is the anarchy which exists between sovereign States, and the only w ay to stop them is to en trust defence to a common au thority .

The federal so lu tion. which Mr. Curtis proposes is stric tly lim ited to defence and to functions clearly inseparable therefrom , of which the control of foreign relations, which determ ine the issues of peace and war, is obviously one. The union au tho rity m ust be empowered to m ake the common security from w ar a first charge on all the resources of all th e nations

* The W ay to Peace. By Lionel Curtis. Pp. 98. (London • Oxford University Press, 1944.) 1*. n e t. luuuuou . oxtord

i t safeguards. Mr. C urtis him self suggests th a t the cost should be borne in proportion to the taxable capacity of the several nations form ing the union. In arguing for th is transition from a national to an in ternational control of defence, he urges th a t in th is w ay the existing national cabinets and parliam ents will have more tim e to devote to the equally urgent ta sk of prom oting social reform.

The key point which Mr. C urtis reiterates in this, as in his earlier pam phlets, is th a t the B ritish Govern­m ent should have the candour and courage to tell th e Dominion Governments th a t Great B rita in and N orthern Ireland can no longer provide th e resources required to m aintain forces by sea, land and air strong enough to pro tect the Commonwealth from fu rther attacks, in accordance w ith the resolution passed by the Im perial Conference of 1926. F rom the inab ility of the B ritish Government to offer effective guarantees to the French, N etherlands and Scandin­av ian democracies should come an inv itation to the Governments of those democracies to join in the discussions w ith a view to th e creation of some common au tho rity equipped to provide a common defence for these countries as well as for the B ritish democracies. Mr. Curtis believes th a t a union formed in th is w ay would be more likely to secure the adher­ence of the U nited States th an one which s ta rted w ith the U nited States and B rita in . W hile paying tribu te to the achievements of the League of N ations in techni­cal and social fields such as health and the control of th e traffic in drugs and in women and children, he has little fa ith in the functional approach and rests his case essentially on th e s tab ility of organic unions once formed and on th e enhanced capacity of dem o­cra tic governments for overtaking the ir growing arrears in social reform when they have created a governm ent charged w ith th e ta sk of common defence.

Beyond th is , Mr. Curtis lays some emphasis on the union being lim ited a t first to democracies and on centring th e cap ita l of th e U nion from the outset on the N orth American continent. This scheme is th u s narrower in scope and m ore fundam ental th an th a t outlined in th e D um barton Oaks proposals, b u t i t should be noted th a t Mr. C urtis is dealing w ith the long-term ra the r th a n the short-term problem ; and he insists, w ith Lord Lothian , th a t there is no solution to th e former problem w ithout th e accept­ance of some lim itations on national sovereignty. An understanding between G reat B rita in , th e U nited S tates and th e U .S.S.R. m ay avail to keep the peace during the nex t generation, b u t som ething more fundam ental and organic is required beyond th a t. The D um barton Oaks proposals should be examined from the point of view of estim ating whether they are likely to afford th e necessary stim ulus or opportunity for such developments. The Security Council and the M ilitary Staffs Com m ittee proposed a t D um barton Oaks m ay be the first ten ta tiv e steps in the direction indicated by Mr. Curtis, particu larly if the regional sub-comm ittees function effectively..

I t is significant th a t m uch of th e above is common ground in other proposals besides those of Mr. Curtis which have recently been advanced. Sir W alter

Layton, for example, in his Sydney Ball Lecture, “ The British Commonwealth and World Order” *, from a survey of the distribution of population, territory, and industrial and commercial resources, concludes that we should advance to world order by the regional development of closer relations between nations. At this stage we should not put into a universal world covenant anything more than simple provisions for security and for consultation. The regional arrange­ments should include the internal security of the groups themselves, that is, political provisions which will foster and guarantee personal liberty and economic collaboration to raise the standard of living. Meanwhile, however, a world association of a looser kind is necessary both to keep world peace and to ensure that all regional arrangements are consistent with the interests and progress of the world as a whole and will not break it up into sections, the conflicting aims of which may contain the seeds of future conflict.

The looser association Sir W alter Layton suggests would be organized under the direction of a council containing representatives of the Great Powers, the large world groups, L atin America and th e Moslem world. Above all, he insists—and here h is proposals run more in line w ith those of Mr. Curtis—on the urgent necessity of a radical advance towards u n ity in Europe in order to secure lasting peace. H ere again he sees the solution in some form of federalism, which will, in Mr. Churchill’s words, secure “the largest com ­mon measure of the integrated life of Europe th a t is possible w ithout destroying the individual character­istics and trad itions of its m any ancient and historic races” . The federal scheme which should cover all Europe outside the U.S.S.R. and Great B ritain , and would be actively sponsored by those powers as well as by the U nited States, should place all the arm ed forces of Europe under the European au th o rity or council, and a European Supreme Court should be established. The scope of the au thority in economic m atters should include supervision of the m unitions industries and th e regulation of cartels, and ccontrol, so far as possible, of all m atters of inter-S tate com ­merce, especially rail and a ir t ra n sp o r t; and Sir W alter refers in th is connexion to the im p irtance of continuing the existing organs of the U nited N ations for the d istribu tion of food and raw m aterials. F inally, he insists th a t th e lines of European union should be settled by the E uropean peoples themselves before any final peace is m ade w ith Germany.

Sir W alter, discussing last the role in world affairs of th e B ritish Commonwealth, points out th a t w ithin the framework of such a world organization there would be advantage and no harm in close and. continuous consultation between B rita in and the Dominions. Moreover, we should no t imagine th a t democracy in any stereotyped form will spread to countries where i t has no t h itherto existed ; b u t the ideals expressed in the Four Freedoms are goals to which people of every race and colour do aspire, and we can give th e leadership for which the world is looking by dem onstrating in our own dom ain th a t these aim s can be attained , and using our great

* B arn e tt House P aper No. 27. (London : Oxford U niversity Press, 1944.) 6d.

influence in in ternational affairs to assist other nations to achieve them . U ltim ately, i t is these ideas th a t will unify the world.

Mr. E ly Culbertson closes h is “Total Peace” * on a like note, bu t w hat professes to be the full exposition of h is world federation plan already published in sum m ary is a disappointing volume. The analysis of the present basis for peace, nam ely power politics, which occupies th e first p a r t of the book, scarcely provides a true historical perspective as claimed. Moreover, it sometimes seems more calculated to foster international m isunderstanding and d istrust th an the policy of co-operation represented by th e plan. Mr. Culbertson seems to forget th a t some m easure of good fa ith and common standards of value and conduct m ust be presupposed in any a ttem p t to form ulate an agreement w hatever the sphere of action. The second p art of the book gives a somewhat fuller exposition of the world federation plan than th a t in the “Sum m ary” published last year.

There is, it is true, a superficial resemblance between some of Mr. Culbertson’s though t and th a t of Mr. W alter Lippm ann. Mr. Culbertson frankly accepts American power politics as essential, b u t argues th a t they m ust be based on the renunciation of wars for the purposes of economic or political conquest. The u ltim ate object of American power politics m ust be the elim ination of power politics in relations among S tates. Meanwhile, he lays down three basic principles for American power politics : first, the U nited S tates cannot perm it any other g reat S tate to increase its power m aterially through conquest or dom ination ; further, the U nited States m ust use its present power to ensure itself strategically against possible fu ture aggression by one or m ore sovereign S tates ; and, finally, i t m ust establish, if possible, an adequate system of world collective security.

Mr. Culbertson bases h is belief in th e possibility of collective defence on the segregation of th e heavy weapons of war and the quota force principle, as already explained in h is “ Sum m ary” . F rom his th ird basic principle he derives the corollary th a t a system of collective defence acceptable to the U nited S tates m ust provide for all possible contingencies and m ust no t deprive the U nited States either of its sovereign rights (except th e righ t to wage w ar of aggression) or of its own m ilita ry power to defend itself, as well as the fu rther corollary th a t u n til a system of collective defence is fully established and thoroughly tested in operation, the U nited States m ust not abandon the first and second principles. All three principles or instrum ents m ust be used in U nited States foreign policy, and Mr. Culbertson gives vividness to his discussion by three charts in which is set fo rth the world p a tte rn of 1945 and 1975 in comparison w ith th a t of 1900.

F rom th is basis Mr. Culbertson proceeds to destruc­tive criticism of the policy advocated by Mr. W alter L ippm ann in “U.S. Foreign Policy” and E . H . Carr in “Conditions of Peace” ; and while he argues th a t the U nited States m ust no t w ithdraw from Europe

* T o tal Peace : W hat makes W ars and How to Organize Peace. By Ely Culbertson. Pp. 274. (L ondon: Faber and Faber, L td ., 1944.) 12*. 6d. n e t.

IZO IN A 1 U K . J i F E B R U A R Y if, iy4E>, Vo l . 155

into isolation, he urges th a t she m ust oppose the establishment of any kind of B ritish or Russian zone of influence in Europe. On the contrary, the U nited States m ust endeavour to restore th e ir sovereign s ta tus as soon as possible to the liberated countries, and rem ain in Germany u n til the German people also are restored to a position of independence from th e power politics of either B rita in or the U.S.S.R.

These chapters of the book are profoundly d is­heartening and depressing. Mr. Culbertson, i t is true, like Mr. Curtis, points to the essential weakness of the British Commonwealth in regard to defence, bu t though a t tim es his criticism is suggestive, i t is often shallow and unfair. True, he wishes to see the B ritish Commonwealth preserved, and rightly says th a t the only lasting guarantee of its preservation lies in a system of collective security for the world. U nfortunately, he seems to forget ‘sauce for the gander, sauce for the goose’ ; and his argum ent for a system of collective security often appears to be inspired by a desire to perpetuate U nited States dom ination ra th e r th an by a conviction th a t her own tru e interests, like those of other nations, are best served by a collective system of security.

The two faults th a t seem to run th rough Mr. Culbertson’s th ink ing are first his failure to recognize th a t the U nited States, no less th an other nations, cannot have m atte rs all her own way : in any system of co-operation, in ternational or not, there m ust be give and take. Inflated nationalism in the U nited States or in the liberated countries o f Europe will assuredly be a s tem obstacle to a collective or federal system. Secondly, Mr. Culbertson is too prone to im pute bad fa ith to other countries. Confidence in th e willingness of the U nited States to participate in a collective system will no t be fostered by insisting on th e necessity of strong safeguards against bad faith on the p art of any and all other nations. I t is, in fact, uneasiness about the extent to which th e U nited S tates can be depended upon th a t, m ore th a n any other factor, is liable a t the mom ent to paralyse the developments of the U nited N ations Relief and R ehabilita tion A dm inistration and th e D um barton Oaks proposals. The outspoken article “Noble Negatives” in a recent issue of the Economist was a tru e service to th e U nited N ations, no less th a n to the U nited S tates itself.

Mr. Culbertson’s realism is in fact overdrawn. H is anxiety to criticize destructively other schemes, such as the League of N ations and th e Federal Union proposals o f Clarence Streit, leads h im to overlook the fact th a t all organizations or systems depend on hum an will-power and sym pathy for the ir operation. H ad there been sufficient determ ination, the League of N ations, w ith all its imperfections, m ight still have achieved its purpose. However m istaken President W ilson’s tactics or m aladroit h is handling of the situation, and however understandable in the circumstances of 1919 the refusal of the U nited States to participate, th a t refusal wrecked the whole scheme, and there is nothing in Mr. Culbertson’s book th a t encourages any confidence th a t th a t refusal will no t be repeated on even less substantial grounds in the

future. N or will confidence be restored b y im puting bad fa ith to a ttem p ts to evolve an a lternative system which m ight function w ithout th e co-operation or partic ipa tion of the U nited States.

Unless th is question of good fa ith and understand­ing is frankly faced, there can be no hope of any real progress w ith the D um barton Oaks scheme or w ith any other. Criticism of m istakes there m ust righ tly be, b u t th a t criticism should be tem pered by th e T collection th a t m istakes m ay be m ade in good fa ith and through i lform ation less complete th an th a av a il­able to the critic. Above all, criticism m ust be res­ponsible. I f a world order is to be established after the W ar and a scheme of collective security operated, refusal to participa te in a particu lar scheme m ust be accom panied by constructive proposals for an a lte rna­tiv e scheme and a willingness to consent to m utual accommodation. The sp irit in which th e problem is approached is w hat m atte rs , and w ithout some m oral basis th e re can be no hope for an enduring system of world order.

I f th e upheaval o f w ar affords opportun ities by shattering old institu tions and loosening old associa­tions, i t also creates obstacles by the passions i t arises. In a long war tem pers are tried , and men and women worn to the lim it of hum an endurance m ay fail to view th e ir problems w ith the patience, for­bearance, understanding and wisdom all-im portant in such v ita l issues as those of world co-operation and reconstruction. T hat m ay well be a decisive reason for advancing slowly, tak ing th e organizations set up for our w ar purposes, whether regional or functional, and adap ting them to the new purposes of peace and reconstruction ; and as confidence and sym pathy are gained in working together, shaping them and com pleting them where required to form a w ider and comprehensive system which gives full satisfac­tio n to th e needs and aspirations w hich the D um ­barton Oaks proposals are intended to meet.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERTRAND RUSSELL

The Philosophy of Berfand RussellE dited by P aul A rthur Schilpp. (L ibrary of Living Philosophers, Vol. 5.) Pp. xvi-|-815. (Evanston and Chicago : N orthw estern U niversity ; London : Cambridge U niversity Press, 1944.) 30s. net.

A H IG H standard is reached by m ost of the tw enty-one essays in th is imposing volume.

L im itations of space m ake it im practicable to notice them sep ara te ly ; b u t some account m ay be given of the picture of Russell and his philosophy which emerges from the w ork as a whole.

B ertrand Russell was bom in 1872, th e grandson (and u ltim ate heir) of the W hig statesm an Lord John Russell, who was tw ice Prim e M inister in the earlier half o f Queen V ictoria’s reign. H is m other was one of th e Stanleys of Alderley, a fam ily which has con­trib u ted m any distinguished (and, i t m ay be added, m any picturesque and uncommon) figures to English public life. B oth paren ts having died when he was a child, he was brought up by governesses and tu tors,

JJO . j . ' r , c i v c / u i i o , i « j - v x 1V J..-

and in his solitary studies pondered over questions which are n o t easily answered. A t the age of eleven he was troubled over the foundations of geom etry ; by the tim e he was fifteen, he had become convinced th a t free-will was an illusion ; and the nex t three years saw the destruction of his beliefs in im m ortality and in God.

During th is period, Russell was influenced chiefly by the writings of Jo h n S tuart Mill. Now Mill, while generally following in the philosophical trad ition of Hume, had tried to rescue m athem atics and physics from th e universal bankruptcy of knowledge which had been brought about by H um e’s critical sceptic­ism ; and it was th is aspect of his teaching th a t fired the imagination, and eventually determ ined the life- work, o f his young disciple. Mill’s own solution was, in brief, th a t th e character of necessity ascribed to the tru th s of m athem atics, and even the peculiar certain ty sometimes a ttr ib u ted to them , was an illusion, and th a t th e axioms of geom etry were in ­ductions from experience. Russell found himself reluctan t to accept the conclusion th a t m athem atical propositions are em pirical generalizations, though a t the tim e he could no t imagine w hat else they could be.

Russell’s life of isolation ended a t the age of eighteen, when he w ent up to Cambridge, which opened to him a new world of delight. H e read for the M athem atical Tripos, and was seventh wrangler in 1893 ; afte r th is he transferred to philosophy, then represented a t Cambridge by H enry Sidgwick, Jam es W ard, G. F . S tout and J . E . M cT aggart; b u t the dom inant influence on his thought came not from any of these b u t from A. N. W hitehead, who as a member of the m athem atical staff was lecturing on non-Euclidean geom etry ; and Russell spent his fifth year in composing a dissertation on the founda­tions of geom etry, which won for him a T rin ity fellowship in 1895.

Russell’s philosophical teachers had by th is tim e drawn him aw ay from the school of Mill. The m eta­physical system presented by S tout and M cTaggart was the absolute idealism of Hegel, which he accepted for a tim e ; he became interested also in the neo- Hegelian idealism of F . H . Bradley, whose “A ppear­ance and R eality” was published in 1893 ; ‘t>ut i t soon became clear th a t no satisfactory solution of th e problem which dom inated his thoughts—the dis­covery of a satisfactory philosophy of m athem atics— was to be found in these quarters ; and in 1898, chiefly under the influence of G. E . Moore—then a newly elected b ro ther fellow of T rin ity—he re ­nounced German idealism completely, and, m oving swiftly to the opposite pole of doctrine, came to believe th a t the m aterial world of common sense exists, independently of whether anyone is aware of it, and also th a t there is a timeless world of P latonic ideas ; th a t a search for reality is possible, char­acterized by all the seriousness and assurance of scholasticism, and a t the same tim e in harm ony w ith m odem science; and th a t m athem atics could be quite true.

The new outlook, however, did not im m ediately suggest any m eans by which th is last confidence could be form ally vindicated. Russell’s great inspira­tion, the crisis o f his intellectual life, came in 1900, at the In ternational Congress of Philosophy in Paris, where he heard expositions of recent progress in symbolic lo g ic ; th a t is, the development of the principle th a t certain ideas in logic are the constitu­tive elements o f all others, ju s t as in chem istry all

molecules are constitu ted of certain chemical ele­m ents j these ideas can be represented by symbols, and the ideograms th u s introduced are capable of replacing ordinary language completely for the p u r­poses of any deductive theory. Russell was not unfam iliar w ith the subject, for i t had been originated by Leibniz, of whose w ork he had m ade a close s tudy ; b u t he now leam t of the advances which had been m ade in the 1890’s b y Giuseppe Peano (1858- 1932), of the U niversity o f Turin, whose ideography was far more powerful th a n anything previously devised.

Russell saw a t once th a t w ith the help of P eano’s logical calculus, i t should be possible to extend th e domain of precise reasoning backwards into regions which had h itherto been dim in the tw ilight of philosophy, perhaps even to discover the true founda­tions of m athem atics. Peano him self had no t achieved th is ; indeed he belonged to the ‘form alist’ school, who hold th a t any branch of m athem atics consists of prim itive or undefined concepts (for example, the concept of the straigh t line in geometry), definitions ( th a t is, short names for complexes of ideas), axioms ( th a t is, fundam ental propositions which are assumed and which m ay be regarded as constituting an implicit definition of the prim itive concepts), existence- theorems (proofs of th e consistence and independence of the axioms, the existence of th e entities in tro ­duced by the definitions, etc.), and deductions. , In accordance w ith these principles, he based arithm etic on the ‘undefined concepts’ number, successor and zero ; which was unsatisfactory, for i t is precisely these th ree concepts whose natu re is in question. I t ought to be possible to define w hat num ber is, for the sta tem ent th a t we have ten fingers, two ears and one nose is intelligible to everyone ; yet the definitions in the text-books of philosophy, such as “every num ber is a p lurality held together as a u n ity ” , were obviously worthless.

Throughout the academic year 1900-1 Russell, who by now had an easy m astery of the Peano symbolism, worked a t th e problem and succeeded in proving th a t the whole num bers 1, 2, 3 . . . can be defined in term s of purely logical concepts (such as class, not, or) by means of the ideography, an d th a t all pure m athem atics can be bu ilt up on th is fo u n d a tio n : thus ‘m athem atics is identical w ithform al logic’. This sta tem ent is obviously incom ­patib le w ith the em piricist philosophy of m athe­m atics which Russell had leam t from Mill, an d also w ith the K an tian doctrine which he had learn t from his Cambridge teachers. According to K an t, m a the­m atical proofs depend no t on formal logic alone, bu t also on certain a priori ‘forms of intu ition’, namely, space and tim e, so th a t, for example, the diagram is an essential p a rt of geometrical reasoning. Russell’s w ork demolished the empiricist and the K an tian views alike. Subsidiary to th is great discovery, m any im provem ents were introduced into the symbolic calculus its e lf ; particularly a general theory of rela­tions (the lack of which had been a defect in the older logic), the concept and extensive use of the propositional function (th a t is, an expression such as ‘x is a num ber’ which contains a variable x and which becomes a proposition as soon as a definite value is assigned to th e variable) and th e , trea tm en t of implication (‘p implies q’ was defined as equivalent to ‘either p is false or q is tru e ’, so th a t a false pro­position implies every other proposition).

Russell’s researches, in which he had throughout the in tim ate co-operation of W hitehead, were followed

130 N A T U R E F e b r u a r y 3 , 1945, vo l. 155

eagerly by the younger m athem atical fellows of T rin ity College (E. W. Barnes, G. H . H ardy and myself) ; and in the Michaelmas te rm of 1901 he gave a course of lectures to an audience of half-a- dozen junior dons, dictating to us w hat m ight be described as th e first draft of “Principia Mathe- m atica” . I t would perhaps no t be ex travagan t to regard these lectures as effectively the beginning of the m odem renaissance in logic. W hile due credit m ust be given to Russell’s precursors, especially to C. S. Peirce, Frege and Peano, it m ay be said broadly th a t the great expansion is to be dated from the “Principia” . The successive volumes of the Journal of Symbolic Logic show th a t the best work is now being done in America.

The career of discovery had its dram atic moments. I remember Russell’s look of mischievous glee when he announced a contradiction inherent in logic, which invalidated all hum an reasoning ; th is was, th a t if x is the class whose members are all the classes which do no t contain themselves as one of their members, then from the assum ption th a t x is a member of itself we can a t once infer th a t x is not a member of itself, and vice versa. There are an infinite num ber of contradictions of th is kind, and in order to deal w ith them , Russell introduced w hat is essentially a rule of syntax, imposing a ban on the construction of certain kinds of linguistic expressions, and thereby avoiding all form ations which could lead to logical contradictions. The scheme depends on a classification of the objects of thought into a h ier­archy of ‘types’, the rule being th a t the symbols which i t is permissible to insert into any one context m ust be such as represent entities of the sam e type. The simple theory of types as originally form ulated by Russell suffices to remove all those contradictions which are expressible in purely m athem atical or logical term s : there are other contradictions, of a type called ‘sem antical’ by his disciple F rank Ramsey, and these, as has been more recently shown, can be avoided by extending the theory of types into an analogous theory of ‘levels of language’.

Russell has had to defend his position no t only against formalists, K antians and empiricists, b u t also against the school of m athem atical philosophers known as ‘intuitionists’, who fix a tten tion on the fundam ental ideas of tru th and falsehood, and ask P ilate’s question, “W hat is tru th ?” . T ru th , they say, means ‘verifiability’ ; it would be a meaningless word unless there were ways of ascertaining whether particular propositions are tru e or no t. Now in m athem atics, when we are dealing w ith infinite systems, we m eet w ith difficulties in th is regard. Suppose, for example, we consider th e proposition “In the num ber 7t = 3-1415926536 . . ., th e sequence of digits 123456789 occurs a t least once” . H ere no m ethod exists which in principle would enable us to prove by a finite num ber of operations th a t th is proposition is false. In such a case, the intuitionists deny th a t there is justification for asserting a priori th a t i t is necessarily either true or false ; a th ird category m ust be adm itted, of indeterm inate pro­positions ; th a t is, the Law of the Excluded Middle, th a t ‘every proposition is either true or false’, is not of unlim ited valid ity ; in place of the two-valued traditional logic we obtain a three-valued logic. Russell’s answer is, in brief, th a t while a three-valued logic m ay be admissible, there is no reason to suppose th a t the two-valued logic is inadmissible ; and th a t the la tte r is to be preferred because of its greater potency for the development of m athem atics and

physics. The abandonm ent of the Law of the E x ­cluded Middle would, in fact, m ake it necessary to regard large domains of trad itional science as invalid.

Russell’s discoveries in m athem atical logic brought abou t some modifications of his philosophical outlook. In 1898 he had regarded the cardinal num bers as belonging to the tim eless world of P latonic ideas. In 1900—1, when he had defined ‘num ber’ in term s of the logical concept of ‘class’, it became no longer necessary to retain num bers as entities, and their ideal character was transferred to classes. B u t fu rther reductions in the population of the Platonic heaven were to follow. In a celebrated paper “On D enoting” , w ritten in 1905, he discussed ‘denoting phrases’, and in particu lar ‘descriptions’, th a t is, phrases of the form ‘the so-and-so’ ; for example, “the au thor of ‘Pendennis’ Some descriptions, such as “The Bishop of Oxford” , apply to objects which exist ; while others, such as “The Bishop of A squith” , do no t. Reflexion on th is difference had led to some m uddled thinking by philosophers, th e opinion being expressed th a t since “The Bishop of A squith” could sustain a predicate (thus, “The Bishop of A squith has no valid Orders” ), he m ust have ‘being’, though no t ‘existence’. In th is paper, which was published in M ind, Russell’s powerful logical analysis shattered such nonsense for ever. H e showed how to reduce any proposition in which a denoting phrase occurs to a form in which no such phrase occurs, by recast­ing it into a statem ent about the values of a variable th a t satisfy some propositional function. The true analysis of the proposition is different from w hat was suggested by the gram m ar of its original formulation.

The logical analysis of description, then, does no t lead to a definition of the descriptions themselves, b u t transform s the propositions in which they occur, in such a way th a t the descriptions are eliminated. The descriptions are no t assumed to be themselves significant, though they are parts of significant sentences, ju st as the symbol of differentiation in the differential calculus acquires significance only when perform ed on an operand. The technique of the theory of descriptions was la ter (in 1910, in “Principia M athem atica” ) applied to all kinds of symbols which have a m eaning in use ( th a t is, in a context w ith other symbols) b u t no t in isolation— ‘incomplete sym bols’, as Russell called them . H e now showed th a t class-symbols could be regarded as incomplete symbols ; thus statem ents about classes can be re­placed by statem ents which m ention only properties of the individuals who are (in the usual way of speak­ing) members of the classes ; so th a t a class is no t a genuine entity , b u t a ‘logical construction’, as Russell calls it.

The theory of incomplete symbols was afterwards used extensively in order to reduce the traditional entities of m athem atics and (after the completion of “Principia M athem atica” ) also of physics—points, instants, particles of m atte r, etc.—to logical con­structions from empirical data. Scientific statem ents were thus related directly to sense-experience, and th e trad itional entities became superfluous. F or a dozen years or more from 1914, Russell was much occupied in building up by th is m ethod a philosophical system of physics, taking as his fundam ental principle W illiam of Occam’s m axim E ntia non multiplicanda sunt praeter necessitatem, or as he form ulated it in th is connexion (Russell’s ‘Principle o f Parsim ony’, as we m ay call it). “W herever possible, substitu te constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknow n entities” , so as to reduce the num ber of

inferred entities to a minimum. The raw m aterial of the constructions consists of ‘events’, an event being something which occupies a small finite am ount of space-time : thus electrons and protons are now constructed as series of groups of events. Russell’s success in the endeavour to obtain by his construc­tions a ‘m inim um vocabulary’ led to a change in his views regarding th e problem of universals : in 1900 he had accepted th e Platonic doctrine, b u t to-day one m ight perhaps describe him as a Parsimonious Realist, who believes th a t a t least one universal is necessary, b u t is re luc tan t to adm it any more.

I t is to be remembered th a t Russell had come to philosophy th rough m athem atics, and th a t a ‘p rin ­ciple of parsim ony’ is natu ra lly congenial to m athe­m aticians, who enjoy showing th a t all the laws of the m aterial universe are nothing b u t particular applications of H am ilton’s Principle. In Russell’s case, philosophical parsimoniousness gradually got a greater and greater hold, and eventually drove him into a new m etaphysical position— caused him, in fact, to abandon th e dualism of m ind and m a tte r which he had m aintained for so long, and to revert to a monistic in terpretation of th e universe : not, how­ever, to w hat he had renounced in 1898, b u t to a newer philosophy which had originated w ith W illiam Jam es and the American neo-realists, and which was known as ‘neu tra l monism’.

The change came gradually. I t began, in the first edition of “Our Knowledge of th e E xternal W orld’ ’ (1914), w ith a move tow ards a phenom enalistic doctrine of m a tte r : a physical ‘th ing’ was there de­fined as a certain series of ‘aspects’ ; nam ely, those which would commonly be said to be of the thing. F or purposes of explanation, an ‘aspect’ m ay be thought of sim ply as w hat would be shown in a photograph of th e universe taken from a certain point of view ; a set of aspects constitutes one ‘th ing’ when they form a group related to each other accord­ing to th e laws of perspective ; the aggregate of these aspects, perceived and unperceived, is the thing. This definition is obviously very m uch in th e spirit of the definition of a cardinal num ber as a class of classes. The second stage was reached in “The Analysis of M ind” (1921), where Russell rejected the belief in consciousness as a fundam ental char­acteristic of m ind, which he now reduced to sensations and images.

H aving arrived a t the position th a t bo th m atte r and m ind are bundles of u ltim ate constituents, the final step is to declare th a t these constituents, the aspects, are n o t specially either m aterial or m ental, bu t are th e same ‘neutral stu ff’ in bo th cases. Mind and m atte r are logical constructions : the difference between them consists in the different relations according to which the neu tra l entities are arranged, ju s t as an ordinary dictionary consists of words arranged according to the alphabetic order of the ir initial letters, whereas a dictionary of rhym es for the use of versifiers m ay consist of the same words arranged according to th e sound of the ir final syllables. Since th e neu tra l entities are directly per­ceivable (or a t least would be perceived if there were observers everywhere), the philosophy is essentially empirical, and indeed in some ways it recalls the teaching of Russell’s first instructor, John S tuart Mill. The doctrine was somewhat modified in “The Analysis of M atter” , published in 1927.

The advocates of neu tra l monism diverge con­siderably from each other in their presentations of i t : and a close exam ination has revealed m any diffi­

culties ; the criticisms of Russell’s version by Prof. A. O. Loveday in his book “R evolt Against D ualism ” and by Prof. W. T. Stace in the present ^volume are impressive. On the whole, one feels th a t a m eta­physic of th is type is no t likely to find wide accept­ance except am ong those philosophers who have a strong a priori preference for monism over dualism. As Russell adm its, such a preference cannot be based on any rational objection to dualism : i t is, perhaps, m ost often th e fru it of a m ore or less m ystical belief in parsim ony as a fundam ental principle of the universe.

Russell’s best work—-and very wonderful w ork it is— has all been related in one w ay or another to logic : the reduction of m athem atics to logic, the analysis of linguistic form (logical atomism ), and the application of logical constructions in the philosophy of science. Mr. Santayana once rem arked th a t he was inclined to say of Russell w hat Russell had said of Leibniz, th a t his philosophy was a t its best in those subjects which are m ost rem ote from hum an life. W ith th is judgm ent I agree : and so (space being lim ited) will confine m yself to th e bare m en­tion th a t parts of the w ork under review deal w ith politics, sociology and religion.

E d m u n d T. W h i t t a k e r .

GALEN AND THE EMPIRICAL SCHOOL

Galen on Medical ExperienceF irs t edition of the Arabic version w ith English translation and Notes by R . Walzer. (Published for the Trustees of the late Sir H enry Wellcome.) Pp. x i+ 164 . (London, New Y ork and T oron to : Oxford U niversity Press, 1944.) 12s. 6d. net.

FABRICIUS, in his “Bibliotheca Graeca” (1717), lists one hundred and seventy treatises by Galen

still e x ta n t ; his list of treatises lost fills six and a half quarto pages. K uehn’s edition of Galen’s works (1821-33), in spite of all its faults and for m any years to come the best accessible collection, comprises tw enty-tw o volumes. E ver since 1906, lost treatises by Galen have been recovered and edited—-in Arabic versions. “On Medical Experience” is one of these ‘lost’ treatises. I ts only m anuscript was discovered in 1931 by H. R itte r a t Istanbul. H ere is th e first edition of the Arabic tex t, which dates from the middle of th e n in th century, w ith an introduction, English translation, and explanatory notes (chiefly sources and cross-references)—the work of R . W alzer, whose experience and previous work in th e fields of Arabic and Greek science and philosophy account for the adm irable execution of his task. The work is exceedingly well produced a t a surprisingly low price.

There was first a translation from the Greek original into Syriac from th e pen of the celebrated Syriac H unain ibn Ishac, the present Arabic tex t being a re-translation from the Syriac in to Arabic by H unain ’s well-known nephew, H ubaish. H ith e r­to only certain Galen fragm ents had been known to be of im portance in the history of Greek epistem- ology, and by an ingenious guess had been a ttrib u ted to th e lost treatise “On Medical Experience” . This guess has now been confirmed by th e dis­covery and editing of th e full treatise. I t is cer­ta in ly a genuine work by Galen, a product of his early days, and its chief im portance lies in the

IN A I U K . H , F E B R U A R Y 3 , 1945, V ol.. 155

m aterial which it adds to our scanty knowledge of the so-called Em pirical School.

Greek medicine reached its first climax in pro­pounding a num ber of free observations, speculations and practical rules such as have come to us in the corpus of H ippocratic treatises. In the course of one or two centuries, free H ippocratic speculation and observation had developed into a rigid and dogmatic system. This, in due course, aroused strong an tag ­onism—the Em pirical School, the m ain tenets of which are reviewed in the present treatise. In th is Galen wishes to give, for educational purposes, an example of a speech typical of a representative of the original Em pirical School. H e refrains from giving his own views, b u t lets the em piricist w in against his dogmatic opponent. W hatever Galen’s personal a ttitu d e tow ards empiricism, he m ay be seen as the em bodiment of th e second climax of Greek medicine, owing to his final com bination of dogm atism and empiricism, which enabled him to raise medicine to the rank of an applied science based on experim ental physiology and therapy. This places th e im portance of the present treatise in the right perspective. I t sets out a discussion which m ay no t be w ithout significance in the philosophy of science and medicine in general, quite ap a rt from its historical background and implications.

The dogm atist opens the discussion b y declaring the ‘Logos’, th a t is, the knowledge of th e ‘invisible’ laws behind the obvious and ‘observable’, to be essential. I t lim its the innum erable possibilities offering themselves to the person who confines h im ­self to observation. As the alphabet enables us to comprehend the innum erable possible sounds, sys­tem atic knowledge cannot be dispensed w ith, if observation is to serve a purpose. I t is th e apprecia­tion of the order of sym ptom s ra th e r th an mere observation of sym ptom s th a t m atters. F o r example, convulsion following fever is a certain sign of death ; fever following convulsion a sign of safety. The em piricist reto rts w ith the argum ents famous from other sources, for example, Celsus, th a t a sailor is able to sail a t a given m om ent w ithou t having fathom ed the ‘Logos’ o f N ature, of elements and winds, etc. I t is lack of experience, n o t of know­ledge, by which th e medical m an is bound to fail, and it is the yearning for system atized knowledge which accounts for the divergencies in opinion as to th e natu re of such simple phenom ena as digestion, which has been a ttr ib u ted in tu rn to cooking, decay, tritu ra tion and to heat, although mere observation shows th a t none of these processes can explain it. The dogm atist should say how the discovery of remedies, certainly a pure product of em pirical search in N ature, can become w hat he calls ‘technical knowledge’ in which alone he places confidence. Obvious entities such as a ‘pile of w heat’, a ‘people’, an ‘arm y’ could be explained aw ay if we s ta rt asking how m any constituents are necessary for them —the logical trick of th e ‘Sorites’ which is being refuted a t length.

Most points which the em piricist m akes in th is discussion belong to the household stock of argum ents of scepticism, medical and philosophical, such as formed a strong current of thought when, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, th e foundations of m odem science and medicine were laid. Then Vesalius, H arvey, Van H elm ont based the ir revolu­tionary views on a refutation of Galen and his system. I t should be remembered, however, th a t criticism of systems such as advanced b y the ancient

em piricists was largely destructive, and directed in particu lar against anatom y and physiology as the ‘scientific’ basis of medicine. I t was constructive only in the discovery of new ‘pharm aka’. On the other hand, th e reader m ay be referred to the Linacre Lecture of 1943, in which Prof. Major Greenwood vindicated Galen, the experim entalist, keen observer and medical thinker, against the ill-fame of a d ic tator whose dogmatism is often said to have prevented progress in medicine for fifteen hundred years.

W. P a g e l .

“STATISTICAL METHODS”Statistical Methods for Research WorkersB y Prof. R . A. Fisher. (Biological Monographs and Manuals, No. 5.) N in th edition, revised and enlarged. Pp. x v + 350. (Edinburgh and London : Oliver and Boyd, L td ., 1944.) 16s. net.

TH E appearance of a fu rther edition of “Statistical Methods for Research W orkers” m ight easily pass alm ost unnoticed, for nine editions have a p ­

peared a t regular intervals in the last nineteen years. In fact, the cessation of th is flow would be more rem arkable than its continuation. Y et we m ay be forgiven if we take the opportunity to glance back over the career of th is now standard work, since fam iliarity m ay easily lead us to overlook its effect on biological and other research.

In 1925 the first edition was received w ith a cool­ness verging a t tim es on hostility. W hile the origin­a lity of the work and the im portance of the sm all- sam ple theory which formed its basis were acknow­ledged, i t was doubted whether Prof. F isher’s readers would be prepared to accept his m ethods in the absence of formal proofs. I t was h in ted th a t the soundness of these m ethods m ight no t justify the au tho r’s confidence. I t was feared th a t biologists in particu lar m ight well find th e book unnecessarily difficult to read. In practice, of course, the sound­ness of F isher’s m ethods has been attested , partly by m athem atical investigation, b u t perhaps more im portantly in the biologist’s eyes by the fact th a t they work. In fact, they work so well as now to be indispensable. In these circumstances, biologists, a t least, have seldom felt called on to dem and formal m athem atical proofs prior to use ; and while bio­logists have a t tim es complained of finding the book difficult (which com plaint m ay equally be taken as reflecting the deficiencies of current train ing in bio­logical research), few have le t th is difficulty blind them to the profit which they gain from using F isher’s methods. The consequences are to be seen no t merely in the improved analysis of biological data , b u t also in th e im proved design of biological experim ents—an aspect of the subject which Fisher has always stressed. In its tu rn th e book has bene­fited by being steadily expanded to include th e new techniques which have arisen from the problems it has encouraged biologists to pose to its author. Two special outgrowths, which we m ay note, are “The Design of E xperim ents” and ' “Statistical Tables” , th e origins of which m ay be seen in the earlier work.

“ S tatistical M ethods” is in fact, as already said, now a standard work, which has exercised, and m ust continue to exercise, its influence on research m ethods especially in biology. I t is ju stly recognized as an essential p a rt of all biological libraries and research laboratories. K . M a t h e r .

N o . 3W4'/, X1 il± 5 K U A K Y O , 1 > 1 ± V 1 ^ IOO

A QUANTUM THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Ey P r o f . J. B. S. HALDANE, F.R.S.University College, London

T H E hypothesis of K an t and Laplace th a t the solar system originated by a gradual process from

the contraction of a ro ta ting nebula has become more and more im probable as the theory of such a process was investigated (cf. Jeans1). As a consequence, catastrophic theories of its origin have been p u t forward. In these theories another star, or even two stars, passed close to th e sun, or collided w ith it. In th is article, which lays no claim to do more th an open the discussion of possibilities, I suggest a quite different catastrophic origin, namely, a quantum transaction or perhaps a series of such transactions.I shall try to show th a t on Milne’s 2 cosmological theory, th is is a plausible hypothesis, and further th a t certain other cosmological problems are made less difficult if i t is accepted.

According to Milne’s cosmology, the universe can be represented in two distinct ways. On the kine- m atical representation, tim e t has a finite past f0 of about 2 X 109 years or 6-3 X 1016 sec. Space is Euclidean, b u t every observer on a ‘fundam ental particle’ has his own private space. The infinite assemblage of fundam ental particles, identified w ith the nuclei of galaxies, is contained in a finite sphere of radius ct, expanding w ith the velocity of light. An observer on any particle judges him self to be a t th e centre of th is sphere, w ith the others receding from him. The different private spaces are related by the L orentz-L arm or transform ation. On the dynam ical representation the tim e r = <„ (log t — log f0 + 1) has an infinite past, and the fundam ental particles are a t rest in a public hyperbolic space. The rad ii of p lanetary and atom ic orbits are constant, as are th e periods of planets and electrons, whereas in kinem atic tim e and space the orbital rad ii and angular m om entum increase w ith t.

One difficulty of the collision or encounter theory is the extrem e ra r ity of such events. On some versions of the expanding universe theory such encounters were more probable in the rem ote past, when the stars were densely packed. B u t in Milne’s cosmology an encounter was never more probable in a given stretch of dynam ical tim e th an it is now. I t could be argued th a t as the dynam ical p ast is infinite, an encounter is certain. However, it is no p a r t of Milne’s hypothesis th a t the stars have always existed.

Milne has n o t y e t succeeded in deducing quantum mechanics from his few and simple postulates. H is mechanics are in fact m ainly classical. However, he has considered th e behaviour of photons. The quantum param eter h, defined as E /v, where E is the energy rad ia ted in a transition, and v its frequency, is invariant on the kinem atical time-scale, for the red-shift of th e d is tan t galaxies is explained by the Doppler effect due to the ir recession; and the energy rad ia ted in an atom ic transition is invariant on either scale.

The m ain difficulty to be overcome in any theory of the origin of the solar system is this. The to ta l angular m om entum of the system is abou t 3 *3 x 1050 erg-seconds. This is conserved on the dynam ical scale. Unless m ost of the mass of th e sun is con­centrated in a very dense core, all th is angular m om entum could be present in the sun, due to its

rotation , w ithout its showing any more tendency to burst than does Ju p ite r a t the present tim e. Hence some external source of energy m ust be postu lated before it could em it the m a tte r which condensed into the planets. The source of th is energy has usually been supposed to be a star. I suggest th a t i t m ay have been a photon.

The mass of the sun is about 2-0 X 1033 gjn., th a t of the planets about 0-00134 of th is value ; th e solar radius 7 X 1010 cm. ; and the gravitational constant 6-66 X 10 8. The mechanical energy of th e solar system is alm ost wholly given by the w ork required to lift the planets to the ir present orbits against solar gravitation. This again is alm ost equal to th e work required to lift them to infinity, namely, ym M /R , where y is the gravitational constant, m and M the masses of the planets and sun, and R the solar radius. The kinetic energy and the energy of th e fall from infinity to the present orbits involve corrections of the order of ym M jr, where r is th e radius of a p lanetary orbit. Since for Ju p ite r r — llOOE, these can be neglected.

ym M£ - = 5 X 10‘ 6 ergs.

Now a t first sight a photon of th is energy (and therefore of m ass 6 X 1019 tons) appears a ridiculous conception. I t would have, on the kinem atical scale, a frequency of 8 x 10’1 s e e r1, and a wave-length of 4 x 10~62 cm. B u t now consider the conditions a t tim e t, when t was very small. The radius of the universe was cf. I t could not accom modate radiation of a wave-length greater th an cf, and th e p ast would be too short for such radiation to have accomplished even a single oscillation. A t any tim e f there is a m inim al possible size of photon, the frequency of which is of the order of f"1. Probably it is a good deal less. This is borne out by th e following consideration.

The m ean lives of excited atom s liable to rad ia te light of visible frequency always appear to exceed 10-8 sec., though shorter lives are associated w ith higher frequencies. Thus out of a group of excited atom s existing from the beginning of k inem atic tim e, only a m inority would have rad ia ted before f = 1 0 '8 sec., when the universe had a radius of 3 m etres, or about 10’ wave-lengths. A t a tim e of th e order of f = 1 0 '16 sec. there could, on any hypothesis, have been extrem ely little visible radiation, as i t could no t have been produced by the ordinary rad ia tion processes. This argum ent suggests th a t rad ia tion of frequency less th an f 1 is impossible, while rad iation w ith a frequency less th a n about 106f ' 1 is produced, if a t all, w ith some difficulty.

W e can conclude, then, th a t a t f = 10 72 sec. the minimum photon corresponding to a completed oscillation would have had an energy of about 6-5 X 1045 ergs. So if there was any radiation a t all a t th is tim e, i t was sufficiently hard to lift the planets out of th e sun, if the sun absorbed it. I ts contribution of m om entum would of course have been negligible. I f some p lanetary m a tte r was shot out of the solar system, and if some hydrogen was lost even from the m ajor planets, the energy required m ust be m u lti­plied by a small factor. I f th e radius of the sun was larger it m ust be divided by a small factor. B u t we can conclude th a t the earliest date for the form ation of the solar system is about * = 10 '12, or t = — 4 1 X 1011 years, th a t i s to say, the earth cannot have

revolved round the sun m uch more th a n 4 x 1011 tim es. An error of 5 in the exponent of t would a lter t by about 5 per cent.

A t a tim e about t = 10“76 sec. the m inim al photon, which on the dynam ical scale had a period of 2 x 10’ years a t an y date, would have had an energy and frequency about 1,000 tim es greater th an a planet-generating photon. I f absorbed by a s ta r of solar dimensions it would have been sufficient to split i t into a pair the distance of which was large com pared w ith the ir radii. In such a case the paren t s ta r could no t have contained enough angular m om entum to allow its progeny to m ove in circular orbits. Otherwise i t would previously have broken up by centrifugal action. Hence the orbits of d istan t binaries would be expected to be very eccentric, as in fact they generally are. On th is hypothesis the more widely separated b inary stars were formed about 1 -2 x 1010 years earlier th an th e solar system, on th e dynam ical scale, in agreem ent w ith the argum ents based on gravitation, which ascribe to them an age of th e order of 1011 years.

To re tu rn to the solar system , it m ay be asked whether i t was form ed by th e absorption of a single photon, or of several in succession. The analogy w ith an atom , now less striking than a t th e tim e of B ohr’s original theory, suggests the former hypo­thesis, b u t the la tte r m ust also be considered. The form ation of the solar system would appear to have been in principle unobservable, since any radiation w ith which it could have been observed would either have passed th rough it unaltered or destroyed it. However, the correspondence principle can be applied to events of th is character. The prim itive sun, con­tain ing the angular m om entum of the whole solar system , had a period of ro tation of th e order of a day on the dynam ical scale, or somewhat more if it was larger than a t present on th is scale, while Ju p ite r has a period of revolution of about twelve years. W hen the correspondence principle is applied to an atom , we find th a t the frequency of th e absorbed radiation lies between those of the atom in its initial and final states. I f th is was so for the form ation of planets, the period of the photon required to produce th e solar system (or Ju p ite r alone) is of th e order of a year on the dynam ical scale, so its frequency was about 2 x 10’ tim es th a t of the m inim um photon, and the epoch of origin was, on the t scale, about 2 X 10® tim es th a t calculated above as a minimum. A lternatively, we m ight argue as follows. The planet- m aking photon was a tra in of electro-magnetic waves. A tra in w ith a suitable period would se t up electro­m agnetic oscillations in the sun, which m ight lead to the ejection of one or more planets. Given the size and physical s ta te of the sun, the period would be calculable. I t would probably be rather shorter th an th a t calculated above on the correspondence principle. In either case a photon would be m ost likely to be absorbed if it approached in the direction of the solar axis.

Since v = 1072, and if T be the corresponding period on the dynam ical scale, while t is the epoch of form ation of th e solar system, v = <0/<T • hence if T is about a year, t — 2 x 10 63 sec. roughly, whence t = — 3-7 x 1011 years. If, on the o ther hand, th e sun absorbed a num ber of photons (say 9 in all, in order to form the m ajor planets w ith P lu to and the paren t of the asteroids) the value of v for Ju p ite r would be only slightly less, b u t th a t for Mercury would be about 10” , while the values of T would not differ among themselves so much. In th is case the origins of the various planets were strung out over a period of about 4 x 1010 years of dynam ical tim e, while th e larger satellites of th e outer planets (but

probably no t those of the earth and Mars) could have been generated by photons absorbed by these planets a t a still la ter date.

W e m ust now consider the probable sta te of m atte r a t th is tim e. There could, of course, have been no radiation from atom s, nuclei, or electrons j and i t is fairly clear th a t all m a tte r was fully ionized, since any atom ic systems would be ionized by therm al collisions, and free electrons would be unable to enter quantized orbits by em itting radiation. Thus sta rs formed by gravitational condensation could only lose the energy liberated in th is process by em itting m atter. Their rad ii would be those a t which protons and electrons were ju s t lost. Thus the solar radius on the dynam ical scale m ight well have been ten tim es its present value. I f so, the energy of the postulated photon m ust be diminished by a factor of 10 , which would only decrease the dynam ical date — t by 4-6 X 10® years. The planets would, however, lose a good deal of m a tte r im m ediately on form ation, so th a t the ir original mass was greater th a n a t present. This would give a correction in the opposite direction, while tid a l friction would give a sm aller correction.

The planets rem ained gaseous for a very long stretch of dynam ical tim e. A bout t = 1 0 10 sec., loss of energy by radiation became appreciable, and by t = 10" 4 sec., or r = — 1011 years i t was in full swing. B y abou t t = 1010 sec. or earlier, the planets had liquefied, and by t = 1013 sec. or t = — 1 -5 x 1010 years, the stars had contracted to norm al stellar dimensions. These contractions were probably responsible for the origin of m any close binary systems, of the moon, and perhaps of the asteroids. During more th an 3 x 1011 dynam ical years the planets were gaseous. I suggest th a t during th is period m ost of them acquired days equal to their years, while the sun ro ta ted in a period which was some sort of average of th e p lanetary years. On contraction, angular m om entum on the dynam ical scale was conserved, and the days therefore shortened to the ir present lengths on th e dynam ical scale, except in so far as they were lengthened by the ejection of satellites and by la ter tida l friction. This would involve contractions of the rad ii by factors varying between about 20 and 100. The exceptions m ay be said to prove th e rule. U ranus has a retrograde relation. I ts satellites revolve a t a high inclination to the ecliptic, and th a t of N eptune: has a retrograde motion. I t would seem th a t tidal friction did no t complete its work on the outer planets. The other cases of retrograde satellites are probably better explained by capture.

Energy is generally thought to be liberated in stars by the breakdown of unstable nuclei generated by therm al nuclear collisions. A t present the ra te of liberation is lim ited by the num ber of effective collisions, and is thus roughly constant in dynam ical tim e. In the rem ote past nuclear breakdown was the lim iting factor ; so the sun’s radiation per dynam ical year gradually rose to its present level, and has been fairly steady through geological tim e. Since through m ost of the history of the stars and planets in dynam ical tim e nuclei of all kinds were effectively stable, b u t therm al collisions occurred, and m ore­over through a long dynam ical period the minim,,tv, photons were capable of providing the energy for nuclear synthesis, i t is suggested th a t th e heavy elements, including the radioactive ones, were bu ilt up from hydrogen between the form ation of the stars and the effective beginning of the ir therm al radiation.

I f the solar system was generated by nine or more photon absorptions, m ost of the stars in our neigh­bourhood m ust have absorbed several photons, and produced planets. I f it only absorbed one, the frequency of long-period binaries suggests th a t events of th is type were no t rare, so th a t our galaxy m ay in ­clude some hundreds of millions of p lanetary systems. I f so, th e field of biology is probably wider th an has been suggested.

The galaxies have masses of the order of 1045 gm. This is th e m ass of a photon of period 10~82 sec., th a t is, of the m inim um photon a t t = 10~82 sec. Even if the galaxies were originally particles of m a tte r as closely packed as atom ic nuclei, and therefore of ra th e r less th a n the size of the sun, th e energies needed to d isrup t them into gas were considerably less th a n th a t of such a photon. Hence if the galaxies originated by th e absorption of radiation, in which case some of Milne’s ‘fundam ental particles’ m ay still exist in a com pact form, or even if their whole mass arose from radiation , they cannot date from before t — 10 02 sec., or r = —5 X 1011 years. Thus the long time-scale of about 1018 years deduced from a study of gravitational interactions of stars, which are naturally m easured in dynam ical tim e, appears as a consequence of Milne’s theory.

The above argum ents m ust be regarded as the a ttem p t of a laym an to deduce some of the con­sequences im plicit in Milne’s cosmology, consequences which he had p artly envisaged when he w rote in 1936 th a t “all dynam ical theories o f the origin of the solar system m ay require drastic revision” . I have doubtless missed other consequences as im por­ta n t as any which I m ay have elicited. Even if m y hypothesis is found to be logically coherent, i t m ay well prove, when fully developed, to be as untenable as Laplace’s nebular theory. In particular, the secular stab ility of non-radiating ionized gaseous spheres and th e relation of th e uncertain ty principle to th e scale of tim e will require investigation. Above all, the details of th e postulated process were in principle unobservable, and it will therefore be hard to te s t the proposed theory as rigorously as others have been tested in the past. This is a serious defect, since th e value of a scientific theory increases w ith the num ber of ways in which it can be tested. B u t m uch of curren t physical theory has the same defect.

I have no t suggested an origin for the postulated photon or photons. To do so would involve either a further step in a possibly infinite regress or the assum ption th a t they were prim ordial constituents of the universe. They m ight, for example, have been generated by th e acceleration of large charges during the origin of the galaxies. I t m ay be asked w hat is their present state , if any of them have n o t been wholly or m ainly converted into kinetic energy. The energy of a photon is invariant on the kinem atic scale appropriate to the particle em itting i t ; b u t since a particle absorbing it is moving aw ay from its source, its frequency and energy are lowered by the Doppler effect, and on the kinem atical scale appro­priate to such a particle, bo th vary as t 1, where t is the epoch of absorption. Thus the postu lated planet- m aking photons are now trains of electrom agnetic waves of a period of the order of a year, and much too small to be observable in practice. The m ass of m a tte r a t any tim e is thus the fraction of the mass a t an earlier tim e which has not been degraded by the Doppler effect, and a t a sufficiently early date m ost of the m ass of the universe, or all of it, m ay have been rad iation ra th e r th an m atter.

In conclusion, I wish to th an k Prof. Milne for his encouragem ent, and for elucidating several details of his cosmology in letters ; and to em phasize th a t if th e theory here sketched has any value a t all, i t will only prove its value by serving as a basis for exact calculations by persons b e tte r versed th an m yself in physics and astronom y.1 “Problem s of Cosmogony a n d S te lla r Dynamics” (Cambridge, 1919).

“Astronom y and Cosmogony” (Cambridge, 1928).• “ R elativ ity , G ravitation, and W orld S tructu re” (Oxford, 1935).

Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 154, 22 (1936); 156, 62 (1936); 158 , 324 (1937); 159, 171, 526 (1937); 160, 1, 24 (1937); 165, 313, 333 (1937). Phil. Mag., 84, 73 (1943).

By Pro f. E. A. MILNE, F.R.S.Wadham College, Oxford

P r o p . H a l d a n e ’s idea as developed in the fore­going article seems to me to be fundam entally im portant. As all m ay no t be fam iliar w ith the details of kinem atic cosmology, and as readers m ay have difficulty in keeping pace w ith the rapier-like speed of Prof. H aldane’s m ind, I beg to be allowed to traverse some of the same ground in more pedes­trian fashion.

To begin w ith, a w ord of explanation : I first announced m y ideas on the two time-scales a t the Blackpool meeting of the B ritish Association, in a discussion on th e origin of the solar system ; b u t the consequences of the ideas were so bizarre th a t I felt it to be absolutely necessary to develop th e formal and philosophical aspects of the theory in full detail before proceeding to the more speculative con­sequences. This program m e I carried out in a series of papers published by th e Royal Society during 1936-38, and, though hindered by war-work, in Philosophy (1941), in addresses before th e London M athem atical Society (1939), the Royal Society of E dinburgh (1943), the Royal Astronomical Society (1944) and in a series of papers in th e Phil. Mag. (1943). I am a t present wrestling w ith the difficult problem of the conservation of linear m om entum for gravitating bodies in the expanding universe, and I do no t wish to be hustled. However, in Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 165, 354 (1938), discussing th e role of the correspondence principle on the two time-scales, I wrote : “I t is no t a fanciful speculation to see in the interplay of radiation keeping i-tim e w ith m atte r obeying the classical laws of mechanics on the r-scale a phenomenon giving rise to the possibility o f change in the universe in time, and so an origin for the action of evolution in bo th th e inorganic and organic universes” . A possible mode of th a t in terplay has now been pointed out by Haldane.

I have long been aware th a t all theories of the origin of th e solar system require drastic re-consider­ation in the light of th e fact th a t a t tim es of the order of t = 0 , when the solar system was bom , dynam ical and optical conditions were very different. H aldane works w ith equal facility in either tim e- scale ; b u t i t m ust be rem em bered th a t the r-scale is a concession to our N ewtonian predilections, th a t i t has in its description a constant ta (the present age of the system on the Lscale) which has nothing to do w ith phenomena ; it has to do only w ith the lafiguage by which we describe th e phenom ena. Phenom ena themselves are best studied through the t-scale, and in th is scale the precise value of t a t the epoch studied is all-im portant.

In H aldane’s calculation of the order of m agnitude of th e energy required to be com municated to the

sun to form the solar system of planets, he uses the form ula ym-M/R, w ith the present values of y and R. I t m ight be objected th a t on m y theory y x t, and th a t therefore the required energy was then m uch smaller. The answer is th a t R oc t also, th a t energy is a ‘tim e-invariant’, and th a t H aldane’s calculation is accordingly correct. On his data, th e value of ym M /R is 5 X 1045 ergs, as he says.

Previous speculators on th e early history of the universe had always argued th a t since th e universe is expanding, collisions m ust have been then more frequent, forgetting th a t lengths of m aterial objects (tha t is, radii) would have then been m uch smaller. B y translating to the r-scale (stationary universe) we see th a t collisions would be ju s t as frequent, or as infrequent, as now. The new contribution which H aldane makes is th a t the optical situation would be entirely different. A t epoch t, when th e radius of the expanding universe was ct, there cannot well have been photons of wave-length exceeding ct. The in­equality l< ct implies for the frequency n the relation n = c/Z > 1 jt. (Here I and n are m easured on th e X-scale.) W orking again on the i-scale, the inequality A E —h0n > h0/t gives the m inim um per­missible photon energy. Taking h„ — 6-55 x 10 27, a t epoch t = ICh72 sec., we get A E > 6 '5 x 1045 ergs, so th a t such photons as were then possible would have sufficient energy to disrupt the sun and form a solar system.

There is no difficulty as to where the photons could come from. F or according to kinem atic relativ ity the m ass (actual) and energy of th e universe are infinite ; and light m ust be present. Hence it m ust be, a t small t, of enormous frequency and energy. The s ta te of m aterial atom s would be one of complete ionization ; and th e h istory of any photon would be one of successive degradations of frequency by in te r­action w ith m atte r, un til a t the present epoch light is mostly as we know it. This degradation of the individual photons due to interacting w ith m atte r m ust be distinguished from their constancy of frequency in tim e (<-scale) as they are propagated through em pty space.

The epoch a t which a photon A E was n o t less than 6-5 x 1045 ergs was, on the f-scale, l ( h '2 sec. The r-m easure of th is epoch was r — t„ log(</f0) -f t„. The ‘tim e ago’ a t which it occurred is r 0 — t, where t „, the present epoch on th e r-scale, is equal to <0. This gives

r0 — r = <„ — r =■t„ log«,(<0/Z)= 6-3 X 1C1' x 2-3 x log10(6-3 x 1014/ 1 0 ’2) sec.= 6-3 X 1016 X 4-3 X 8 8 - 8 sec. = 4-1 x 1011 yr.,

in agreem ent w ith H aldane. This is o f th e order o f the ‘long’ time-scale estim ated by gravitational m ethods, th a t is, on th e r-scale.

H aldane’s fundam ental idea (pressing it to its lim it) m ay be sta ted in th e form th a t, ju st as the epoch t = 0 is a singularity in the mechanical X-history of the universe— an epoch a t which th e density was infinite—so the epoch t = 0 is a singularity in the optical history of th e universe, nam ely, an epoch a t which the frequency of radiation was infinite, because the wave-length had to be zero. Actually we can only m ake significant statem ents about th e radiation for small epochs f, when the frequency would on the whole be very large. A spectrum would soon come into existence, b y th e absorption and backward emission (or backw ard scattering) of rad iation by the natu ra lly receding particles, w ith resulting degrada­tion of frequencies by the cum ulative Doppler effects.

B u t some of the original high-frequency radiation would traverse space unscathed, and, in sp ite of the inevitable Doppler effect a t the terrestrial receiving end, a small fraction of th is would re ta in a still very high frequency, and m ight be the origin of the undulatory com ponent of the present cosmic rays.

I th ink it would be wise, in th is prelim inary dis­cussion of H aldane’s idea, no t to go into details as to how a prim ordial photon of huge energy could d isrup t a star. I t is sufficient to dwell on the rem ark­able result th a t H aldane has deduced from kinem atic relativ ity , namely, th a t a t very early epochs in the h istory of the universe, such photons as there were m ust have possessed enormous energies.

W IREW ORMS AND FOOD PRODUCTION

By HERBERT W. MILESResearch Station, Long Ashton, Bristol

WIREW ORM S are undoubtedly th e m ost notor- iousof all insects of agricultural im portance, p rob­

ably because their depredations are m ore extensive a t tim es of agricultural expansion and prosperity. The trad itional agriculture of B rita in has been m ainly the type known as ‘m ixed farm ing’, and the measure o f prosperity has been the ex ten t of land under the plough. W ireworms are grassland insects, and so long as grassland is undisturbed they are of no economic im portance. Periods of agricultural depression are periods of increasing areas of grassland, bo th cu lti­v ated and derelict, and consequently periods in which the num bers of grassland insects increase. E vents th a t lead to high prices for cereals—the Napoleonic wars and the Corn Laws in the first half of the n ineteenth century, and the German wars in the tw entieth century—are associated w ith the ploughing up of grassland, and th e enhanced value of th e crops stim ulates the in terest of the farm er in the causes of crop failure. I t is a simple proceeding to pull up dying plants, and only too frequently the expected wireworms are found a t the ir roots.

In reports of the B oard of Agriculture during the W ar of 1914-18 it was noted th a t in specified districts wireworms were responsible for th e “complete de­struction of cereal crops” . A lthough it is doubtful w hether wireworms caused all the loss im puted to them , the prospect of another E uropean w ar and the consequent need for a great increase in cereal growing in B rita in m ade im perative some reconsideration of th e wireworm problem. The difficulties confronting the agricultural advisory entomologists were con­siderable. During th e post-w ar years there had been little investigational w ork on wireworms, and their occurrence as a field pest had only been occasional in a period when cereal production was declining and little established grassland was being broken for arable culture. Farm ers required advice and assist­ance long before the five-year period necessary for the observation of the wireworm life-cycle could be com pleted and while only th e scantiest of inform ation was available on the distribution of wireworms in th e soil and the density of wireworm populations. The scale of the national ploughing policy and the speed w ith which it had to be carried out precluded the developm ent of direct control measures aiming a t wireworm destruction and compelled resort to modifi­

No. 3927, F e b r u a r y 3, 1945

cation of agricultural practice and choice of crop to avoid loss th rough wireworm attack .

How th e wireworm problem has been dealt w ith is described in a recent publication of the M inistry of Agriculture and Fisheries1. The collaborators in the work were sixteen official entomologists w ith their staffs and a statistician. Their p rim ary task was to find a technique suitable for assessing wireworm populations On an extensive scale w ith reasonable speed and accuracy. The s tudy of soil fauna has been ham pered by technical difficulties of extracting animals from soil. W ireworms vary in length from 1 mm. to 20 m m ., and unless soil structure is com­pletely broken the smaller wireworms m ay be trapped in th e soil aggregates. The usual m ethods of ex ­tracting wireworms from soil are hand-sorting and flotation. H and-sorting has obvious lim itations, particularly when th e heavier types of soil are involved. E x trac tion by flotation presents difficulties regarding th e transporta tion and disposal o f soil, the need for special laboratory facilities and equip­m ent, and the likelihood of cannibalism among w ire­worms in stored soil.

Circumstances compelled the adoption of hand- sorting as th e standard m ethod of wireworm ex trac­tion for w ar-tim e advisory work. I t was recognized th a t only th e larger wireworms were found by th is m ethod ; b u t since they were m ainly responsible for crop loss it was considered th a t hand-sorting revealed the effective wireworm population w ith reasonable accuracy. A t some of the advisory centres where necessary facilities existed a flotation m ethod of wireworm ex traction was adopted ; b u t the greater efficiency of extraction was offset by the sacrifice of other detail. The recognition of the lim itations of the extraction m ethods used by th e advisers led to the evolution by Salt and H ollick2 of a mechanical means of extracting wireworms from the soil. This apparatus is designed for research w ork and should stim ulate the study of soil fauna, since it affords for th e first tim e a reliable means of separating from the soil m inute insects and other creatures, insect and other eggs, and eelworm cysts.

Lack of inform ation on both horizontal and vertical d istribution of wireworms in the soil and on their seasonal m ovem ents complicated th e prbblem of estim ating wireworm populations ; b u t statistical exam ination of series of num bers of wireworms from soil blocks of various sizes suggested th a t reasonable accuracy m ight be obtained by the exam ination of tw enty m ore or less evenly distributed core-borer samples 4 in. in diam eter and 6 in. deep. Sampling of th is in tensity involved the careful scrutiny of approxim ately a hundredweight of soil in each field (the average size of 34,000 fields was ra th e r less than ten acres), and dem anded a high standard of in tegrity on the p a rt of field workers who often carried out the exam ination in the open in poor weather. The probable lim its of error of population estim ates calculated on the basis of such sampling is discussed in the bulletin, and the possibility of bo th under- and over-estim ating had to be allowed for in form ulating advice.

In m aking a survey of wireworm populations in grassland scheduled for ploughing in various parts of E ngland and Wales, in conjunction w ith observations on crop perform ance in surveyed fields, the advisory entomologists hoped to obtain inform ation on the distribution of wireworm population, the crop loss associated w ith various population densities, and the influence of such factors as geographical position,

soil type, fertility and agricultural m anagem ent on wireworm populations and crop loss. By th e au tum n of 1943 wireworm population estim ates h ad been m ade on more th an 34,000 fields, and th e bulletin gives wireworm distribution m aps showing th a t populations tend to be higher in the east and south­east and lower tow ards the w est and north . The grouping of fields into those having ‘high’, ‘m edium ’ and ‘low’ wireworm populations was arb itra ry , bu t i t m ust have given confidence to farm ers and w ar agricultural committees to know th a t in 50 per cent of the fields scheduled for ploughing wireworm populations were considered low and n o t likely to cause serious loss of crop.

Observations m ade in the course of th e survey indicated th a t crop failure was the resu lt o f the complex interaction of a num ber of adverse factors, and only in about one field in six were wireworms sufficiently numerous to be a serious menace to crop production. Such factors as soil conditions and fertility , the standard of cultivation and th e use of good-quality seed protected from seed-borne diseases, were so im portan t th a t where they were satisfactory good cereal crops could be produced in fields where the effective wireworm population was well in excess of a million per acre.

The survey has not revealed any reliable correlation between the level of wireworm population and soil texture, soil m oisture, fertility and agricultural m anagem ent, b u t it has shaken some widely accepted beliefs concerning th e incidence of wireworms. Poor, undergrazed, badly m anaged grassland where coarse tu fted grasses prevailed was thought to encourage wireworm developm ent; b u t when counts were made it was found th a t wireworms were generally m ost numerous in good grassland, and some of the highest recorded populations were found in R om ney M arsh and Leicestershire in some of the best perm anent pastures in Britain. L ight loams and sandy soils had been associated w ith severe wireworm in jury , b u t the survey showed th a t in m ost counties higher wire­worm populations prevailed in the heavier types of soil.

The success th a t has attended th e rem arkable expansion of arable cultivation fostered by the M inistry of Agriculture has been due largely to the close co-operation of farmers, technical agricultural officers and specialist advisers. Through the study of crop perform ance on newly broken grassland, the advisers in entomology have been able to suggest crops th a t m ight be successful on land heavily in ­fested w ith wireworms, and to recommend modifica­tions of farm practice, such as the adoption of heavier seeding-rates, th a t would assist the establishm ent of satisfactory stands of p lan ts in spite of thinning by wireworms. The knowledge th a t scientific workers and agricultural technicians were deeply concerned w ith the problem of crop production helped to check a fatalistic a ttitu d e among farm ers forced to adopt systems of farming for which they had neither the im ­plem ents nor the experience, and the obvious success of arable crops in w hat were often considered u n ­favourable circumstances encouraged farm ers to m ake the best of tools placed a t the ir disposal, fertilizers th a t were available and the ir own skill and experience.

To those concerned w ith pest control on agricul­tu ra l crops th e survey has induced a m ore critical a ttitu d e to crop failure and placed increased emphasis on the im portance of high standards of cultivation and fertility . M arket garden and fru it crops have

138 F e b r u a r y 3, 1945, v o l. 155

a high intrinsic value, and are grown on a com para­tively small scale, therefore expenditure on the destruction of insects and fungi attack ing them is economically ju stified ; b u t for farm crops, only indirect m ethods of dealing w ith pests and diseases are practical. Like the medical officers of health , the p lan t pathologists concerned w ith agricultural crops m ust s tudy conditions in which disease occurs and aim a t developing preventive ra the r th a n the much more costly curative measures. W ireworms are present in practically all agricultural la n d ; b u t the farm er who can m ain ta in satisfactory standards of fertility and husbandry will suffer little loss from m oderate wireworm populations.

The problem of how to balance th e necessary periods of rest under grass when wireworm popula­tions increase, w ith periods under arable culture when they are dispersed, has still to be tackled. This is long-range work th a t will require comprehensive biological, ecological and insect physiological studies. The change from w ar-tim e to peace-time agriculture will provide the field conditions required for the work. The solution of th is problem would assist in the establishm ent of a flexible agriculture and remove from the m ind of th e farm er the fear th a t the benefits accruing from resting land under grass would be dissipated by the depredations of wireworms.1 B ulletin 128. "W ireworms a nd Food P roduction .” (H.M. S tationery

Office. l*.l 'A n n . A pp . Biol.. 81, 52 (1944).

O B I T U A R YSir Euckston Erowne

G e o b g e B u c k s t o n B r o w n e came of a line of medical men, he being a representative of the fifth generation. He was born on April 13, 1850, of wealthy parents, his father being Dr. H enry Browne, physician to the M anchester Royal Infirm ary and lecturer on medicine, and his m other, Ann Hadfield. H e was an only son ; two sisters rose to eminence in the civic life of Manchester. H is m other died while he was still in his boyhood ; th e father, who was deeply religious, and son drifted ap a rt ; it is custom ary to blame the Victorian father for the clash which separated son from father, b u t those who knew Sir Buckston in his la ter years will realize th a t the clash m ay have been due as m uch to the son’s opinionative wilfulness as to the father’s Calvinism.

However th is m ay be, Buckston Browne, in 1866, when he was sixteen years of age, resolved to leave the paternal home ; he asked for, and was given, an allowance of £3 per week w ith which to feed, clothe and educate himself. H e had been a t Amersham H all School for four years and h ad passed the m atricu ­lation exam ination of the U niversity of London. He w ent to London, resolved to carry out his boyish am bition of becoming a medical man. W ith th is object in view he entered as a medical student of University College ; he laboured day an d night to m ake himself proficient in his profession ; in 1873 he won by open contest the proud position of being ‘house surgeon’ to Sir John Erichsen. Then in 1874, a t the age of tw enty-four, he entered th e world of ‘incomes’ ; he had become a member of the Royal College of S urgeons; he augm ented his paternal allowance by earning £8 a m onth by dem onstrating in th e dissecting room and coaching in anatom y a t the ra te of 2s. 6d. an hour.

I t was a t th is juncture of his affairs th a t Buckston Browne engaged him self as p rivate assistant to Sir H enry Thompson a t the ra te of £200 a year. Sir H enry was surgeon to U niversity College Hospital, and recognized as the leading au tho rity on all diseases of th e genito-urinary system . A t the tim e he entered in to th is contract w ith Sir H enry Thompson, he made a love marriage, choosing as his wife Helen E lizabeth Vaine, of Sparsholt, H ants. H e was often heard to declare th a t his success in his profession was due, not to his patron, b u t to his wife. I t was a happy com­panionship which endured for fifty-two years, coming to an end in 1926. They had two children, a son and a d a u g h te r ; the daughter becam e th e wife of Mr. H ugh L ett, surgeon to th e London H ospital—later Sir H ugh L ett, B art., president of the Royal College of S urgeons; the son, George Buckston Browne, won the D.S.O. in the first W orld W ar, dying in 1919 from w ar service, leaving a son, the six th George Buckston Browne, who died in 1924, the last of the male line.

The first period of Buckston Browne’s professional life in the W est E nd of London was spent in the service of Sir H enry Thompson and in laying the basis of his own practice. He had no hospital appoin t­m ent to commend him ; he had failed to pass the fellowship exam ination of his college ; bu t he possessed a rare delicacy of m anipulative skill and a profound knowledge of all ailm ents of the bladder, particularly those due to enlargem ent of the prostate. On Sir H enry Thompson’s retirem ent, all such cases found the ir way to Buckston Browne’s consulting rooms ; elderly gentlemen who nowadays suffer from enlargem ent of the prostate subm it themselves to the one m ajor operation, b u t a t th e period w ith which we are dealing, they were educated to lead w hat was known as th e ‘catheter life’ under the im m ediate care of the ir surgeon. Buckston Browne devoted himself to his practice so wholeheartedly th a t in less than fo rty years he had a tta ined a financial success which has rarely been equalled in th e annals of medical London.

Thus it came about th a t in the year 1927, Buckston Browne found himself a w ealthy b u t lonely m an ; he had lost the companionship of his w ife ; his son and grandSon were dead ; his larger am bition, to p a r­tic ipate in public life, was unsatisfied. In th is year the B ritish Association, m eeting in Leeds, appealed for a fund which would enable it to purchase D arw in’s home a t Downe, K ent, and preserve it as a national memorial. Buckston Browne a t once offered to pro­vide the money needed. In his youth he had sat under H uxley a t the School of Mines and had been a lifelong adm irer of Darwin. The goodwill of the Darwin fam ily m ade the purchase of Down House possible. H e spent upw ards of £10,000 on the restora­tion of th e house and grounds, adding a g ift of £20,000 for its upkeep. The B ritish Association was thus able to open house and grounds to the public on Ju n e 7, 1929.

Buckston Browne then tu rned his beneficent activities towards his old college, the Royal College of Surgeons of England. On F ebruary 4, 1931, he addressed a le tter to the Council of the College in which th is sentence occurs : “I ask you to gran t me the great privilege of building and endowing an In stitu tion of Surgical Biological Research in which surgeons, particularly young surgeons, will have full opportunity for carrying out the ir investigations” .

U ltim ately, he conveyed stock to the value of £105,000 to carry out his scheme. H e remembered

The vacancies advertised in these columns are available only to applicants to whom the Em ploym ent o f W om en (Control of Engage­ment) Orders, 1942-8, do not apply.

TH E P O L Y T E C H N ICREG EN T STR EE T, LONDON, W .l

Spring Series of Lectures “ SCIEN CE IN TH E SER V IC E OF MAN " The following series of public Lectures will be

held in the Reading Room, Polytechnic Main Building, 309 Regent S treet, W .l, on Thursdays a t 0.30 p.m ., beginning on Feb. 8, 1945.

Admission Will be F ree W ithout Ticket Feb. 8.—1. “ Science as a H um an A ctiv ity ," bv

J . G, Crowther, Esq., M.A.Feb. 15.—2. “ Aviation and its D evelopm ent,"

by Lord Brabazon of Tara.Feb 2 2 .-3 . " Plastics and O ther New M aterials,”

by Dr. E . F . Armstrong, F.R .S.M arch 1. 4. “ Radio and the F u tu re ," by

Sir Edw ard A ppleton, F.R .S.M arch 8.—5. “ Food and N utrition ," by A. L

Bacharach, Esq., M.A.M arch 15. 6. “ Science and its Effect on

Modern T hought," by G. Burniston Brown, Esq. M.Sc., Ph.D.

N O R T H ST A FF O R D SH IR E T E C H N IC A L C O L L E G E

STOKE-ON-TRENT P rin c ip a l:

H. W. W ebb. D.Sc., F .I.C ., M .I.Chem .E.A LE C TU R ER is required in the CERAMICS

D epartm ent. Candidates should have a good degree in Science but a knowledge of Ceramics is no t essential. B urnham Scale, plus 'war allowance. Prospects of prom otion are good lo r a candidate interested in applied science.

Applications, giving particu lars of training qualifications and experience, should be subm itted to the P rincipal a t the College on or before Feb. 17 next.

J . F . CARR.Clerk to the Governors.

U N IV E R S IT Y O F M A N C H E ST E RM ANCHESTER MUSEUM

A pplications are invited for the post of A ssistant Keeper to be responsible for the Geological Collections in the M anchester Museum D uties to commence Sept. 29, 1945. Applicants should possess a good H onours Degree o r its equivalent. Salary according to qualifications,

a no* -ss ^ an ^400 per annum .A pplications should be sent, not la ter than

April 24, to the Registrar, The University, M anchester 13, from whom further particulars m ay be obtained.

U N IV E R S IT Y O F M A N C H E ST E RThe U niversity proposes to proceed to the

appoin tm ent of a whole-time Professor of Medi­cine. Stipend not exceeding £2,500 per annum . Duties to commence on Sept. 29, 1945. The U niversity will, however, consider en try upon the tenure of the C hair at a la ter date in the case of a person who is a t present serving in the Forces.

P?rson wh° desires his nam e to be con­sidered should com m unicate as early as possible, and m any case before A pril 24, 1945, w ith the Registrar, The University, M anchester 13, and j?ive a brief statem ent of his qualifications.

HARPER A D A M S A G R IC U L T U R A L C O L L E G E

Appointm ent of ASSISTANT DAIRY BACTERIOLOGIST

A pplications are invited for the above post from graduates of a recognized U niversity, and who have had experience in dairy bacteriology, salary range £300 to £400 per annum , plus war oonus.

F u rther particulars m ay be obtained from the Principal, H arper Adams A gricultural College, Newport, Shropshire.

U N IV E R S IT Y C O L L E G E O F H U L LD EPARTM ENT O F ZOOLOGY

A tem porary A ssistant L ecturer is required for he summer term beginning April 24, 1945. Salary up to £ 100, according to qualifications ind experience. The person appointed will be equired to lecture in Animal Ecology and to ec ture and conduct practical classes in the :om parative anatom y of the arthropoda.

A pplications should be m ade to the R egistrar lot la ter than M arch 1.

U N IV E R S IT Y L IB R A R IA NThe U niversity of A lberta invites applications

for the post of University L ibrarian ; duties to begin Sept. 1, 1945; initial salary $3,500 to $4,000, according to qualifications.—Applications, stating age, nationality , and o ther personal inform ation, particu lars of academ ic and technical qualifications and experience (including teaching experience, if any), and nam es and addresses of references, should be sent, before A pril 1, to President, University of A lberta, Edm onton, Canada.

IN S T IT U T E O F A N IM A L G E N E T IC S

U N IV ERSITY OF ED IN BU RG H West Mains Road, Edinburgh, 9

Applications are invited for the post ot MANAGER of the Research Farm , Balemo, M idlothian. A good working knowledge of animal breeding and arable farm ing will be expected, and an agricultural degree or diplom a is desir­able. Salary according to qualifications. Free House.

Applications, together with references, should be sent to the Secretary, Institu te of Animal Genetics, from whom further inform ation may be obtained.

U N IV E R S IT Y O F B R IS T O LThe U niversity invites applications for a

LECTU RER IN BOTANY, Grade I I or Grade III, according to qualifications and experience.

Applications should reach the undersigned, from whom further particulars m ay be obtained, on or before Feb. 23, 1945.

W IN IF R E D SHAPLAND,Secretary and Registrar.

BE D FO R D C O L L E G E FOR W OM EN(University of London)

REG EN TS PARK, N .W .l W anted im m ediately LABORATORY AP­

P R E N T IC E (girl) in the D epartm ent of Physi­ology. Initial wages 30s. per week.—Apply the Secretary.

B R IT IS H A S S O C IA T IO N OF C H E M IS T S

F IR S T PU BLIC LEC TU R E, 1945 Professor H arold Laski on " The Place of the

Scientist in Post-W ar A dm inistration," Caxton Hall, W estm inster, S .W .l. 6.30 p .m ., W ednesday, Feb. 14, 1945. All interested are invi‘ed.Admission free.

The Wellcome Foundation Ltd. inviteapplications for a position in the Control Labora­tories a t the Wellcome Chemical Works. Ap­plicants (men or women) should possess an Honours Degree in Chemistry or its equivalent; preference will be given to those with some experience in analytical work. The position is permanent and pensionable.—Applications, stating full particulars in regard to age, qualifications, experience, and salary required, should be addressed to the Works Manager, Wellcome Chemical Works, Dartford, Kent.

Chemists required for service withpetroleum com pany in the Middle E ast. Salary £34 to £40 per m onth, according to qualifications and experience. Meals and furnished quarters provided, also o ther benefits. Age 20 to 3 5 - Applicants should write, quoting F.1843XA, to the M inistry of L abour and N ational Service. A ppointm ents D epartm ent, Central (Technical and Scientific) Register, Room 5/17 , Sardinia Street, Kingsway, London, W.C.2, for the necessary forms, which should be returned com pleted on or before F eb. 9, 1945.

Librarian : A vacancy exists in anindustrial undertaking in South W est Middlesex for a librarian (male o r female) to take charge of a small technical reference library. The duties include the indexing and custody of Laboratory Reports and o ther technical docu­ments, and the indexing of technical articles. Ability to prepare digests of P aten t Specifications an advantage.—A pplications, s tating qualifications and salary required, to Box 306, T. G. Scott & Son, L td ., 9 A rundel Street, London, W.C.2.

Scientific Manuscripts carefully typed.Recom m ended.—Mrs. Pearce, 26 Felbridge Avenue, Stanm ore, Middlesex.

Physicists required immediately forIndustrial Research by large m anufacturing con­cern in the M idlands. A pplicants should have a U niversity Degree w ith honours in Physics. Some research experience desirable but not essential.—Reply, giving details of training and experience to Box 300, T. G. Scott & Son, L td., 9 A rundel S treet, London, W.C.2.

Graduate Research Chemists forim mediate or post-w ar appointm ent are required by a firm of Inorganic Pigm ent M anufacturers. Candidates, who should be of British nationality, should preferably have some industrial experience. A sound knowledge of analytical chemistry would be an advantage.—Box 301, T. G. Scott & Son, L td., 9 Arundel S treet, London, W.C.2.

Zoologist (woman) is required by largefirm of Chemical M anufacturers in Scotland for the assay of the physiologically active substances. A pplicants should have U niversity Degree. Age under 35 years. Commencing to tal em oluments £290 upw ards, according to age and experience. —Apply, Box 302, T. G. Scott & Son, L td., 9 Arundel S treet, London, W.C.2.

Electronic Engineer, 15 years' experi­ence in U niversity, industrial and Government laboratories, specialist in H.V. techniques, tele­vision, electronic devices, valves, gas discharges, etc., wishes to take on responsible position in London area as chief engineer or similar. Box 305, T . G. Scott & Son, L td .. 9 Arundel S treet, London, W.C.2.

Wanted by woman (over 41) withscientific, business, and secretarial experience connected with Colonial and Continental indus- tries, constructive post-war work. Languages, accountancv, docum entarv films.—Box 304, T. G. Scott & Son, L td ., 9 A rundel Street. London, W.C.2.

Wanted urgently, 3 Young MaleScience G raduates trained in Chem istry and B iochemistry, for the production of medical supplies.—A pply in writing to the Secretary, The WeTcome Research Institution, 183 Euston Road. London, N .W .l.

Skilled’ Laboratory1 Assistant requiredat once for Physiology D epartm ent. Wages £3 to £5 per week, according to experience, etc — A pplications to be sent to the Vice-Dean, St. Bartholom ew ’s Hospital Medical Co. lege at Queen’s College, Cambridge.

Laboratory Assistant required forPhysics D epartm ent. Knowledge of practical Physics and ability to do m inor repairs. Salary according to expe rience—A pply, Professor H. Dingle, D.Sc., Im perial College, South Kensing­ton, S.W.7.

Wanted : Ring Index (A.C.S. Mono­graph No. 84). either new or secondhand. £3 for first copy offered.—W rite, G enatosan Limited, Loughborough, Leicester.

Wanted : two or three copies of "K ine­matics of Machinery ’’ by Reuleaux.—R eply to Box 299, T. G. Scott & Son, L td ., 9 Arundel S treet, London, W.C.2.

For Sale. "Lehrbuch der OrganischenChem ie,” M eyer-Jacobson, Vol. I, P arts 1 and 2; Vol. II , P arts 1, 2, and 3. Excellent condition. —Offers to Box 303, T. G. Scott & Son, L td., 9 A rundel Street, London, W.C.2.

W anted: Complete sets and runs of Scientific Periodicals, including N a t u r e and Learned Society publications.—The Scientific Book Supply Service, 5 F e tte r Lane, London, E.C.4.

Cuscuta~seed or plants' of any speciesare urgently wanted for research.—Economic Botany, Manchester University.

Microscopes, of all descriptions, onlya few available, second-hand, perfect condition. Send details of your requirem ents, enclosing 3d. stam p.—Telephone or correspondence only,Chards, F orest Hill, S.E.23 (Spring P ark 1628).

n o . 3927, F e b r u a r y 3, iy 4 3 i n a i u r . r.bow essential Jo h n H un ter found his farm a t E arl’s Court to be for th e completion of his experim ental work, and hoped th a t the institu tion or farm he had in m ind would serve young surgeons as an ‘E a r l’s Court’. H e bought land adjacent to th e Darwin estate as a site for his institution, now known as th e Buckston Browne F arm for Surgical Research. I t was opened in 1933, b u t w ith the coming of w ar all its research workers were called to the field, the laboratories being taken over by the Emergency H ealth Service. W ith th e re tu rn of peace we m ay hope to see i t restored to its old activities.

Among his in tim ate friends B uckston Browne num bered Sir Thomas B arlo w : bo th were fromL ancash ire ; th ey m et as students a t U niversity College ; they occupied houses in W impole S treet which faced each other. On Jan u ary 11, Sir Buckston was carried to his old hospital, suffering from a

fracture of th e neck of his fe m u r; he died on Ja n u ary 19, well advanced into his ninety-fifth year. As he lay in th e hospital, where seventy-three years before he had been house surgeon, his senior friend shook off the burden of life, having reached his hundredth year.

In 1931 the U niversity of Aberdeen conferred its honorary LL.D. on Sir Buckston in recognition of his services to surgery. In 1932 he received th e honour of knighthood, when he discarded “George” from his nam e, wishing to be known as Sir Buckston Browne.

A. K e i t h .

In Nature of October 28, 1944, an ob ituary notice was printed of Prof. G ustav Gilson : we have since been informed th a t Prof. Gilson died on Ja n u a ry 1, 1944.

N E W S a n d V I E W SAnglo-French Society of Sciences

A t the beginning of th e W ar, a num ber of scientific m en in England and France became conscious of the lack of close knowledge and contact between th e science and scientific workers of the two countries. As a result, they founded in April 1940 an Anglo- French Society of Sciences to assist the removal of th is lack of m utual knowledge. The Society was organized in two groups, under the presidencies of Prof. P . A. M. D irac and Prof. F . Joliot. The occupa­tion of F rance in terrup ted norm al proceedings, bu t during the occupation some members became very prom inent in the French resistance movement. The liberation of F rance has enabled the Society to hold its first conference, which was on the topic of “The Solid S ta te” , and was held in London on Ja n u ary 20 a t th e Society for Visiting Scientists. Prof. F . Jo lio t an d Mme. Irene Curie-Joliot travelled from France to take p a r t in th e proceedings, and were accompanied by Prof. W yart, Dr. J . Laval and Dr. Mathieu. Papers were read a t the conference by Prof. N. F . M ott, Sir Geoffrey Taylor, Dr. Laval, Dr. M athieu, Dr. Guinier, Prof. W yart and others.

Members of th e Society were entertained to tea a t the House of Commons by Sir R obert B ird, chair­m an of the Anglo-French Parliam entary Committee. In reply to speeches by Sir R obert B ird and Mr. E . W. Salt, chairm an of the Parliam entary and Scientific Committee, Prof. Jo lio t spoke on the con­tribu tion of science to international understanding, a n d its place in the conduct of affairs. Science tends to clarity of m ind and rational m ethod, and it should be introduced into all aspects of a nation’s life, in ­cluding m any where it m ay no t h itherto have been custom ary. Prof. J . H adam ard referred to D avid H um e’s famous rem ark th a t B ritish soldiers fight and die in order th a t B ritish judges m ay judge according to the ir conscience ; the devotion of the English and French to th a t ideal is a binding link between them .

Medical Education in Great BritainI n a reply on Ja n u ary 18 to a question in the House

of Commons regarding the Goodenough R eport on Medical Schools, Mr. W illink sta ted th a t th e Govern­m ent recognizes th e fundam ental im portance of medical education and research to the fu ture of the hea lth services of th e country, and accepts the

principle of increased grants for the purposes of medical education and research to be d istribu ted by the U niversity G rants Committee through th e univer­sities to medical schools, postgraduate schools and institu tes and hospitals used for teaching and re­search. The Government also accepts the suggestion th a t for a lim ited period these additional grants should be separated from th e block grants received by universities for the ir w ork as a whole. As regards th e views expressed in th e report on the im portance of affording to women equal opportunities to those enjoyed by m en for medical training and for ob ta in ­ing postgraduate experience, the G overnm ent has decided th a t fu ture paym ents of grants to medical schools should be conditional on the adoption b y th e school of th e principle of adm itting a reason­able proportion of students of bo th sexes. I t is p ro ­posed also th a t the U niversity G rants Committee, in consultation w ith the university authorities con­cerned, should be responsible for determ ining from tim e to tim e whether th e action taken by each of these schools complies reasonably w ith th e principle. E qual im portance is also attached to the revision of th e medical curriculum , and acceptance of the principle of increased gran ts for medical education and research depends on the early com pletion of such a revision.

Tuberculosis Mortality in the United StatesA cc o r d in g to J . Yerushalm y, principal sta tistician ,

H . E . Hilleboe, senior surgeon, and C. E . Palm er, surgeon, U nited S tates Public H ealth Service (Public Health Rep., 58, 1457 ; 1943), the average annual num ber of deaths from all forms of tuberculosis in the U nited S tates in th e period 1939-41 was 10,429 (45-9 per 100,000 o f th e population). M ortality from tuberculosis was 41 per cent higher among males than am ong females, and th ree and a h a lf tim es as high among non-whites as am ong whites. D eath-rates for all forms of tuberculosis were higher in the older age- groups th a n in th e younger. Among children and young adu lts the ra tes were higher for females th an for m ales; b u t in the older groups th e ra tes were m uch higher for males. N early one h a lf o f all tu b e r­culosis deaths occurred a t the ages 20—44. The death- ra te from tuberculosis for males was higher among residents of large cities th a n among residents in in te r­m ediate sized cities, and th a t o f the la tte r was m uch

140 N A T U R E F e b r u a r y 3, 1945, v o l. 155

higher th a n the ra te for residents^ in rural areas. Tuberculosis m orta lity has decreased continuously since th e beginning of the century, th e ra te in 1941 being less th an one fourth th a t in 1900, and has fallen a t a g reater ra te th an m orta lity from all causes.

Commercial Fish Catch of California for 1941 and 1942Fish Bulletin No. 59 of the California D epartm ent

of N atu ra l Resources, Division of F ish and Game, B ureau of M arine Fisheries (1944), by the staff of the Bureau, contains detailed records of fish delivered by commercial fishing boats to Californian ports. In addition, shipm ents of fresh fish by truck, rail or cargo vessel to Californian factories from outside the S tate are included. There is m uch in­form ation in th is report. The value of all landings is tabulated , the 1942 values reflecting the higher war prices and price-ceilings fixed by the Federal Government. A lthough the value is m uch increased, th e weight in pounds is less. The decrease in volume of the 1942 catch was due to reduced num bers of the better class of fishing boats and of experienced fisher­men, as well as to the restrictions placed upon the free movem ent of fishing vessels necessitated by Arm y and N avy coastal defence plans. The sardine.. Sardinopsis ccerulea, heads the list bo th in weight and value; the Pacific mackerel, Pneumatophorus diego, and the yellow tuna, Neothunnus macropterus, coming next. Various shell-fish occur in m uch smaller numbers. I t is interesting to note th a t crabs (Cancer magister\ average 2 lb. each and abalones (HaUotis spp.) 50 lb. per dozen. A useful list of common and specific nam es of fishes, crustaceans and molluscs is given.

Soil Conservation in KenyaI n his first broadcast, on December 27, since he

assumed office as governor of K enya, Sir Philip Mitchell dealt w ith one of the Colony’s m ost pressing problems—soil erosion. H e illustrated his ta lk by reference to the U kam ba Reserve, where th e far- advanced sta te of soil deterioration is causing grave anxiety. Here, Sir Philip said, is a salvage job which m ust be pu t in hand imm ediately. Much useful agri­cultural engineering w ork has already been done, bu t work needs to be greatly accelerated, otherwise “in a few years tim e there will be nothing left o f the U kam ba Reserve” . Concurrently, a social reorganiza­tion leading to a changed a ttitu d e of the African to his land m ust be carried through. Sir Philip sees m ost hope for soil conservation in the establishm ent of a landlord-tenant relationship, the landlord being the tribe as a whole, and the tenan t th e head of the family. Such a system would ensure the greatest possible security of tenure for the good cultivator and none for th e incorrigible land miner. B u t he sees no short cu t to the u ltim ate goal of restoring the land to a sta te of stable fertility.

Merseyside Naturalists’ AssociationT h e th ird war-tim e portfolio of th e Merseyside

N aturalists’ Association, an attractively bound volume of two hundred and fifty pages comprising sixty-five pages of photographs and coloured plates and forty-three original articles, has been edited by Miss J . Linaker. I t includes detailed accounts of regional bird-life a t Mold, N orth W ales, by J . Lord and C. Swaine ; W igan and Leigh flashes, by G. Brown and T. E dm ondson ; Hoghton, by G. C. M iller;

a Mersey shore pool, by F. J . H artley ; St. Andrews, th e Midlands and w ar areas of I ta ly and N orth Africa ; the president, Philip Ashcroft, describes his researches into the h isto ry of M artin Mere, the lake of 3,000 acres th a t once covered west Lancashire; E ric H ardy has a detailed account of th e extinct and earliest known fauna of the north-w est of E n g la n d ; and Mrs. E . G. H ardy describes how nestling hedge-sparrows were killed by a colony of brown ants. There is m uch th a t is of more th an local interest. The raven is increasing its nesting range on the N orth W ales border, th e cirl-bunting has definitely been established as a nesting b ird in w est Lancashire, while the colliery subsidence w aters o f south Lancashire are now known to be an im ­p o rtan t passage haun t o f several rarer ducks, waders and wild swans.

Bibliography o f Seism ology

T h e Bibliography of Seismology, 13, Nos. 14 and 15, Item s 5564 to 5787, Ju ly 1943-June 1944, p u b ­lished by the Dominion O bservatory, O ttaw a, Canada, have ju st been received. In them are listed in full, occasionally w ith comments, papers and books from all parts of the world except Germ any and Japan , dealing w ith pure and applied seismology. An interesting article listed in No. 14 is item 5579 by Centano-Grau, M., “Estudios sismologicos” , Litografia del Comercio, pp . 555, 2 m aps, 5 ta b ., Caracas, 1940, which gives a comprehensive review of m any phases of seismology, and p u ts forward a theory of electrical causes for earthquakes of volcanic origin. The book contains a com plete catalogue of earthquakes of Venezuela, and a study of the de­structive shocks, including predictions of probable recurrences in different regions. In Nos. 14 and 15 numerous papers are listed dealing w ith rock bursts, chiefly in Canada and South Africa. One im portan t paper is by E rnest A. Hodgson, “W hat is a Rock B urst ?” published by th e Northern News, K irkland Lake, September 9, 1943, after a radio ta lk by th e author. O ther papers are by J . Spalding and include such topics as “Description of a Rock B urst” , “Theory and Practice of Ground Control” , and “ Theory of Rock-Pressure” (Kolar Gold Fields Mining and Metallurgical Society Bulletins, 8 , No. 41, 153, Johannesburg, 1935-37). A n interesting theo­retical topic is listed as item 5709 in No. 15: Finch, R. H ., “The seismic prelude to the 1942 E ruption of M auna Loa” (Bulletin Seismological Society of America, 33, No. 4, 237 ; 1943). The paper presents evidence th a t th e eruptions of M auna Loa are preceded by pronounced seismic activity , bu t th a t th is activ ity falls off for a m onth or more prior to the actual eruption. This paper m ay be considered a sequel to H arry O. W ood’s paper in the sam e journal in 1915 on the 1914 activ ity . Item s from Nature are listed in bo th parts of the bibliography.

AnnouncementsP r o f . J . M. M a c k i n t o s h , professor of public

health in the U niversity of London and dean of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has been appointed a m em ber of the Fuel and Power Advisory Council.

D r . J . G. D a v i s , of the N ational In stitu te for Research in Dairying a t Shinfield, near Reading, h as been appointed scientific adviser to the Express D airy Co., L td ., London.

N o . 3927, F E B R U A R Y B , 1 9 4 0 IN A 1 U K F 141

LETTERS TO THE EDITORSThe Editors do not hold themselves responsiblefor opinions expressed by their correspondents.N o notice is taken of anonymous communications.

Nitrogenous Substances Synthesized by Moulds

D u r i n g investigations on nitrogen-containing m a­terials synthesized by moulds, we have isolated, in high yield, from th e mycelium of Penicillium puberu- lum Bain., a h itherto undescribed organic substance. This substance, which exists in white and yellow forms, is photosensitive, analyses as C1JH 12N a0 2, and m elts w ith decomposition a t 220°. Two enolic hydroxyl groups appear to be present, since reaction w ith diazom ethane gives a dim ethyl derivative, m.p. 181° (decomp.), which contains no N-m ethyl groups. This m aterial crystallizes in two in te r­convertible forms, either as yellow needles or as bronze-brown plates, from acetone. A cetylation of the original substance w ith acetic anhydride and pyridine yields a diacetyl derivative, m .p. 226° (decomp.). On heating, the original substance yields phenol, and oxidation gives p-hydroxy-benzoic acid. Oxidation of the dim ethyl derivative w ith perm angan­ate yields hydrogen cyanide, anisic acid and other unidentified products, and heating w ith sodium methoxide in m ethyl alcoholic solution gives am ­monia, anisic acid and other products.

B oth the original substance and its acetyl and m ethyl derivatives give blue-violet fluorescent solu­tions and possess characteristic absorption bands. The original substance shows bands a t 243 mg and 374 mp w ith log Smax. 4 -08 and 4-60 respectively in ethyl alcohol. The dim ethyl derivative possesses very sim ilar absorption spectra w ith bands a t 240 m p and 371 mu , w ith log £max. a t 4 • 12 and 4 -54 respectively in the same solvent. The acetyl derivative has absorption bands a t 232 m p and 334 mp, w ith log £max. 3-79 and 3-84 respectively. In alcoholic alkaline solution the spectrum of the d im ethyl derivative is unchanged, b u t th e original substance piow possesses bands a t 436 m p, 398 m p and 252 m p w ith log Emax. 4-59, 3-98 and 4-09 respectively.

The original substance has antibiotic properties, and does no t appear in the mycelium un til incubation has proceeded for five weeks. This aspect is receiving further atten tion , and other moulds are being ex ­am ined for th e presence of complex nitrogenous substances.

A. H . C a m p b e l l . E . L. H i r s t .M. E . F oss. J . K. N. J o n e s .

The U niversity, Bristol. Dec. 5.

apparently entirely the lsevo isomer. Thus we obtain,for th e free base in m ethyl aleohol, [a]n = ----150°and — 207° (mean [a]z> = — 179°), the specimens having been separated chrom atographically directly from urine on alumina. F or the dihydrochloride, ex tracted from alkaline urine w ith ligroin, followed by chrom atographic separation and elution w ithhydrochloric acid, values of [oc]d = — 364° and — 372° (mean [a]x> = — 368°) were obtained.

W e take th is opportunity to correct the nam ing of the degradation product of mepacrine previously reported2 as sometimes occurring in hum an urines ; th e substance should be described as 2-ehloro-5 -amino - 7 -hydroxy acridine.

D . L l . H a m m i c k .W. E . C h a m b e r s .

Dyson Perrins Laboratory,Oxford. Dec. 23.

1 J . Gen. Chem. U .S .S .R . , 1928 (1940).1 Nature, 154 , 461 (1944).

Hydrolysis of ThioestersT h e alkaline hydrolysis of triphenylm ethyl thio-

benzoate or a-benzoylbenzhydryl thiobenzoate1 in alcoholic sodium hydroxide gave the corresponding thiol and benzoic acid,

Ph.COST? + N aO H -* Ph.COONa + E .SH . B u t th e acid hydrolysis of triphenylm ethyl th io ­benzoate (1-2 gm. in 200 c.c. alcohol and 30 c.c. conc. hydrochloric acid and boiled for 15 m inutes) gave triphenylm ethyl carbinol and thiobenzoic acid (separ­ated and identified by oxidation to the disulphide) :

Ph.CO.S.CPh, + H 20 Ph.COSH + Ph.COH.15 rnin.

The same procedure w ith a-benzoylbenzhydryl th io ­benzoate b u t w ith a prolonged heating for two hours gave benzoic acid and th e th io l :

optical Activity of Excreted MepacrineT h e antim alarial drug mepacrine— 2-chloro-5

(8-diethylamino-a-methylbutyl)amino-7-m ethoxyacri-

The mechanism suggested by Davies and E v an s8, if applied here, should give benzoic acid and th e thiol in both cases. This result also shows th a t in acid hydrolysis of esters th e OH of w ater does not necessarily appear in th e acid molecule3; its position seems to depend on the anionic and cationic natures of the two radicals of the ester.

F u rth e r work is being continued by Iskander and Fateen.

Y o t js s b f I s k a n d e r . Chemistry D epartm ent, F acu lty of Science,

Farouk I U niversity, Alexandria.1 Schonbergand Iskander, J . Chem. Soc., 92 (1942).2 J . Chem. Soc., 444 (1940).3 Cf. Annual Report Chem. Soc., 229 (1940).

—has been resolved b y Cholintsev and Osetrova1, who obtained [a]/) = ± 195° for the free base and [a]D = ± 357° for the dihydrochloride.

In co-operation w ith the Arm y M alaria Research U nit in Oxford, we have recovered m epacrine from hum an urine and find th a t the excreted drug is

Structure of ColchicineI n view of the rem arkable physiological properties

of colchicine its chemical natu re is of some interest. U ntil recently, the s tructure (I) proposed by W indaus1 has been generally accepted, although th e stability of colchicine did no t suggest a 9-amino-9 : 10-di- hydrophenanthrene system , and although the salicyl- aldehyde enol structure of ring C appeared fantastic. Cohen, Cook and R oe2 have now provided evidence th a t ring B m ust be 7-membered, b u t th e exact

JN A 1 U K t, F E B R U A R Y 3 , 1943, V o l . 155

location of the acetam ido group rem ains uncertain ; the isolation by W indaus of 4-m ethoxyphthalim ide from the oxidation product of acetylcolchinol m ethyl ether suggested th a t the group was adjacent to ring C, b u t L ettre and F ernholz1 have found th a t only (3-anisylethylamine derivatives ac t as mitosis poisons.

W indaus based his structure for ring C on the following evidence. (1) Colchicine is easily hydrolysed to m ethanol and colchiceine, which, unlike colchicine, gives an intense ferric chloride reaction. (2) F urther hydrolysis gives acetic acid and trimethylcolchicinie acid. Trimethylcolchicinie acid forms a dibenzoate and two isomeric dibenzenesulphonates, which are hydrolysed to the same monobenzene-sulphonate. I t cannot, therefore, be a carboxylic acid. W indaus thought the isomers were cis and trans hydroxy- m ethylene derivatives. (3) W ith sodium hydroxide and iodine, colchiceine is converted to N-acetyliodo- colchinol, in which ring C is definitely benzenoid. Similar reaction occurs w ith bromine water, while alkali fusion of colchicine followed by perm anganate oxidation provides trim ellitic acid, form ed from ring C. (4) In alcohol, colchicine will form a deep yellow dihydrochloride, and its solutions in alkali are also yellow ; salicylaldehyde shows sim ilar behaviour.

On the other hand, i t is very difficult to believe th a t colchiceine could also have the enolic structure. I t certainly is not the isomeric aldehyde ; the absorption spectra of colchicine and colchiceine are alm ost identical4, and colchiceine is a much stronger acid th an salicylaldehyde; i t gives no carbonyl or aldehyde reactions. No double bonds can be detected in colchicine w ith maleic anhydride or perbenzoic ac id 4.

R ecently5, it was pointed out th a t s tip ita tic acid probably contains a tropolone ring ; its reactions6 seem closely analogous to those of ring C in colchicine and led to sim ilar difficulties. The structure (II) is therefore now proposed for colchicine, resonance w ith (III) accounting for its s ta b ili ty ; the system is analogous to f - pyrone.

The facile conversion to benzene derivatives is due to benzilic acid rearrangem ent ; analogies are p ro­vided by the W allach degradation of cyclic ketones and the isomerization of stip ita tic acid by alkali fusion. The intense ferric chloride reaction of col­chiceine is a t once explained, and also th e existence of two isomeric dibenzenesulphonyl derivatives. I t is interesting to observe th a t L ettre and Fernholz appear to have obtained a colchicine isomer by the action of diazom ethane on colchiceine, although w ith sodium m ethoxide and m ethyl iodide colchicine is form ed’. The form ation of coloured salts w ith acid

or alkali is characteristic of bo th colchiceine and stip ita tic acid ; also the slight colour of stip ita tic acid suggests th a t, like colchiceine, it has an absorp­tion band in the near ultra-violet.

I t is hoped to confirm th e structure (II) by lead te tra-aceta te or analogous oxidation of hexahydro- colchiceine4, which should on th e new formulation be an a-glycol. Of course, in (II) the m ethoxyl and keto groups in ring C m ay be interchanged, or the ring ro ta ted about its junction w ith ring B ; further degradation will be required to establish the exact orientation of the various substituents.

_ _ . T , M. J . S. D e w a r .Dyson Perrins Laboratory,

University, Oxford.1 W indaus, Annalen, 439 , 59 (1924).* Cohen, Cook and Roe, J . Chem. Soc., 194 (1940).3 L e ttr6 and Fernholz, J . -physiol. Chem., 278, 175 (1943).4 B ursian, B e r 71, 245 (1938).5 D ewar, Nature, 155, 50 (1945).6 Birkinshaw, Chambers and R aistrick , Biochem. J . , 36, 242 (1942).7 Johanny and Zeisel, Monat., 9, 873 (1888).

Extensive Penetrating ShowersTwo m ain types of cosmic ray showers have been

m uch investigated : (1) extensive air showers (Auger show ers); (2) penetrating showers. Extensive air showers can be in terpreted, according to Euler and W ergeland1, N ordheim 2, and B ethe3, in term s of large electron cascades. P enetra ting showers are probably produced by the process which is responsible for the production of the meson com ponent of cosmic radiation.

I t has been assumed th a t the two types of showers are connected. Thus W ataghin, de Souze Santos and Pom peia4 and Janossy6 have found th a t ‘kthe discharges in a d is tan t counter often occur sim ul­taneously w ith the discharge of a set of counters which record penetrating showers. W ataghin6 and his co-workers have found showers w ith counters shielded w ith 17 cm. of lead a t counter separations of 120 cm.

Auger’ and H ilberry8 have found th a t 5 per cent of extensive air showers can penetrate a lead absorber 10 cm. in thickness. Such a penetrating power cannot be expected for ordinary cascades. Rogozinsky9 has also dem onstrated the presence of penetrating particles in air showers.

These observations have usually been interpreted on th e assum ption th a t extensive air showers are, in th e main, cascade showers which occasionally con­ta in penetrating particles. F rom th is experim ental evidence and from the results of our own experiments, which are reported below, we would suggest a different interpretation, nam ely, th a t extensive air showers consist of two distinctly different types of showers :(1) large electron cascades which m ay contain a few mesons (Auger showers) ; and (2) extensive pene­tra tin g showers which have a large density of pene­tra tin g particles. These penetrating particles are probably accompanied by soft secondary particles.

The experim ental lay-out is shown in Fig. 16. I t consists of two penetrating shower sets P and C, sim ilar to those described elsewhere, and an extension E which is shown in detail in Fig. la . The counter tra y E has an area of 2,500 cm .2 and the tra y S, which is covered on the top and the sides by a layer of lead some 15 cm. in thickness, an area of 1,000 cm .2. This tra y consists of eight counters in two groups S , and S 2 of four counters each. The penetrating shower sets P and G require a t least two penetrating particles

to set them off. The set C is placed above and below a cloud cham ber Gc (Rochester10). The d a ta presented here are m ainly for coincidences between the set P and the extension.

The following types of coincidences have been recorded. (1) Coincidences between P and a t least one of the counters in the tra y E (designated PE), (2) coincidences P E accompanied by the discharge of a t least one of the counters of the tra y 8 (designated P E S), and (3) coincidences P E accompanied by the discharge of a t least one counter in each group in tra y S (designated P E S l2). Thus showers of type (2) contain a t least one penetrating particle a t the ex­tension, while showers of the type (3) contain a t least two penetrating particles a t the extension. The observed rates are given below :E x t e n s i v e a i r s h o w e r s c o n t a i n i n g a t l e a s t t w o p e n e t r a t i n g PARTICLES NEA R P AND AT LEAST n PEN ETRA TIN G PARTICLES NEAR

TH E EX TEN SIO N .n = 0 n = 1 n = 2(PE) (P E S) (P E S l3)

C oun t 152 37 17R a te p e r h o u r 0-10 ± 0 -008 0-024 ± 0-004 0-011 ± 0-003

T he’ ra te of coincidences P, found from a separate exp erim ent, is 0 -24 c.p.h.

To produce coincidences P E S U, a t least four penetrating particles are required. The probability th a t a shower of only four particles will simultaneously discharge counters in the P set and in the trays E and S , and S 2 is, however, extrem ely small. I t is, in fact, so small th a t if all the mesons falling on an area of 30 m .2 around P and E consisted of showers of four mesons, the to ta l num ber of such showers would still be far too small to account for the observed ra te of extensive penetrating showers. Thus the density of the showers m ust be very m uch greater th an four penetrating particles per 30 m .2. An estim ­a te of the lower lim it of the density can be obtained by comparing the ra te of coincidences P E S w ith those of th e type P E S I t is concluded th a t the showers contain about tw enty penetrating particles per m .2, so th a t the num ber in the area 30 m .2 will be about six hundred.

I t will be shown elsewhere th a t penetrating showers of th is size and density cannot be accounted for in term s of meson production by photons or electrons in large showers.

Extensive penetrating showers cannot be accounted for in term s of the theory of H am ilton, H eitler and Peng11.12. According to th is theory, groups of about ten mesons are to be expected whenever a fast nucleon traverses a nucleus. The m ean-free-path of a fast nucleon in air m uch exceeds 100 m. Thus meson showers will be produced only rarely a t dis­tances smaller than 100 m. from the recorder. Showers containing about ten particles sta rting a t such distances have an extrem ely small probability of setting off the recorder. O ther processes giving rise to m any more particles are therefore required to account for the observed coincidences. Such processes m ay include those enum erated by H am ilton, Heitler, and Peng, which become im portant above I0 12 e.v.

W e have obtained several photographs w ith the cloud chamber Gc (Fig. 1) set off by coincidences P E . Some of these photographs show single penetrating particles. One photograph (Fig. 2) has been obtained for which a coincidence P E S , (S , not discharged) occurred sim ultaneously w ith a coincidence of the set C. This photograph shows two particles passing through a lead p la te 2-3 cm. in thickness placed across the chamber. As both particles produce secondaries in the lead plate, the incident particles cannot have been mesons. This photograph, though no t necessarily typical of extensive penetrating showers, serves to show th a t such showers m ay be complex.

L . J A n o s s y .G. D. R o c h e s t e r .D. B r o a d b e n t .

Physical Laboratories,University,

M anchester, 13.Dec. 12.

‘ Euler, H ., and W ergeland, H ., Astrojihisica Norv., 3, 165 (1940).I N ordheim , L. W ., Phys. Rev., 59 , 929 (1941).■ B eth e , A. H ., Phys. Rev., 59, 684 (1941).* W ataghin, G., de Souze Santos, M., and Pompeia, P. A .. Phys. Rev .

59, 902 (1941). s JAnossy, L ., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 179, 361 (1942).•W atagh in , G., de Souze Santos, M., and Pom peia, P. A., Phys.

Rev., 57, 339 (1940).’ Auger, P ., Ehrenfest, P ., Maze, R ., D audin, J . , Robley, A., and

1-Teon, A., Rev. Mod. Phys., 11, 288 (1939).•H ilberry , N ., and H ilberry, A. H ., Phys. Rev., 61, 393 (1942).* Rogozinsky, A ., Phys. Rev., 65, 291 (1944).

10 R ochester, G. D ., Nature, 164 , 399 (1944).“ H am ilton , J ., H eitle r, W ., and Peng, H. W ., Phys. Rev., 64, 78

(1943).II JAnossy, L., Phys. Rev., 64, 345 (1943).

Are there Four Possible Diamond Structures ?

Sib C. V. R a m a n has recently1 m ade the suggestion th a t four different crystal structures of diamond exist, in which th e carbon atom positions are similar, b u t in which th e orientations of the te trahedra l car­bon atom s in the two in terpenetra ting face-centred lattices differ. Two of these structures are te tra ­hedral, two oc tah ed ra l; R am an suggests th a t type I diamonds consist of either o f the te trahedra l forms, or of bo th in terpenetrating (the deviation from the ‘ideal’ crystal increasing w ith in terpenetration), and th a t type I I diamonds consist of either or bo th of the octahedral forms ; m ixtures of tetrahedral and octahedral- forms, he suggests, m ay also exist.

This is a startling theory, for i t implies the existence of a num ber of allotropic forms of all crystals of carbon com pounds; b u t R am an supports his theoret­ical speculations w ith a w ealth of interesting experi­m ental evidence. H is claim, however, th a t “X -ray findings leave the question w hether diam ond possesses te trahedral or octahedral sym m etry entirely open” cannot be left unchallenged. In the two tetrahedral structures postulated, the carbon atom s having co-ordinates 0 0 0 , are sim ilar in orientation and there should therefore be no second-order reflexion from the octahedral plane. In any m ixture of these structures, whether on a basis of tim e or space, the 222 reflexion m ust sim ilarly be absent. In th e two octahedral structures the atom s a t 0 0 0 , differ in orientation, and a weak 222 reflexion is to be ex­pected.

The existence of a real (Bragg) 222 reflexion is not easy to dem onstrate. I t m ay be m asked by the Renninger effect2 (an effect due to m ultiple reflexion in the crystal, which produces apparen t reflexion from planes which really cannot reflect a t all, and which m ay enhance or dim inish the reflexion from those th a t can), and it m ight be sim ulated by a vibration of the atom s th a t would d istu rb th e 3 : 1 spacing relationship in th e octahedral planes. In 1937, Renninger him self showed, however, th a t three diamonds of a wide range of tex tu re all gave a real 222 reflexion in orientations where th e Renninger effect could no t occur3. One of his diamonds was a magnificent na tu ra l octahedron, the description of which classes i t w ithout doubt as an alm ost ideal type I . This gave a half-w idth a t half-maximum 222 copper Kcr1 reflexion which was about one tw elfth of the a , — a 2 separation, clear proof th a t it was a true Bragg reflexion from an alm ost perfect crystal. «

I have examined a beautiful, w ater-w hite octa­hedral plate from Sierra Leone, kindly lent to me by Prof. W. T. G ordon; alm ost non-luminescent in ultra-violet light ; blue-luminescent in X -ra y s ; opaque beyond 3000 > ; optically isotropic ; giving intense groups of ‘ex tra ’ X -ray reflexions and show­ing no divergent-beam photograph a t a l l ; i t is obviously a near-ideal type I specimen. This gives a definite 222 reflexion in an orientation which for­bids a Renninger effect, and the natu re of th e re ­flexion shows th a t i t cannot be due to atom ic v ibra­tio n 4. I t proves conclusively th a t th e structure is not te trahedral, b u t th a t a real variation of orienta­tion exists between carbon atom s in the 000 , positions.

On the X -ray evidence, therefore, R am an’s theory, th a t type I diamonds are essentially tetrahedral in structure, breaks down. I t m ay also be noted th a t

the ‘te trahedral structu re’ theory offers no explana­tion w hatever of the peculiarities of the ‘ex tra’ re­flexions, particularly for {220} {113} and {331}, in type I diam onds5.

Dr. R . S. K rishnan6 has supported R am an’s theory th a t type I I diamonds showing strong b i­refringence are really m ixtures of two distinct octa­hedral s tructures, by suggesting th a t in such diamonds ‘lattice constant’ variations exist, of the order of 1 in 2,000. H e states th a t m y divergent-beam pre­cision m easurem ents of the diam ond spacing7 give only a m ean value, and could n o t distinguish the existence of such variations. This is no t so. The sharpness of the absorption lines in m y photographs (particularly for the high-order reflexions) shows th a t in the type I I specimens used, the lattice constant did not vary by more th an about 1 in 50,000, except possibly in regions so small as to give no observable X -ray effects. K rishnan bases his suggestion of a 1 in 2,000 spacing variation on the experim ental fact th a t when a particular, optically anisotropic, lam- ellated type I I diam ond was correctly orientated for X -ray reflexion from th e octahedral p la te surface, th e 111 reflexion recorded on a photographic film some 40 cm. away was w avy instead of linear, thus showing apparent variations in the value of 0, th e reflecting angle. B u t th is is a common phenomenon, and is capable of an altogether different in te rp re ta­tion. A slight distortion, in th is case a corrugation, of the crystal surface, would cause an ex-centring of parts of the reflecting regions relative to other parts , quite sufficient to cause the observed waviness of th e reflexion line.

There is a simple w ay of testing w hether an appar­en t variation in spacing is real, or is due to ex­centring of parts of th e reflecting surface. Diam ond gives some fairly intense high-order reflexions ; and if these are examined, crystal distortion will give an angular variation of the same order as, or less than, th a t found for low-order reflexions ; b u t a variation in spacing would cause a m uch wider variation of reflexion angle. F or example, the angular variation in 0U1 (copper K o c ,) corresponding to a lattice varia­tion of I in 2,000 would be only 0-7 m inutes ; for 0S31 (copper Xoq) it would be 4-8 m inutes ; and for 0234 (zinc K o t,) i t would be 1 0 -I m inutes. I have taken divergent-beam photographs of type I I diamonds which give wide absorption lines, using copper K radiation. I f the w idth were due to lattice spacing variation, the high-order absorption lines would be much wider th an the low-order lines, b u t they are, in fact, no t so wide. I t is quite clear in the case of those diamonds th a t I have tested, th a t while distortion m ay sometimes occur, there is no X -ray evidence, on th e basis of lattice constant variations, for th e existence of th e various structures postulated. The variation of the texture o f the diamond, from ideal to mosaic, is of course a common feature of crystals generally8-9.

K a t h l e e n L o n s d a l e .Royal Institu tion , Albemarle Street,

London, W .l. Deo. 11.

1 R am an, Sir C. V., Current Science, 12, 33 (1943); Proc. Indian Acad. Sci., 1 9 ,189, 199 (1944). [See also Nature,, 155, 69 (1945).]

•R enninger, M., Z . Phys., 106, 141 (1937).•R enn inger, M ., Z . Kriet., 97, 107 (1937).* Lonsdale, K ., Nature, 149, 402 (1942). '8 Lonsdale, K ., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 179 , 315 (1942).* K rishnan , R . S., Proc. Ind ian Acad. Sci., 19, 298 (1944).7 Lonsdale, K ., Nature, 153, 22 (1944).8 R enninger, M., Z . K rist., 89, 344 (1934).* Lonsdale, K ., Nature, 153, 433 (1944).

British Bees and Wind-borne PollenI t is well known th a t the perianth in wind-

pollinated p lan ts is lacking or greatly reduced and inconspicuous, th a t nectar-secreting glands are absent and th a t immense quantities of pollen are produced com pared w ith entom ophilous flowers. Furtherm ore, the individual pollen grains are more suited to carriage by wind, w ith the ir th inner walls and simpler form lacking spines or surface sculpture. They have a m arkedly lower specific g ravity and do no t cohere en masse like those of insect-fertilized flowers. I t is therefore ra th e r surprising to find th a t solitary bees of the genus Andrena sometimes collect large quantities o f anemophilous pollen, for example, Quercus, Fagus, Castanea, as the analyses per cent of individual pollen loads taken off the species nam ed below dem onstrate :

In addition, pollen loads containing high proportions of Quercus pollen have been taken off A . jacobi Perk., and of Castanea pollen off A . dorsata (Kirby) and A . thoracica (Fab.).

The factors governing the choice of flowers visited by bees are probably numerous ; even the extensive investigations on the hive bee (A p is mellifera I,,.) have led to few definite conclusions1. Consideration of the results tabu la ted above raises several interesting queries.

In the first place, dealing w ith examples (7) and (10): how do the bees m anage to carry a practically pure load of poorly cohering Quercus or Castanea pollen diluted w ith only a small proportion of more ‘sticky’ pollen from nectariferous flowers ? In the hive bee, where separate journeys for nectar or pollen are normal, the pollen-carriers moisten the pollen w ith nectar to assist carriage, thus involving an appreciable num ber of visits to nectariferous blooms. I t is difficult to imagine th is being done w ithout taking pollen from these flowers as well.

Secondly, w hat factors are responsible for diverting the bees from the ir norm al pollen sources for tall trees w ith inconspicuous nectarless flowers, which, in the case of Pagus and Quercus, are very much obscured by foliage ? M 'he remaining pollen species in the loads analysed i r e derived from low herbs or shrubs which have conspicuous flowers or are rich sources of nec tar or both , and all were in sufficient abundance in th e neighbourhood of the colonies from which the bees were taken upon the ir return . The taking of anemophilous pollen is no t norm al in

A . hcemorrhoa, A . armata and A . pubescens, as only 4, 5 and 3 loads containing appreciable quantities have been found among to tals of 42, 33 and 36 loads analysed respectively. The catkins of Castanea are m uch more conspicuous th an those of Fagus and Quercus, which m ay p artly explain th e frequent occurrence of th is pollen species as a m ajor con­stituen t of loads of A . bimaculata taken in localities where th is tree abounds. I t should be noted, however, th a t Castanea has previously been classified as entom ophilous2.

A possible explanation for the taking of Fagus and Quercus pollen by Andrena m ay be as follows. W hen the tree is in full flower and immense quantities of pollen are being liberated, it is reasonable to suppose th a t an atmospheric pollen concentration gradient will be set up around th e tree, w ith a direction and ra te of decrease in concentration depending upon th e wind. A bee flying into th is ‘pollen field’ will m ake a chemotropic response to the floating grains, and will orientate itself in the general direction of increasing pollen concentration and travel up the gradient un til i t arrives a t the pollen source. W here th e concentration of atm ospheric pollen is low or uniform, the bee will m ake no directional response.

A lthough th is suggestion can only be regarded as speculation un til evidence based upon carefully chosen series of observations is available, the follow­ing experience m ay have some bearing upon it. A colony of A . barbilabris (Kirby) situated in a large p lan tation of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), in flower during the flight period of th is species, was studied in 1943 and 1944. In th e 83 pollen loads examined, P inus was found only in negligible traces, the bees collecting pollen from nectariferous p lan ts several hundred yards d istan t from the colony. Setting aside the possibility th a t P inus pollen m ay be distasteful, upon the hypothesis p u t forward, the presence of a high b u t uniform atm ospheric concentration of th is pollen from the dense m ass of trees had no orientating effect upon th e bees’ flight.

I hope to publish in due course detailed analyses of pollen loads of Andrena.

V. H . C h a m b e r s .47 W estboum e Road,

Luton.1 Weiss, H . B ., J . Econ. Ent., 36, 1 (1943), a review.2 H yde, H. A., and W illiams, D. A., Neu Phyt., 43, 49 (1944).

Transmission of Kala-Azar to the Pouch Young of the Common Australian

Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula)

K a l a -a z a r is difficult to transm it to laboratory animals, w ith the exception of th e ham ster (Cricetulus griseus). This rodent, however, is not available in m any countries.

Recently, through the courtesy of Dr. G. A. H . H eydon, School of Tropical Medicine, Sydney, a culture of kala-azar on N .N .N. m edium was obtained, which was injected in traperitoneally into a pouch young of Trichosurus vulpecula about 2 i m onths old. The young, which a t the tim e was practically hairless and still firmly a ttached to th e nipple, was lifted out of the pouch of th e anaesthetized m other, in ­jected w ith 1 ml. of the bro th washings of th e culture tube and replaced into the pouch. One m onth after the injection, th e young, still only covered by hairs

JN A 1 U K J i X1 J i . tS K .U A K X O , JL m ± < - > , ' u i . .

about 1-2 mm. long, was found to be leaving the pouch a t periods.

Seven weeks after the injection, the young was found to weigh 180 gm. which, com pared w ith other young of approxim ately the same age, was a t least 30 per cent below normal. Also the abdom en was somewhat distended, and the fur was short and sparse and remained like th is un til the experim ent was term inated. Ten weeks afte r the injection of the culture of kala-azar, the anim al was m arkedly under­sized, frail and weak, though still eating and moving about freely. I ts abdom en was m arkedly distended, and on palpation an enlarged liver and spleen could be felt. The possum now weighed 390 gm. I t was anaesthetized w ith ether, and blood was obtained by heart puncture. A few m inutes after th is the anim al died suddenly. An im m ediate au topsy showed a greatly enlarged spleen which had a m ottled appear­ance, and on cross-section large w hitish nodules were seen. I t weighed 8-9 gm. This is a t least five tim es the norm al weight for an anim al of th is size. The liver, which was greatly enlarged, was pale b u t con­tained numerous small diffuse, hsemorrhagic areas. I t weighed 26-2 gm. The left and right kidney weighed 3-4 gm. and 3-2 gm. respectively. A blood count showed a m arked m icrocytic anaemia w ith a colour index of 0-69. There were 22 nucleated red cells per 100 leucocytes and a m arked neutropenia (4 per cent). A sm ear m ade from th e pulp of the spleen contained numerous Leishman-Donovan bodies particularly in the cytoplasm of the monocytes. The parasites were also seen in sections of liver and bone marrow. In cultures prepared from spleen, sternum and blood, the flagellate form of the pathogenic protozoon could be seen.

The m other was killed some three weeks after the death of its offspring, and no evidence of infection could be found a t autopsy in the spleen, liver, bone m arrow or blood.

J . E . A r m y t a g e .A. B o l l i g e r .

Gordon Craig Research Laboratory,D epartm ent of Surgery,U niversity of Sydney.

Dec. 1.

A Wasp Preying on House-Flies and Stable-Flies

Rubrica surinamensis (DeGeer) is a large and striking neotropical wasp belonging to the family Bembi'cidae. I ts geographical range extends from the Argentine to Trinidad. I t is commonly found nesting gregariously in a semi-social m anner w ith other in­dividuals in areas of bare sandy ground exposed to the sun. Flies of m any different families comprise the prey. The flies captured are stim g to death and used for provisioning the nest, the developing wasp larva being fed progressively from day to day.

In Trinidad th is wasp norm ally preys upon horse­flies and hover-flies. However, other species of flies, including the house-fly, M usca domestica L ., and the stable-fly, Stomoxys calcitrans (L.), have been observed on occasion to comprise th e prey.

The wasp apparently exploits any readily available source of prey. Nests examined were sometimes found to contain the remains of m any different kinds of flies. A t other tim es only a single species was represented in the prey.

W asps carrying house-flies were caught a t the entrance to their nests. On digging up one such nest, a partly-grown wasp larva was found together w ith th ree in tact house-flies and th e remains of three others. O ther individuals bearing stable-flies were sim ilarly captured. In th is case th e abdom en of the prey was frequently greatly distended w ith blood. On releasing such wasps, they returned after a few m inutes w ith other stable-flies, also gorged w ith blood. This was repeated a num ber of tim es. A ppar­ently these individuals were utilizing a supply of stable-flies feeding presum ably on livestock. The nest of one such wasp on exam ination was found to have been provisioned entirely w ith stable-flies.

As few natural enemies of either the house-fly or the stable-fly are known, i t is thought to be of suffi­cient general in terest to place the above observations on record.

E . McC. C a e l a n .Entom ology D epartm ent,

Im perial College of Tropical Agriculture,Trinidad.

A Colonial Scientific ServiceIn the concluding rem arks to his article1 on

Anopheles gambice in America, m y old friend and colleague, Dr. John Sm art, of the B ritish Museum (N atural H istory), suggests th a t men engaged a t present on anti-m alarial or other entomological work w ith the Forces m ay be engaged after the W ar to continue work of th is kind in the Colonies and else­where.

I have served in the Colonial Em pire both as a scientific worker and as an adm inistrative officer, and I believe the tim e will be ripe after the W ar for inaugurating a ‘Colonial Scientific Service’ or possibly even more than one scientific service, including per­haps a Colonial Biological Service. A t any rate, such a scientific service would have its own departm ental head (or heads), who would be responsible for the seconding of personnel to wherever they were w anted and to appropriate work. The departm ental head would also be able to p u t together team s of scientific workers for attack ing several problems from the necessary different points of approach in co-operation.

I t m ay be said th a t those m en of science who work in the already existing Colonial departm ents and the few scientific specialist departm ents (such, for example, as the Tsetse Research D epartm ent in Tanganyika) have already accomplished work of such value th a t no change is needed to improve quality or quan tity of individual work by scientific workers in the Colonies. I should no t disagree w ith such a view, b u t I th ink th a t the proposition of a Colonial Scientific Service or Services bears careful consideration from two points of view.

F irst, there is unnecessary divergence and con­sequent loss of efficiency due to the same problem being attacked in different Colonial territories by differently qualified personnel approaching it from different preconceived ideas of a ttack , as it were. To m ake th is clear, let me again quote the very fine w ork done by the Tsetse Rfcearch D epartm ent in Tanganyika during some yesSs ; in the neighbour­ing Colony of Kenya, tsetse work is done entirely by the V eterinary D epartm ent, and the officer whose tim e is devoted entirely to th is work a t present is no t an entomologist, b u t a veterinarian. In Nigeria, again, tsetse work is carried ou t by the Medical

n o . 3 9 2 7 , F e b r u a r y a , 1945 IN A 1 U K R

D epartm ent. In U ganda, also, tsetse work was un til com paratively recently carried out by the Medical D epartm ent. I t is inevitable th a t to some ex ten t such a variation in departm ental au thority over the same type of work in different territories m ust result in lack of co-operation and of a common policy, and in overlapping and duplication of work.

Secondly, there is the more hum an aspect of the position of th e pure scientist in ‘professional’ or non- scientific Governm ent departm ents. As I pointed out in an article published in South Africa th is year : “E xcept for some medical entomologists, the rule is th a t the scientist is trea ted as inferior in every m aterial respect (salary, pensions, quarters, ship accom modation, etc.) to ‘professional’ men. Clearly i t is undesirable th a t scientists cannot work w ith ‘professionals’ as equals in scientific spheres, as it leads to resentm ent and lack of co-operation.”

There are some scientific workers, whose experience has generally been largely academic, who would say th a t such observations show a mean spirit and a pre­occupation w ith money and m aterial things. I have the greatest respect for th is view and for some of its holders, who are in some cases older and have greater experience th an I ; and it is, in fact, an idealistic view w ith which I am tem peram entally entirely in sym pathy. B u t I th ink it is hard, if not impossible, for those who have not worked in Ind ia or the Colonies to realize ju s t how m uch these small financial and social distinctions m ay mean in the lives of isolated communities of Europeans where the coloured folk and a great m any ‘whites’ ad just the ir reaction to a nicety to each person, depending on his position in the ‘staff lis t’, his income, and outw ard signs of m aterial prosperity and social status. In Tanganyika, a Government officer is allowed twenty-five porters per day on ‘foot safari’ ; only the raw est greenhorn would ever take less, even if half of them were carrying nothing—for chiefs and others imm ediately class a m an w ith only a few porters as a ‘stiff’ or ‘poor w hite’, and his way is m ade harder in getting food, w ater, directions and a hundred and one small b u t im portan t ways which loom very big indeed in the ‘Blue’. I know th a t we colonial Europeans prob­ably go too far in our social a ttitu d e to position because of th is environm ent in which we have lived (and often struggled) w ith so much awareness of how every m inute of the day we were being socially ‘weighed u p ’ and our paths made appropriately smoother or rougher ; b u t I th ink also the stay-at- home and th e European who knows the ‘B lue’ only from expeditions errs a little a t the other extrem e of attach ing no im portance to these apparen tly triv ia l and worldly m atters. The fact th a t a field zoologist, for example, has to travel second-class by tra in in K enya (unless he pays p a rt of his own fare) while a veterinary officer goes ‘first’ makes an in­credible am ount of difference to the a ttitu d e of native inhab itan ts to each ; particularly as some non-Europeans always travel ‘second’ b u t seldom ‘first’. I am no t condoning th is common native a ttitu d e—m erely s ta ting it.

I t is only natu ra l also th a t the ‘specialist’ should be more often th an n o t passed over in Government departm ents when senior posts fall vacant. There are exceptions, such as th a t of the head of the Sudan A gricultural D epartm ent, who is an entomologist : b u t m any cases on the other side could be quoted.I will give tw o only. The senior medical officer of a province in Tanganyika is in charge of a lunatic asylum for the whole territory . H e has not specialized

in m ental cases, b u t was a pathologist in N yasaland. This was his first chance of prom otion— and pro­m otion implied getting out of the blind alley of specialization. The chief veterinary entomologist in K enya has worked in th a t Colony for m ore than fifteen years, b u t is paid less than a veterinary officer of com paratively junior standing.

I f it is possible to have a Colonial Scientific Service (or Services) w ith its own head (or heads) who will second scientific men to where they are needed, th is difficulty of the specialist being in effect often barred from high prom otion would be removed, for every member of the scientific departm ent or departm ents would then have an equal chance of prom otion to the highest grades w ithin his own departm ent or departm ents. The outstanding example of such a m ethod which has achieved such conspicuous success is, of course, th e Tanganyika Tsetse Research D epartm ent. The success of th e late Mr. Swynnerton in building up a colonial scientific specialist depart­m ent m ay induce serious consideration of whether i t is not a very w orthy example to be followed.

K. H . C h a p m a n .D epartm ent of Zoology,

Rhodes U niversity College,Grahamstown.

1 S m art, J ., Nature, 153, 765 (1944).

Sir Charles BoysS i n c e it was m y good fortune to know Sir Charles

Boys intim ately during the last fifteen years or so, perhaps I m ay be perm itted to add a word or two to the obituary by Prof. C. T. R . Wilson in Nature of Jan u ary 13 about his great originality in everyday life. H e was certainly original and unconventional in openly a ttribu ting any portion of his great success to his former schoolmaster, and I would further add th a t m any was the tim e th a t Boys spoke to me of G. F. Rodwell, the first science m aster a t Marlborough College, and his methods.

Boys also endeavoured to contribute to the science teaching a t Marlborough, for not only did I return m any tim es from visiting his home a t St. M aryboum e w ith m y car weighed down w ith literature and apparatus, b u t also some ten years ago Boys had the two gold medals presented to him by the Royal Society photographed and then m elted down. The photographs were fram ed and hung in the laboratories, and the money from the gold was given to establish a prize for experim ental work in science.

A t school Boys was certainly unconventional, for he confided to me th a t he took the College book of rules and broke every one of them in order. “I never stole or did anything criminal, b u t short of th a t there was no t a rule I left unbroken,” is w hat Boys to ld me on more th an one occasion. Boys completely stripped the College clock and replaced the parts so effectively th a t the clock suddenly took on a new lease of life ; the secret was no t divulged un til m any years later. This job took Boys several weeks. Here we get some slight insight to the wonderful patience of Boys as a boy—th a t patience which enabled him to w ait tw enty-eight years for his first successful photograph of a progressive lightning flash.

Truly Boys was always Boys.A s h l e y G. L o w n d e s .

The Laboratory,Citadel Hill,Plym outh.

148 JN A 1 U K J i r E t S K U A K Y O, v o l . . 1 0 0

TISSUE INDUCTIONBy D r . GUSTAV LEVAN DER

Surgeon-in-Chief at the Koping Hospital,Koping, Sweden

IN a regeneration there always originates from a causal point of view the question : Is the new

tissue developed merely from pre-existing cells, which grow out from th e original cell-units, or m ay also some other m aterial be imagined as participating in the occurrence of regeneration ? In the la tte r case, it is necessary to explain how an initially unspecific tissue is able to develop in a specific direction.

For several years I have been studying the healing o f bones, especially from a causal-genetic point of view. A t present, there are two doctrines which in different ways try to explain the regrowth of the bone tissue, namely, the specific osteoblastic theory and the m etaplastic theory. According to the former, there are w ithin the soft parts surrounding the skeleton— the periosteum, the marrow and the con­te n t of the bone canals—young bone cells which in the case of fracture grow out into the surroundings and there develop into completed bone tissue. In evidence of the correctness of th is opinion are quoted first and foremost tests which show th a t isolated bits of the different skeletal layers after transp lan ta tion into non-osseous surroundings give rise to the form ation of new bone. However, no careful or thorough morphological analysis of the reactions of the tissue has been made. I t has sim ply been taken for granted th a t when bone form ation is obtained, this m ust have em anated from transferred bone cells. This mechanism, however, seemed to me less probable. In th e transplantation of a tissue, we m u st also expect th a t the cells of the graft in the new surroundings will not have the same favourable possibilities of growth, b u t will encounter a certain resistance in all those cell reactions and exudations which occur a t th e place of transplantation , and which tend to remove all those elements which are foreign in the. physiological sense.

I have therefore carried out several transp lan ta tion tests w ith the different skeletal layers—periosteum 1, hard tissue2 and bone-marrow3—into soft parts. In contradistinction to previous investigators, who as a ru le have m ade observation over a long period in

such tests, I considered it to be of im portance a t a very early stage—one or two days afte r im plan ta­tion—to follow the reactions which take place bo th in the graft itself and in its surroundings. The result of such experiments w ent to show th a t the im planted skeletal parts died afte r a brief period. In the sur­roundings of the graft, on the other hand, it was observed th a t fresh bone grew from th e mesen- chym atous tissue. These investigations thus gave support to the so-called m etaplastic theory, accord­ing to which connective tissue can be converted into bone tissue. From a causal point of view, however, th e m etaplastic theory is incomplete, since no one has been able to explain why the connective tissue under certain conditions passes in a perfectly regular w ay into bone tissue.

On the basis of th e experience from these tran s­p lan tation tests into soft parts, it was clear th a t there m ust be a certain connexion between the graft and th e newly developed bone tissue. The morphological analysis of the tissue showed clearly th a t it is im ­possible to explain th e connexion by direct growing- over of cells from the graft ; for the fresh bone grows out of the newly developed mesenchymatous tissue in the surroundings. I then thought it possible th a t the specific factor necessary for differentiation of an unspecific surrounding m ight be transferred from the graft to the surroundings as some substance. This substance should be capable of extraction from th e bone tissues. In order to examine th is hypothesis, I prepared an ex tract of bone tissue w ith alcohol and injected it by a special m ethod into the muscles. In 24 per cent of cases growths of cartilage and bone were obtained4 (Fig. 1). Control tests w ith alcohol- ex tract of other tissues only were negative. These tests w ith the injection of an alcoholic, non-cellular bone ex tract have since been confirmed by A nnersten5 and by Bertelsen6, who obtained cartilage or bone development in 20-50 per cent of the ir tests. The tests w ith bone ex tract free from cells thus go to show th a t a tissue w ithin the fully developed organism is able to influence another in special differentiating direction by means of an extractable substance.

I t became, then, of interest to see how far th is tissue reaction had any general validity. T rans­mission tests w ith stria ted muscles showed the same results as similar tests w ith bone tissue7. On injecting

jn 0. 3927, F e b r u a r y a , i y 4 o

alcohol into the muscles, an abundant development of m esenchym atous tissue is obtained around the muscle fibres more or less degenerated by the action of the alcohol. A t the same tim e, one gets a plentiful regeneration of m uscular tissue. On a closer exam ina­tion of these pictures, it is seen w ithout difficulty th a t th e newly developed muscles no t infrequently grow in such a way th a t they cannot be imagined as having grown from old, pre-existing muscle fibres ; b u t like the transp lan ta tion tests, m ust have developed directly from a mesenchymatous source (Fig. 2). I have furtherm ore tested the uterine mucous m em ­brane (endom etrium )8. I t is well known in medicine how the u terine mucous m em brane is found also outside the uterus, preferably around ovaries and oviducts, b u t also anywhere w ithin the abdom en— so-called endometriosis. Endometriosis has also been encountered in th e muscles of the extrem ities. These findings are, of course, in favour of endometriosis being caused ra the r by a substance which activates m esenchym atous tissue than by dissemination of dis­rup ted cell units. T ransplantation tests w ith the endom etrium , like those w ith bone and muscle, also support th is conception (Fig. 3). In all these tran s­p lan tation tests, I have never found any m itotic developments likely to explain the specific new developments.

The circumstance th a t a tissue is able to affect another in a specifically differentiating direction I have term ed ‘induction’—a term borrowed from embryology, introduced, as is well known, by Spemann and his school a t the tu rn of the century. In embryology one speaks about an organizer or a system of action th a t induces, and a reacting system which is being induced. According to Spemann, induction takes place by way of chemical substances. The opinion is held th a t the induction ceases a t the m om ent the development of the embryo ceases. The investigations referred to above show, however, th a t such is not the case. In the fully developed organism, too, a specific differentiation m ay take place inductively a t all ages. The sim ilarity between the em bryonal reactions and, by way of example, the im plantation tests during the post- foetal existence is clear. The graft in the fully de­veloped organism corresponds to the em bryonal organizer or activator, and the newly developed mesenchymal tissue a t th e place of im plantation, which can be influenced by the graft in a differ­entiating direction, to the em bryonal reactionary system. The post-fcetal presence of the induction mechanism thus m eans from the point of view of principle th a t th e fully developed tissue comprises a t least two com ponents—a specific and an u n ­specific factor. E x trac tion tests w ith bone tissue show th a t the specific factor can be released from the tissue and dissolved in certain extraction fluids. This sup­ports the view th a t the specificity of the tissue is confined to certain chemical substances. I f in tissue regeneration we find th a t the unspecific mesenchymal tissue is developed in different directions, we m ust assume th a t these chemical substances are able to activate the unspecific mesenchym blast into specific differentiation. Also in embryology there prevails, as is well known, the idea th a t the induction is tran s­m itted by certain substances, and a vast am ount of work has been devoted to a ttem pts to isolate these substances. No definite results appear, however, to have been reached for the present. According to Needham and W addington, these substances would seem to belong to th e steroid group. Annersten

has obtained active ex tracts w ith fat-dissolving ex­traction agents. Since it seems th a t the same m ech­anism is active w ithin both the foetus and the fully developed organism as regards the explanation o f growth, we are able to get a more comprehensive view of th e development of tissues. There is every reason to assume th a t the same chemical substances are active both during the em bryonal differentiation and during post-foetal growth. Regeneration of tissue is, in other words, a repetition of em bryonal development.1 Levander, G., Acta Chir. Scand., 83 (1939).* Levander, G., Surg. Gyn. and Obst., 67 (1938).3 Levander, G., Acta Chir. Scand., 83 (1940).* Levander, G., Svrg. Gyn. and Obst., 67 (1938).5 A nnersten, S., Acta Chir. Scand., 84, Suppl. 60 (1940).8 B ertelsen, A., Acta orthop. Scand., in th e press.7 Levander, G., Arch. klin. Chir., B, 202 (1941).8 Levander, G., Arch. klin. Chir., B, 202 (1941).

TUNGSHAN OCEANOGRAPHICAL SURVEY IN 1941

By D r. S. F. TANGDepartment of Oceanography, China Institute of

Geography, Pei-Peh, Szechuan

A FIV E-Y EA R plan for oceanographical survey along the coast of Fukien was laid down in

1941 by the D epartm ent of Oceanography, China In stitu te of Geography, Pei-Peh, Szechuan, in co­operation w ith the W eather Bureau of Fukien, Yungan, Fukien. The purpose of such a survey is to give a complete picture, w ith the help of scientific knowledge, of coastal w aters off Fukien. This in­vestigation is expected to be a great help in the development of agriculture and fisheries. I t m ay also be of benefit to the Salt Adm inistration.

According to the plan, work has to be done system ­atically from south to north , along the coast, and th is was s ta rted from Tungshan Island from 1941 onwards. The Tungshan Survey was m ade from the middle of September to the end of December 1941 by the D epartm ent of Oceanography in co-operation w ith the W eather Bureau of Fukien.

W orkers engaged in th e last survey were : Dr.S. F. Tang (oceanography and fisheries), Dr. T. Y. Ma (geology), Mr. Y. Chen (geography), Mr. K. M. Lin (physics), and Messrs. T. M. Chen and T. T. Young (meteorology). The first three were from the China In stitu te of Geography, Mr. L in from the Research Academy of Fukien, Yungan, and the last two from the W eather Bureau of Fukien.

During the survey, observations on tem perature, colour, transparency and specific gravity of the sea­w ater a t each sta tion were taken continuously for a period of twelve hours. Tides and currents a t each point were carefully measured. Readings were taken every five m inutes for a period of more th a n a day for the tide, and every half an hour for half a day for the current. Specimens of corals, shells, sea animals and seaweeds were comprehensively 'collected and preserved, and meteorological d a ta were sim ul­taneously taken. This work has been continued by the observatory sta tion which was then established in Tungshan city.

Tungshan Island is situated in lat. 23° 32 '-45 ' N . and long. 117° 20 '-32 ' E . and lies off the border

r b B K U A K Y O , I V O L . 1 0 3

between K w angtung and Fukien Provinces. I ts length from north to south is tw enty-tw o miles, and its w idth from east to west is eighteen miles ; a channel separates the northern p art of the island from the m ainland and connects Tungshan H arbour on the east w ith Chaoan Bay on the west. Tungshan H arbour is a fishery port, and Chaoan Bay is of im portance for its saltworks. Fishing and salt- m aking enrich the islanders m uch more th an the rice fields do the farm ers on the m ainland, though the lack of fresh w ater deprives the islanders of farming. As the results of warfare a t sea, off-shore fisheries have practically disappeared. On th e other hand, salt m anufacture, because of the encouragem ent given by the Central Government and th e increase of salterns and labourers, has been trem endously de­veloped during th e last five years.

I t is to be noted th a t Tungshan is an im portant fishery centre in Fukien Province, and Tungshan H arbour is a very useful po rt along the south-west coast of China. B oth as biologists and fishery investi­gators, we w ant to know the natu ra l conditions of the fauna and flora in Tungshan waters, since these will give precise knowledge as to the position of the interm ediate zone, biologically speaking, between the tropical and the tem perate seas. From the practical point of view, such general biological knowledge will lead us to more accurate conclusions as to fish migrations.

Tungshan H arbour is mid-way along the Amoy- Swatow sea route, and affords m erchantm en and fishing vessels a very convenient shelter during the typhoon season. _ However, th e natu re of the tides and currents in Tungshan H arbour is n o t yet known, as the necessary observations have no t been made.

Several papers have been published upon the last survey, both a t Chungking and a t Yungan, by the China In stitu te of Geography. I have prepared two papers : “The Tides and Currents around Tungshan Island” and “The Semi-daily Variations of Salinity in Tungshan W aters” .

In the first of these, I have shown th a t the tides and currents around Tungshan Island are of the semi-diurnal type, and th a t the salinities of Tungshan waters are variable.

The second paper can be summ arized as follows :1. The salt-content of the waters around Tungshan

Island, especially along the northern part, varies considerably in a day. The greatest range, from 23-20 to 31 -40%,, was recorded in the w ater of Tungshan Channel, and the periodicity of the varia­tion was found to be semi-diurnal.

2. I t appears th a t around Tungshan Island the variation of salinity follows exactly the m ovement of th e tide ; th a t is, when th e tide rises and the current is inward, the salinity of the w ater increases ; when the tide recedes and the current is outward, the salinity of the w ater decreases.

3. The salinity of Tungshan w aters was found to reach the highest point generally half an hour before high w ater, as the salt-w ater a t the tim e of high tide has already been covered on th e surface by a layer of brackish w ater which comes down from up-stream .

4. Considering the Tungshan w aters as a whole, the highest salinity recorded was 33-03°/00, the average was 28-12°/00, and the lowest was 21-92°/oo- The difference of 5°/00 between the highest and the average means th a t the w ater of high salinity m ay produce one-fifth more salt th a n th a t of the average salinity which is generally used by th e salt-m akers of Tungshan Island.

5. The best sea-water for filling up the reservoirs of the salterns around Tungshan Island can therefore only be obtained during the period from three hours to half an hour before high w ater ; and the best day for filling up is the day following the new and full moons in each m onth.

ROLE OF ISOLATION IN THE DIFFERENTIATION OF PLANT

SPECIESEy G. LEDYARD STEBBINS, j u n .

University of California, Berkeley, California

TH E differentiation or origin of species depends upon the developm ent o f discontinuities or gaps in the variation p a tte rn of N ature. We recog­

nize species no t because of th e am ount of difference between the ir most divergent individuals, bu t because of the ir distinctness from each other, or the bread th of th e gap between them . The form ation of these gaps between species depends upon the development of some isolating mechanism. M any different kinds of isolating mechanisms are found in N ature. In order to understand the forces which direct evolution, we m ust solve two m ajor problems. These are first, how isolating mechanisms develop and become es tab ­lished as barriers between species, and second, w hat relation they have to morphological divergence, or th e “descent w ith m odification” of Darwin.

As an aid to the solution of these two problems, evidence is produced from our knowledge of species and species hybrids in the higher p lants to support the following five statem ents.

F irst, isolation of two groups of individuals by geographic barriers, even for very long periods of tim e, does not necessarily cause them to evolve into d istinct species. Certain species of eastern N orth America have been isolated from the ir relatives in eastern Asia for millions of years, and yet the popu­lations on the two continents have rem ained exactly like each other during these long ages. Second, if two species have become recognizably different as a result of long-continued geographic isolation, they do not necessarily become isolated by genetic barriers also. Some American species, such as the American syca­more (Platanus) (British plane) and the Catalpa, are different in appearance from the ir Asiatic relatives ; b u t th e hybrids between them have been found (by o ther workers) to be fully fertile. Third, genetic isolating mechanisms, such as cross-incompatibility and hybrid sterility, do n o t appear suddenly, b u t evolve slowly as do th e ' visible differences between species. Many p lan t species, as typified in the genus Pceonia, are in hybridization experim ents partly in ­com patible w ith each other or form partially sterile hybrids. Such species m ay be in the process of evolv­ing barriers of interspecific sterility between each other. F ourth , genetic isolating mechanisms have been produced artificially and analysed in laboratory or field experiments, b u t m ost of these mechanisms pro­duce the ir effect in one or two large steps, and are transm itted in a relatively simple Mendelian fashion. On th e other hand, the isolating barriers between n a t­u ral species arise through the accum ulation of m any small steps, and are transm itted in th e progeny of partially sterile interspecific hybrids according to the m ultiple factor p a tte rn of inheritance. F ifth,

evidence from the progeny of partia lly sterile inter- in some countries term ites cause the m ost seriousand intra-specific hybrids in Apocynum, Oaleopsis, and dam age, especially to perm anent structures, unlessOryza indicates th a t there is no direct genetic con- precautions have been taken during their planningnexion between the causal agents of hybrid sterility and construction. “In tem porary structures andand the genes which produce the visible differences contents of buildings the risk of severe damage, i t isbetween species. This association in N ature is a said, is less and it need not be assumed th a t allresult of parallel evolution. m aterials or articles in which wood is present will a t

Based upon these five assum ptions, a working once be attacked and rapidly destroyed by term iteshypothesis is form ulated to explain the relationship when brought into a country in which these insectsin evolution between morphological divergence, or occur” . There m ay be an element of tru th in th is,descent w ith modification, and the developm ent of b u t the experience of m any m ust render them charydiscontinuities in the variation p a tte rn of na tu ra l of subscribing to th is statem ent, or of tak ing thegroups of organisms, or th e origin of species. Descent risk. Tem porary structures m ay be ruined in a feww ith modification takes place as a result of the inter- days if left uninspected.action between m utation , na tu ra l selection, and the The leaflet summarizes inform ation from a num berrandom fixation of genes in small populations. I f of publications from certain countries, particularlythese forces are relatively sta tic , the species will n o t from those of the Forest Research Institu te , D ehraevolve. D iscontinuities are developed when tw o Dun, and the B ureau of Entomology, U nited Statesparts of a more or less rapidly evolving species are D epartm ent of Agriculture, and gives a brief accountseparated from each other by any of a num ber of of how term ite damage takes place ; and also howisolating mechanisms. These mechanisms evolve it m ay be prevented. The subject is trea ted undergradually, and are genetically independent of th e the headings: habits of term ites, prevention of damage,changes in outw ard form which produce visibly use of tim ber trea ted w ith wood preservatives, usedifferent species. of term ite-resistant woods (among those usually

available in Great B rita in are iroko (Chlorophera------------------- excelsa), opepe (Sarcocephalus diderrichii), Pacific

Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), teak (TectonaT E R M I T E D R O P i F I M n O F T IM R E R grandis)). Plywood and fibre or composition boardsI E i \ i II i c - r iV w > w riiN V j u r 1 11 i d c i n and term ite attaok are also dealt w ith . I t is said

TERM ITES, or ‘w hite an ts’ in popular term in- th a t trea tm en t against term ites will in m ost casesology, are known to m ost of the inhabitan ts of ;d30 prevent destruction of tim ber through fungal

the tropical parts of the world, and also to some decay,w arm tem perate regions such as parts of the U nitedStates. A lthough occasionally introduced into G reat Ivl AU*lklEQII IIVl r x E C I d E K I C Y r-B ritain , they have never m ade any headw ay in th is n A V j INEO lU P I T U rtem perate island climate. Various remedies or pre- FRUIT TREESventions against the term ites’ a ttacks have beenintroduced or are practised locally in tropical r I 'H E occurrence of magnesium deficiency of fru itcountries—some effective, or partially effective, 1 trees growing in th e field has been recognizedothers more or less worthless. One of the greatest only in recent years. L. Southwick (Proc. Am er. Soc.troubles and losses from th is pest is the depredations Hort. Sci., 42, 85 ; 1943) describes a leaf blotch ofi t com mits on furniture, instrum ent boxes, packing apples which appears as an edge burn or interveinalcases, etc., m ade in B rita in (or in tem perate Europe necrosis, together w ith in some varieties a yellowgenerally) and sent to the tropics ; in term ite- banding or m ottling of th e leaves, appearing jirst ininfested areas such have little chance of escaping the older leaves and associated w ith a low mag-destruction. ' nesium content of the leaves, the scorched leaves

There is an exception—teak is unattacked, and so usually containing less th an 0 -25 per cent magnesium,articles m ade from teak are immune. The w riter In the same journal D. Boynton, J . C. Cain andhad a full-plate expensive cam era in Ind ia packed in O. C. Compton report th a t seasonal variations in thea beautifully bu ilt teak wood box. I t was left on the potash and magnesium content of apple leaves agreecement floor in a com er of a room in a well-built w ith the seasonal differences in the incidence of leafrest house out in the D istrict. R eturning three weeks scorch and leaf blotch respectively. Leaf blotch duela ter an inspection of the box showed traces of to magnesium deficiency m ay be reduced by soilterm ites round the bottom edges. The box was un- application of magnesium sulphate, while it islocked and lid opened. The wood work of the camera, aggravated by chloride of potash dressings {ibid., 42,m ahogany, was entirely eaten, skeleton ‘beam s’ and 95 ; 1943). L. Southwick and J . K . Shaw find th a tcross pieces being left to support the brass m ountings spraying w ith magnesium sulphate solution (16 lb.of the camera. A t a touch th e whole structu re per 100 gallon) gave a partial control of the mag-collapsed. An exam ination showed th a t the bo ttom nesium deficiency leaf blotch, and th a t m ost mag-of th is expensive teak brass-cornered box h ad con- nesium-containing substances applied to the soil weresisted of a piece of pine wood. effective b u t magnesium limestone was ineffective in

Leaflet No. 38 (Forest Prod. Res. Lab., Princes curing the trouble.Risborough, D epartm ent of Scientific and Industrial In the tung {Aleurites fordii) magnesium deficiencyR esearch ; Aug. 1944) is entitled “Termite-Proofing sym ptom s again consist o f leaf blotches which increaseof Tim ber for Use in th e Tropics” . This leaflet opens in size a t the m argin and the development of brownw ith the s ta tem en t th a t m anufacturers in G reat necrotic areas which progress from th e m arginB rita in handling tim ber, or m aking furniture, etc., for inw ards between the m ain veins. As w ith apples,use in the tropics are often called upon to render wood magnesium sulphate as a soil dressing effects a cure,proof against possible infestation by the term ites, b u t soil applications of potash aggravate the symp-and therefore are directly concerned in the in jury tom s (M. Drosdoff and A. L. K enw orthy, ibid., 44,which these insects m ay cause. I t is adm itted th a t 1 ; 1944).

152 N A T U R E F e b r u a r y 3, 1945, v o l . 155

FORTHCOMING EVENTSSaturday, February 3

B io c h e m ic a l S o c ie t y (a t th e B ritish Post-G raduate Medical School, Ducane H oad, Shepherds Bush, London, W.12), a t 11 a.m .

Monday, February 5So c ie t y o f C h e m ic a l I n d u s t r y (jo in t m eeting o f th e F o o d G r o u p

w ith th e L o n d o n S e c t io n ) (a t th e Chemical Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W .l), a t 2.30 p.m .—D r. F. B erg e l: “ The Use o f Sugars an d Amino Acids for th e P rep ara tio n o f Im p o rtan t N u trien ts” .

R o y a l G e o g r a p h ic a l S o c ie t y (a t K ensington Gore, London, S.W.7), a t 5 p.m.— Geographical Films.

So c ie t y o f E n g in e e r s (a t th e Geological Society, B urlington House, Piccadilly, London, W .l) , a t 5 p.m.—Mr. F rank P a r f e t t : P residen tia l Address.

Tuesday, February 6R o y a l I n s t it u t io n (a t 21 Albemarle S tree t, London, W .l) , a t

5.15 p.m .— Prof. T. W allace : “ The Diagnosis o f M ineral Deficiencies in Crop P lan ts” , (2) “ M ethods o f Diagnosis o f M ineral Deficiencies” .

I n s t it u t io n o f C iv il E n g in e e r s (S t r u c t u r a l a n d B u il d in g E n g in e e r in g D i v is io n ) (a t G reat George S tre e t , W estm inster, London, S .W .l), a t 5.30 p.m.—Mr. J . L. Eve and Mr. R. C. Brown : “ The E rection o f T all Guyed M asts” .

S o c ie t y o f Ch e m ic a l I n d u s t r y (jo in t m eeting o f th e P l a s t ic s Gr o u p w ith th e O i l a n d C o l o u r C h e m is t s ’ A s s o c ia t io n ) (a t Manson House, 26 P ortland Place, London, W .l), a t 6 p.m .—Mr. J . D. M organ : “ The Use o f Cashew N u t Shell Liquid in Resins” .

Wednesday, February 7S o c ie t y o f P u b l ic A n a l y s t s a n d o t h e r A n a l y t ic a l C h e m is t s

(a t th e Chemical Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W .l), a t 3 p.m .— Inaugural M eeting o f th e Physical M ethods G roup; a t 3.45 p.m .—Mr. R . C. Chirnside : “ Physics and th e A nalyst” ; a t 4.30 p.m .—Mr. H . P . Rooksby : “ Some Exam ples o f th e Use o f the X -R ay Powder Diffraction M ethod in Q uan tita tive Analysis ; The D eterm ination o f Small Am ounts o f (a) Calcium Oxide in Magnesium Oxide, (b ) Zinc Oxide in Zinc Sulphide” .

P h y s ic a l S o c ie t y (C o l o u r G r o u p ) (a t th e School o f P hoto- Engraving and Lithography, 6 B olt C ourt, F lee t S tree t, London,E.C.4), a t 3.30 p.m .—Mr. H . M. C artw rig h t: “ Colour Prin ting and Problem s o f Colour R eproduction” .

I n s t it u t io n o f E l e c t r ic a l E n g in e e r s ( R a d io S e c t io n ) (a t Savoy Place, V ictoria E m bankm ent, London, W.C.2), a t 5.30 p.m.— Flight- L ieut. C. B. B ov ill: “Aerials for Use on A ircraft—A Comparison betw een Fixed an d Trailing Types on th e 900-Metre W ave-Band” .

Thursday, February 8L i n n e a n S o c ie t y (joint m eeting w ith th e Z o o l o g ic a l S o c ie t y )

( a t Burlington H ouse, Piccadilly, London, W .l) , a t 2.15 p.m . At 2.25 p.m .—Dr. F. W. Jan e : “A Revision o f th e Genus Harpochy- trium ” ; a t 3.5 p.m .— Prof. C. T. Ingold : “ The T e tra -ra d ia te Spores o f certa in A quatic H yphom ycetes an d th e Propagules in some Species o f Sphacelaria” ; a t 3.35 p.m .—Mr. Ashley G. Lowndes : “ The Swimming of Monas (P ro tozoa)” .

R o y a l I n s t it u t io n (a t 21 A lbemarle S tre e t, L o n d o n , W . l ) , a t5.15 p.m.—Prof. Jam es Gray, F .R .S .: “ Locom otory Mechanisms in V erteb ra te Animals” , (2) “Animal F ligh t” .

C h e m ic a l So c ie t y (joint m eeting w ith th e U niversity College of N orth W ales C htm ical Society) (in th e D epartm en t o f Chem istry, U niversity College o f N orth W ales, Bangor), a t 5.30 p.m .—Prof. M. Polanyi, F .R .S .: “ The S tren g th o f Carbon Bonds” .

I n s t it u t io n o f E l e c t r ic a l E n g in e e r s ( I n s t a l l a t io n s S e c t i o n ) (a t Savoy Place, V ictoria E m bankm ent, London, W.C.2), a t 5.30 p.m. —Mr. D. R udd : “ The D evelopm ent o f M otor C ontro l Gear” .

I r o n a n d St e e l I n s t it u t e (joint m eeting w ith th e E b b w V a l e M e t a l l u r g ic a l S o c ie t y ) (in the W orkm an’s H all, Ebbw Vale), a t 6.30 p.m .—-Mr. G. D. E llio t: “ B last-Furnace Design, Operation and Problem s” .

P h a r m a c e u t ic a l S o c ie t y ( a t 17 Bloomsbury Square, London, W .C .l), a t 7 p.m.— Dr. S. A. Sarkisov (representative in G reat B ritain o f th e R ed Cross and R ed Crescent o f th e U .S .S .R .): “ The H ealth Services o f th e Soviet Union” .

Friday, February 9R o y a l I n s t it u t io n (a t 21 Albem arle S tre e t, London, W .l) , a t

5 p.m .—-Mr. W alter H . Godfrey : “A rchitecture , a S tudy for Every­m an” .

N o r t h - E a s t Co a s t I n s t it u t io n o f E n g in e e r s a n d S h ip b u il d e r s (in th e L ecture T heatre o f th e Mining; In s titu te , Newcastle-upon-Tyne), a t 6 p.m .—Mr. C. C. P o u n d e r: “Diesel Propelling Engines—a Com­parison o f some A lte rna tive A rrangem ents” .

APPOINTMENTS VACANTA p p l ic a t io n s are inv ited for th e following appo in tm en ts on or

before th e da tes m entioned :G a s E n g in e e r a n d M a n a g e r of th e Ilkeston Gas U ndertaking—

The Town Clerk, Town H all, Ilkeston , Derbyshire (endorsed ‘Gas Engineer and M anager’) (February 8).

L e c t u r e r i n A g r ic u l t u r e a t th e Llysfasi F a rm In s titu te —The D irector o f E ducation, E ducation Offices, R u th in , Denbighshire (February 10).

T e a c h e r o f M e t a l W o r k a n d M a c h in e D r a w in g in th e Jun io r Technical School o f th e D oncaster Technical College—The Chief Education Officer, Education Offices, D oncaster (February 10).

L e c t u r e r f o r A e r o n a u t ic a l o r M e c h a n ic a l E n g in e e r in g S u b j e c t s —The Secretary, N ortham pton Polytechnic, S t. John S treet London, E .C .l (February 12). *

R iv e r E n g in e e r a n d M a n a g e r (tem porary) to th e C ity of York__The Town Clerk, Guildhall, York (F ebruary 12).

L e c t u r e r (full-time) i n C h e m is t r y — The Clerk to th e Governors S ou th-E ast Essex Technical College and School o f A rt, Dagenham (F eb ruary 12).

J u n io r A s s is t a n t D r a i n a g e a n d I r r ig a t io n E n g in e e r by the Sierra Leone Government—The M inistry o f Labour and N ational Service, A ppointm ents D epartm en t, C en tra l (T. an d S.) Register, Room 5/17, Sardinia S tre e t, K ingsway, London, W.C.2 (quoting’ R eference No. E.903.A) (F ebruary 13).

M a s t e r to teach M a t h e m a t ic s a n d E n g in e e r in g D r a w in g to Jun io r studen ts—The Organizer o f F u r th e r E ducation in Rugby, Rugby College o f Technology and A rts , Rugby (February 16).

L e c t u r e r i n t h e C e r a m ic s D e p a r t m e n t — The Principal, N orth Staffordshire Technical College, S toke-on-Trent (February 17).

A s s is t a n t L e c t u r e r (tem porary) i n t h e D e p a r t m e n t o f Z o o l o g y — The R eg istrar, U niversity College, H ull (March 1).

P h y s ic is t o r P h y s ic a l C h e m is t (m an or woman) for research work on th e rheology o f dairy products, especially cheese—The Secretary, N ational In s titu te for R esearch in Dairying, Shinfleld, Reading, Berks. (April 1).

U n iv e r s it y L ib r a r ia n —The President, U niversity o f A lberta , Edm onton, A lberta , Canada (April 1).

P r o f e s s o r o f M e d i c i n e —The R eg istrar, The U niversity, M an­cheste r 13 (April 24).

U n iv e r s it y R e a d e r s h ip i n E n t o m o l o g y , tenab le a t th e London School o f Hygiene and Tropical Medicine—The Academic R egistrar, U niversity of London, c/o R ichmond College, Richmond, Surrey (Ju ly 31).

S p e e c h T h e r a p is t — The E ducation Officer, C ounty H all, W ake­field.

S e n i o r L e c t u r e r (male o r fem ale) in So c io l o g y in th e Rhodes U niversity College, G raham stow n, South Africa—The M inistry of Labour and N ational Service, A ppointm ents D epartm ent A.3(A), Sardinia S tree t, Kingsway, London, W.C.2 (quoting Reference No. O.S.465).

A s s is t a n t D a ir y B a c t e r io l o g is t —The Principal, H arper Adams A gricultural College, N ew port, Shropshire.

T e c h n ic a l A s s is t a n t , an d a R e s e a r c h A s s is t a n t , for biochemical work—The A dm inistrator, Oxford N u trition Survey, 10 Parks Road, Oxford.

L a b o r a t o r y A p p r e n t ic e (girl) i n t h e D e p a r t m e n t o f P h y s io l o g y —’The Secretary, Bedford College for W omen, R egen t’s Park , London, N .W .l.

L a b o r a t o r y A s s is t a n t f o r P h y s ic s D e p a r t m e n t —Prof. H. Dingle, Im perial College o f Science, South Kensington, London, S.W.7.

M a n a g e r o f t h e R e s e a r c h F a r m , B alerno, M idlothian—The S ec re tiry , In s titu te o f Animal Genetics, U niversity c f Edinburgh, W est Mains R oad, Edinburgh.

REPORTS and other PUBLICATIONS{not included in the monthly Books Supplement)

Great Britain and IrelandProceedings o f th e A risto te lian Society. New Series, Vol. 44 :

Containing th e Papers read before th e Society during th e Sixty-fifth Session 1943-1944. Pp. xxx + 160. (London : H arrison an d Sons, L td ., 1944.) 25s. n e t. [181

M edical Research C ouncil: In d u s tria l H ea lth Research Board. H ealth Research in Industry . (Proceedings o f a Conference on Indus­tr ia l H ea lth R esearch held a t th e London School o f Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 28 th Septem ber 1944.) Pp. 27. (L ondon: H.M. S ta tione ry Office, 1945.) 6d. n e t. [191

F reshw ater Biological Association o f th e B ritish Em pire. Scientific Publication No. 9 : The B ritish Simuliidae, w ith Keys to th e Species in th e A dult, P upal and L arva l Stages. By Dr. John S m art. Pp . 57. (Ambleside : F reshw ater Biological Association, 1944.) 2s. 6d. [241

In s titu tio n o f Civil Engineers. R eport on th e G overnm ent W hite P ap er on a N ational W ater Policy. Pp. 16. (London : In s titu tio n o f Civil Engineers, 1944.) [241

B ritish Coal U tilisation Research Association. Program m e o f W ork o f Shell-type Boiler and Firing Equipm ent Com m ittee (R. 16). Pp. 8. (London : B ritish Coal U tilisation Research Association, 1945.) [241

O the r CountriesProceedings o f th e California Academy o f Sciences, F o u rth Series.

Vol. 25, No. 10 : A Revision o f some Arizona C actaceae. By Prof. Lym an Benson. Pp. 245-268 (p la te 25). Vol. 25, No. 11 : Endemism in Crepis. By Prof. E rn est B. Babcock. P p . 269-290. Vol. 25, No. 12 : Nicotiana Arentsii—A New, N a tu ra lly occurring, Amphidiploid Species. By T. H. Goodspeed. Pp. 291-306 (plates 26-27). Vol. 25, No. 13 : The Cytogenetics o f H ybrids in Brom us I I ., Bromus carinatus and Bromus arizonicus. By G. L. Stebbins, J r ., H . A. Togby and Jack R . H arlan . Pp . 307-322. Vol. 25, No. 14 : The Im portance of Field H ybrids in D eterm ining th e Species in th e Genus Ceanothus. By Prof. H ow ard E. McMinn. Pp. 323-356 (p la tes 28-36). (San Francisco : California A cadem y o f Sciences, 1944.) [101

A gricultural Experim ent S ta tio n o f th e R hode Island S ta te College. B ulletin 291 : Food H ab its in Rhode Island. By Blanche M. Kuschke. Pp . 25. B ulletin 292 : N ew port C ity Milk M arket. Bv J . L. T ennan t. Pp . 35. C ontribution 659 : W artim e A gricultural R esearch (Fifty- s ix th Annual R eport). Pp. 46. (K ingston, R . I . : Rhode Island S ta te College, 1944.) [151

Catalogue“ Loud H ailer” . Second edition. Pp. 24. (G uildford: Ardente

Acoustic Laboratories, L td .)