362 NATURAL SCIENCE [December 



typhoid fever is perhaps at times contracted in the laboratory, and 

 one fatal case of cholera has been definitely traced to this source. 

 Such instances are, however, so rare as to be of historic interest. 

 Laboratory infection is, in fact, a risk almost infinitesimal in com- 

 parison with the risks run in the post-mortem room or at the bedside, 

 or even in a crowded omnibus. It is the dog in the road who bites 

 you, not the dog you keep chained up in a cage. The recent case 

 of plague at Vienna appears to have been due to carelessness on the 

 part of a drunken laboratory attendant, if, at least, we may trust the 

 accounts which have appeared in the daily press. The lamentable 

 deaths of the physician and nurse in attendance were due to direct 

 case to case infection. The drastic measures which were taken by 

 the authorities appear to have been completely successful in check- 

 ing the spread of the disease — a gratifying tribute to the efficacy of 

 modern sanitary precautions. The warning against carelessness in 

 dealing with pathogenic organisms is obvious and perhaps timely, 

 but we are far from agreeing with those who, in a moment of panic, 

 would raise an outcry against their study in the laboratory. The 

 good that must result and has resulted from these investigations far 

 outweighs such rare calamities as the recent plague cases in Vienna; 

 the occasional warning should only emphasize the need of prudence 

 and caution in research. 



The Borings at Funafuti 



Two instalments of news have recently come to hand concerning 

 the coral-boring expeditions, whose plans were related in our July 

 number (vol. xiii. pp. 70, 71). Commander Sturdee's bold ex- 

 periment of boring in the centre of the lagoon from the bows of his 

 ship (H.M.S. " Porpoise ") was a remarkable success. He moored 

 his vessel so taut that it was possible to work the hydraulic 

 boring pipes without risk of their bending or breaking. Mr Gr. H. 

 Halligan, who was in immediate charge of the boring plant, reports 

 that the first bore reached a depth of 144 feet, the total depth of 

 the bore being 245 feet below the water level of the lagoon, the 

 depth of water to the bottom of the lagoon being 101 feet. The 

 first 80 feet below the bottom of the lagoon passed through sand, 

 composed of segments of Halimeda (a seaweed which secretes a 

 jointed stem of lime), and of fragments of shells. This gradually 

 changed into a coral gravel, the fragments being at first small but 

 getting larger at the deeper levels. At the bottom a mass of very 

 hard coral rock was met with, and had to be drilled with a steel chisel. 

 An attempt was then made to enlarge the hole with an under- 

 reamer ; but in the process the bore -hole became choked with coral 

 gravel. Efforts to drive the boring-pipes through this with an iron 

 ' monkey ' were unsuccessful, and the hole was abandoned. Another 



