114 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



add that I am taking further action in another direction in the hope of getting 

 some final result. It appears to me that the Council of Medical Research 

 is likely to be the chief opponent of the scheme because, very naturally, 

 they want to get as much money as possible in order to pay for current 

 researches. I should not quarrel with them for that at all ; but, as I have 

 said before frequently, it would be honest in the nation to pay for benefits 

 received before asking medical men for benefits to come. I am not in favour 

 of too much money being granted for current researches because I fear that 

 many of such lead to very trifling work. 



Professor Bose's Remarkable Work. 



Many of our readers will have followed the recent controversy which has 

 revolved around the work of a distinguished Indian scientist. Professor 

 Sir J. C. Bose, F.R.S. By a most ingenious apparatus the Professor has 

 contrived to magnify enormously the slow growth, movements, etc., of 

 plants ; such slow movements are of course invisible in nature, but Professor 

 Bose has shown that it is possible by means of his apparatus — the cresco- 

 graph — to follow carefully the growth movements of plants. 



Some doubt as to the reliability of Professor Bose's work was expressed 

 by Professor Waller, of the Imperial Institute, at a meeting of the Royal 

 Society of Medicine, which had been previously addressed by Professor Bose. 



Subsequently Professor Waller took the regrettable step of writing a letter 

 about this subject to The Times. Professor Bayliss, of University College, 

 London, then wrote a letter to The Times inviting Professor Sir J. C. Bose to 

 bring his apparatus to the University College Laboratory, and there demon- 

 strate it before a committee. The latter examined the crescograph and saw 

 it recording, and the members of the committee wrote the following reply 

 in The Times of May 4 : 



Sir, — Sir J. C. Bose kindly agreed to demonstrate to us his " cresco- 

 graph " on Friday afternoon, April 23, in the physiological laboratory of 

 University College, London. 



In accordance with the results given by the application of various tests, 

 we are satisfied that the growth of plant tissues is correctly recorded by this 

 instrument, and at a magnification of from one to ten million times. We 

 saw in particular that a flower-bud in active growth, if treated by immersion 

 in a solution of potassium cyanide for some hours, no longer gave a movement 

 of the recording spot of light. We conclude that such movement, when 

 shown by a similar bud in the active state, is not due to accidental stretching 

 or to undetected effects of currents of air, radiant heat, etc. We agree that 

 the instrument correctly records changes of length in the growing tissue, or, 

 indeed, of any substance attached to the lever of the instrument, however 

 such changes may be produced. Naturally, under the conditions of the 

 experiments, it was impossible for us to analyse completely the complex 

 effects produced by the passage of an electrical current. 



We are, etc., 

 W. M. Bayliss (Professor of General Physiology in University College, 



London) . 

 V. H. Blackman (Professor of PJant Physiology in the Imperial College 



of Science). 

 A. J. Clark (Professor of Pharmacology in University College, London). 

 W. C. Clinton (Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering in Uni- 

 versity College, London). 

 F. G. DoNNAN (Professor of General Chemistry in University College, 



London) . 

 Ravleigh (Professor of Physics in the Imperial College of Science), 



