NOTES 639 



a critical survey of a subject, such as is appropriate to a text-book, is more 

 easily adopted by those who have not made important contributions to it. 

 It is hoped to publish the first of these books in October, and the first three 

 will deal with Spectra, the Quantum Theory of Energy, and the Constitution 

 of Atoms and Molecules. 



"Just a quarter of a century ago — that is, in 1895 — the announcement was 

 made that diphtheria, one of the most severe and fatal diseases of mankind, 

 had been conquered by means of an antitoxin. This great event is a land- 

 mark, not alone in the history of medicine, but also in the history of the 

 world, and it provides a high peak of achievement from which the growth 

 of bacteriology may be viewed." (From the Address of the President of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science.) 



Prof. Robert Hegner, lately appointed to the Chair of Protozoology at 

 Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene, has written an account of 

 his recent European tour, which appears in Science, December 24, 1920, and 

 during his stay in England he attended the British Association at Cardiff. 

 He remarked upon the absence of young men in the audience of zoologists 

 at that meeting of the Association. It is quite true that the supply of young 

 zoologists is becoming very low, and, unless steps are taken to induce more 

 students to take up the subject, we can see a possible future decline in 

 British zoology. 



Messrs. Beck & Co. have brought out a new cheap microphotographic 

 camera suitable for all grades of work. It is solid and handy. 



We have to announce the new Imperial Bureau of Mycology, which is 

 the outcome of a proposal unanimously adopted by the Imperial War 

 Conference in 191 8 that a central organisation should be established for the 

 encouragement and co-ordination of work throughout the Empire on the 

 diseases of plants caused by fungi, in relation to agriculture. The Committee 

 of Management consists of some of the foremost biologists in the country. 



Dr. E. J. Butler, late Imperial Mycologist, Director of the Research 

 Institute, Pusa, and Agricultural Adviser to the Government of India, has 

 been appointed Director and has started work at the headquarters of the 

 Bureau, No. 17-19, Kew Green, Kew (Telephone, Richmond 603) ; this site 

 has the advantage of proximity to the fine library and collections of the 

 Royal Gardens, with the director and staff of which the Bureau will work 

 in co-operation. 



The funds of the Bureau are entirely provided by contributions from 

 the various self-governing Dominions, India, Egypt, and the Soudan, and 

 the non-self-governing Colonies and Protectorates. It will work broadly on 

 the lines of the existing Imperial Bureau of Entomology at South Kensington, 

 and will aim at doing for the other great class of destructive agencies in 

 agriculture — namely, the diseases and blights of plants caused by fungi — what 

 the older Bureau has so successfully done in regard to injurious insects. It 

 will be a central agency for the accumulation and distribution of information 

 and for the identification of specimens sent in from all parts of the Empire. 

 It is proposed to issue, as soon as funds permit, a periodical journal through 

 which those interested in mycological work in regard to agriculture will be 

 kept informed of progress elsewhere. There are at present over fifty officials 

 engaged in this work in the overseas parts of the Empire, while the number 

 of agriculturalists, planters, and the like practically interested is legion. 



The effect of fungus diseases in reducing crop production is great beyond 

 calculation. A Canadian scientist has estimated the loss caused by rust in 

 wheat in the prairie region of Canada in 1917 at 100,000,000 bushels, repre- 

 senting a value of between ;^25,ooo,ooo and ;^5o,ooo,ooo. For the same year 

 the loss in the five chief cereals in the United States exceeded 400,000,000 

 bushels. The effect of this on the provisioning of the world may be easily 

 imagined. 



