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 G. 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 
