■ 92 



NATURE 



[October 6, 192 1 



siderations would bring about the stoppage of the 

 industry before that could occur. He outlines a 

 schedule of information to be demanded as a basis 

 for legislation when licences for whaling are issued, 

 and urges the infliction of heavy penalties for incom- 

 plete and inaccurate returns. Most of the informa- 

 tion asked for by Mr. Bearpark is, we believe, already 

 supplied by whaling companies, and the masterly 

 analysis of the statistics for the last eight years pre- 

 sented by Sir Sidney Harmer to the recent meeting 

 of the British Association at Edinburgh does not bear 

 out Mr. Bearpark "s contention that the extinction of 

 whales is not to be feared from the operations of 

 whalers. The contrary is, unfortunately, only too 

 clearly probable, ^^'hether from the point of view 

 of the naturalist or the whaler, legislation to regulate 

 the industry is undoubtedly necessary, particularly, 

 as Mr. Bearpark points out and as Sir Sidney Harmer 

 would agree, to prevent the deplorable waste which is 

 associated with floating factories. A little friendly 

 co-operation should result in legislation which aims 

 at the consummation of the desires of both sides, 

 the preservation of whales as part of the marine 

 fauna, and the establishment of the whaling industry 

 on a sound and permanent basis. 



Results of meteorological observations made at the 

 Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, under the direction 

 of Dr. A. A. Rambaut, are published by order of the 

 Radcliffe Trustees for the five years 1916-20. The 

 volume contains daily observations of barometer, air, 

 and evaporation temperatures, solar and terrestrial 

 radiation temperatures, wind direction and velocity, 

 cloud, hours of bright sunshine, and rainfall. Ob- 

 servations of ozone are given twice daily, and there 

 is a summary of the weather and remarkable pheno- 

 mena. In addition to these daily observations, mean 

 monthly readings of the barometer are given for each 

 of the five years, and for comparison the monthly 

 means for sixty-six years, and similar means of the 

 dry- and wet-bulb thermometers. The highest and 

 lowest air temperatures are also given for the separate 

 months and the monthly amounts of rain, with the 

 means for seventy years, together with similar 

 means of the amount of cloud, bright sunshine, 

 and ozone. The mean amounts of ozone for the 

 several months of the five years 1916-20 are so 

 decidedly higher than the mean for the fifty-four 

 years that it almost suggests that some difference 

 may have occurred in the basis of registration. The 

 lowest temperatures on the grass are tabulated for 

 each month for the sixty years from 186 1 to 1920, 

 and the monthly maximum and minimum tempera- 

 tures for each month in the last seventy years, with 

 the monthly duration of sunshine for each of the last 

 forty years. A diagram is given showing the triennial 

 variation of the velocity of the wind, barometric pres- 

 sure, and rainfall at Oxford for the years 1859-1920. 

 Such details as those contained in the volume add 

 much to our knowledge of the world's meteorology. 



The Geological Survey of the Union of South Africa 

 has issued Memoir No. 16, which contains a descrip- 

 tion of the Mutue Fides-Stavoren Tinfields by Dr. 



NO. 2710, VOL. 108] 



Percy .\. Wagner. This name has been given to 

 what appears to be one of the most important por- 

 tions of the O ifants River Tinfields, and the report 

 contains a description of the deposits, their 

 mineralogy, mode of occurrence, etc. The author 

 appears to have come to the conclusion that this 

 field is never likely to play any really important part 

 in the tin production of the world, or even to equal 

 some of the other tinfields of South Africa, but that, 

 nevertheless, it is likely for a considerable time to 

 come to produce moderate quantities of tinstone as 

 well as ores of tungsten and copper. 



The September issue of the American Journal uf 

 Science contains a paper by Mr. W. D. Lambert, of 

 the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, in 

 which some of the consequences of the rotation of the 

 earth are pointed out in a way which will be much 

 appreciated by readers not familiar with the mathe- 

 matical developments of geodesy. The surface of the 

 ocean is not strictly spheroidal, but is rather the 

 rounding down towards a spherical form of a lens- 

 shaped surface with its diameter one and a half times 

 its thickness. If an elongated body of slightly less 

 density than the ocean floats on the ocean, the forces 

 on it tend to make it move towards the equator and 

 set itself with its length along the meridian in latitudes 

 greater than 45°, and at right angles to the meridian 

 in latitudes less than 45°. The motion of the rod of 

 an Eotvos balance tending to set in the prime vertical 

 is also explained, and the possibilities which the modi- 

 fied balance opens up of detecting and studying local 

 irregularities in the distribution of matter near the 

 earth's surface are clearly pointed out. 



It is now well recognised that cod-liver and other 

 fish oils are exceptionally rich in the vitamin-A 

 which promotes growth. So far as is known at 

 present, the only phase in the cycle of living 

 organisms at which this substance is synthesised is 

 that associated with the development of chlorophyll 

 in plants. There is direct evidence that mammals 

 cannot make it, and there is no evidence that any 

 other animals can, though our information on this 

 latter point is very scanty. In an interesting paper 

 (Biochemical Journal, vol. 15, p. 530) which opens up 

 a number of problems in the general biology of the 

 growth-substance, K. H. Coward and J. C. Drum- 

 mond raise the question as to where the fish get their 

 store of vitamin from. They show by appropriate 

 feeding experiments that green seaweeds contain a good 

 deal, and they suggest that these form the ultimate 

 source of the virtues of cod-liver oil, the cod obtaining 

 them through the smaller animals on which it feeds 

 by an unknown number of links^ the last of which 

 feeds on the seaweed. Attractive as it is at first sight, 

 it may be doubted whether this explanation is quan- 

 titativelv sound ; the amount of seaweed in the sea is 

 relatively very small, and it is indeed only a small 

 fraction of even shallow waters that have a sub- 

 stantial growth on the bottom. It would be interest- 

 ing to know the vitaminic relations of the plankton 

 and some of the marine invertebrates. 



