December 15, 192 1] 



NATURE 



509 



of the Ministry of Education's ration scales are defec- 

 tive, and all those of the Ministry of War. Respect- 

 ing the latter he writes : " Presumably the men are 

 able to supply themselves from a canteen ; this, how- 

 ever, can hardly account for the low level of what 

 is stated to be the active service ration." This latter 

 is defective to the extent of 543 Calories in respect of 

 available energy, 14 gm. on the fat account and 55 gm. 

 of protein. The following rerhark is of interest : " In 

 February, 1919, the writer recommended that, in view 



•f the number of relapses and high mortality from 

 pellagra among the patients at the 'Abbasiya Asylum 

 on a diet the protein biological value of which was 

 495 (the diet being satisfactory in other respects), that 

 this should be raised to 60. The result has confirmed 



he correctness of the assumption upon which the 

 suggestion was made, a very remarkable diminution 

 having taken place in the incidence and mortality from 

 pellagra." 



The Proceedings of the South London Entomological 

 and Natural History Society for 1920-21 record a 

 successful year's activities. The finances of the society 

 are in a healthy condition, owing partly to the 

 generosit}- of friends and to the fact that the member- 

 ship has increased from 162 to 184. The present issue 

 includes three papers of general interest to entomo- 

 logists. In his presidential address Mr. K. G. Blair 

 gives an interesting summary of the rnore elementary 

 facts concerning hibernation in insects. Mr. G. E. 

 Frisby contributes a short paper on the habits of 

 the British Aculeata, and succeeds in compressing a 

 large amount of information within a small compass. 

 Dr. F. A. Dixey, in a paper entitled " Sexual Di- 

 morphism," illustrates his remarks with reference to 

 butterflies, in which the phenomenon is more evident 

 as colour differences than as divergence of form. 



The report of the director of the New York 

 Aquarium for 1920 is a record of useful work done 

 and continued progress made by this excellent institu- 

 tion. The addition of a collecting boat to its equip- 

 ment has made possible a great improvement in the 

 exhibits, and increased facilities for maintaining and 

 adding to the collections. Arrangements are already 

 in hand for increasing the number of tanks and for 

 enlarging several of the existing ones. The total 

 number of species on exhibition now reaches 191, com- 

 prising mammals, reptiles, amphibia, fishes, and in- 

 vertebrates. The most important of the recent addi- 

 tions are specimens of the alligator garfish and two 

 female Californian sea-lions. The number of visitors 

 during the year reached almost two millions, and the 

 value of the institution for educational purposes may 

 be gauged by the fact that nearly eight thousand school 

 children visited the aquarium with their teachers. In 

 addition to the work of maintaining its own collec- 

 tions, the aquarium also supplied more than eight 

 hundred animals to thirty-four school aquaria, and 

 sent a number of specimens of Limulus to the Zoo- 

 logical Society of Berlin, about half of which arrived 

 in healthy condition. 



The Report of the Geological Sur\-ey Board and of 

 the Director for 1920 (1921, price 15.) shows the re- 

 NO. 2720. VOL. 108] 



markable progress made by this national ser\'ice under 

 the care of the Department of Scientific and Indus- 

 trial Research. Though the retirement of Sir Aubrey 

 Strahan and of Mr. G. W. Lamplugh will be keenly 

 felt, the staff, under the directorship of Dr. J. S. 

 Flett, has been strengthened by the addition of two 

 district geologists, six geologists, and three other 

 officials. The importance of a revision of the mapping 

 of the coalfields, and the renewed attention given to 

 deposits of minerals of economic value, are responsible 

 for this satisfactory development, which was for- 

 tunately secured before the claims of external trade 

 and internal unemployment became so painfully urgent 

 in the present year. A scientific branch with the 

 traditions of the Geological Sur\'ey of Great Britain 

 does much to justify itself among educated producers, 

 whether they own the land or toil beneath its sur- 

 face. The age has gone by when William Smith had 

 to direct attention to the attractions and advantages 

 of geology by remarking that " the search for a fossil 

 may be considered at least as rational as the pursuit 

 of a hare." 



The British Association has issued the twentieth re- 

 port of its Committee on Photographs of Geological 

 Interest. Prof. S. H. Reynolds, of the University of 

 Bristol, as secretarv' of the committee, is glad to receive 

 unmounted copies of any photographs recording note- 

 worthy sections or exposures, or illlustrating the rela- 

 tions of geological structure to scenery in the British 

 Isles, and the prints so sent are registered and preserved 

 for reference at the Museum of Practical Geology, 

 28 Jermyn Street, London. The inquirer who de- 

 sires a copy for his own use is referred to the author 

 of the photograph. The list attached to the twentieth 

 report includes a large series of half-plate and quarter- 

 plate pictures from Gloucestershire by Prof. Reynolds, 

 mainlv illustrating the famous Carboniferous sequence 

 in the Avon gorge, and forty-five half-plate views of 

 glacial deposits in Suffolk by that keen worker, the 

 late W. Jerome Harrison. Mr. J. Ritchie contributes 

 a series illustrating the erosion due to a cloud-burst in 

 Aberdeenshire in 1891. It is much to be desired 

 that funds would allow of the issue with such lists 

 of small photographic reproductions from the regis- 

 tered views; but this would, of course, be impossible 

 at the present time. Geologists near London, at any 

 rate, have the advantage of consulting a ven>- valu- 

 able series of records in an institution which has 

 always been a bureau of scientific information. 



The rainfall of Southern Rhodesia is the subject of 

 a communication by Mr. A. H. Wallis, reprinted from 

 the South African Railways and Harbours Magazine, 

 September, 192 1. A map gives the seasonal, or 

 annual, rainfall for several districts, obtained frcMn 

 the average of all observation stations in each dis- 

 trict, for the period of six years ending June 30, 

 1919. The rains fall generally between October of 

 one vear and April of the following year. There are 

 239 rainfall observation stations in the countn.", all 

 with voluntary obser\'ers, although, as it is pointed 

 out, Rhodesia has been only thirty years under white 

 occupation. Mashonaland, with an area of 114,000 



