.684 



NATURE 



[July 28, 192 1 



Gray and Speakman's results are of special interest 

 because they occur in a particularly simple system, 

 and thus afford opportunity for studying the mechanism 

 of this effect, which, if Miss Laing's hypothesis is 

 correct, must account for gelatinisation, even in the 

 most complicated systems. J. W. McBain. 



University of Bristol, July 19. 



Science and Civilisation. 



Capt. B. J. Marden's letter in Nature of July 14 

 (p. 623) raises a question which must be exercising 

 the minds of many of the readers of Nature to-day. 

 That question is : How can scientific workers collec- 

 tively obtain such control of the product of their work — 

 new knowledge — as to secure that it shall be used for 

 the development of a better order of society out of 

 the existing chaos? Science — knowledge — alone can 

 create this new order and save Europe from relapsing 

 into barbarism. If this be accepted as a true state- 

 ment of fact, we are led naturally to inquire : What 

 are the best methods to pursue to secure that science 

 shall be so applied? 



The time is now ripe for scientific workers to set 

 to work to devise a practicable scheme which will give 

 to science its proper place in shaping the future 

 destinies of the world. This is one of the chief pur- 

 poses for which the National Union of Scientific 

 Workers exists. Capt. Marden's idea seems to in- 

 volve a sort of international Syndicalism applied to 

 scientific workers and to scientific work. (Those 

 readers who know about Syndicalism onlv from the 

 daily Press will find a clear exposition of the Syndica- 

 list position in Mr. Bertrand Russell's "Roads to 

 Freedom,'' chap, iii., Geo. Allen and Unwin, 

 3*. 6{i.) Such an organisation would offer no ade- 

 quate security against the tyranny of a group over 

 the rest of the community ; and a dictatorship of 

 scientific workers might be almost as great an evil as 

 a dictatorship of miners, or of food producers, or of 

 financiers. We should like to urge Capt. Marden and 

 others who may have thought out schemes for the 

 proper utilisation of science for the salvaging of what 

 is worth preserving in our civilisation, and particularly 

 those who have thought them out in the hght of the 

 large and growing volume of literature on the 

 problem of the r6\e of the producer (whether a pro- 

 ducer of knowledge or of other essentials) in the future 

 society, to publish their ideas in detail. 



J. Henderson Smith, 



Chairman of Executive. 

 A. G. Church, 

 Secretary. 



National Union of Scientific Workers, 

 25 Victoria Street, Westminster, 

 S.W.i, July 19. 



Bees and Scarlet- Runner Beans. 



In Nature of August 12, 1920 (vol. cv., p. 742), 

 a letter was published from me on the behaviour of 

 bees visiting the flowers of the runner bean, Phasiolus 

 muUiflorus , to the effect that almost invariably the 

 nectar was obtained from the flower by penetrating 

 the calyx and corolla close to the position of the 

 nectaries, the humble bees with their stronger man- 

 dibles biting through the sepals, while the honey bees 

 took advantage of this pioneer work of their stronger 

 relatives. 



To my surprise, this year I find no such depreda- 

 tions made on the blossoms, but all the numerous 

 humble bees are getting the nectar in a legitimate 

 way, that apparently indicated by Nature, viz. by 

 clinging to the more open left side of the flower and 

 intruding the proboscis beside the pistil and stamens 

 down to the nectar at the base of the petals. No I 



NO. 2700, VOL. 107] 



honey bees have yet been seen on the flowers, but 

 whether because of their scarcity or by reason of 

 their being now unable to reach the honey is not clear. 



As the jasmine flower is still bitten by the humble 

 bees, it would appear that the hot and dry season has 

 caused the change in the behaviour of the bees towards 

 the bean flower, probably by hardening the calyx and 

 making it more difficult to penetrate, while causing 

 the bloom to be less in size and depth, so that the 

 nectar can be more easily reached from a frontal 

 approach. Harford J. Lowe. 



Torquay. 



A New Theorem on the Double Pendulum. 



The following interesting relatiwi is believed to be 

 new : — 



Let M and m be the masses of the bobs of a 

 double pendulum, and let A and B be their respective 

 amplitudes with suffixes i and 2 to denote the modes. 

 Then 



AjA, -/// 



The negative sign merely indicates that in one mode the 

 bobs are opposed, and it may therefore be ignored if 

 the absolute values of the amplitudes are considered. 



It is noteworthy that the product of the amplitude 

 ratios is inversely as the mass ratio — that is, directly 

 as the respective distances of the bobs from their 

 centre of gravity. It is striking that the product of 

 the amplitude ratios is independent of the lengths of 

 the pendulums, i.e. independent of the relative position 

 of the bobs and the point of support. 



When the bobs are of equal mass it follows from 

 the foregoing that the lower pendulum is divided by 

 the vertical through the point of support into seg- 

 ments the ratio of which in one mode is the reciprocal 

 of the ratio in the other mode, i.e. if one point of 

 section be obverted or swung about the middle of the 

 lower pendulum through 180°, the two bobs and the 

 two po'nts of section then form a harmonic range 

 which has many well-known properties. 



H. S. ROWELL. 



15 Bolton Road, Chiswick, W.4, July 18. 



Ochreous Flint Artefacts from Sheringiiam. 



I have recently paid another visit to Sheringham, 

 and have again devoted my attention to the ferru- 

 ginous "pan " which, for a distance of more than a 

 quarter of a mile, is exposed in places in the base of 

 the cliff forming Beeston Hill. From different areas 

 of this "pan " I have taken fifteen more exarnples of 

 the ochreous flints such as occur upon the foreshore 

 exposed at low water. The specimens, as would have 

 been clear to anvone examining the deposit intel- 

 ligently, were, without question, in situ, and were 

 embedded prior to the deposition of the great masses 

 of glacial and other strata of which the cliff is com- 

 posed. J. Reid Moir. 



One House, Ipswich, July 22. 



The Drought and Underground Water. 



The present drought affords an excellent oppor- 

 tunity for studying natural underground drainage in 

 limestone (including chalk) districts. In many 

 streams part of the flow takes place underground, 

 but the fact cannot readily be ascertained while a 

 surface flow continues. The flow of small streams 

 is now so much reduced that the whole stream may 

 be swallowed in the limestone and may reappear 

 lower down. It is to be hoped that geologists in lime- 

 stone districts will seize this opportunity to make 

 observations. , Bernard Hobson. 



Thornton, Hallamgate Road, Sheffield, 

 July 22. 



