692 



NATURE 



[July 28, 1921 



and on the other will recognise that the lasting 

 and satisfying values are those of truth, love, and 

 beauty. The address is a notable one — a wise, scien- 

 tific sermon by a leading biologist. 



An account has been published (G. P. Putnam's 

 Sons, Ltd.) of a meeting convened by Dr. Marie Stopes 

 on May 31, in the Queen's Hall, London, for the 

 discussion of constructive birth control. The chair- 

 man, the Rt. Hon. G. H. Roberts, M.P., spoke of the 

 desirability of letting in daylight and securing trust- 

 worthy information ; Dr. Jane L. Hawthorne urged 

 the necessity of instructing those who sacrifice health 

 and happiness through a rapid succession of child- 

 births ; Dr. E. Killick Milard laid emphasis on the 

 eugenic aspect of birth-control, not only in promoting 

 the welfare of a sound family, but also in preventing 

 the appearance of a bad one, and submitted that the 

 experience of vast numbers of intelligent people who 

 have used contraceptives has demonstrated that they 

 are, on the whole, effective and harmless. Dr. Marie 

 Stopes directed attention to the opening of the first 

 birth control clinic in this country, and emphasised 

 the far-reaching racial importance of positive, as well 

 as negative, control. The advance of science, she 

 said, has made it possible to present a material scien- 

 tific basis with which to embody spiritual ideals. 

 Instead of attempting the ascetic repression of mutual 

 love, what should be aimed at is a culture of a love 

 associated with a utilisation of available knowledge. 

 " Married lovers should play the part of parents only 

 when they can add individuals of value to the race." 

 The interesting booklet contains a series of impres- 

 sions of the meeting by the Rt. Hon. J. H. Clynes, 

 ISLP., and others. The whole forms a restrained, but 

 urgent, presentation of the case for birth-control linked 

 to a sound idea of marital relations. 



Many interesting suggestions for further research 

 into the methods of fish preservation are made by Mr. 

 H. F. Taylor in a paper contained in the Proceedings 

 of the American Fisheries Society for the year 1920. 

 The paper deals with "The Principles Involved in the 

 Preservation of Fish by Salt," and it contains the 

 results of a series of experiments made by the author 

 and others. The purest salt obtainable is recom- 

 mended for ordinary methods of salting, for the im- 

 purities contained in crude products are of much 

 significance. Calcium and magnesium salts retard 

 penetration and harden and whiten the flesh, 

 accentuating the "saltiness" of dried fish. Pure 

 sodium chloride gives a "mild and sweet " cure, but 

 the flesh is yellowish and soft. Dry salting leads to 

 a more efficient and rapid preservation than does the 

 use of a strong brine. Reddening of the flesh in dried 

 salt fish is due either to a bacillus or to a spirochaete, 

 which organisms can be traced to "solar," but not to 

 mined, sea salt. " Rusting " in fatty fish is due to 

 oxidation of fatty acids split off from the fats by 

 enzyme action. Indeed, most of the defects of fish 

 preserved in any way appear to be due to autolysis. 

 Saltpetre, which is sometimes used as an accessory 

 preservative, helps in the retention of a slight pinki- 

 ness of the flesh by forming a nitroso-compound with 

 the haemoglobin of the blood. These are some of the 

 NO. 2700, VOL. 107] 



very important matters now being investigated m 

 America — privately, it should be noted, for the author 

 despairs of any helpful research by Government 

 institutions, and looks to the fishing industry for 

 adequate attention to problems of industrial fishery 

 importance. 



The problem of sex-determination in amphibia has 

 for a long time been known to present special com- 

 plexities. The evidence of R. Hertwig and others 

 must be accepted as proving that external influences 

 have an effect on the proportions of the sexes, and 

 consequently, whatever be the true interpretation of 

 this evidence, the simple rule of genetic predetermina- 

 tion cannot be held to apply without qualification to 

 these animals. Intersexes have also often been ob- 

 served, especially in the frog (see a recent summary 

 by F. A. E. Crew, Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., 192 1, 

 vol. XX., p. 236). M. Ch, Champy has lately made 

 an interesting contribution to this subject (Comptes 

 rendus Ac. Set., May 9, 192 1). He found that by 

 starving male newts (Triton alpestris) severely at the 

 time when spermatogenesis should be active, the de- 

 velopment of the secondary sexual characters is ar- 

 rested, and the animal remains in a more or less 

 neuter state, as in winter. In the following spring the 

 testes of these animals are found to be replaced by 

 bands of fatty tissue, and the secondary sexual char- 

 acters do not reappear. Two such males, after being 

 fed up in winter, were observed to undergo a peculiar 

 transformation, assuming somewhat the coloration of 

 the female. One was dissected on January 11, and 

 showed only the fatty bands replacing the testes. The 

 other was kept until April 8, and became entirely female 

 in appearance. On dissection each fatty band was 

 found to contain an ovary with young ovocytes, much 

 as in newly metamorphosed females, together with an 

 oviduct. The specimen in question had at the time 

 of capture been an undoubted male, and reason is 

 given for believing that it had fathered the fertile 

 eggs of a female with which it h^d been paired in 

 captivity before the treatment began. 



In the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh (vol. Hi., part iv., No. 30) Mr. J. M. Wordie 

 publishes a paper on the soundings and deep-sea 

 deposits of the Shackleton Expedition in the Weddell 

 Sea. The soundings were 152 in number, and were 

 made while the Endurance was a free agent 

 and during her drift in the pack until she was 

 crushed in October, 19 15. This important series of 

 soundings amplifies the only previous work in the 

 Weddell Sea by the Scotia and the Deutschland, and 

 was the principal scientific outcome of Shackleton 's 

 venture. No map accompanies the paper, but Mr. 

 Wordie points out how the soundings remove all 

 probability of Morrell's reported landfall or Ross's. 

 " strong appearance of land " in the north-west of 

 the Weddell Sea. However, an island is still possible, 

 even if unlikely. The continental shelf off Coats 

 Land, discovered by the Scotia, has been proved to 

 be narrow and irregular in contour. On the west 

 of the Weddell Sea the Endurance took 103 soundings 

 in depths" under 275 fathoms, .and proved the existence 



