August 25, 192 1] 



NATURE 



829 



the addition of predetermined amounts of ammonia 

 salts (such as ammonium sulphate) to straw. The 

 commercial value of this development may be con- 

 siderable. With the advent of the motor the supply 

 of town dung has fallen off. Many market-gardeners 

 are, consequently, in straits, for the so-called artificial 

 manures are lacking in organic matter (humus), with- 

 out which many garden and glasshouse crops cannot 

 be grown satisfactorily. It may be that the ordinary 

 farmer, too, will find a use for the artificial product. 

 It is difTicult under modern conditions to maintain 

 sufficient animals to make all the straw produced 

 into dung. Again, where animal excrements exist 

 in abundance (as in milk production), lack of know- 

 ledge of the principles of the interaction between 



urine and straw leads to much waste of valuable fer- 

 tilising material. 



Another direction in which these discoveries may 

 have a practical outcome is in removing the soluble 

 comjX)unds of nitrogen present in sewage. Under 

 the existing sludge processes very little of this soluble 

 matter is recovered. It has been shown that if liquid 

 sewage is used to ferment straw, the effluent is prac- 

 tically free from nitrogen ; it has all been retained 

 by the straw. 



Enough has, perhaps, been said to indicate the great 

 practical importance of the discovery made by the 

 Rothamsted workers. The scientific advance is not 

 less notable, and marks another stage in the capture 

 by the biologists of the agricultural field of research. 



West Indian Zoology.* 



By Prof. J. Stanley Gardiner, F.R.S. 



I 



N 1895 the State University of Iowa, acting through 

 Prof. C. C. Nutting, who was already well 

 known as a member of several marine expeditions, 

 org^anised a zoological exploration of the Bahamas. 

 Its object was twofold : to give their people experience 

 of marine life in tropical seas, and to secure material 

 for morphological and systematic research and for 

 ordinary laboratory purposes. So satisfactory were 

 the results that Prof. Nutting's staff themselves sug- 

 gested a further expedition, this time to the Lesser 

 Antilles. Preparations were commenced in 19 16, so 

 little was the entry of the United States into the war 

 anticipated. Prof. Nutting himself went down to 

 prospect in 19 17, and finally the expedition sailed in 

 April. 1918, the party consisting of nineteen persons, 

 including six ladies. 



Barbados was first visited, the partv camping for 

 six weeks in the quarantine station on Pelican Island, 

 which was placed at its disposal by the Barbados 

 Government. Groups were formed for shore col- 

 lecting, row-boat work, launch dredeing to 200 

 fathoms, land work, and laboratory observations. 



Barbados Island itself is the most eastern of the 

 Antilles, and, although now consisting- largely of 

 elevated coral and limestone rocks, contains the re- 

 mains of land connecting it in early Tertiarv times 

 to South .'Vmerica. It was then sunk to great depths 

 and overlaid by beds of ooze, "Barbados earth," 

 noted for their richness in radiolaria and foramini- 

 fera. The uplift raised the sea bottom high enough 

 for corals to thrive, and subsequent elevations are 

 responsible for the terraced effects so apparent in the 

 topography of the present land. The island is about 

 21 by 14 miles, and has now a population of nearly 

 200,000. All is cultivated, and land collecting was 

 hence little likely to yield results of much value. The 

 expedition, indeed, mainly concentrated on marine 

 work, and the more striking animals of different 



1 University of Iowa Studies in Natural History. Vol. viii., No. 3. 

 "Barbados- Antigua Expedition." By C. C. Nutting. Pp. 274. (Iowa 

 City : University of Iowa, n.d.) 



groups are described ; the whole forms a guide which 

 will be of value to future workers. The general 

 variety of life is interesting, but the uniformity of all 

 tropical marine life in the coral-reef regions of the 

 world is ^till more striking; indeed. Prof. Nutting's 

 descriptions would apply almost equally well to faunas 

 from similar grounds off Ceylon, Seychelles, or Fiji. 



The second camping place was in the British dock- 

 yard in English Harbour, Antigua. Here, on account 

 of the heavy swell, work had to be concentrated in 

 the harbour and in the neighbouring Falmouth and 

 Willoughby Bays. There were compensations in a 

 neighbouring mangrove swamp with its peculiar 

 fauna, in fairly smooth bottom, and in the land being 

 little altered and still largely wild, covered with close 

 tropical jungle. There are volcanic rocks of some 

 age on this side, limestone rocks occurring principally 

 in the north of the island, off which are the chief 

 living coral reefs. The marine crustacean, holo- 

 thurian, and worm faunas proved particularly in- 

 teresting, and there are many observations on the 

 modes of life of different forms. Clearly, while the 

 whole surroundings were not so exciting to the party 

 as those of the coral reefs of Barbados, the expedi- 

 tion must have obtained a large number of animals 

 of great interest. Geographically, the mollusca in 

 the clearly capable hands of Mr. Henderson, and the 

 fossil geolog\- in those of Prof. Thomas, may be ex- 

 pected to yield valuable information. 



The immediate scientific results of this expedition 

 are not likelv to be great, but the whole idea under- 

 Iving it, and its scope, are of great interest, for it 

 rnight well be copied by British universities. Here 

 was a party of nineteen charming people, half of 

 whom were interested professionally, while the rest 

 were students. They went off for a term, and came 

 back to their university with a glimpse of what 

 tropical life really is, an abidine- picture which will 

 make those who teach interesting to their students, 

 for thev will be describing what they have seen, living 

 forms in their natural environments. 



Thomas Wharton Jones, F.R.S. 



CIR RICKMAN GODLEE'S memoir of Wharton 

 »^ Jones, reprinted from the British Journal of 

 Ophthalmology, March and April, 192 1 (London : 

 Geo. Pulman and Sons, Ltd.), is a most 

 admirable short study. It gives us in close 

 compass not only the man's work, but also the 

 man, from 1808 to 189 1 — a long life in the service of 

 physiology and ophthalmology. Wharton Jones's 

 NO. 2704, VOL. 107] 



work on the capillary circulation and on the processes 

 of inflammation is memorable, and was recognised 

 and honoured by all men of science : but the advance 

 of the medical sciences carried the younger men far 

 ahead of him. From Edinburgh, where Wharton 

 Jones was one of Knox's assistants, and suffered a 

 share of the public hatred which flared up over the 

 Burke and Hare murders, he came to London in 1838 



