544 



NATURE 



[December 23, 1920 



brought from the north into the baskctwork capitals 

 of Justinian, and the round plait in architecture only 

 occurs in true Gothic work in Italy, the Lombard 

 plait being angular, rushwork and not osiers. In 

 Ireland the spiral is alone in the pagan age, and the 

 plait only comes in after the Norse influences cf the 

 Christian period." 



An interesting programme was presented at the 

 meeting of the Association of Economic Biologists 

 held in the Imperial College of Science on Friday, 

 December lo. Sir David Prain occupied the chair, 

 and the first portion of the meeting was devoted to 

 the exhibition of specimens. Dr. B. M. Bristol, of 

 Rothamsted, showed a number of very beautiful pure 

 cultures of algae on solid media, obtained from the 

 soil of the famous Broadbalk wheat-field, the algal 

 flora of which she is studying. Dr. S. G. Paine 

 exhibited bacteria with flagella stained by a new 

 method, and also a convenient new pattern of incan- 

 descent lamp which he has devised for microscopic 

 work. Mrs. Alcock showed specimens of Douglas 

 fir attacked by Phomopsis pithya, Lind., a parasitic 

 fungus new to this country; and Mr. W. B. Brierley 

 exhibited a fine photograph of Dr. Erwin F. Smith, 

 the eminent American pathologist. Mr. W. J. Dowson 

 then read his paper on ,." Problems of Economic Bio- 

 logy in British East Africa," dealing especially with 

 the relations of plant disease to climatic conditions. 

 A second paper was read by Dr. M. C. Rayner on 

 "Nitrogen Fixation in the Ericaceae," in which a 

 convincing case was stated for the fixation of nitrogen 

 by the mycorrhizal fungus in this genus of plants. 

 The papers were discussed by Dr. E. J. Butler, Mr. 

 F. T. Brooks, Prof. V. H. Blackman, and Dame 

 Helen Gwynne-Vaughan. 



In Bulletin 313 of -the Agricultural Experiment 

 Station of the University of Wisconsin Prof. L. J. Cole 

 and Miss Sarah Jones discuss the occurrence of red 

 calves in black breeds of cattle such as Aberdeen- 

 Ang'us, Galloway, and Holstein-Friesian. They point 

 out that red is recessive to black, and was introduced 

 by crosses in the early days of formation of the 

 breeds, when little selection for colour was practised. 

 The more rigid selection for colour at present in vogue 

 has not yet succeeded in eliminating the recessive 

 factor for red from the germ-plasm. Such a simple 

 account of the cause of the persistent sporadic re- 

 appearance of red is valuable for practical breeders 

 who have no knowledge of the scientific principles of 

 heredity. It serves to eradicate many erroneous ideas 

 as to the nature of these occurrences. 



It was ascertained by Blacklock and Carter at the 

 Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in iqtg that 

 the indigenous British mosquito. Anopheles plumbeus, 

 could be infected with the malarial parasite Plas. 

 modium vivax. As a consequence of this discovery 

 the Mosquito Investigation Committee of the South- 

 Eastern Union of Scientific Societies was asked by 

 the Ministry of Health to aid in discovering the exact 

 distribution of this mosquito in England and Wales. 

 In its Circular No. 4 this committee explains the 

 effort it is making to conduct an inquiry into the 



NO. 2669, VOL. 106] 



distribution of A. plumbeus within the areas to which 

 the activities of its affiliated societies extend. The 

 circular gives detailed descriptions of the egg, larva, 

 and fly of A. plumbeus and of its breeding-places, 

 illustrated by plates of figures reproduced from Lang's 

 "Handbook of British Mosquitoes," issued by the 

 British Museum, and from Blacklock and Carter's 

 paper in the Annals of Tropical Medicine and 

 Parasitology. These, with further information con- 

 cerning habits, distribution, collection, etc., should 

 make the circular useful to the amateur and efficient 

 for its purpose. It is clear that the Ministry of 

 Health has a keen ally in this committee of the 

 South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies. 



The October issue of the Tropical Diseases Bul- 

 letin, published by the Tropical Diseases Bureau, con- 

 sists of a Sanitation Number, and comprises extracts 

 from and notes on papers appearing in various 

 scientific journals and official reports. The matter is 

 divided under several heads, namely : Disease Pre- 

 vention (chiefly Malaria), Conservancy, Water, Milk, 

 Smallpox Vaccination, Rat Destruction, Disinfection, 

 Vital Statistics, and Book Reviews. Most of the 

 notes and extracts are very brief, but appear to bring 

 out the more salient points of the original papers, 

 and will undoubtedly serve as a very useful gujde to 

 the student of this particular subject. The paper to 

 which most space is given is one by Sir Alexander 

 Houston on water and sewage purification, reprinted 

 from the Reports of the Progress of Applied 

 Chemistry. This paper, dealing chiefly with water 

 and sewage problems in this country, has, perhaps, 

 only an indirect bearing on tropical hygiene, but it is, 

 nevertheless, highly important from that point of 

 view in that it deals largely with questions of 

 chlorination of water and with algal infection. An 

 interesting point is that the author states that he has 

 recently discovered a means of preventing or remov- 

 ing the residual or, as he describes it, " iodoform " 

 taste in chlorinated water by means of a small dose 

 of potassium permanganate (2 lb. to 8 lb. per 

 1,000,000 gallons). This question of taste has always 

 been one of the difficulties in the way of the success- 

 ful chlorination of water and the cause of many com- 

 plaints from consumers, and Houston's taste- 

 eliminating process should prove an immense boon 

 where chlorination of water is necessary. How much 

 more pleasant it would have been to the troops during 

 the war if this discovery had been made half a dozen 

 years ago ! 



The Geological Survey has just issued another por- 

 tion of the Memoirs on the Economic Geology of the 

 Central Coalfield of Scotland, the present volume 

 dealing with the fourth area into which the coalfield 

 has been divided ; this includes an area of rather 

 more than 40 square miles, extending 10 miles to the 

 west of Glasgow, both north and south of the Clyde. 

 The district is not of any great economic interest ; 

 the ironstones are, for the most part, thin, and prac- 

 tically all the workable portions have been exhausted. 

 Most of the coal-seams, too, are thin, and the 

 quality is in many cases inferior. There are, how- 

 ever, two features of high geological interest, namely, 



