JANUARY 20, 192 1] 



NATURE 



671 



Imperial College of Science, South Kensington, 

 S.W.I. Mr. Llewellyn Lloyd will describe green- 

 house white-fly and its control, and Mr. W. B. 

 Hrierk-y will give his personal impressions of some 

 American biologists and their problems. Mr. Brierley 

 was one of three foreign representatives invited to 

 attend the American Phytopathological Conference 

 held last year, and afterwards visited the chief educa- 

 tional and research institutions in Canada and the 

 I'nited States and many geographical areas of 

 botanical and agricultural interest. 



TiiK .Air Ministry has issued a table showing the 

 numbers of aircraft of all nationalities which departed 

 for and arrived from the Continent and the total 

 numbers of passengers who travelled on Continental 

 air services during the quarter October-December, 

 1920. The totals of departures and arrivals of air- 

 craft to and from t^e Continent since the opening of 

 the first service on .Xugust 26, igiq, until the end of 

 1920 were: Departures, 2131 ; arrivals, 2022; grand 

 total, 4153. British machines contributed 3321 to the 

 latter figure, French 721, Belgian 104, and other 

 nationalities 7. 



Thk Prince ok \Vai*s has expressed his intention 

 of being present at the Hunterian festival dinner of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons on Februarx- 14 to 

 receive the diploma of honorary fellowship to which 

 his Royal Highness was elected on July 24, 1919. 



Dr. Robert S. Woodward retired from the presi- 

 dency of the Carnegie Institution of Washington at 

 the end of last year, and the duties of that office 

 have been assumed by Dr. John C. Merriam. 



In the December issue of Han Mr. J. J. S. Whitaker 

 gives an account of recent archaeological research at 

 Motya which has been going on since 1906, and of 

 which no information, except a few letters in English 

 newspapers, has hitherto been procurable. Motya 

 differs from its sister-cities in Sicily which have passed 

 from one control to another and in course of time 

 ''•ive undergone total transformation. Motya, once 



-'roycd, ceased to exist as a town, and its site 

 • iii.iine<l desolatp. One remarkable discovery is that 

 I I .1 cemetery in which the burials are formed by single 



1^, the contents of which, so far as it has been 

 ^ible to determine them, consist almost tompletciv 



the cremated remains, not of human beings, but of 



iiestic and other animals. If this conclusion is 

 ified it will raise a very interesting problem for 



' archfologist and anthropologist. 



\ roMMlTTBtt hag been appointed to organise a 

 pre>entation to Prof, Percy F. Kendall upon the 

 occasion of his retirement from the chair of geology 

 at the l?niversity of Leeds, which will take place 

 un<ler the age-limit in June next, .As a teacher Prof. 

 Kemlall has b«-en stimulating and sucr»-ssful ; as a 

 scientific worker he has shown himself possessed of 

 a brilliantly original mind, and he has achieved 

 especially notable work in glacial geology and in 

 studies of coal and the coalfield, .Somp recognition of 

 thi* work is richly earned. Sir William Garforth is 

 the chairman of the presentation committee, and the 

 treasurer is Mr. J. F. Bedford, of Arnciiffr, 

 He;i<linglcy, I^eeds. 



VO. 2673, VOL. 106] 



Encephalitis lethargica, a disease characterised by 

 stupor and paralysis, which came prominently into 

 notice in 1918, is stated to have made its appearance 

 again in France. .\ number of cases are reported 

 from Marseilles, and at Douai an epidemic is said 

 to be raging. It is suggested that the malady is 

 periodic in appearance, like influenza, and it is of 

 interest that epidemics of stupors are again and again 

 recorded by the old medical writers. Cases ap- 

 parently cured seem to be subject to fresh attacks, 

 and there is some evidence that the cured cases may 

 be "carriers" of the virus and convey infection to 

 others. 



■' .Vnilis-violet in Copying Pencils .\cting as a 

 Spreading Caustic " is the subject of a review in 

 Medical Science: Abstracts and Reviews for Decem- 

 ber (vol iii., No. 3, p. 239). If the point of a violet 

 copying pencil penetrates into and is broken off in 

 the tissues the result is quite different from a similar 

 accident occurring with an ordinary graphite lea<l 

 pencil. If the removal of the violet point be delayed 

 it slowly dissolves, and the area of tissue around 

 undergoes sub-acute inflammation with irritation 

 of the nerve-twigs and pain at first, followed by 

 anaesthesia owing to destruction of the nerves. The 

 tissues undergo necrosis or death, and finally a sinus 

 leading to the surface forms, through which the violet- 

 coloured debris is discharged. There is an absence 

 of suppuration, as the anilin-violet is an antiseptic. 



Drs. Calmettk and GufeRiN, of the Pasteur Insti- 

 tute, Paris, state that they have been able to protect 

 animals against tuberculosis by means of a vaccine. Ten 

 healthy heifers, six of which were vaccinated, were 

 housed with five tuberculous cows for thirty-four 

 months and then slaughtered. Of the four unvac- 

 cinated heifers three showed advanced tuberculosis. 

 Of the six vaccinated heifers two which had been 

 vaccinated only once showed a small amount of tuber- 

 culosis, while the four other animals which had been 

 vaccinated three times showrd no trace of the disease. 

 It is now proposed to experiment with apes, and for 

 this purpose an island has been acquired in French 

 tiuinea and liberal grants have been made by the 

 (jovernment for building and equipping laboratories 

 and for their upkeep. The vaccine referred to is 

 probably that described by Dr. Calmetft? (Ann. de 

 I'Inst. Pasteur, vol. xxxiv., 1920, p. 554), which con- 

 sists of tubercle bacilli that have been grown on a 

 glycerin-bile medium for several generations. 



In the Journal of Artatomy for October (vol. Iv., 

 part i., p. 68) Mr. G. S. Sansom describes observa- 

 tions on the parthenogenetic segmentation of the ovum 

 of the water-vole (Microtus aniphibius) within the 

 ovary. The process continues as far as the formation 

 of two blastomeres and the division of these so as 

 to give rise to the four-celled stage. Conditions of 

 atresia of the follicles then become so acute that 

 further development is impossible. 



According to the Scottish Naturalist (November- 

 December), a walrus was seen off the Shetland* on 

 many occasions from early in July until tlic middle 

 of October. When first seen, about twenty-four miles 

 north-west of Ixrwick, the animal followed a fishing- 



