April 1 8, 



NA TURE 



595 



man. A sailor will wear one as a protection against shipwreck, 

 another charm saves its wearer from wounds in battle, another 

 from disease, and so on. Besides being a sorcerer, that person- 

 age is also a physician and surgeon, and usually the astrolo:jer 

 and weather prophet of his district. It can hardly be said that 

 he is skilled in ihese professions. An unvarying mode of treat- 

 ment of a patient who is suffering pain from any cause whatever 

 is to make a long, and sometimes a deep, incision over the 

 abdomen. As may be imagined, this is not a very safe remedy. 

 In one instance Mr. Romiliy mentions, a woman, who was suf- 

 ferinij severely from several spear-wounds, was thus treated by 

 the native sorcerer, who, in pursuit of his profession of surgeon, 

 inflicted by far the most severe wound the poor w.jman received, 

 thus destroying the chance of life whicli she had before he 

 attended her. Many of the tribes are, through the influence of 

 the missionaries, shaking off these superstitions. "But even 

 these people," says Mr. Romiliy, " the most civilized in New 

 Guinea, and many of them professed Christians, in times of 

 great excitement revert to their old habits. This was shown 

 during the autumn of 1886. At that time a severe epidemic 

 raged along the south coast. The people were dying, by hun- 

 dreds, of pneumonia, and were beside themselves with fear. 

 The usual remedies for driving away spirits at night were tried, 

 remedies which had been in disuse for years ; torches were 

 burnt, horns were blow n, and the hereditary sorcerers sat up all 

 night cursing ; but still the people died. Then it was decided 

 that the land spirits v\ e e working this harm, and the whole 

 population moved their canoes out in the bay and slept in them 

 at night ; but still the people died. Then they returned to their 

 village, and fired arrows at every moving object they saw. . . 

 In course of time the epidemic wore itself out ; but while it 

 lasted the civilized Motuans were as superstitious as any of 

 their neighbours could have been."' 



THE MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY, 

 HARVARD COLLEGE. 



'pHE Annual Report of Prof. A. Agassiz for 1887-88 has 

 been issued. It gives the usual interesting account of 

 the various courses of instruction which have been provided at 

 the Museum during the academic year, and of the reports from 

 the several officers about the collections under their care. Ex- 

 cellent progress has been made with the extensive addition to 

 the Museum building, in which there will be ample accommo- 

 dation for the geological and geographical departments. While 

 numerous specimens have been sent to specialists, a number of 

 applications have from necessity been refused, as the Museum 

 staff is very far from being large enough to meet the demand on 

 Its time which attention to all such applications would require. 

 For the future, the very reasonable rule has been laid down that 

 only single specimens for special study can be sent out from the 

 Museum, so that the larger collections must be studied at the 

 Museum, where, we may add, they may be examined with every 

 advantage. In an appendix, a list of the publications of the 

 Museum during the past year will be found, and there is also a 

 most important list of all its publications from the commence- 

 ment : the Annual Report from 1859, the Bulletin from 1863, 

 the Memoirs from 1864. In a footnote comment is made on 

 some remarks appearing in the preface to the Zoologiscker 

 Jakresbcricht for 1886, on the irregular way in which the 

 publications of the Museum appear. We only allude to this to 

 express our hope that no criticism's will alter the present arrange- 

 uient, which is one that allows of the prompt publication of the 

 various new facts brought to light by the band of workers at 

 Harvard. We can conceive that by a librarian, simply as such, 

 the publication of a volume in parts is held in abhorrence, and the 

 jHibhcation of parts of two or three volumes of a series, at the one 

 time, fills him with dismay ; but to the working student it is very 

 different, and such owe a great deal of gratitude to the Curator 

 of the Museum at Harvard, for the speedy publication of the 

 Mu^eum .Memoirs as well as for the great liberality with which 

 these are immediately posted to Europe on their issue from the 

 press. , The following paragraph we read with mingled feelings 

 of regret and pleasure : — "In the past fifteen years I have been 

 in the hal)it of supplying deficiencies for such expenditures as 

 see ned to me essential for the rapid development of such an 

 establishment. But it has now become evident that, while 

 such a policy may have been useful in the early stages of the 

 -Museum, it has of late been rather a detriment to it than 



otherwise, as it was fast coining to be regarded as my personal 

 establishment. The demands upon my time for the administra- 

 tion of the affairs have become so great, that I must retire fronii 

 active duty to devote myself to scientific work, which I have 

 too long neglected for the sake of bringing the Museum to the 

 point it has reached. It is high time that I should withdraw, 

 and that a younger man, more in sympathy with the prevailing 

 tendency of science in this country, should endeavour to develop 

 the Museum by increasing the interest of the friends of the 

 University in its behalf." We fail to comprehend how any man 

 living could be more in sympathy with modern science than 

 Alexander Agassiz, but we recognize as a fact that he has- 

 original work to finish, while it is yet day, and it is universally 

 acknowledged that he has established such a musium at Harvard 

 as may employ the energies of many workers for years to come. 



RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS UPON THE 

 GROWTH OF POTATOES AT ROTHAMSTED. 



T^R. GILBERT has, in the form of a lecture recently de- 

 ^-^ livered at the Royal Agricultural College, given a rhumi 

 of twelve years of experimental work in connection with the 

 growth of potatoes. The subject is in itself highly interesting, 

 including, as it does, a large number of important questions 

 relating to the propagation of new varieties, the proper cultiva- 

 tion of the ground, the potato-blight, as well as the best fertil- 

 izers for the crop. Dr. Gilbert at once disclaims all idea of 

 entering upon the larger questions involved in potato-cultivation, 

 and confines himself entirely to that of fertilizers, and in regard 

 to this point he is not able to throw much fresh light upon the 

 usual practices of growers. The old story of the value of a due 

 apportionment of nitrogenous and mineral substances is clearly, 

 shown to be required for the growth of potatoes, as for all crops. 

 The value of farmyard manure is also well indicated in a manner 

 which, on the whole, supports the present practice of all good 

 farmers. The meagre results obtained from mere mineral 

 manures, unassisted by nitrogenous manures, are also well 

 brought out. The practice of employing liberal dressings of 

 dung, superphosphate, and potash salts, or of substituting nitrate 

 of soda or sulphate of ammonia for iarmyard dung, is simply 

 indorsed by Dr. Gdbert's results, and, beyond this, no new light 

 is shed upon the subject of fertilizers for potatoes. 



The efiect of liberal applications of nitrogenous and mineral 

 manures in increasing the proportion of diseased tubers, in years 

 in which the blight is prevalent, is too familiar to need further 

 proof ; and as a matter of fact, the wisest course appears to be to 

 balance the advantages of a heavy crop against an increased 

 liability to disease. 



A point is made by proving very conclusively that the con- 

 tinuous growth of potatoes upon the same land does not render 

 the crop more liable to disease, but rather the reverse. For 

 example, the percentage of diseased tubers during the first four 

 years of potato-growing ranged in the various plots from 5 "14 to 

 12-82, the largest amount of disease occurring upon the land 

 manured heavily with dung and nitrogenous dressings. In the 

 second four years, the average amount of diseased potatoes 

 ranged from I 63 to 4'95 per cent., while in the third series 

 of four years it was reduced to from I '43 to 173 per cent. 

 No fluctuations of season can overturn these figures. They have 

 an important bearing upon the question of the prcpagation of 

 the disease, and appear to detract from the value of suggestions 

 that the blight continues to exist in the form of resting spores in 

 the ground. If .'•uch was the case, the disease, when once 

 established, would surely tend to greater virulence in the case of 

 constantly repeated growths of diseased crops. Practical agri- 

 culturists would scarcely be induced, from these results, to take 

 special measures for destroying diseased tubers, for carefully 

 preventing their introduction into manure-heaps, or for gathering 

 diseased haulm off the land — all of which precautions students 

 of potato-disease have advised agriculturists to take. 



The composition of the tubers, after manuring with the various 

 fertilizers employed, is strikingly similar, with the exception that 

 the heavier crops are rather more watery in character -a result 

 which may always be looked for in luxuriant vegetation. The 

 general result of these experiments is encouraging, in so far as 

 they show that the methods in general use for manuring the 

 potato crop are the best that can be devised for the growth of 

 potatoes. 



