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NATURE 



afternoon was spent seeing some of these at the 

 Clinical Laboratory, Royal Infirmary. Amongst 

 these demonstrations were Dr. R. K. S. Lim, demon- 

 stration of the mucoid cells of the stomach ; Dr. E. P. 

 Poulton and Dr. W. W. Payne, peristalsis of the 



[January 26, 1922 



human oesophagus ; Mr. McClure, psychogalvanic 

 reflex ; and Prof. J. Meakins, respiration with de- 

 creased volume per respiration, with and without 

 oxygen, and efifect of resistance to breathing on 

 respiration at rest and whilst working. 



The Week in West Africa 



A 



T a meeting of the Royal Anthropological Insti- 

 tute held on December 13 Mr. Northcote W. 

 Thomas read a paper on "The Week in West 

 Africa." He said there were in West Africa a number 

 of sub-divisions of the lunar month, such as 16-day 

 periods, lo-day periods, and the like, the origin of 

 which was either in the market or in some religious 

 belief. There were, in addition, a number of shorter 

 units, comparable to our week, of more uncertain 

 origin ; the) ranged in length from two to eight 

 days. They were very rarely sub-divisions of the 

 month, and there was reason, where' the week is 

 synchronised with the month, to suspect foreign 

 influence. Generally speaking, the month in West 

 Africa was of small importance and played no part 

 in economic or religious life ; it was reckoned from 

 the day on which the ne^' moon was first seen, but 

 the native can only very rarely say of how many 

 days it consists. There was no less uncertainty as 

 to "the length of the year; few, if any, tribes had any 

 exact knowledge of its length. The calendar was 

 sometimes adjusted by the recognition of two years 

 of different length, as in Benin, where the female 

 year seems to have been about 340 days in length. 



The week has been traced to a religious origin. 

 Webster has regarded the "rest day" as its germ, 

 but the rest dav is an institution of agricultural 



people, and there are many such peoples in Africa 

 who have no week. On the other hand, the dis- 

 tribution of the market is practically conterminous 

 with that of the week, and it is probable that the 

 calendar first came into existence as a means of 

 indicating the market day. We have, however, little 

 or no evidence to show why the different units were 

 chosen. A certain number of day-names are derived 

 from names of deities, notably on the Gold Coast, 

 but, generally speaking, the kind of work done on a 

 given day or the market attended is the decisive 

 factor, and consequently they are used only in a 

 small area. To this there is one striking exception ; 

 the Ibo day-names, used also in a different order 

 in Benin City, are found everywhere from the Niger 

 to the Cross River, but we are ignorant of their 

 meaning. 



The four-day week of the Lower Niger, which 

 appears to be independent of the week of the Congo, 

 seems to occupy the largest area ; but we know too 

 little of the distribution of the five- and six-day weeks, 

 especially in French territory, to make any very 

 definite assertion. There is good reason to suppose 

 that a non-Mohammedan seven-day week was 

 known ; some of these weeks are clearly expanded 

 from an earlier four-day week, but they have native, 

 not Arabic, names. 



Scientific Research and Industrial Development. 



IN a lecture on "The Benefits of Research to Cor- 

 porations " (No. 18, R. and C. Series of Nat. 

 Res. Council, U.S.A., 1921) Dr. Charles L. Reese, 

 chemical director of the de Pont de Nemours Explo- 

 sives Co., U.S.A., gives examples of the advantages 

 which accrue when a large industrial concern is 

 equipped with a staff capable of applying scientific 

 knowledge to the improvement of materials and pro- 

 cesses. 



Before the war this important company had alrc-ady 

 systematised its procedure by developing a system of 

 records and costing, and had completed a number of 

 investigations which had been the means of saving 

 money, resulting, for example, in methods for shorten- 

 ing the time of separation of nitroglycerine from its 

 acids, increasing its yield, preventing its freezing 

 in dynamites, and for nitrating cellulose by the use 

 of the mechanical dipper. Studies from the company's 

 laboratories on the nitration of toluene and of the 

 characteristics of nitrocellulose propellants became of 

 great importance when war broke out, as did also a 

 process for the recovery of a considerable proportion 

 of the alcohol used in gelatinising the propellant, this 

 leading to a direct saving in corn — estimated at ten 

 million bushels — which thus escaped being fermented. 



During the war enormous extensions were made by 

 the company for the production of nitrocellulose 

 powder, trinitrotoluene, picric acid, amatol, and tetryl, 

 and in this connection it is stated that the staff of 

 the chemical and mechanical research departments of 

 the firm was increased in number from 212 to 987, 

 with an expenditure on experiment and research of 



NO. 2726, VOL. 109] 



3,360,000 dollars for four years of the war, the output 

 of military explosives being seven million tons. 



Since the war the company hal transferred its 

 research organisation with success to the production 

 of dyes, and is spending, and is prepared to spend, 

 many millions of dollars on research to meet German 

 competition, but protection is considered to be essential 

 at present to the existence of the industry. 



The address is interesting as giving an idea of the 

 scope and the methods of a large chemical concern 

 in utilising the services of scientific men for the 

 investigation of new processes and the conservation 

 of materials. A custom obtains with the company 

 of recompensing inventors by means of a bonus in 

 the form of the company's stock, in some cases 

 sufficient to make them independent. 



Little mention is made, however, of research on the 

 theory of explosives, on which doubtless much work 

 has been done by the staff. A few remarks may be 

 made as to some subject-matter of the claims. Thus, 

 while the mechanical dipper was undoubtedly an 

 advance for obtaining output on the old pot- 

 procesa of making nitrocellulose, the Thomson 

 displacement process as used In this country 

 and in France also greatly reduces handling 

 of the material and eliminates fuming off, which 

 appears still to occur occasionally with the mechanical 

 dipper. Much is made of the "work found necessary 

 to develop satisfactory methods for loading that very 

 successful high explosive developed in England known 

 as amatol, a mixture of trinitrotoluene and ammonium 

 nitrate," but it is understood that an enormous 



