February i6, 1922] 



NATURE 



209 



iiazardous to make binding statements, but it seems 

 Tobable that increase of light stimulating photo- 

 synthesis will tend to set back the incidence of maxi- 

 .num oxygen content, esp>ecially in a partly closed 

 rea like the Clyde Sea area, so that it does not 

 tually coincide with minimum temperature, in 

 lich case it would appear that light and high 

 irgen content are the primary factors influencing 

 ;se rejuvenations. Richard Elmhirst. 



Marine Biological Station, Millport. 



Tin Plague and Arctic Relics. 



In view of the apparent public interest in my letter 

 Nature of January 19, possibly a further note on 

 subject may be permitted. One letter I have 

 ceived was from a Government Department con- 

 cerned with food supplies for the Navy, and I was 

 asked a number of questions. The first one (to my 

 surprise) was "The name of the firm who produced 

 the article referred to." That had never occurred to 

 me ! However, in an endeavour — which proved suc- 

 cessful — to reply to that query, I found a note which 

 seems worthy of reproduction here. 



In an "Appendix to the Narrative of a Second 

 Voyage in Search of a North-West Passage and of a 

 Residence in the Arctic Regions during the Years 

 1829, 1830, 183 1, 1832, 1833, by Sir John Ross," 

 pp. cxi-cxiv, is "an analysis of fluids, etc.," from 

 which the following extract is made, in addition to 

 which is a report on brine, wine, rum, lemon-juice, 

 and mustard, from Fury Beach : — 



" I am indebted for the following article to my 

 friend, Mr. Thomas Rymer Jones, who, in conjunc- 

 tion with Mr. Hemmings, submitted the articles I 

 gave them to a careful examination, and made the 

 following report, which requires no comment, as the 

 acquirements of these gentlemen are known to qualify 

 them highly for such an investigation : — The provi- 

 sions, of which the following account is given, had 

 been lying exposed to the climate for eight years, in 

 the latitude of seventy-three degrees and forty-seven 

 minutes north, and longitude of ninety-one degrees 

 and forty-seven minutes west, and very little above 

 high-water mark. The preserved meats, with few 

 exceptions, were the manufacture of Messrs. Gamble 

 and Co., and being enclosed in tin cases, could not be 

 discovered by animals who depend on the sense of 

 smelling ; these were cylinders of various sizes, the 

 ends of each becoming concave or convex, according 

 to the degrees of contraction or expansion caused by 

 the climate, secured them against bursting from its 

 effects, and the contents were found to be in nearly 

 the original state : these consisted of beef, roasted 

 and boiled ; veal, mutton, spiced meat of various 

 kinds, turnips, parsnips, and carrots, all of which 

 were found to be in excellent preservation. The 

 soups, which were preserved in quantities from a 

 quart to a gallon, were excellent, and we left a con- 

 siderable quantity behind, but no meat of any kind. 

 The flour, which was preserved in iron-bound casks, 

 and had been likewise exposed for eight years to the 

 climate, was found to be in good condition ; for 

 although in many cases the hoops had slackened, so 

 as to admit moisture into the cask, it penetrated but 

 a short way, while the whole of the interior was per- 

 fectly sound. The bread, of which there were many 

 casks, was in a good or bad state, according to the 

 soundness of the cask which contained it, and we 

 employed ourselves in separating the bad from the 

 good and put all into repaired casks. A part of this, 

 and also of the flour, is suflRcient with the addition 

 of the remaining soup to sustain the life of twelve 

 NO. 2729, VOL. 109] 



men for a year. Owing to the pickles being also in 

 cask they had suffered much, the vinegar having 

 leaked out of most of them : fifty of these, and 

 twenty-five of lemon-juice, are also left, at a little 

 distance south of the house, and covered with coals, 

 as the most effectual way of preserving both." 



T. Sheppard. 

 The Museums, Hull. 



A New Series of Spectrum Lines. 



With a long hydrogen tube, viewed end on, as a 

 source, lines have been observed at 4-oV and 2-6^. 

 which, according to Bohr's theory, may be explained 

 as due to an electron falling from the fifth to the 

 fourth and from the sixth to the fourth rings respec- 

 tively, forming the first two members of a new series. 



Lines have been observed at wave-lengths i-8V, 

 I-2V, io>, i-oV, and o-g'/*. These form the first 

 five members of the Paschen series due to an elec- 

 tron falling into the third ring from the fourth, fifth, 

 sixth, seventh, and eighth rings respectively. The 

 first two of these were observed and accurately 

 measured by Paschen. 



The first line of the new series is approximately 

 one-fourth the intensity of Ha 5 the first Paschen 

 line, more intense than Hol in the ratio 4 : 3. 



F. S. Brackett. 



Johns Hopkins University, January 24. 



Araucaria imbricata. 



Referring to the note in Nature of January 19, 

 p. 87, about this archaic tree ripening seed, may I 

 say that it will do so regularly in this country if it 

 gets a chance? But whereas it is dioecious, seed is 

 produced only where male and female trees are 

 planted near enough to each other for the wind to 

 carry the pollen from the male catkins to the female 

 cones. In 1906 I took Dr. Augustine Henry over* to 

 Castle Kennedy. There had been a heavy gale a few 

 days before, and the ground about the fine avenue of 

 Araucaria was thickly strewn with ripe seed, whereof 

 we collected a bagful. Some we ate, treated like 

 chestnuts, and found them excellent. Others I caused 

 to be sown, and have now a hilltop planted with 

 more than twelve hundred monkey-puzzles, some of 

 which are 12 ft. high. The female tree produces seed 

 only in alternate years as the cones take two seasons 

 to ripen. Herbert Maxwell. 



Monreith, Whauphill, Wigtownshire, N.B. 



Some Problems of Long-distance Radio-telegraphy. 



In the portion of the abridgment of my Trueman 

 Wood lecture on the above subject published in Nature 

 of February 2, p^ 140, I quoted an instance taken from 

 a paper by Dr. Van der Pol of the ratio between the 

 observed receiving aerial current and that calculated by 

 the diffraction formula for the case of the Nauen-Darien 

 transmission. It appears, however, that a numerical 

 error was made in Dr. Van der Pol's original calcula- 

 tion, which, however, he corrected in the Thii. Mag. 

 for July, 1920. This correction, unfortunately, I over- 

 looked. It appears that the correctly calculated value 

 of the received current is not o-6xio-" amp., but 

 1-9x10-". Hence the actual current is only seven 

 thousand times that predicted by the diffraction 

 formula, and not two million times. This discrepancy 

 does not, however, invalidate the conclusion that 

 wave-diffraction alone cannot account for long-distance 

 wireless telegraphy. J. A. Fleming. 



London, February 14. 



