262 



NA TURE 



[March 2, 1922 



" 1923 is destined to repeat something like the ex- 

 periences of 1315, the year of the worst and most 

 general harvest failure known in European history." 

 To the crowd, if not to the man of science, the fulfil- 

 ment of a prophecy always seems to give more adequate 

 support to a theory than any number of agreements 

 with past events, and the year 1923 may be awaited 

 with an interest mingled with anxiety. On the face 

 of it, the evidence seems sound, and the reasoning 

 careful and critical. 



Sir William Beveridge does not attempt to trace the 

 physical causation of the observed periodicity further 

 than to show that it may be accounted for by cycles 

 already noted in meteorological or astronomical data. 

 The eight -year period gives only a small maximum in 

 his periodogram with an intensity of 12. Years after 

 1844 were apparently omitted in part because during the 

 nineteenth century the character of the curve visibly 

 alters, the " credit cycle " acting as a " disturbing 

 influence." It may, however, be questioned, in view 

 of Prof. Moore's work, whether the credit cycle can be 

 treated in this way as an extraneous disturbing 

 cause. An eight-year cycle, as he says, was isolated 

 in the barometric pressure of the United States, and 

 has also been traced in rainfall, and these cycles appear 

 to be congruent with the economic cycle. When Prof- 

 Moore goes beyond this and seeks for a cosmic cycle 

 that may be regarded as the " generating cycle," he 

 lights on an hypothesis for which, we think, a good 

 deal of further evidence will be required before it can 

 win acceptance ; it is suggested that the period in 

 question is that between conjunctions of the earth and 

 Venus. No proof, however, is given that the periods 

 coincide with any precision, the periodograms for 

 economic data having been calculated only for integral 

 periods. 



Analysis must be carried further before a true con- 

 sonance of the periods can be predicted with any 

 confidence. The point brought out by Sir William 

 Beveridge, moreover, that the period in the weather 

 may not be that in the yield of the crop, must be borne 

 in mind. If a " maximum " of some kind in the 

 weather is vital to the crop only provided that it occur 

 at some critical period of the year, the determination 

 of this critical period becomes of interest, and we 

 would suggest that such work as that of Mr. R. H, 

 Hooker, of the Ministry of Agriculture, whose presi- 

 dential address to the Royal Meteorological Society 

 on the correlation in eastern England between yield 

 and the weather in successive months of the year was 

 summarised on p. 193 of Nature for February 9, might 

 help to elucidate the matter. Crop prediction is a 

 matter of the highest economic importance, and all 

 lines of investigation should be considered together. 

 NO. 2731, VOL. 109] 



A Searchlight on Solids. 



Aggregation and Flow of Solids : Being the Records 

 of an Experimental Study of the Micro-structure and 

 Physical Properties of Solids in Various States of 

 Aggregation, 1900-192 1. By Sir George Beilby. 

 Pp. XV + 256 + 34 plates. (London : Macmillan and 

 Co., Ltd., 1921.) 20s. net. 



THIS is a book that will hold a true child of science 

 hke any fairy-tale, and it would be difficult 

 to overstate its fascinating interest. In form, in 

 substance, and in all its auspices it is so highly in- 

 dividual. It is a story, a connected story, of the 

 leisure pursuits of one of our leading and most en- 

 lightened industrialists, who for many years, and 

 pre-eminently in the stress of war, has rendered great 



Fig. I. — Globules of zinc dust picked up on the edges of a thin steel 

 blade (x 60). From "Aggregation and Flow of Solids." 



services to his country. But it is a record that would 

 adorn a life wholly devoted to the pursuit of science. 



All who are seriously concerned with physical or 

 chemical science must know something of the con- 

 tributions which Sir George Beilby has made to the 

 subject dealt with in this book, but the rush of scientific 

 discovery makes it very difficult to realise the full 

 sweep and significance of much that is going forward. 

 Probably every one knows that Sir George Beilby has 

 demonstrated the existence of a vitreous state in 

 metals and other solids where that state had never 

 been suspected, and to most of us he has become 

 permanently " featured " on the transparent surface 

 film of polished solids. 



In his papers from time to time he has disclosed in 

 some degree the theoretical accompaniment and the 

 connecting threads of his experimental work, but it 

 is probable that few will have seen the extraordinary 

 breadth and comprehensiveness of the ideas which 

 have developed as the work proceeded, or have realised 



