June 24, 1922] 



NATURE 



825 



Research Items. 



Frazer Memorial Lectures. — Some admirers of 

 Sir James Frazer's work in social anthropology have 

 contributed to a fund for the establishment of an 

 annual lecture at Oxford. The first lecture in the 

 course was recently delivered by Dr. E. Sidney 

 Hartland, who naturally selected as his study a 

 subject which he has made his own, " The Evolution 

 of Kinship," based upon the important monograph 

 by Edwin W. Smith and the late Andrew M. Dale 

 on " The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia." 

 The Ba-ila, or 11a people, inhabit the very centre of 

 the continent, on the banks of the Kafue, a tributary 

 of the Zambesi, being descendants of more than one 

 stream of Bantu immigrants from the north and 

 north-east, coming probably by different routes and 

 at different times. The social organisation of this 

 primitive and hitherto little-known community has 

 been skilfully investigated by Dr. Hartland. Like 

 all Bantu tribes, their civilisation is based on the 

 matrilinear clan, the family being a newcomer into 

 the social field, which is struggling with the clan for 

 influence. Its development into a patrilinear in- 

 stitution is plausibly accounted for by the rule that 

 on marriage a wife goes to her husband's dwelling 

 and makes her home there : he does not come to 

 that of her kindred. Thus the developmental 

 sequence, as among the Australian tribes, is from 

 mother to father right. If succeeding contributors 

 to this foundation maintain the high level of Dr. 

 Hartland's inaugural lecture, the Frazer Memorial 

 Lecture marks an important extension of the study 

 of social anthropology in this country. 



An Insect Destructive to Flax. — In the 

 Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society, 

 vol. xvi., April 1922, Mr. J. G. Rhynehart contributes 

 an interesting and well-illustrated paper on the 

 flax flea-beetle {Longitarsus parvulus Payk.). This 

 species is a serious enemy of flax and one responsible 

 for considerable loss to growers of the crop in Ireland. 

 It is commonly found throughout Ulster, and of recent 

 years has become a pest in flax-growing districts in 

 Co. Cork. The adult beetle kills many of the seedlings 

 by devouring the cotyledons and growing-point of the 

 flax, but will also eat clovers, grasses, and wild 

 species of flax. The larva; bore into and feed on 

 the roots of the flax plants, but do not appear to 

 cause any appreciable hindrance to growth. Preven- 

 tive measures consist of the production of strong, 

 vigorous - growing brairds by the employment of 

 suitable cultivation, seed, and manure ; in the destruc- 

 tion or removal of all material likely to afford means 

 of hibernation for the adult beetle ; and in the 

 stimulation of attacked seedlings by the application 

 of a light dressing of nitrate of soda. Preliminary 

 experiments indicate the possibility of the use of 

 Bordeaux mixture as a deterrent. 



New Fossil Sea Cow from Florida. — The hinder 

 part of the right maxillary of a species of Metaxy- 

 therium, from the phosphate beds of Mulberry, 

 Florida, is described and figured by Mr. O. P. Hay 

 under the trivial name of M. floridanum (Proc. U.S. 

 Nat. Mus., vol. Ixi.). Its exact geological horizon 

 is uncertain : it belonged probably to the Upper 

 Miocene or Lower Pliocene, while European species 

 belong to the Miocene or in part to the Oligocene. 



Paleontology of the Burma Oilfields. — For 

 some years Mr. E. Vredenburg has been accumulating 

 data regarding the marine fauna of Tertiary age in 



NO. 2747, VOL. 109] 



Burma, and the large quantity of material collected 

 by officers of the Geological Survey of India, as well 

 as by the geologists of the principal oil companies, 

 now permits of a marked advance on the results as 

 they were left by Dr. F. Noetling in 1897. A general 

 revision of the Tertiary formations of the Burma 

 oilfields region was published by Mr. Vredenburg 

 last year (Records Geol. Surv. Ind., vol. li.. Part 3). 

 This has been followed by a series of papers issued 

 in anticipation of complete monographs on the 

 Tertiary molluscan fauna, which will be considerably 

 delayed for the reproduction of the required illustra- 

 tions. The papers issued so far cover the four 

 gastropod families of Terebrida; (vol. li., Part 4), 

 Pleurotomidae, Conidae, and Cancellariidae (vol. liii.. 

 Part 2). The completion of this work, if not unduly 

 delayed, should be of great value to oil geologists 

 in their attempts in Burma to identify in newly 

 explored areas the known horizons of the established 

 oilfields. 



Changes of Climate in Australasia. — Mr. R. 

 Speight, as secretary of the Cainozoic Climate Com- 

 mittee, has drawn up a valuable report for the 

 Australasian Association for the Advancement of 

 Science (A. J. MuUett, Government Printer, Mel- 

 bourne). Evidence is adduced from the fossil floras 

 from W. Australia to New Zealand to show that a 

 general warm temperature prevailed in mid-Cainozoic 

 times. Extensive estuarine deposits with shells, and 

 the occurrence of Diprotodon, point to a high rainfall 

 in the Upper Pliocene and early Pleistocene epochs, 

 in what are now arid, or almost arid, regions in 

 Australia. Desiccation followed, extending in the 

 south and centre to the present day. Agreement is 

 expressed with Prof. T. G. Taylor's conclusion that 

 " the climatic belts are moving poleward from the 

 equator. The desert region is encroaching on the 

 southern coasts of the Continent. The northern 

 littoral is getting wetter." The laterites of the 

 northern territory and of northern Queensland are 

 referred to greater aridity here in early Pleistocene 

 times. The cooling that gave rise to a glacial stage, 

 at any rate in New Zealand, may have been as much 

 as 5°'C. (9° F.) in southern Australia, and occurred 

 before the aridity set in. The question of a general 

 southern glaciation is, however, not touched on in 

 the report. 



New Sensitiser for Green Light. — Dr. W. H. 

 Mills and Sir WiUiam Pope of Cambridge (Journal of 

 the Chemical Society, May, p. 946) have discovered 

 a new sensitiser for photographic plates, which they 

 state to be the most powerful sensitiser for green light 

 yet known. It is especially noteworthy also because 

 the gap in the bluish green, which appears almost 

 always when using sensitisers for this region of the 

 spectrum, does not occur with it. The substance, 

 2-/>-dimethylaminostyrylpyTidine methiodide, is pro- 

 duced as bright red prisms when condensation is 

 caused to take place between /)-dimethylamino- 

 benzaldehyde and 2-methylpyridine methiodide with 

 the aid of piperidine. Gelatino - bromide plates, 

 after bathing in an aqueous solution containing one 

 part of the dyestuft in thirty or forty thousand parts, 

 show almost imiform sensitiveness to light of all 

 wave-lengths from the blue to about \ 3600, at which 

 point the sensitiveness rapidly declines and ends at 

 about X 6200. 



