November ii, 1915] 



NATURE 



295 



be difficult so to organise this work that restocking 

 of the rivers, heels, and tanks of the province may 

 proceed rapidly under the new conditions. Economic 

 liifticulties will further hamper the improvement of 

 the fisheries, but there is much hope for progress in 

 the fact that the Department pf Fisheries is a growing 

 one, basing its administrative work upon a foundation 

 of scientific investigation. 



The Gardens Bulletin of the Straits Settlements, 

 Xo. 9, vol. i., contains among other notes three papers 

 un yams, one of which, on the sprouting of the 

 tubers of Dioscorea alata, is of general botanical 

 interest. It has been known for some time that the 



I libers of yams sprout more quickly from the basal 

 r older portions than from the younger, and that if 

 tuber be halved the shoots are usually produced 

 )wards the base of either half, and most quickly from 

 lie base of the oldest half. Mr. Burkill has made a 

 areful series of experiments with tubers cut up into 

 pts, and has recorded in tabular form the date of the 

 ppearance of the sprouts from the different sets. The 

 Bsults are in agreement with expectation, but it is 

 lound that different races vary considerably in the 

 precocity or lateness of their sprouting, 



Mr. E. D. Merrill continues his studies on Philip- 

 pine botany in No. 4 of vol. x. of the Philippine 

 f Journal of Science with an account of the Anonaceae 

 of the islands. The family is well represented in the 

 Philippines, and twenty-four new species are described 

 in the present paper. The genus Papaulthia, recently 

 described by Diels from material collected in New 

 Guinea, is found to be represented in the Philippines 

 by six species formerly included under Polyalthia and 

 Unona. Papaulthia mariannae, described by Safford, 

 from the Mariana Islands, is considered by Merrill to 

 be the type of a new genus Guamia, allied to Oncodo- 

 stigma rather than to Papaulthia. The genera 

 Desmos, Dasymaschalon, Griffithianus, Meiogyne, and 

 Pseuduvaria are also new to the flora of the islands. 



The issue of a catalogue by Messrs. J. Wheldon 

 and Co., devoted exclusively to agriculture, serves as 

 a reminder of the number and value of agricultural 

 books that have appeared from time to time in this 

 country, and particularly in the eighteenth and early 

 nineteenth centuries. The catalogue includes the thir- 

 teenth-century Walter of Henley's " Husbandry " (1890 

 reprint), Fitzherbert's "Book of Husbandry" (Skeat's 

 reprint), and typical works by most of the well-known 

 writers that followed— Tusser, Blith, Ellis, Bradley, 

 and, to come to the end of the eighteenth and begin- 

 ning of the last century, Young and Marshall. Among 

 the most interesting items are a long series of the 

 Annals of Agriculture, a complete set of the octavo 

 volumes describing the survey of England and Wales 

 made by the Board of Agriculture during the years 

 1795-1^15. ^"d ^n almost complete set describing the 

 Scotch survey. The prices serve to remind us that 

 the old agricultural books are becoming scarcer; it is 

 notorious that many of them have in the past found 

 their way over to the United States. Indeed, the agri- 

 cultural expert who has hitherto wanted to consult 

 agricultural literature, either old or new, has had no 

 NO. 2402, VOL. 96] 



little difficulty, and he has been very unfavourably 

 situated in comparison with the chemist or the botanist, 

 who could always go to the library of the Chemical, 

 the Linnean, or the Royal Society. It is hoped that 

 the new library at Rothamsted, when it is developed, 

 will rgmedy this defect. 



The monthly meteorological charts of the North 

 Atlantic appear with regularity, and contain much 

 useful information. In the November issue an account 

 is given of the severe cyclone which devastated the 

 north side of Jamaica on August 12. Details are 

 promised later, but from the inforrriation to hand it 

 appears that the storm centre passed fifty miles north 

 of Jamaica, after devastating the south of Haiti. On 

 August 16 it reached Galveston, where the wind 

 attained ninety miles an hour. The disturbance was 

 fifteen hours in transit. On the 17th it passed south 

 of Houston, and continued north-west. On the i8th 

 it recurved in 32° N. 98° W., and proceeded towards 

 the St. Lawrence valley, where it died out in about 

 47° N., 74° W. on August 23rd. All along its track, 

 but especially in Texan ports, considerable damage 

 was done, and many* lives lost. The greater part of 

 the banana plantations in Jamaica was destroyed, but 

 the coconut trees seem in great measure to have 

 escaped. 



The October number of the Journal of the Franklin 

 Institute contains an article by Dr. H. E. Ives, of 

 the Physical Laboratory of the United Gas Improve- 

 ment Company of Phiiadephia, describing the appa- 

 ratus he exhibited before the American Physical 

 Society a year ago for simplifying photometry and 

 placing it on a firmer physical basis. Light as one 

 of the forms of radiation should be measured in ergs 

 per second or in watts, and not in terrns of an abitrary 

 unit, like the lumen. The instruments for measuring 

 radiation are, however, sensitive to radiations which 

 produce only a partial or no luminous sensation in the 

 average eye. It is therefore necessary to interpose 

 between these instruments and the luminous source an 

 absorbing substance which will .transmit of each type 

 of radiation a fraction proportional to the sensitive- 

 ness of the normal eye for that type. Such a sub- 

 stance combined with a thermopile or bolometer and 

 a galvanometer would constitute an artificial eye, and 

 the deflections of the galvanometer would be propor- 

 tional to the light entering the eye. Dr. Ives recom- 

 mends as the absorbing substance a layer one centi- 

 metre thick of a solution containing 60 grams cupric 

 chloride, 14 cobalt ammonium sulphate, 1-9 potassium 

 chromate, and 18 c.c. nitric acid to the litre. A layer 

 of water 2 cm. thick should be interposed between the 

 source and the solution. 



An interesting account of the potash mines in Alsace, 

 which helps to give a true perspective of the part 

 they are likely to play in the future production of the 

 world's supply of potash, is contained in a short article 

 in La Nature of October 2, p. 220. The value of these 

 mines has undoubtedly been greatly exaggerated by 

 the newspaper Press, but none, the less, they are of 

 great and real significance. As regards the scheme 

 of nationalisation which has been frequently mooted. 



