448 



NATURE 



[December 23, 1915 



terms with their Government that they have been 

 able to establish a permanent industry protected 

 from outside competition. 



In the meantime, so far as we have been able 

 to gather, this country is doing- nothing in this 

 matter. It may be that it is incapable of doing 

 anything, as natural conditions may be against 

 us. But it is difficult to see why we are worse 

 off in this respect than Germany. Energy can 

 be produced as cheaply in this country as in 

 Germany, if not cheaper, and the problem as a 

 commercial matter is largely a question of cheap 

 eleotrical energy. We have the same ample 

 supply of nitrogen and oxygen in our atmo- 

 sphere as Germany, and soda is at least as cheap 

 with us. 



The whole question needs systematic examina- 

 tion, and it is the object of this article to commend 

 it to the careful and serious consideration of one 

 of the scientific committees which have been estab- 

 lished since the outbreak of war. There is surely 

 no more pressing or important problem in the 

 interests of the future welfare of this country, 

 intimately bound up as it is with the prosperity 

 of our agriculture, the oldest and most vital of 

 our industries. We have amongst us men — 

 chemical engineers and electrical engineers — 

 who can dear adequately with this subject, and 

 they could confer no greater national benefit than 

 to enlighten the manufacturing community con- 

 cerning the possibilities of the synthetic produc- 

 tion of nitrates in this country as a commercial 

 enterprise, after a careful and impartial considera- 

 tion of all available facts. 



This is a matter which intimately concerns the 

 Board of Agriculture, and it might appropriately 

 be considered by the Departmental Committee ap- 

 pointed by the president of the Board a few weeks 

 ago " to make arrangements with a view to the 

 maintenance, so far as possible, of adequate 

 supplies of fertilisers for the use of farmers in 

 the United Kingdom." We do not recognise a 

 chemist among the members of the committee, 

 and conclude, therefore, that the possibilities of 

 producing a supply of synthetic nitrates are not 

 to be contemplated. If the omission is deliberate, 

 we suggest that the subject should be taken up 

 by the British Science Guild, or by one of the 

 committees recently appointed by the Government 

 and by scientific societies, so that a definite view 

 of our national position in this matter may be 

 presented and provision may be made for any 

 eventualities which the future may bring, either 

 during the war or in later years. 

 NO. 2408, VOL. 96] 



THE FAUNA AND FLORA OF CENTRAL 

 AMERICA. 

 Biologia Centrali Americana. Zoology, Botany, 

 and Archcsology. Edited by F. D. Godman 

 and O. Salvin. (London : Dulau and Co., Ltd., 

 1879-1915.) 



THE first and last volumes of this magnificent 

 work have recently appeared, and as it is im- 

 possible to review adequately sixty-three volumes, 

 even if one took up several numbers of Nature, 

 the following attempt will be confined to the first 

 or introductory volume, which has recently been 

 issued under the editorship of Mr. Godman. 



When this great work was first planned it was 

 estimated that the zoological part would not ex- 

 ceed twelve volumes of five hundred pages each, 

 and that four volumes would suffice for Botany; 

 the inclusion of the Archaeology was not at that 

 time contemplated. These sixteen volumes have, 

 however, swollen into sixty-three volumes, includ- 

 ing a most valuable contribution by Mr. A. P. 

 Maudslay on the archaeology, ruins, and inscrip- 

 tions of Yucatan. 



It is not unusual for a rich patron — a modern 

 Maecenas — to subsidise publications on an ex- 

 tensive and even lavish scale. It is less usual to 

 find the patron and investigator in one and the 

 same man, but, in fact, it is mainly due to the 

 public spirit and the scientific ardour of Mr. God- 

 man that this very important contribution to bio- 

 logical science has been so successfully carried 

 through. 



Godman and Salvin belonged to a small group 

 of Cambridge undergraduates who, in the middle 

 'fifties, took a keen interest in natural history. 

 In the neighbouring and then undrained fenland 

 they once even chased a buzzard, and "were just 

 too late to catch the 'large copper,' recently be- 

 come extinct." These youthful naturalists were 

 wont to meet in each other's rooms and discuss 

 their various "finds," and, indeed, it was in 

 Newton's rooms at Magdalene, towards the end 

 of 1858, that Salvin, Simpson, WoUey, Slater, 

 Newton, and others met and passed a resolution 

 founding the Ornithological Union, the journal of 

 which, The Ibis, has now reached its fifty-sixth 

 volume. 



Salvin had already travelled in northern Africa 

 and northern Europe when in 1857 he paid his 

 first visit to Central America, and first became 

 acquainted with the collectors who were then 

 active in these regions. Two years later he re 

 turned again ; and two years afterwards Godman 

 joined Salvin on his third expedition to Guatemala. 

 Again in 1867, accompanied by his wife, Salvin 

 I returned for a fourth time to Guatemala, and after 



