488 



NATURE 



[December 31, 1914 



family Drepanophoridae, but is peculiar in the circum- 

 stance that the rhynchoccelom and the oesophagus 

 open by a common aperture, this feature being re- 

 corded in the name Uniporus. The typical U . hyalinus 

 is characterised by the total absence of pigment; but 

 in two other members of the genus, one of which 

 was described in iqoi as Drepanophorus borealis, the 

 upper surface is well pigmented. The paper con- 

 cludes with remarks on the affinities and systematic 

 position of the Drepanophoridae. In another article 

 Mr. B. Tyvold discusses the structure and relations 

 of the parasitic "zoophytes" of the genus Sphyrion, 

 which are found on the fins of lumpsuckers and 

 gurnards, and, although described by Cuvier, have 

 hitherto remained a puzzle to naturalists. It is now- 

 decided that their true position is in the family Chon- 

 dracanthidae. Whaling at Durban and Saldanha Bay 

 and the various species of whales taken there, form 

 the subject of a third article, by Mr. O. Olsen, who 

 recently described a new species of finwhale from these 

 waters. 



It is not surprising that the presidential address of 

 Mr. A. D. Hall to the Agricultural Section of the 

 British Association in Australia has excited consider- 

 able interest in the Colonies. The Agricultural News 

 {Barbadoes) of November 21 discusses the problems 

 of bringing into cultivation land hitherto allowed to 

 run to waste, in its bearings on West Indian agricul- 

 ture and conditions. Two phases of winning new 

 land are in progress simultaneously in the West Indian 

 islands — the clearing of fertile soils as yet untilled and 

 the reclaiming of land hitherto regarded as unprofit- 

 able to farm. Efforts are also being made to re- 

 generate areas once under cultivation, which have 

 been robbed of their fertility by defective methods of 

 farming. Since loss of water from the soil surface 

 is one of the most important factors in determining 

 fertility under tropical conditions, any methods of 

 reducing this loss have especial significance. Mr. 

 Hall suggests that evaporation can be checked by the 

 provision of screens or hedges that will break the 

 sweep of the wind across the land. Screens of this 

 kind have long been used in the islands to protect 

 such crops as cacao and limes from the persistent 

 sweep of the trade winds, but their use for the con- 

 servation of moisture in the soil has received little 

 consideration, and experiments in this direction might 

 profitably be made. 



A "Note on the preparation of Indian forest floras 

 and descriptive lists," issued as Forest Bulletin, No. 

 23 (Calcutta, 1914), by Mr. R. S. Hole, will be found 

 interesting and useful to botanists generally as well 

 as to those concerned with forestry. The author 

 emphasises the importance of taking a comprehensive 

 view of the entire forest vegetation instead of con- 

 fining attention to the large timber trees, and points 

 out that numerous minor products, some of them of 

 considerable value, are obtained in India from trees 

 and shrubs as yet unidentified, besides the revenue 

 obtainable from insignificant herbs and grasses which 

 form the forest undergrowth or occur in open places 

 in the forest areas. His paper is intended as a first 

 step towards the preparation of simplified floras and 

 NO. 2357, VOL. 94] 



descriptive lists and schedules suitable for officials 

 who cannot be expected to have the leisure or the 

 botanical knowledge necessary for the successful 

 i identification of species by the floras now in existence. 

 He draws a sharp distinction between the scope and 

 function of a flora and a descriptive list respectively, 

 and gives a summary of the information which it is 

 proposed to include in the latter, together with an 

 admirably planned schedule which includes the 

 ecological as well as systematic characters. 



In a valuable paper on the development of the 

 Trinidad oilfields, contributed to the last meeting of 

 the Institution of Petroleum Technologists, Prof. J. 

 Cadman traced briefly but clearly the history of this 

 little-known oilfield, which properly commences, as 

 the paper shows, with the prospecting operations of 

 Mr. Randolph Rust at Guayaguayare in 1902. The 

 mere fact that within thirteen years this oilfield has 

 produced more than seventy-two million gallons of 

 oil, and that the annual output is already more than 

 twenty-two million gallons, in quite sufficient evidence 

 that this field has attained a position of decided im- 

 portance amongst the sources of supply of petroleum 

 of the British Empire. As Prof. Cadman points out, 

 it is not yet possible to predict what the life of the 

 wells is likely to be, but so far there seems to be no 

 good reason to fear any abnormally rapid rate of 

 exhaustion of the oilfield. There are numerous in- 

 teresting problems, both technical and geological, pre- 

 sented by this field, which is remarkable for the high 

 pressures existing in the oil-sands and for the con- 

 siderable proportion of sand carried up by the crude 

 oil. The author has shown how these difficulties have 

 hindered the more rapid development of the oilfield, 

 and gives an interesting account of the methods used 

 to overcome them. 



The Philippine Journal of Science for June last 

 (vol. ix., sec. A., No. 3) contains an interesting account 

 of an occurrence of iron ore in the province of Bulacan, 

 Island of Luzon, as also of a somewhat special in- 

 dustry of iron smelting that has been developed there- 

 from. The ores consist of magnetite and hematite, 

 and these are smelted by the natives in small blast 

 furnaces, the iron produced being cast direct into 

 moulds for the production of ploughshares and plough- 

 points. The furnaces are built of soft clay bricks set 

 in clay, and cased with bamboos, and are about 

 7 ft. 6 in. in height, and 5 ft. in external diameter ; 

 the inner cavity is 5 ft. 9 in. deep, and is conical, taper- 

 ing from 40 in. at the top to 20 in. at the bottom. It 

 is fitted with a single clay tuyere, and is blown with 

 the usual Chinese double-acting hand-blower, made 

 from a hollow tree trunk, and fitted with a wooden 

 piston packed with feathers; the blower is 11 ft. 6 in. 

 long and 14 in. in diameter. The furnace is charged 

 with ore and charcoal at intervals, an average charge 

 consisting of 55 lb. of ore and 95 lb. of charcoal ; 

 no flux is used. Such a furnace produces about 5 cwt. 

 of castings daily, the iron being a hard white iron, 

 low in silicon, but containing a fair percentage of 

 carbon. The extraction of iron is only 68 per cent, 

 of that present in the ore, most of the loss being due 

 to prill of iron entangled in the viscous slag. The 



