February 4, 19 15] 



NATURE 



625 



around Cuzco, and some from the forests of the eastern 

 slopes. Of the thirty-one species collected, six were 

 previously unknown. The paper contains good illus- 

 trations and useful notes on the geographical distribu- 

 tion of the several species, a small number of which 

 are peculiar to the Andes. 



A COMPREHENSIVE account of Sea Island cotton in 

 the West Indies, recently issued by the Imperial De- 

 partment of Agriculture as Pamphlet No. 74, forms 

 a very trustworthy guide to those concerned in the 

 West Indian cotton industry. The history of the 

 industry is detailed, and chapters follow on the botany, 

 cultivation, picking, and grading, examination of seed 

 cotton and lint, insect pests, and diseases, etc. The 

 pamphlet consists of 118 pages, and is very well illus- 

 trated, the general information has been selected with 

 great care, and the compilers are to be congratulated 

 on the preparation of so useful a manual. 



The story of the discovery of the fine cycad, 

 Encephalaitos Hildebrandtii by Sir John Kirk, in 

 Zanzibar and East Africa, and the transmission of 

 specimens to Kew between the years 1868-78, forms 

 an interesting contribution to Kew Bulletin No. 10, 

 1914. The story is told in extracts from Sir John 

 Kirk's correspondence with Kew while he was acting 

 as Consul-General at Zanzibar. Sir John's observa- 

 tions on the remarkable generation of heat in the 

 male cones, made in 1878, are published for the first 

 time; on one occasion a rise of temperature of as 

 much as 165° F. was recorded. 



The compensation payable to tenant farmers for 

 unexhausted manurial residues is mainly based on the 

 tables drawn up by Hall and Voelcker with a view 

 to their general application to stock of all kinds. It 

 has been suggested by some valuers that special dis- 

 crimination should be made in the case of pigs, on 

 the grounds that the feeding of the pig differs greatly 

 from that of other stock, and is largely restricted to 

 the intensive feeding of young animals during the 

 period of most rapid growth. In proportion to its 

 weight the pig eats more dry matter and voids less 

 dung than any other class of farm animal, so that 

 a relatively high compensation value must be made 

 for a relatively small weight of manure. In the 

 current number of the Journal of the Board of Agri- 

 culture, Prof. Charles Crowther and Mr. A. G. Ruston 

 describe an experiment designed to throw more light 

 on this point. Two groups of pigs were confined in 

 special pens, without litter, for periods of five days 

 in each fortnight of the twenty-three weeks that the 

 experiment lasted. All food consumed during the five 

 days was weighed and sampled for analysis, but the 

 excreta were collected only on the last three days of 

 each period. There was a remarkably close agree- 

 ment between the figures given by the two groups of 

 animals, which showed an average weekly gain of 

 6\ lb. per pig over the whole period of the experi- 

 ment. The authors conclude that the manurial 

 residues should not be credited with more than 25 per 

 cent, of the nitrogen, 50 per cent, of the phosphoric 

 acid, and 80 per rent, of the f>otash present in the 

 foods. This means that the compensation allowance 

 NO. 2362, VOL. 94] 



in the special case considered should be assessed at 

 only three-fifths of that deduced from Hall and 

 Voelcker 's tables. 



Mr. E. H. Cuxnixgh.am Craig, in a paper read 



before the Institution of Petroleum Technologists, has 

 given a brief account of the prospective oilfields of 

 Western Canada. This paper should be a welcome 

 one as authoritative information upon the subject of 

 these supposed oil regions is but scarce, although a 

 number of wild rumours about one or other of them 

 have been current for the last year or two. Unfor- 

 tunately, Mr. Craig gives no very large amount of 

 geological detail — probably there is not yet a great 

 deal known definiteh" — but he shows that practically all 

 the oil hitherto discovered in Western Canada comes 

 from the Cretaceous formation, which is well, though 

 irregularly, developed over a very large tract of coun- 

 try. He deals with three main areas, the Flathead 

 and Pincher fields, the Calgary field, and the Van- 

 couver area ; the greater part of his paper is devoted 

 to the second of these, which he appears to regard 

 as decidedly promising, and he gives a full account 

 of the wells that have so far yielded oil. Amongst 

 these he describes the Discovery or Dingman well of 

 the Calgan.' Petroleum Products Co., which has 

 yielded an extraordinary water-clear oil, containing 

 no less than 72 per cent, of benzine and capable of 

 being used crude in the engine of a motoi-car. It is 

 evidently too early for any definite opinion to be pro- 

 nounced as to the possibilities of Western Canada as 

 a producer of petroleum, but Mr. Craig, who has 

 studied the whole area very thoroughly, appears to 

 be very hopeful as to its possibilities. 



The war and the weather during the first three 

 months of the fighting is dealt with in the Popular 

 Science Monthly for December by Prof R. deC. Ward, 

 of Harvard University. The author points out the 

 weather influence on war as one of the great controls 

 to be reckoned with by every commander, and he 

 likens the disregard of the weather factor to be about 

 as serious as to forget to provide food, clothing, or 

 ammunition. Some historical instances are given of 

 the influence of weather on war. Mention is made 

 of the weather controls being divided into two classes. 

 In one the conditions are accidental, sudden, or un- 

 expected, and in the other case the conditions are 

 natural or normal, but not necessarily prepared for. 

 The author says to know in advance the general 

 climate of the war zone is very essential in planning 

 a campaign or in organising a single engagement. 

 From the nature of the despatches, he concludes that 

 there was nothing in the meteorological conditions in 

 August and in early September which had any notice- 

 able effect upon the campaign. In mid-September 

 constant reference was made to the difficulties caused 

 by the heavy rains. The normal rains in September 

 and October filled the trenches and often drove the 

 troops out to fight with their bayonets, and the diffi- 

 culty of moving heavy guns through the deep mud 

 was a serious handicap to both armies, whilst the 

 rivers were also flooded. The roads became quag- 

 mires, and in Galicia the soldiers were marching and 

 camping in the snow. With the use of aeroplanes 



