112 



NATURE 



[November 29, 19CX5 



and nearly one and a half million people are employed in 

 the industry, while three years ago the capital invested in 

 this province was estimated at bver 4,000,000/. The land 

 under cultivation in Bengal was, in 1899, estimated at 

 452,700 acres. There seems at last to be some move- 

 ment among the dry bones ; the Indigo Planters' Asso- 

 •ciation have employed Mr. Rawson, who is an expert 

 iipon the chemistry of dyeing, to endeavour to improve 

 the process of manufacturing indigo, and appeals are 

 made to the Government for help. The Government is 

 -doing its part, and has ordered that all blue cloth supplied 

 to the Army and Navy Clothing Departments shall bedyed 

 with natural indigo. At the present time the price of 

 natural and synthetic indigo is almost the same. What 

 will the Government do if the price of synthetic indigo 

 becomes much less than that of natural indigo ? Sir 

 William Hudson, in August of this year, applied to the 

 Government for a loan for a scheme of sugar cultivation, 

 suggesting that indigo and sugar-cane should be grown 

 in rotation. The Government, although not able to 

 accede to his request, has sanctioned a committee to 

 inquire into the possibilities of establishing the sugar 

 industry in Behar. 



When attention is drawn to the perilous position of the 

 Indian indigo industry, letters are written to the papers 

 tiy those connected with the production of indigo, making 

 light of the danger, and referring to the ^^ real indigo 

 dye and German imitation." But, as Mr. Rawson, who 

 at least is not likely to overrate the artificial indigo, said 

 in his admirable lecture, delivered before the Society of 

 Arts at the end of March, " all chemists who have studied 

 the question agree that synthetic indigo is identically the 

 same compound as the indigotin of natural indigo " ; and 

 again, " Providing the synthetic dye can be produced in 

 sufificient quantity, the whole question of artificial versus 

 natural indigo will resolve itself into one of cost. The 

 Badische Company have spent nearly a million pounds 

 in improving the manufacture of artificial indigo ; at 

 Hochst, the " Farben Fabrik" is also manufacturing 

 artificial indigo, though at present they are only supply- 

 ing the German market. In a letter to the Times on 

 April 24, Prof. Armstrong asks, " Have we spent 5000/. 

 in the endeavour to set our Indian indigo house in 

 order?" For every British chemist employed it is safe 

 to say the Germans are employing fifty ; for every pound 

 ■spent they are spending thousands. Is it not time to 

 appoint a committee or commission of experts to see 

 whether it may not be possible to increase the yield and 

 •quality of the indigo produced, and at the same time to 

 produce it more economically? 



F. MOLI.WO Perkin. 



NOTES. 



Prok. Poincare has been elected a foreign member of the 

 Munich Academy of Sciences. 



Prof. Klein has been elected a correspondant of the Paris 

 .Academy of Sciences, in the section of mineralogy. Prof. Haller 

 9ias been elected a member of the Academy in succession to 

 the late M. Grimaux. 



The Rammelsberg Memorial Lecture will be delivered at the 

 •Chemical Society by Prof. H. A. Miers, F.R. S., on Thursday, 

 December 13. 



Wk notice in Science the announcement that Prof. Schia- 

 parelli retired on November i from the directorship of the 

 observatory at Milan, where he has been at work for the past 

 forty years. His successor is Prof. Celoria, heretofore assistant 

 astronomer at the observatory. 



At the annual meeting of the Royal Geological Society of 

 Cornwall, Dr. Le Neve Foster was presented with the William 

 Bolitho gold medal in recognition of the distinction which he 



NO. 1622, VOL. 63] 



has attained as a mineralogist and also of the great services 

 rendered by him to the society as curator during the period when 

 he held the appointment of inspector of mines for Cornwall and 

 Devon. 



It is reported that M. Daniel Osiris, a Cireek millionaire 

 residing in Paris, has instituted a prize on the lines laid down by 

 Mr. Nobel, though his offer is for Frenchmen only, except in a 

 Paris Exposition year, when it becomes universal. He has set 

 aside a sum to be awarded every three years in perpetuity to the 

 discoverer, inventor or producer of the most noteworthy idea or 

 object for the benefit of humanity. The prize is to be never less 

 than 100,000 francs, and may be double that sum. 



A RUMOUR, which we profoundly regret, has reached us to 

 the effect that, owing to increasing financial difficulties, the 

 Government of Jamaica, W. L, is obliged to retrench in the 

 work of the museum, and that the curator, Dr. J. E. Duerden, 

 A.R.C.S. (London), will be shortly returning to England. 

 During his appointment in the Colony, Dr. Duerden has carried 

 out investigations on the local aboriginal Indian remains and 

 in marine zoology. Among the important results obtained 

 may be mentioned the discovery of the free-swimming female 

 medusoids of Millepora ; the discovery that the addition of new 

 mesenteries and septa in the coral Porites takes place in a 

 bilateral manner at the dorsal or ventral aspect of the polyp, 

 recalling the method probably followed in the ancient Rugose 

 corals ; the establishment of the fact that the order of septal 

 formation in most Madreporaria follows closely the law ascer- 

 tained long ago by Prof. Lacaze-Duthiers for the cycles of 

 tentacles in Actiniae. Can • nothing be done to save the Colony 

 from the opprobrium which must follow the forsaking of pure 

 science ? 



The value of anti-plague serum is a very vexed question. 

 Yersin in 1896, in China, claimed a mortality of only 7 "6 per 

 cent, in twenty-six cases treated with his serum, and the same 

 observer in 1897, in India, using Roux's serum, stated that the 

 mortality was only 49 per cent., as compared with 80 per cent, 

 among the cases not treated with serum. The Indian medical 

 officers and the German Commission, however, reported un- 

 favourably upon his results, and the serum treatment of plague 

 has not been adopted in India. Clemow, in India in 1899, 

 employed both Yersin's and Lustig's sera, but was unable to 

 observe any good results from the use of either. On the other 

 hand, in the outbreak of plague in Oporto last year, Calmette 

 and Sahmbeni claim to have obtained excellent results with the 

 use of serum prepared at the Pasteur Institute by the most 

 recent method — viz. by treating horses with increasing doses, 

 first of dead and afterwards of living cultures, of plague bacilli, 

 administered by intravenous injection during a period of five or 

 six months. The mortality of the cases treated with serum was 

 I5'3 per cent., as against 637 per cent, for the untreated cases. 

 Calmette holds that for successful treatment the anti-plague 

 serum must be administered in large doses, intravenously to 

 commence with, and afterwards by repeated subcutaneous in- 

 jection, early treatment being essential. The experimental 

 results are distinctly in favour of the value of anti-plague serum 

 both as a preventive and as a curative agent. 



Mr. R. Hedger-Wallace, formerly of the Department of 

 Agriculture, Victoria, is giving a course of lectures on the " First 

 Principles of Colonisation and Plantation," at the Gardens of the 

 Royal Botanic Society of London. The remaining lectures will 

 be delivered on November 30 and December 7 at three o'clock. 



In consequence of the annual dinner of the Institution of 

 Electrical Engineers being fixed for Monday, December 3, the 

 second lecture of Prof. Fleming's Cantor course at the Society of 

 Arts, on " Electric Oscillations and Electric Waves," announced 



