January 24, 1901] 



NATURE 



307 



The current number of theyi77/;-«a/of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England opens with an interesting account, from the 

 pen of Dr. Voelcker, of the results obtained by means of pot- 

 culture at the experimental station at Woburn. He first points 

 out the advantages and the limitations of this form of research, 

 and, like Wagner, of Darmstadt — the originator of this method 

 of cultural experiment — advises that results obtained in pots 

 shall subsequently be tested in the field before they can be 

 confidently recommended to the attention of practical agricultur- 

 ists. A considerable amount of time has been taken up in 

 testing the effects, on farm crop-plants, of " rare forms of 

 earth," as stipulated by Mr. Hills in his bequest. For the most 

 part the results are not encouraging, though some benefit 

 appears to have resulted from steeping the seeds of cereals in 

 one per cent, solutions of sodium iodide and sodium bronyde. 

 Where equal numbers of large and small seeds of wheat and 

 barley were sown in separate pots the yield was, rather un- 

 expectedly, but little aflfected by the difference in character of 

 the seed. The journal, further, contains some interesting 

 matter on the manufacture and ripening of cheese, by Prof. 

 Reynolds Green, and the valuable report of the Tuberculin 

 Committee. 



The phenomenon of anaerobic life, originally discovered^and 

 defined by Pasteur as the existence of living forms in the 

 absence of oxygen, has recently had fresh light thrown upon 

 it by the important researches of Dr. Klett, of W^iirtemberg. 

 Investigating the problems surrounding the production of spore- 

 less anthrax outside the living body. Dr. Klett has found that 

 if anaerobic conditions for the bacillus are provided by the 

 substitution of nitrogen for air, the growth of the organism is 

 not impaired, and spores develop as freely as under ordinary 

 conditions. If, however, the air be replaced by hydrogen, no 

 spores develop providing the nutritive medium is of a character 

 which permits of the gas being in intimate contact with the 

 culture. It is not, therefore, as supposed by so many investi- 

 gators, the absence of oxygen which is responsible for the non- 

 production of spores in so-called anaerobic cultivations of 

 anthrax, and this view is also supported by Dr. Weil's experi- 

 ments on this subject. The mystery of the phenomenon remains 

 still to be solved ; meanwhile Dr. Klett has provided a new 

 method for the production of sporeless or asporogene anthrax, 

 and in future it will be advisable to supplement the term 

 anaerobic as applied to a micro-organism by referring to the 

 conditions under which the latter was deprived of air. 



The Zoological- Botanical Society of Vienna will hold its 

 Jubilee meeting on Saturday, March 30. Representatives 

 of the various learned societies with which the Society is in 

 correspondence are invited to the meeting. Information from 

 those intending to be present is requested by the secretaries not 

 later than the middle of February. 



Two communications have reached us from the U.S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture (Division of Vegetable Physiology and 

 Pathology). The first {Bulletin No. 25), by H. Von Schrenk, 

 deals exhaustively with the diseases caused by fungi to which 

 conifers are liable in New England, the symptoms of the 

 disease, the nature of the injury inflicted, and the remedies. 

 The parasitic fungi to which attention is specially directed are 

 Polyporns Schweinitzii, P. pinicola, P. sulfuretis, P. subacidus, 

 and Trametes Pini. The second {Bulletin No. 23) describes a 

 disease, known as the spot disease, to which violets grown in 

 America are liable, so virulent that the cultivation of the flower 

 has been abandoned in many parts of the country. It is due 

 to a parasitic fungus, probably of American origin, which the 

 author, Mr. P. H. Dorsett, describes as a new species under 

 the name Allernaria Violae. Both papers are very well 

 illustrated. 



NO. 1630, VOL. 63] 



Prof. SxRASBURGERhas recently published, in ihtBiologischen 

 Centralblatt, an account of his observations on certain dioecious 

 plants, especially Melandrium {Lychnis dioica). It is well 

 known that the flowers of this plant are normally unisexual, 

 and that there are also certain correlated diff"erences, e.g. the 

 elongation of the internode between the calyx and the corolla, 

 which are likewise characteristic of the staminate flowers. But 

 whereas the stamens are, as a rule, reduced to minute rudiments 

 in the female flowers, they are stimulated to develop, in a 

 normal manner, if the plant happens to become infected with 

 the smut fungus, Ustilago violacea. The stamens then grow 

 and advance so far as to form the pollen mother cells in a 

 manner indistinguishable from the process as it occurs in the 

 ordinary staminate flowers; but the fungus, perhaps owing to the 

 abundant supply of available nutrition, then becomes virulent, it 

 kills and consumes the cells, and the anthers are finally filled 

 with the purple spores of the parasite. Nor is this all, for the 

 ovary becomes arrested in its development, the ovules hardly 

 advancing beyond the embryo-sac formation. Moreover, the 

 lengthening of the calyx-corolla internode referred to above also 

 occurs, and these facts have given rise to the mistaken impres- 

 sion that the fungus merely castrated the stamens of a male 

 flower, causing the female organs to develop. This is not the 

 case, for when the male flowers are attacked there is no develop- 

 ment of the pistil to be seen. Prof. Strasburger utilises these 

 results as the basis for a treatise on the possibilities of artificially 

 interfering with, or determining, the sex of unisexual organism, 

 and the whole paper is well worth careful reading for the wealth 

 of illustration and critical exposition which it contains. The 

 conclusion is reached that it is not possible, at least in the 

 higher plants and animals, to influence the sex of an individual 

 either by nutrition or by modifying the normal physical environ- 

 ment. The organism in this respect develops on predetermined 

 lines, and only an extraordinary stimulus can surprise the latent 

 potentiality into active development. 



A CATALOGUE of the recent marine sponges of- Canada and 

 Alaska is contributed by Mr. L. M. Lambe to the Ottawa 

 Naturalist (vol. xiv. No. 9). 



Prof. E. Richter has issued the fifth report on the periodic 

 variations of glaciers {Archives des Sc. phys. et nat. Geneve, 

 tome x. 1900). References are made to glaciers in Europe, the 

 Polar regions. North America and Asia. 



Mr. R. E. C. Stearns publishes some revisions of the 

 nomenclature of Tertiary land shells of the John Day Region in 

 Western North America {Proc. Washington Acad. Sc. vol. ii. 

 December 1900). Thus the species named Helix {Aglaia) 

 fidelis. Gray (Stearns) now becomes Epiphraginopho7-a fidelis 

 antecedetts, Stearns. Truly multiplication becomes vexation in 

 the case of zoological names. 



We have received the annual report of the Geological Com- 

 mission of the Cape of Good Hope for 1898 (Cape Town, 1900). 

 It is a record of arduous but highly interesting work, hampered 

 to some extent by the want of good maps, but of acknowledged 

 advantage to the inhabitants of Cape Colony. The field-work 

 has been carried out by Messrs. A. W. Rogers and E. H. L. 

 Schwarz under the superintendence of Prof. Corstorphine, and 

 they furnish detailed reports on the districts examined, including 

 the country around Worcester. 



The Geological .Survey of India has lately issued several im- 

 portant scientific works. In the Memoirs (vol. xxviii. , Part 2) 

 there is an essay on " The Charnockite series, a group of Archaean 

 hypersthenic rocks in Peninsular India," by Mr. Thomas H. 

 Holland. The history of the naming of this series is interesting. 

 A hypersthene-granite, regarded as a new type, and composed 

 of hypersthene, microcline, quartz and accessory iron-ores, was 



