April 25, 1918] 



NATURE 



^55 



Mr. U<lny Yule, in particular, giving reasons for belief 

 that Sir Henry's estimates of the exportable surplus of 

 wheat from North and South America would not be 

 realised. He agreed, however, that the outlook as 

 regards cereals was less serious than as regards meat. 

 The cereal supply might Recover with comparative 

 rapidity after the war if the land had not become seri- 

 ously foul and impoverished, but it might be some 

 years before the meat supply attained anything like 

 its former plenty. 



SLEEPING SICKNESS AND BIG GAME. 



W/^ have received the report of the Sleeping Sick- 

 '' * ness Commission of the Royal Society, No. xvi. 

 (pp. 221 + 17 plates + 3 maps), which bears date 1915, 

 but has only just been distributed. This volume, most 

 of the papers in which have been already published in 

 the Proceedings of the Royal Society, gives an account 

 of the investigations carried on by the commission, 

 under the direction of Sir David Bruce, in Nyasaland 

 in 1912-14. The most important conclusion of the 

 commission was that Trypanosoma brucci, the cause of 

 nagana in Zuiuland and other parts of Africa, is 

 identical with T.- rhodesiense, the trypanosome caus- 

 ing sleeping sickness in man in Nyasaland and 

 Rhodesia. On account of the marked infectivity of 

 the game in the fly-country — "and this fact stands out 

 most prominently and without any shadow of doubt " 

 —it is recommended that efforts should be made to 

 diminish the number of wild animals in fly-areas, e.g. 

 by removing all restrictions regarding the pursuit and 

 killing of the game. Removal of infected natives, 

 though they are apparently few and far between, to 

 tly-free areas, and the clearing of the forest around 

 villages so as to keep the fly away, are also useful 

 measures, and the suggestion is made that for pur- 

 poses of administration it would be well to gather the 

 natives together in fairly large villages. Direct 

 measures for the destruction of the fly are not con- 

 sidered to offer any chance of success, but "when the 

 country becomes opened up, cleared, and, settled, the 

 big game will disappear and the tsetse with them." 



Major Cuthbert Christy contributes to the Annals 

 of Trap. Med. and Parasiiology (vol. xi., No. 3, pp. 

 270-282) a note on tsetse-flies and fly-belts in Central 

 Africa, in which he expresses the opinion that if, in 

 speaking of wild animals or great game, the antelopes 

 are referred to, he is convinced that they play a quite 

 negligible part, if any, in relation to sleeping sickness 

 in man, and that it is possible to exclude with certainty 

 most of the wild animals, though he places one or two 

 under suspicion. Of these, he considers the. pig will 

 be found to be the chief culprit, not only the common 

 red river-hog and the wart-hog, but more especially the 

 semi-domesticated pig frequently seen about native 

 villagps. 



MEIMAA'RGY OF COPPER. 



THE Cantor lectures on "Progress in the Metallurgy 

 of Copper," delivered by Prof. H. C. H. Car- 

 penter before the Royal Society of Arts in December 

 last, have just been published. Prof. Carpenter com- 

 mences with a brief review of the early methods of 

 copper smelting, giving some interesting details of the 

 process in use at Keswick, Cumberland, towards the 

 end of the sixteenth century, traces the origin and rise 

 of the industry of copper smelting in Swansea and the 

 adjoining district.^ of South Wales, and thus comes 

 to the early years of the nineteenth century, when the 

 influence of the importation of Chilian ores, followed 

 by the utilisation of the vast deposits of Huelva and the 

 a<ljoining part of Portugal, first made themselves felt. 



NO. 2530, VOL. lOl] 



By the end of the nineteenth century the huge copper 

 resources of the United States of America dominated 

 the world's markets, and from that period, when the 

 United States was producing one-half of the copper 

 output of the entire world, up to the present day, 

 American practice has exerted a preponderating influ- 

 ence upon the metallurgy of copper. 



Prof. Carpenter gives a full and interesting account 

 of modern American methods, as exemplified in the 

 works of the famous Anaconda Copper Mining Com- 

 pany, and shows well the development of the most 

 modern improvements, especially in the application of 

 the flotation process and of hydro-metallurgical pro- 

 cesses. He concludes with an account of the last- 

 named method as applied in the works of the Chile 

 Exploration Company at Chuquicamata, where it is 

 being employed on a vast scale, and points out that the 

 modern tendency in the metallurgical treatment of 

 copper ores is to replace smelting methods by wet 

 methods, so that the similarity between modern pro- 

 cesses for the treatment of gold and of copper is becom- 

 ing more and more pronounced. 



Incidentally, attention may be directed to a statement 



j of Prof. Carpenter to the eff^ect that "in the time 



of Elizabeth, James, etc., the metalliferous ores of this 



I country were reserved to the Crown." This is a mis- 



] take ; for whilst it is true that in earlier times the 



Crown had laid claim to such ores, this pretension 



was constantly resisted, and in 1568 it was definitely 



I disposed of by the Great Case of Mines, in which the 



j judges declared unanimously that if a metalliferous 



I ore or mine contains no royal metal — i.e. neither gold 



j nor silver — the proprietor of the soil is owner of the 



! ore or mine in question. It is thus clear that even 



in the earlier part of Queen Elizabeth's reign the law 



j gave a definite decision to exactly the opposite effect 



to that stated by Prof. Caroenter.' H. L. 



THE ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC 

 AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH. 



T AST October Mr. G. Hogben and Dr. J. Allan 



-■— ' Thomson submitted to the New Zealand Minis- 



] ter of Internal Affairs a report on schemes adopted 



in various parts of the British Empire and in the 



United States for the organisation of scientific and 



industrial research. 



The following abridgment of the report provides a 



[ summary of the progress already made and of the 



[ plans proposed for the future : — ^ 



Great Britain. 



By Order in Council, July 28, 1915, a Committee 

 of the Privy Council was appointed to direct the appli- 

 cation of any sums of money provided by Parliament 

 for the organisation and development of scientific and 

 industrial research. It was further ordered that, for 

 these purposes, there should be an Advisory Council 

 (which consisted at the outset of eight eminent scien- 

 tific men, three at least of whom were actually en- 

 gaged in industries dependent on scientific research). 

 To it stood referred for their report and recommenda- 

 tion proposals (i) for instituting specific researches ; 



(ii) for establishing or developing special institutions 

 or dq)artments of existing institutions for the scien- 

 tific study of problems affecting particular industries 

 and trades ; and (iii) for the establishment and award 

 of research studentships and fellowships. 



The sum voted for the first year was 25,000?. For 

 the second year (1916-17) the sum voted by Parliament 

 was 40,000?., but during the course of the financial 

 year the Government decided to establish a Depart- 

 ment, the Department of .Scientific and Industrial 

 Research, to take the functions and powers of the 



