?Q* 



umi^RE 



[May 1 6, 191 8 



Vo|. vii. of the Agricultural Journal of Egypt g\\cs 

 a series of plant-development curves . plotted from 

 observed data. This method is clainred by Dr. Balls 

 as, having been devised by himself, but surely botany 

 , has not had to wait so long for growth to be 

 graphically represented. Flowering and fruiting of a, 

 considerable number of members of the vegetable 

 kingdom can be almost definitely stated if the time 

 of the appearance of the plant above ground be 

 known. The question of watering and the conse- 

 quent increase of the crop are points brought out by 

 the report, but this is quite an elementary matter also., 

 The reference to it on p. 52 is simply an enunciation 

 of the obvious, and quite harmless. , . ,• 



Dr. Balls's statement that " the satisfactory nature' 

 of the results may be seen at a glance by those who 

 care to consult the paper in question " can only be 

 interpreted as meaning that one row of fifty plants 

 has produced data of considerable value and quite 

 satisfactory as compared with the data obtained by 

 himself from five rows of one hundred plants. From 

 the important deductions arrived at by Dr., Balls in, 

 the analysis referred to in his letter, the data must 

 be of an unusually complete nature, and the daily 

 observations of this large number of plants throughout 

 a season would be extremely useful for other minds 

 to work upon. If these data are accessible, then the 

 Egyptian Agricultural Department has wasted time, 

 money, and energy in repeating on a, much smaller 

 scale research work that has already been so effec- 

 tively done on a much larger scale by one of its own 

 employees. Presumably the , Department had the 

 previous complete data before it, and yet we find it 

 undertaking, the research work de novo. Stranger still, 

 no mention is made of the previous work so com- 

 pletely carried out on such a large scale by the 

 Department^so complete, in fact, that it forms a far 

 surer basis for deductions than the series of data now 

 lound in vol. vii. of the Agricultural Journal of Egypt. 

 : Dr. Balls is quite correct in saying that " as regards 

 the forecasting of the flowering itself by the growth^ 

 curve, the data under discussion have no significance." 

 fhe writer of the article came to the same conclusion. 

 It would appear that data on growth prior to May 28 

 are essential, and this feature is treated very in- 

 adequately inthe report. It may be added, however, 

 that observations are given commencing at various 

 dates from April 27 to May 23. In the case of No. 17 

 Ashmoun, the growth records date from April 27, but 

 these give no indications of any peculiarity between 

 April 27 and early in June; the growth-curve is prac- 

 tically a straight line for a mean of forty-two 

 plants (see p. 30 of Journal). If all the plants gave 

 similar results, it may explain why further tests were 

 not made. In any case, it is quite evident that height, 

 per se,had little influence on the flowering either as to 

 its beginning or as to the attainment of its maximum 

 flowering period. If this earlier period of growth is 

 such as to be so distinctive as to afford a forecast 

 that would be of such enormous value to a great 

 industry, why has the Department of Agriculture 

 totally ignored it? Dr. Balls, clearly indicates that 

 the experiment on a very large scale has been ijiade, 

 and he has used the data for his own conclusions, so 

 the Department must have, had these important results 

 in their possession.- • 



As regards " the prediction of boiling from flower- 

 ing " and the seven-week interval between them, 

 the curves do not give anything approaching a satis- 

 factory agreement when superimposed, not even when 

 treated so unscientifically as suggested. It must be 

 acknowledged that the whole series of data lacks the 

 element of a real appreciation of the practical deduc- 

 tions that might have been made from them, and 

 the draughtsmanship is bad, as well as the reproduction 

 NO. 2533, VOL. lOll 



TKe Duration of Resonance in the Internal Ear. 



Helmholtz's estimate, 95 free vibrations to reduce 

 the intensity of a sound to one-tenth of its original^ 

 value, was drawn from the effect of shakes or trills 

 in music. It would have been better, instead of a 

 reiteration of notes, to take the simple case of a single; 

 note ending staccato, as exemplified daily in speech. 

 The reproduction here of a typical mouth-tracing, 

 rnade with the kymograph, of the word utter in 

 a phrase intoned rapidly at pitch 100, and timed by a 

 100 fork, shows that 95 vibrations wovld completely 

 obliterate the mute or silence between the two utter- 

 ances of voice. It would be impossible to distinguish 

 utter from udder. 



of the curves. This, however, does not prevent th^ 

 redrawing of the curves from the data on a large, 

 scale. If this is done they yield nothing but general!-' 

 ties, of even less value than a schoolboy's observa- 

 tions on the growth of a pea or a daisy. If the Egyp- 

 tian Agricultural Department would give us the much 

 more complete and exhaustive data already obtained, 

 by its own experts in previous research work, the 

 cotton industry of the country would be considerably 

 benefited by having a basis on which to build up its 

 own conclusions. The Writer of the Article. 



When speaking of the theory of resonance in the 

 cochlea, Thomas Young had said (Nat. Phil., 1807,*' 

 i., p. 386) :— " It is uncertain whether any fibres in' 

 the ear are thus sympathetically agitated in the process 

 of hearing, but if there are any such vibrating fibres, 

 their motions must necessarily be of short duration, 

 otherwise there would be a perpetual ringing in our 

 ears, and we should never be able to judge accurately 

 of the termination of a sound." He returns to the 

 subject on the next page. These remarks of Thomas 

 Young appear to have been overlooked. 



W. Perrett. 



University College, London, May 6. 



Recovery of Speech through Excitement. 



Recently a soldier who had " lost " his speech 

 through shell-shock was brought to me. I told him, 

 he was shamming, and that there would be trouble' 

 of an acute kind if he did not recover quickly. He 

 was able to speak very well in a few days. I imagine 

 that 99 per cent, of those who have lost their speech 

 and then suddenly recovered it belong to the same 

 category. 



The case of the son of Croesus quoted by Capt. 

 Newton Friend in Nature of May 9 is rm'thical. We 

 learn to speak, and a man could no more speak at 

 the first attempt than he could play the violin. 



G. Archdall Reid. . 



Netherby, Victoria Road, S., 

 Southsea, Mav it,. 



