June 13, 1918] 



NATURE 



291 



i^enera and species^, which are described in detail with 

 rhe help_ of structural drawings and admirably repro- 

 luced photographs. The author takes occasion to dis- 

 uss the bearing of the variation of features of sys- 

 ■matic importance on questions concerning the factors 

 of evolution, and concludes: — "In view of the con- 

 tinuous variability of most of the characters employed 

 in the distinction of species amongst oiir scorpions, 

 it seems probable that discontinuity arises most fre- 

 quently through the elimination of intermediate forms 

 rather than by mutation processes." 



In his latest studies on American Permian verte- 

 brates (Contributions from Walker Museum, Chicago, 

 vol. ii., No. 4), Prof. S. W. Williston discusses the 

 origin of the vertebrae in the amphibians and reptiles, 

 and shows that all stages in the development are now 

 known. Inheriting separate pleurocentra, hypocentra, 

 and neural arches from the early fishes,, the land- 

 vertebrates soon consolidated their centra, until in later 

 reptiles the only remnants of the primitive condition 

 are certain wedge-bones and some separate parts in the 

 atlas and a.xis. .Among other notes Prof. Williston also 

 describes and illustrates some fine specimens of the 

 brain-case of Eryops, Edaphosaurus, and Dimetrodon. 



Prof. Rollix D. Salisbury, in his address to the 

 Section of Geology and Geography at the .Pittsburgh 

 meeting of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science (Science, April 5), urged the claims 

 of geology as a factor in general education, and 

 pointed to modern ifeography as having even greater 

 promise. Like Mr. Bateson in the " Cambridge Essays," 

 he feels that "the type of subject which works on 

 strictly mathematical lines cannot, by itself, afford the 

 best preparations for the solution of the average 

 problems of the average man." We require a "train- 

 ing in the methods by which uncertainties are cleared 

 up," and the sciences concerned with Nature in the 

 field furnish this training to a marked degree. 



In the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 

 of London, vol. Ixxiii., p. i, Dr. A. Smith Woodward 

 describes two additional cranial fragments and a 

 molar tooth of Eoanthropus, which were discovered 

 by Mr. Charles Dawson at Piltdown in 1915. Since 

 one fragment is occipital, and the same region is 

 represented in the imperfect skull originallv described, 

 there is no doubt that we now possess traces of a 

 second individual. The paper is rendered still more 

 valuable by an appendix by Prof. G. Elliot Smith, and 

 by the printing of the discussion, in which Mr. 

 Pycraft, Prof. A. Keith, and Sir Ray Lankester took 

 an important part. Attention may be direct_ed to Mr. 

 Pycraft's comments on a ramus of the mandible of 

 a chimpanzee with worn molars, sent him by Mr. 

 G. T. Miller, who, as is well known, opposes the 

 attribution of the Piltdown jaw to the skull fragments 

 associated with it in the gravels. 



S. WRITER in the Zeitschrifi fiir angeivandte Chetnie 



■ 1 March 22 estimates the available water-power in 

 rmany at 11-4 million h.p., only about four millions 

 ing yet utilised. In 1910 the proportion utilised 



was only t; per cent, of the steam-power produced. 



while in France the percentage has reached 40 per 



-■-nt, 



1 HE restoration of Alsace to France would put the 

 latter country in possession of the valuable potash 

 deposits discovered in 1904. These rich deposits cover 

 an area of seven square miles, to the north-west of 

 Mulhouse. The workable yield is estimated at 300 

 million tons, and they could be made to yield an 

 annual outpu.t of 800,000 tons at a low cost of pro- 

 duction. According to the Zeitschrift fiir angewandtc 

 ^O. 2537, VOL. lOl] 



Chetnie, March 22, fifteen shafts have already been 

 sunk, but production has been hampered by legal 

 restrictions arising out of the German potash laws. 



According to a writer in the Berg- und Hiltten- 

 mannischer Jahrbuch, part i., 1917, there are exten- 

 sive, unworked deposits of manganese ore in the 

 Bukovina which reach into Rumanian territory. The 

 article describes the deposits and the methods of work- 

 ing them. Analyses made show the yield of metallic 

 manganese to be 4065 per cent. The ore occurs in 

 some parts in the form of outcrops, thus making it 

 cheap and easy to win. Another authority, writing in 

 Stahl und Eisen for April 4, estimates the quantity of 

 manganese ore in the Kutais Government of Russia 

 as thirty million tons, and in the Yekaterinoslav 

 Government about eleven million tons. The posses- 

 sion of Batoum by the Turks should enable them to 

 control the entire output of 'the deposit first mentioned, 

 while the peace made with the Ukraine brings the 

 second source of supply within the range of German 

 influence. 



For the making of chemical manufacturing plant 

 chemists and metallurgists have long sought some form 

 of metal which will resist the corrosive action of acids. 

 Such a metal would have obvious advantages over the 

 stoneware or similar breakable material ordinarily 

 employed. In the laboratory it has long been known 

 that iron could be made resistant to either sulphuric 

 or nitric acids by alloying it with a certain proportion 

 of silicon or chromium, but it is only recently that 

 successful use has been made of this acid-resisting 

 property on a large scale for chemical installations. 

 In the Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry 

 for March 30 Mr. S J. Tungay gives an account of 

 what has been done in this country and abroad towards 

 the industrial production of acid-resistirig iron. Con- 

 siderable manufacturing difficulties have had to be 

 overcome, but British metallurgists are now able to 

 produce a large variety of vessels and plant suitable 

 for the making of sulphuric and nitric acids; the 

 material employed is understood to be an iron-silicon 

 alloy containing a small proportion of one of the rare 

 elements. Since the outbreak of war the metal has 

 been found a great boon in condensing the nitric 

 acid required for high explosives, as by making use 

 of it large nitric acid plants were installed very 

 rapidly; moreover, the condensing efficiency obtained 

 was high, since the alloy possesses a heat conductivity 

 about ten times that of stoneware. 



We have received from the Controller of Munitions 

 Mineral Oil Production a report on "The Production 

 of Fuel Oil from Ordinary Gas-works Plant." In 

 view of the peculiar and diflicult conditions now 

 obtaining, the technical advisers of this Depart- 

 ment realised that existing apparatus and trained 

 staffs must be employed, and they appear to have 

 gone a long way to solve a problem of the 

 greatest urgency. Without betraying any official 

 secrets^ it may be said that the enormous deposits of 

 cannel and bastard cannel which occur in this country 

 are being explored and tested with a view to the 

 production of an indigenous oil supply. It is obvious 

 that our almost complete dependence on foreign 

 sources for fuel oil, gas oil, benzine, and kerosene is 

 a weakness that the enemy has not been slow to 

 realise, and it is a matter for congratulation that on 

 the eve of the fifth year of war the authorities have 

 decided to prosecute their search for substitutes. It 

 appears that the researches of the Department indi- 

 cate that excellent yields of tar can be obtained from 

 cannel coal — a fact which is by no means novel, seeing 

 that, in the distant past, there actually was existent 

 in .Staffordshire a home oil industry. Where the 



