August 15, 19 18] 



NATURE 



469 



and from 1892 to 1896 he was the U.S. representative 

 on the joint commission with Great Britain relative 

 to the preservation of fisheries in waters contiguous 

 to the United States and Canada. Dr. Rathbun was 

 appointed curator of the U.S. National Museum in 

 1880, assistant secretary to the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion in 1897, and had been in charge of the U.S. 

 National Museum since 1899. He had written largely 

 on palaeontology, marine invertebrate zoology, and 

 the administration of fisheries and museums. 



The death in Paris is announced of Prof. Richard 

 Norton, son of Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, professor 

 of fine arts at Harvard. Richard Norton was director 

 of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome 

 from 1899 to 1907. He came of good English stock, 

 and was related, on the English side, to the Sidgwicks 

 and the Darwins. He was at once a trained archaeo- 

 logist, an excellent classical scholar, a critic of fine art, 

 and an adventurous explorer. He worked in Greece 

 with Waldstein, with Boni in Rome, with Hogarth 

 in Egypt, and on his own account in Cyrene. At the 

 beginning of the war he organised the American 

 Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps, and during the 

 Champagne battle in October, 1915, he disclosed the 

 fact that the German gas apparatus captured dated 

 so far back as 1908, thus proving that the barbarous 

 methods of the enemy had been long premeditated. 

 He' received the Order of the French Legion of Honour 

 and the Croix de Guerre for gallantry under fire, and 

 was awarded the British Mons medal. 



The position of this country as regard the supply 

 of optical glass at the outbreak of war is often not 

 clearly understood. We are glad, therefore, to correct 

 any misapprehension which may have arisen from an 

 incidental reference to the subject in an article on the 

 British Scientific Products Exhibition in Nature of 

 August I. Optical glass has been manufactured in 

 this country since 1848 by Messrs. Chance Bros, and 

 Co., Birmingham. Wheii the supply of German glass 

 was cut off in. 1914, the experience gained bv this firm 

 became an important national asset, and through it an 

 acute situation was saved. Messrs. Chance have sup- 

 plied nearly the whole of the optical glass required for 

 instruments used by out Forces during the war, and 

 also much of the requirements of our Allies, without 

 any assistance from the formulae determined by the 

 Glass Research Committee of the Institute of Chemis- 

 try. This committee rendered invaluable aid to the 

 manufacture of scientific and heat-resisting glassware, 

 but the needs of optical-instrument makers were 

 met independentlv by Messrs. Chance, whose output 

 since the outbreak, of hostilities has increased twenty- 

 fold. Without their seventy years' experience it Would 

 have been very difficult to have produced the supply 

 of optical glass imperatively demanded by conditions of 

 war. 



As is well known, the Germans were anticipated 

 by some savage tribes in the use of poisonous gas for 

 war purposes. In a paper entitled " Palisades and 

 Noxious Gases among the South American Indians," 

 by Mr. Erland Nordenskiold, in LV Ymer, Tidskrift 

 utgiven ai< Svenska sdllskapat for Anthropologi och 

 Geographi (Arg. 1918, H. 3), he quotes authorities, 

 such as Staden, Oviedo y Vald^s, and Thevet, to 

 show that tribes like the Tupinambd and Guaranis of 

 the Brazil littoral and on the Rio Parana used 

 poisonous gases in attacking fortified villages. Men 

 went in front of the attacking party, each holding a 

 pan with embers in one hand, and ground red pepper 

 in the other; when the wind was against the 

 Spaniards they sprinkled the pepper on the embers. 

 This was also done in attacks on the Spaniards in 



NO. 2546, VOL. lOl] 



Venezuela. In thf --amr \\a\ pepper was largely usetl 

 in exorcising demon.- and «\ il spirits. The use of this 

 pepper, known as Aji, would soon be discovered bv 

 these Indians, who cultivate the plant extensively. It 

 was only necessary for someone to upset a basin of 

 .\ji into the fire, and a hut would soon be cleared of 

 its occupants. The use of the smoke in warfare would 

 be a natural development. 



The entrance of the United States of America into 

 the war has prompted Mr. A. Hansen to write to 

 Science pointing out that the States possess no 

 national floral emblem. France has its fleur-de-lis, 

 England the rose, Scotland the thistle, but .America 

 has no flower with which it is associated in people's 

 minds. Mr. Hansen points out the various 

 characteristics required for a national tlowi;-, and 

 comes to the conclusion that the columbine, whidi i- 

 in flower from April to July, is probably the most 

 suitable for the purpose. The correspondence of iIk 

 generic name Aquilegia with the Latin name of ihc 

 eagle is also considered to be a point in its favour. 

 Colorado has already adopted the columbine, which 

 is native 'throughout the States ; and though the 

 flowers are somewhat fugitive, no other flower seems 

 to be as suitable. In a later contribution to Science, 

 by Mr. F. L. Sargent, it is pointed out that the 

 national flower question was considered so long ago 

 as 1895, ^nd a history of the matter is given in Trans. 

 Mass. Hort. Soc, part i, 1898. It was then con- 

 sidered that the columbine was the most suitable 

 flower, and its use for the purpose is strongly advo- 

 cated by Mr. Sargent. Another writer, however, suj^- 

 gests the golden lod (Solidago), a common plant in (It 

 States, which has previously been advocated, but does 

 not seem so suitable for national purposes as the 

 more elegant and beautiful columbine. 



The future of the Hevea rubber industry in the 

 Federated Malay States and the East generally s a 

 matter of serious consideration and some anxiet\ . Noi 

 only is Hevea brasiliensis attacked by various para- 

 sitic fungi, such as Fomes, pink-rot, and Phytophthora, 

 some of which have received careful investigation 

 from mycologists, but there are also questions con- 

 nected with the soil and other conditions of the 

 plantations which also need careful attention. All who 

 are in any way interested in the future of the rubber 

 industry should make a careful study of Prof. J. B. 

 Farmer's address on "Science and the Rubber In- 

 dustry," delivered before the Royal Society of Arts, 

 and published in the society's Journal for June 21 

 last. The picture he draws, though somewhat 

 gloomy, is none the less true. Possibly the hope of 

 the future lies in breeding varieties of rubber immune 

 to disease, but this will scarcely be possible until we 

 have a fuller knowledge of the true function and pre- 

 cise chemical composition of the latex of Hevea 

 brasiliensis. Moreover, despite the chairman's (Sir 

 Edward Rosling's) remark that there was no direct 

 evidence of a great variation of yield of rubber 

 amongst difi^erent trees, there is, as Prof. W. Bateson 

 pointed out, a very large body of evidence that there 

 are wide differences, and of such any breeding experi- 

 ments will have to take due account. It is much to 

 be hoped that there will be no delay in taking steps 

 to safeguard adequately Iho triio intfrosts of the 

 rubber industry and it« fiitnn ]iri>-p« i ii\ . 



The British occupation of Jerusalem lia- alu aii\, in 

 one important respect, conferred upon ilie inliahiiants 

 the benefits of sanitation. Within the short space of 

 four months, despite difficulties of transport and un- 

 favourable weather, a scheme of water-supply has 

 been (li\t-<(l, i-\.(ut(\l, and put into commission. 



