September 13, 1917] 



NATURE 



35 



IHE FOREST DEPARTMENT OF INDIA. 



THE Government of India has issued a pamphlet of 

 sixty-five pages, entitled "The Work of the 

 Forest Department of India," by Mr. R. S. Troup. 

 This gives in popular form, and at the low price of 

 ^ci., an account of the forests of India, and of the 

 •nethods by which they are protected and managed, 

 rhe Forest Department controls one-fifth of the total 

 area of India, viz, 249,867 square miles; but no 

 fewer than 141,882 square miles of this are so-called 

 "unclassed" forests, where control is nominal, being 

 restricted to the collection of revenue. Of the "re- 

 served " and " protected " forests, 107,985 square miles 

 in area, about one-half, 55,629 square miles, are scien- 

 tifically managed and subject to sanctioned working 

 plans.' The most important commercial forests are 

 the teak forests of Burma, the sal forests of Northern, 

 Central, and North-Eastern India, and the deodar 

 and pine forests of the North-Western Himalaya. 

 Forests yielding inferior kinds of timber are scarcely 

 less important, as they provide wood, fuel, fodder, 

 and other produce for the surrounding agricultural 

 population. The personnel of the Forest Department 

 icludes 237 officers trained in England, 231 officers 

 ecruited in India and trained at Dehra Dun, and a 

 ibordinate service of 1610 rangers, 2000 foresters, 

 id 10,500 forest guards. The Forest Research In- 

 titute of Dehra Dun, which was founded in 1906, 

 prosecutes investigations in sylviculture, forest botany, 

 conomic products, zoology, and chemistry, and has 

 ilready issued a considerable output of scientific litera- 

 ture. The pamphlet contains a valuable list, with 

 jhort descriptions of the forty-four most important 

 forest trees, and an excellent chapter on minor pro- 

 luce, which includes bamboos, grasses, fibres, oil 

 Is, tanning materials, essential oils, oleo-resins, 

 ims, india-rubber, drugs and spices, and animal 

 products like lac, silk, horns, hides, and ivory. An 

 iteresting account is also given of various forest 

 iustries which have been established by the Forest 

 apartment, such as the tapping of Pinus longifolia 

 Ifor resin and turpentine, which has now passed out 

 >f the experimental stage, the annual collection 

 imounting to 2592 tons. The paper-pulp industry, 

 "ie manufacture of matches, the antiseptic treatment 

 )f timber, and the dry distillation of wood arc indus- 

 ries which appear to be capable of considerable de- 

 jlopment in India. 



THE GREAT ERUPTION OF SAKURA-JIMA. 



PROF. F. OMORI, the well-known director of the 

 Seismological Institute of Tokyo, has recently issued 

 a third valuable memoir on the great eruption of the 

 Sakura-jima on January 12, 1914 (Bull. Imp. Earthq. 

 Inv. Com., vol. viii., December, 1916, pp. 181-32 1). 

 The first two memoirs have already been noticed in 

 Nature (vol. xciv., p. 289, 1914, and vol. xcviii., p. 57, 

 1916). The third memoir is principally concerned with 

 details which, thouerh of great value, are unsuitable 

 for reproduction in a note. Two or three points, how- 

 ever, are of general interest. On and around the 

 plateau of Hakamagoshi, which projects from the west 

 side of the island, there are unmistakable signs of the 

 generation of volcanic blasts. The school-house was 

 entirely destroyed and carried away. On a farm near 

 the top of the plateau a great number of large man- 

 darin-orange trees were uprooted and carried some dis- 

 tance up a slope. The blasts were directed principally 

 against the north-east corner of Hakamagoshi and the 

 neighbouring village of Koike. The destruction here 

 was general, and the Iree-trunks were mostly over- 

 thrown or broken between two directions which, when 

 produced backwards, passed through the highest and 



NO. 2498, VOL. 100] 



lowest of the western series of craterlets. On the east 

 side of the island no distinct trace of the blast could 

 be detected. Before the eruption the island was 

 separated from the mainland on the east side by the 

 Seto Strait, which, in its narrowest portion (400 metres 

 in width), varied in depth from 29 to 40 fathoms. The 

 lava entered the strait on the morning of January 13, 

 blocked it up after sixteen days, and finally rose in 

 height to about 54 metres above the sea. Ihe move- 

 ment of the lava stream on this side ceased with the 

 close of 1914. About three months later there took 

 place a second outflow of lava, not directly from the 

 craterlets, but from the southern face of the south- 

 eastern lava-field. The new outflows expanded into a 

 form like that of a chrysanthemum leaf, the greatest 

 elongation amounting to nearly 900 metres. 



Prof. Bundjiro Koto has published (Journal of the 

 College of Science, Tokyo, vol. xxxviii., art. 3, Decem- 

 ber 25, 19 16) a comprehensive and handsomely illus- 

 trated account of the same eruption. The author 

 reached the city of Kagoshima on January 15, 1914, 

 and saw the great lava-sheets flowing from the vol- 

 : canic island, a most unusual spectacle among the ex- 

 ; plosive volcanoes of Japan. The tremendous " Strom- 

 bolian" outburst of January 12, when the fragmental 

 matter rose as a great cloud-pillar to a height of more 

 than 18,000 metres, is shown in the photographic 

 frontispiece, which forms a most memorable addition 

 ; to our historic pictures of volcanoes. The inhabitants 

 of the island were rescued in boats by volunteers from 

 the shore of KyOshO, and traversed a pumice-laden 

 sea. The ejected materials, which are described in 

 petrographic detail, consist of femic augite-andesite. 

 i There is evidence in the scorched trees of a nu^e 

 j ardente, like those of Martinique, which spread down 

 i the western slope on the early morning of January 13. 

 j Among the ejecta are many resembling porcelain, and 

 composed of cordierite, plagioclase, and glass. This 

 ; tvpe has been described from Asama-yama, and Prof. 

 1 Koto now styles it ceramicite. 



THE DISSEMINATION OF FUNGUS 

 I DISEASES. 



VERY little has been heard of the International 

 Phytopathological Convention of Rome since the 



j outbreak of hostilities, but there is little doubt that 

 the subject will be revived when terms of peace are 

 settled or shortly afterwards. A careful consideration 



I of its proposals is, therefore, all the more necessary 

 at the present time, and the reasoned criticism pub- 

 lished by Dr. E. T. Butler, the Imperial Mycologist, 



! in vol. ix.. No. i, of the Memoirs of the Department 

 of Agriculture in India, on the dissemination of para- 



; sitic fungi and international legislation is doubly 

 welcome from both the scientific and the administra- 

 tive points of view. 



Dr. Butler discusses, in the first place, the various 

 methods by which such fungi may be conveyed over 

 great distances, and decides that little is to be feared 

 from natural means, the chief agent being civilised man 

 engaged in commerce. He then recounts some of the 

 attempts that have been made to control the spread 

 of plant diseases by legislation, and criticises the pro- 



: cedure proposed by the Rome Convention, chiefly, of 

 course, with reference to the conditions under which 

 India is situated. 



The weak points in the Convention, especially those 

 caused by the loose phraseology of the much-debated 

 Article 5, are duly pointed out, but Dr. Butler concludes 

 with the opinion that, subject to certain necessary 

 amendments, and if certain clauses are broadly inter- 

 preted, there are obvious advantages in adhering to it, 

 and that "after a few years' experience, and as soon 



