290 



NATURE 



[December 13, 1917 



rule are : — (i) The asporogenic varieties of Saccharo- 

 myces ; (2) Saccharotnycodes Ludwigii ; (3) Schizo- 

 saccharomyces ; and (4) Aspergillus glauctis. Of the 

 first only 44 per cent, survived on cane-sugar and 

 21 per cent, on beer wort, of the second only one in 

 nine survived on cane-sugar for more than 75 years, 

 but all five cultures on beer wort survived for twenty- 

 five years. Only two out of five cultures of Schizo- 

 saccharomyces on cane-sugar survived, but ten out of 

 eleven of those on beer wort were living. Of six 

 cultures of A. glaucus only one survived, and two of 

 the remaining five perished in less than two years. 



The first annual report of the Zoological Survey of 

 India, a new and promising transformation of the 

 Indian Museum Cinderella, contains a great deal of 

 interesting information. New ground was broken in 

 the Shan States, where the director of the survey, Dr. 

 Annandale, personally superintended a survey of Lake 

 Inl6. The basin of this lake is stated to ha% been 

 formed by solution, in limestone rock, and to be fill- 

 ing up with silt and aquatic vegetation ; the water is 

 shallow and of extraordinary limpidity ; floating islands 

 are a notable feature ; fishes of many new species were 

 discovered, for three of which new generic definitions 

 are necessary, among them a minute eel so peculiar 

 as to require seclusion in a new family ; the molluscs 

 are scarcely less remarkable, and among them occurred 

 a group of pond-snails interesting not only for the 

 bizarre shape and bright colour of their shells, but 

 also because an almost complete series of forms transi- 

 tional between them and nearly normal forms was 

 found in other parts of the lake, in other neighbouring 

 waters, and fossil in the surrounding country. Mr. 

 Kemp, superintendent in the survey, investigated the 

 Mutlah channel of the Gangetic delta ; this is a deep and 

 permanent channel, and its waters, which are never 

 very salt, are heavily charged with silt ; a remarkable 

 feature of its fauna is said to be the extraordinary 

 resemblance of some of its fishes and Crustacea to 

 deep-sea forms, in colouring, in gelatinous trans- 

 lucency, and in filamentous feeler-like appendages. Dr. 

 Chaudhuri, an assistant-superintendent in the Survey, 

 paid a visit to certain large tanks in Seringapatarn, 

 where a century ago Buchanan-Hamilton obtained 

 several species of fishes that have never since been 

 brought to light; Dr. Chaudhuri was successful in re- 

 discovering some of them. A feature of the report, as 

 an official departmental publication, are the excellent 

 illustrations. 



Mr. a. M. Heron (Mem. Geol. Surv. India, vol. 

 xlv., part i., 1917, price 45.) describes the results of 

 a re-survey of north-eastern Rajputana, where the 

 Archaean Alwar quartzites run south from Delhi and 

 form hills with remarkably level crests. Some revision 

 of the stratigraphical sequence ■ is proposed ; an 

 "arkose" series is shown to be in reality 'a granite 

 intrusive ip the Delhi system; and the planing of 

 the Alwar crests is interestingly ascribed to subaerial 

 action going back to the Jurassic period. The deepen- 

 ing of stream-beds among dissected sandhills seems 

 to point to a diminution of aridity in Rajputana. 



An elaborate memoir on "The Origin of Dolomite," 

 by Francis M. van Tuyl, appears in the annual report 

 of the Iowa Geological Survey for 1914 (1916), and 

 would be important merely on account of its refer- 

 ences to previous work. The author concludes that 

 " the great majority of the stratified dolomites have 

 had their inception in the alteration of limestones." 

 He is unable to accept Element's work at high tem- 

 peratures, or Pfaff's at high pressures, as bearing on 

 the natural problem, but agrees with Steidtmann and 

 Wallace (see Nature, vol. xciv., p. 459) that greater 

 concentration of salts in the sea-water has much to 

 NO. 25 1 1, VOL. 100] 



do with dolomitisation of limestone already laid down. 

 Illustrations are given from North American geology. 



The depredations of the boll weevil on the American 

 cotton crop in recent years have Jed to the replacement 

 of cotton^growing in large areas by the cultivation of 

 groundnuts {Arachis hypogaca). According to Agri- 

 culture of March last, the value of the groundnut 

 crop in the United States has increased in the eight 

 years from 1908 to 1916 from twelve million to fifty- 

 six million dollars. It has been found that by slight 

 adjustments of machinery cotton-seed mills can be used 

 for crushing groundnuts. An increasing proportion of 

 the crop, however, is being utilised for food purposes 

 in the uncrushed state. Efforts are being made by the 

 Government to discover the best use for the groundnut 

 and to popularise it with American kitchens, and ex- 

 periments in progress under the auspices of the Chem- 

 istry Bureau of the Department of Agriculture are 

 said to promise the production from groundnut meal 

 of a bread equal in nutritive value and palatability to 

 wheaten bread. 



Scientific Paper 301 of the Bureau of Standards 

 describes a calorimeter deVised by Mr. N. S. Osborne, 

 of the Bureau, for the determination of the specific 

 heats and latent heats of evaporation of materials 

 used in refrigerating machines, e.g. ammonia, carbon 

 dioxide, sulphur dioxide, methyl and ethyl chlorides. 

 Ammonia has already been investigated over the 

 temperature range —40° C. to 40° C. ; the other sub- 

 stances are to be dealt with and the results published 

 later. The calorimeter is of thin steel, about 4 cm. 

 in diameter and 10 cm. long, with a central electric- 

 heating coil. It is enclosed in a steel jacket capable 

 of withstanding a considerable pressure. The tem- 

 perature of the calorimeter is measured by means of 

 a platinum thermometer, and the jacket is maintained 

 at the same temperature as the calorimeter to diminish 

 heat losses. The measurements, alreadv made show 

 that an accuracy of one part in a thousand can be 

 secured. 



The difficulty of getting coloured lines in exact 

 juxtaposition and of sufficient fineness for the purposes 

 of colour photography has, according to La Nature 

 for November 10, been completely overcome by M. 

 Louis Dufay, who is associated with the brothers 

 Lumi^re. The method is to pass a thin celluloid film 

 between two rollers warmed sufficiently to render the 

 celluloid plastic. One of the rollers has very fine cir- 

 cumferential parallel grooves of square section cut 

 upon its surface, and thus the celluloid has similai 

 grooves formed upon it. The film is then coated with 

 a coloured transparent fatty mixture and wiped off 

 after the manner of wiping an etched plate after ink- 

 ing and before taking an impression from it. The 

 film is next treated with an alcoholic solution of 

 another colour, and this penetrates the exposed surface 

 of the celluloid. Thus there are formed alternating 

 coloured lines in perfect juxtaposition, which may be 

 of a fineness as great as thirty lines to the millimetre. 

 If the film is thin enough to permit it without intro- 

 ducing the possibility of parallax, the other side of it 

 may be similarly treated, either simultaneously or 

 afterwards, so that two other colours may be intro- 

 duced, or these may be added in the form of any 

 microscopic figures that may be preferred. Three 

 double pairs of colours are given : (i) yellow and blue, 

 red and green ; (2) yellow "and red, blue and orange ; 

 (3) red and blue, yellow and violet. 



Attention may be directed to a useful collection of 

 data respecting the absorption of atmospheric gases bv 

 water, given in a paper contributed by Mr. J. H. 

 Coste to the Journal of the Society of Chemical In- 

 dustry- for August 15. As regards the significance of 



