December 27, 1917] 



NATURE 



335 



In September, on the other hand, the opposite distri- 

 bution prevailed. 



From an examination of the detailed summaries it 

 would appear that the greatest daily rainfall, 140 mm. 

 (.v^i in.), occurred on April i at Livastol, a station in 

 lat. 59° N., long. 6° E. Only nine daily falls exceed- 

 ing 4 in. were reported in the year under notice, and, 

 with one exception, these all occurred in the south. A 

 very useful table is given showing the height above sea- 

 level and geographical co-ordinates of all the stations, 

 which can thus be readily identified on the map. 



R. C. M. 



PLANT DISEASES IN THE WEST INDIES. 



V.VRIOUS root diseases which cause serious loss in 

 crops of cacao, coffee, limes, and arrowroot in 

 the West Indies have been investigated by Mr. \V. 

 ^'owell, whose conclusions are published in the West 

 Indian Bulletin (vol. xvi., No. i). In all cases the roots 

 are attacked by the mycelium of species of Rosellinia, a 

 cosmopolitan genus of fungi which has long been 

 known to include several parasitic species. In most 

 cases the source oi infection has proved to be either 

 the forest stumps left to decay when the land was 

 originally cleared, or, in the case of cacao, the stumps 

 of shade trees, such as bread fruit and avocado pear. 

 The fungus establishes itself on the dead stumps as 

 a saprophyte, and from these the mycelium spreads 

 to the healthy roots of the crop. The general condi- 

 tions which favour the spread of the parasites and the 

 most suitable methods of isolating the infected area 

 and controlling the disease are carefully discussed. 



In the West Indian Bulletin (vol. xvi., Nos. 2 and 

 3) Mr. W. Nowell gives a first report on an investiga- 

 tion of the internal disease of cotton bolls in the West 

 Indies. The young lint is badly stained, and in severe 

 cases more or less completely rotted, by the action of 

 bacteria or of certain specific fungi, which are de- 

 scribed in the first of the two papers. Four distinct 

 species of fungi have been isolated and studied in 

 culture. They appear to be all closely related, and are 

 probably to be referred to the genus Nematoapora. 

 Further investigation is needed, however, to determine 

 the systematic position of the genus. The results of 

 "the experiments recorded in the second bulletin show 

 that infection results from the attack of certain cotton- 

 stainers, bugs. Nezara viridula and Dysderciis spp., 

 which puncture the ovary walls in order to reach the 

 seeds. The damage caused by the bugs includes the 

 death of a certain proportion of the seeds, and possibly 

 a localised discoloration of lint in young bolls ; they 

 are, however, the agents by which the fungi and 

 bacteria are introduced into the ovary, and there pro- 

 duce the characteristic boll disease. 



MINERAL NOMENCLATURE AND COLOUR. 

 A PAPER by Mr. Edgar T. Wherry on "The Nomen- 

 -^"^ clature and Classification of the Native Element 

 Minerals" (Journ. Washington Acad. Sci., vol. vii., 

 p. 447, August, 1917) is remarkable for its advocacy 

 of the use of adjectival prefixes for varieties, rather 

 than special or compound names, which involve, as 

 may be remarked, an additional tax upon the memory. 

 This attitude is so very rare among scientific men that 

 the attention of all naturalists may be directed to it. 

 Mr. Wherry thus gives us " mercuriferous silver" for 

 one end of the amalgam series and " argentiferous 

 mercury" for the other, while the former name 

 swallows up arquerite, bordosite, and kongsbergite. 

 "Rhodiferous gold" replaces rhodite and "ferriferous 

 nickel " awaruite, josephinite, occtibehite, and soues- 

 ite. The realisation that time is verv often lost and 



NO. 



2513, VOL. 100] 



not gained by the use of .technical names in- 

 stead of descriptive word-groupings will make 

 mineralogists regard Mr. Wherry's work with favour. 

 His paper, however, is much more than a revision of 

 nomenclature, since the element minerals are critically 

 reviewed, with a number of valuable references to 

 lecent work. 



Messrs. T. L. Watson and R. E. Beard have made 

 a careful study of "The Colour of Amethyst, Rose, 

 and Blue Varieties of Quartz" (Proc. U.S. Nat. 

 Museum, vol. liii., p. 553, 1917), and they conclude that 

 amethyst is coloured by manganese, probably distri- 

 buted as submicroscopic colloidal particles of an oxide ; 

 that the colouring matter in rose quartz is organic; 

 and that the blueness of quartz, as seen in many 

 igneous rocks, is due to the behaviour of light on 

 minute hair-like inclusions of rutile, as previous writers 

 have suggested. No explanation is proposed for the 

 absence of a purple colour in certain examples of rose 

 quartz which show on analysis quantities of man- 

 ganese in excess of those in ordinary amethyst ; the 

 point seems worth raising, since the authors reject 

 the idea that the colour in amethyst depends on the 

 state of oxidation. 



A VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN PAPUA. 



IN the thirty-ninth volume of the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society of South Australia Dr. B. Malinow- 

 ski, Robert Mond travelling student in the Univer- 

 sity of London, gives a valuable account of the people 

 living on the seaboard of south-eastern Papua between 

 Cape Rodney and Orangerie Bay.^ 



The most important native village is Mailu, on a 

 small island near the coast, the inhabitants of which 

 take a prominent place in the trade of southern 

 Papua, and in certain industries, such as pottery and 

 canoe-building, are more advanced than the mainland 

 people. Dr. Malinowski's descriptions refer princi- 

 pally to Mailu itself but the people of the mainland 

 district, who call themselves Magi, are occasionally 

 noticed. 



Following Dr. Seligman in his account of the 

 " Melanesians of British New Guinea," Dr. Malinow- 

 ski regards the Mailu as the most eastern branch of 

 the western Papuo-Melanesian population, the Bona- 

 bona division of the southern Massim being in contact 

 with their eastern border. The sociology and culture of 

 the Mailu are of the same type as those of the Koita, so 

 fully described by Seligman. Like the Koita, too, 

 they speak a non-Melanesian language, though this 

 is not explicitly stated by Dr. Malinowski, whose in- 

 formation was obtained by means of the Motu lan- 

 guage, which is understood by most Mailu men. 



The unit of social life is the village community. The 

 village is a compact group of houses regularly built 

 on land. The houses, on piles, face each other on 

 each side of the village street, with their backs to the 

 sea and the gardens. The men's club-houses, or 

 dubus, have now almost died out. The community 

 was the joint owner of the land and fishing rights, and 

 within certain limits of hunting rights. In legal 

 arrangements, institutions, and warfare the community 

 acted together. It is divided into clans, and the wife 

 comes from outside and moves to the home of her 

 husband. Children belong to their father's clan. 



Dr. Malinowski gives details of the household, with 

 diagrams of the building. A genealogical census of 

 Mailu village was made to obtain the kinship system 

 and names. Personal names of elders were found to 



1 " The Natives of Mailu : Preliminary Results of the Robert Mond 



Research Work in British New Guinea." By Dr. B. Malinowski, Cracow, 



Robert Mond Travelling Student in the University of London. Transactions 



j and Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia, vol. xxxix., 



Adelaide, December, 1915, pp. 494-706, plates xxvi-xliii. 



