368 



NATURE 



[May 20, 1920 



Experiments with the Amphipod Gammarus chev- 

 reuxi by E. J. Allen and E. W. Sexton at the Plymouth 

 KTarine Biological Laboratory {Journal of Genetics, 

 vol. ix., No. 4) have disclosed several mutations in 

 eye-colour. In the wild animal the retinal pigment 

 IS black. A single individual with red eyes appeared 

 in the second generation from animals brought into 

 the laboratory, and the new character was inherited 

 as a simple recessive. An albino-eyed type also 

 appeared, in which the eyes differed in many struc- 

 tural features from the normal type. Another muta- 

 tion, by no means" uncommon, consists in the loss 

 of the white pigment normally present between the 

 ommatidea of the eye. This may appear suddenly 

 •or gradually, or may develop in the animals as they 

 grow older. White-spotting also occurs on the bodies 

 of these animals occasionally, but the rules of its 

 inheritance show complications, and a pure spotted 

 race has not been obtained. 



In March of 1917 the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries appointed a Committee to consider the fresh- 

 Avater fisheries. Attention was directed to the use of 

 <:oarse fish as food, to the development of the eel 

 fisheries, and latterly to the improvement of the 

 salmon fisheries. Two interim reports were issued, 

 and as a result of these the Board made an Order in 

 March, 19 18, extending, as a war emergency measure, 

 the season of capture of coarse fish by one month. 

 This Order was revoked in the spring of 1919. A 

 further Order removing restrictions on eel-fishing and 

 abolishing the close season for pike was made in 

 April, 1918, and revoked in October, 1919. Dealing 

 with the eel fisheries, the Committee recommended 

 that the factory on the Severn owned by the German 

 Fisheries Union should be taken over, and, "after pro- 

 longed negotiations," this was done. The factory ex- 

 ported some five millions of elvers annually to Germany 

 before the war. Arrangements were made to carry 

 it on, and in 1918 and 1919 about 2^ millions of 

 elvers were distributed throughout this country. The 

 Committee hopes this work may be continued regu- 

 larly. In its final report, now published, practical 

 methods of eel cultivation are dealt with, and the 

 necessity for investigation into the biology of fresh- 

 water fishes in general is discussed. Recommenda- 

 tions are made with regard to the pollution of rivers, 

 improvements of the latter as breeding-grounds, and 

 the consolidation of the law as to fresh-water fisheries. 

 Practical suggestions for the cultivation of carp are 

 given in an appendix. 



Mr. W. B. Wkight, of the Geological Survey of 

 Ireland, has made " An Analysis of the Palaeozoic 

 Floor of North-East Ireland, with Predictions as to 

 Concealed Coalfields " (Sci. Proc. R. Dublin Soc, 

 yol. XV., No. 45, 1919, price i.-;. 6d.). Mr. Wright 

 accompanies his careful reasoning as to the synclines 

 and anticlines produced by the Armorican and later 

 foldings by a coloured geological map showing the 

 intersections of two systems of folds, and therefore the 

 probable domes and basins. He relies much on the 

 repetition of similar fold-features in the same area 

 during successive geological periods — that is, on the 

 NO. 2638, VOL. 105] 



principle of posthumous folding on which R. A. C. 

 Godwin-Austen based his prediction of the Dover 

 coalfield. It is no secret that the deep boring put 

 down recently by the Ministry of Munitions on the 

 west shore of Lough Neagh in accordance with the 

 arguments of Mr. Wright has more than proved his 

 main contention, the Carboniferous rocks, on the line 

 of the Armorican syncline of Central Scotland, having 

 been carried down by Cainozoic sinking to depths com- 

 pletely unexpected. 



The issue of the Revue scientifique for February 14 

 contains Prof. G. Friedel's opening address on his 

 installation in the chair of mineralogy at the Uni- 

 versity of Strasbourg. Prof. Friedel, himself an 

 Alsatian by birth, looks forward to the development 

 of research in a university that will never become 

 the slave of politics or the mere servant of industrial 

 ideals. He says finely: "La science n'est pas la 

 servante de 1 'Industrie, elle en est la m^re." His 

 address deals with the insight given by the use of 

 X-rays into crystalline and molecular structure, and 

 he describes the work inspired by Laue, of Munich, 

 in 1912 as "la plus belle assurement et la plus riche 

 en promesses de la cristallographie recente." In the 

 developments made by Sir W. H. and Prof.W. L. Bragg 

 he perceives the end of our conception of the existence 

 of molecules as such within a crystal, and a realisa- 

 tion of the crystal as one enormous molecule, in which 

 the grouping of the atoms does not permit of a division 

 into similarly constituted particles corresponding with 

 the molecules of the chemist. 



We have received from Koninklijk Magnetisch en 

 Meteorologisch Observatorium, Batavia, the volumes 

 of rainfall records in the Dutch East Indies for the 

 years 1915, 1916, and 1917 (Regenwaarnemingen in 

 Nederlandsch-Indie). The records are remarkably 

 complete, and comprise data from several thousand 

 stations scattered throughout the islands. There is 

 no discussion of the data, but the volume for 1915 

 gives the mean of more than three hundred stations 

 for the period 1879 ^^ 1915. The same volume gives 

 useful notes on the position and equipment of the 

 various stations. 



The Koninklijk Nederlandsch Meteorologisch In- 

 stituut has published the first part of an oceano- 

 graphical and meteorological folio atlas of the Atlantic 

 Ocean under the editorship of Dr. E. van Everdingen, 

 director of the institute. The present part covers the 

 months of December, January, and February, and is 

 based on observations from 1870 to 1914. It follows 

 the lines of the previous work on the Indian Ocean, 

 and utilises mainly the observations of Dutch vessels, 

 but these are supplemented by data from the Meteoro- 

 logical Office, London, and the Deutsche Seewarte. 

 Maps for each month show the distribution of wind, 

 currents, sea- and air-temperature, cloudiness, and 

 floating ice. The volume of data which was to 

 accompany the atlas has been delayed in publication. 



The current (April) part of the Proceedings of the 

 London Mathematical Society is of melancholy 



