724 



NATURE 



[August 5, 1920 



We have received from the British Association Gom- 

 mittee on Zoological Bibliography and Publication 

 recommendations as to the way in which an author 

 should introduce references to previous work quoted 

 by him. Footnotes are condemned. The committee 

 recommends that, at all events in the case of longer 

 articles containing many references, a "list of works 

 referred to," arranged with the names of authors in 

 alphabetical order, should be printed at the beginning 

 or end of each article. In these lists the title of the 

 paper, name of the journal, date, number of series and 

 volume and the pages should be given. It would 

 then, in the text of the article, be necessary to qwote 

 only the author's name and the date, with the addi- 

 tion of a page-number where required. The committee 

 also discusses additions to the rules which should 

 be followed when introducing new genera or species 

 in zoological publications. 



In the Report of the American Museum of Natural 

 History for 19 19 President H. F. Osborn continues 

 his vigorous beating of the educational drum. The 

 museum, he writes, "is actually going backward." 

 Want of space and want of funds prevent the orderly 

 arrangement of the material already accumulated. 

 When the dinosaur rubs shoulders with the mammoth, 

 small wonder that newspaper science represents them 

 as contemporaries. The harmonious development of 

 exhibition galleries is at a standstill. African, Asiatic, 

 Polar, and Oceanic Halls are lacking ; for lack of 

 halls of fishes, of reptiles, and of birds of the eastern 

 hemisphere these animals are untruthfully arranged. 

 And the remedy? Extension of the museum on the 

 plan originally intended, partly as a memorial to 

 Theodore Roosevelt, whose connection with zoology is 

 a great asset for more than one museum, and partly 

 by separating the tax rolls and assessments for educa- 

 tional purposes from the general municipal rates and 

 starting a direct poll-tax for education — a tax which 

 would have a basis ten times as broad and would be 

 more willingly paid. It must not be inferred that Dr. 

 Osborn overlooks the research work of the museum, 

 which is the necessary foundation of its educational 

 activities. The team-work on fossil vertebrates accom- 

 plished under his guidance by Dr. W. D. Matthew 

 and an accomplished staff is a brilliant witness to the 

 contrary, and the report records a long list of re- 

 searches and publications in various branches of 

 science. But in New York, a's in this country, it is 

 through an appeal to the public on educational grounds 

 that funds can most readily be raised. 



Science and Industry for March, the oflficial journal 

 of the Australian Institute of Science and Industry, 

 contains a detailed account of the results of investiga- 

 tions in New South Wales on the extraction of 

 tannins from wattle-bark, which are of great import- 

 ance to the Australian leather industry. For many 

 vears the bark used has been obtained from two 

 species, the golden wattle of South Australia {Acacia 

 pycnantha) and the black or green wattle (.4. decur- 

 rens) and its varieties. As a result of the gradual 

 destruction of wattle-trees the Australian supply has 

 been largely supplemented by wattle-bark imported 

 from Natal, where plantations grown from Australian 

 NO. 2649, VOL. 105] 



seed have been formed. A valuable tan-bark is also 

 yielded by the mallet {Eucalyptus occidentalis) of 

 Western Australia. The faulty methods adopted for 

 the extraction of tannins are criticised, and an im- 

 proved process is suggested. 



In his presidential address to the Linnean Society 

 of New South Wales (abstract of Proceedings, 

 March 31, 1920) Mr. J. J. Fletcher referred to the 

 morphology of the so-called phyllodes characteristic 

 of many of the Australian acacias. According to the 

 definition in text-books, these are the flattened leaf- 

 stalks of bipinnate leaves which have lost their 

 blades, whereas they really represent the primary 

 axes of bipinnate leaves which have lost their pinnae. 

 Accordingly the name " euphyllode," as implying 

 something more than merely flattened petioles, is 

 proposed for them. The president also referred to 

 the recent costly visitation of drought, and pointed 

 out the need for a handbook or manual setting forth 

 the theoretical complementary side of the practical 

 activities of the man on the land, especially in rela- 

 tion to drought problems. A synopsis indicating the 

 scope and contents of such a handbook was offered 

 for discussion. 



Mr. F. Debenham, who accompanied Capt. Scott on 

 his last Antarctic expedition, puts forward (Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. Ixxv., p. 51, 1920) an ingenious 

 suggestion to explain the transfer of marine deposits 

 from the sea-floor to the surface of glacier ice, and 

 so finally to the land when glaciers melt away. A 

 massive glacier protruding seaward may pick up such 

 material by accreting ice along its base. Successive 

 accretions from the freezing sea raise this lower layer 

 until finally it comes to the surface, where ablation is 

 active during summer. It may then be transported to 

 some point impinged on by the ice. The interesting 

 occurrence of sodium sulphate, as mirabilite, in the ice 

 is held to be due to concentration of sea-water in cold 

 sub-glacial lagoons, the water of which has furnished 

 ice, enclosing the separated salt. The case of the 

 Great Salt Lake of Utah, in which sodium sulphate 

 separates when the temperature falls below about 

 20° F. (-7° C), is cited as an illustration. 



. A MEMORANDUM regarding the probable amount of 

 monsoon rainfall in 1920 by Dr. Gilbert T. Walker 

 has recently been issued. Data of importance are 

 given showing how the monsoon rainfall in India is 

 affected by previous .weather conditions over various 

 parts of the earth. In summing up the effects of the 

 various factors it is mentioned that the prejudicial 

 effect of snowfall from Persia to the Himalayas is 

 ' exerted when at the beginning of June the accumu- 

 lations extend over a larger area than usual. The 

 great excess of snow reported this year is confirmed 

 by the low temperatures in the Punjab. Heavy rain- 

 fall in South Ceylon, Zanzibar, East Africa, and 

 Seychelles is prejudicial, but data for this year show 

 a moderate deficit or normal conditions. A close 

 relationship exists between heavy rain in Java from 

 October to March and low barometric pressure in 

 Bombay in the succeeding six months; in Java the 

 rainfall was nearly normal and its effect is negligible. 

 High barometric pressure in Argentina and Chile is 



