64 



NATURE 



[September i8, 1919 



ing out in three streams, destroyed the town of BIjtar 

 and about thirty villages, and caused the death of 

 several thousand persons. The place was visited by 

 an exploring party two days later, and an interesting 

 two-page reproduction of one of the photographs of 

 the mud-stream is given in the Illustrated London 

 News for September 13 (pp. 396-97). 



At a joint meeting of the Royal .Asiatic Society, 

 Soci6t6 Asiatique, American Oriental Society, and 

 Scuola Orientale of the University of Rome, recently 

 held in London, Prof. A. T. Clay, of Yale University, 

 described the efforts of American scholars to free them- 

 selves from dependence on Germany for research work 

 in Asia. Several young Assyriologists in America are 

 now devoting themselves to research work. Yale Uni- 

 versity has taken over the work of Sir VV. Ramsay at 

 Antioch, and the American School of Oriental Re- 

 search in Palestine, which was closed on account of 

 the war, is now to be re-opened on a more extensive 

 scale. At least one professor and several students will 

 be sent annually from Yale to direct operations, which 

 will be carried out in cooperation with the British 

 School, which will be founded on a more important 

 basis. 



Students of the mygalomorph spiders will do well to 

 consult a critical systematic paper on South African 

 species by John Hewitt in the Annals of the Transvaal 

 Museum (vol. vi., pt. 3). 



Some results of a collecting expedition to Korinchi 

 Peak, Sumatra, are published in the Journal of the 

 Federated Malay States Museums (vol. vii., pt. 3, 

 1919). Descriptions, with excellent figures, of a num- 

 ber of Diptera, by F. W. Edwards, of the British 

 Museum, are especially noteworthy. 



We have received the seventeenth Report of the 

 State Entomologist of Minnesota. In addition to 

 articles of economic interest, it contains several papers 

 of systematic value, such as O. W. Oestlund's contri- 

 bution to the classification of aphids and F. L. Wash- 

 burn's summary of the Hymenoptera of the State. The 

 illustrations in this Report are exceptionally praise- 

 worthy. 



Drs. S. Hadwen and A. E. Cameron, working for 

 the Canadian Department of .Agriculture, have made 

 a definite contribution to our knowledge of horse 

 bot-flies (Bull. Entom. Research, vol. ix., pt. 2) by 

 their observations on the eggs and early larvae of Gas- 

 trophilus haemorrhoidalis and G. nasalis as compared 

 .with G. inteslinalis (equintis). The first-named' species 

 has stalked eggs which are laid on the hairs of horse's 

 lips, while the second lays on the hairs of the inter- 

 maxillary space. It is possible that the newly-hatched 

 larvae may penetrate the horse's skin in these regions, 

 as they were found to bore into the mucous lining of 

 the mouth and also into the tongue of a recently killed 

 calf. 



The possibilities of the manufacture of paper-pulp 

 in -Australia is the subject of a Bulletin (No. 11) issued 

 by the Advisory Council of Science and Industry of 

 the Commonwealth of Australia. The bulletin describes 

 the results of some preliminary investigations of the 

 native sources of wood-pulp and pulp from fibre-plants. 

 The most satisfactory results have been obtained with 

 karri and other species of eucalypts, and it is sug- 

 gested that a thorough survey of the resources might 

 indicate the possibility of building up a wood-pulp 

 industry in Australia. As regards the fibre-plants, a 

 number were found on testing to be unsuitable for 

 paper-making. It is unlikely that either of the grasses 

 Lalang or Marram, which have been used for pulping 



NO. 2603, VOL. 104] 



purposes, could be employed profitably in .\ustralia, 

 and negative results have also been" obtained with 

 prickly pear. A blend of 20 per cent, of a sedge 

 {Gahnia decomposita) and 80 per cent, karri-pulp is 

 reported as very .satisfactory. The conclusion is that 

 if -Australia's demands for paper are to be supplied 

 from native sources, the principal material to be used 

 for some years to come must be straw, of which large 

 quantities are produced within a hundred miles' radius 

 of .Adelaide. 



Various memoranda and letters on "The Recon- 

 struction of Elementary Botanical Teaching," which 

 appeared in the New Phytologist during 1917-1S-19, 

 have been brought together in pamphlet form. .As 

 indicated by the letters, the teaching refers almost 

 exclusively to the elementary university course, and 

 the participants in the discussion are, with few excep- 

 tions, engaged in teaching of a universitv standard. 

 The discussion originated from a memorandum by 

 five botanists who pleaded for a more important place 

 for plant physiology as compared with morphologv in 

 the elementary course. This was regarded bv some 

 eminent jiiorphologists as a challenge, to which they 

 replied w-ith some vigour. The discussion brings out 

 the fact that botany is a wide subject, attracting 

 students of widely differing temperaments, and there 

 is real difficulty in planning an elementary course 

 which shall form an adequate introduction to the 

 different branches in one or more of which the student 

 may subsequently spK-cialise. .As regards the motif of 

 the elementary course, it is important that the plant 

 should be studied as a living organism and as part 

 of a larger organisation which is closely associated 

 with its environment. But present-day plant-life is 

 not merely the expression of present-day environment, 

 but largely the outcome of past history ; and the 

 neglect of the studv of history may be disastrous. 

 There is a considerable amount of elementary botanical 

 teaching outside the universities, and the point of 

 view and methods suitable for the universitv student 

 are not necessarily those suited to boys and girls at 

 school. 



Although the statement is made quite definitely in 

 many text-books that formic acid occurs in the 

 stinging hairs of the common nettle {Urtica dioica), 

 the proof has not hitherto been very satisfactory. In 

 early experiments the nettles were cut up, distilled 

 with water, and reactions of formic acid obtained on 

 testing the distillate. Later observers, however, have 

 found that various parts of plants yield formic acid 

 when tested in a similar manner. Hence it was not 

 certain that the acid in the earlier experiments had 

 come from the stinging hairs; it might have been 

 derived from the general plant tissues. Moreover, 

 one of the chief chemical reactions of formic acid, 

 namely, its power of reducing salts of silver and 

 mercury, is not necessarily a conclusive proof of the 

 presence of the acid under the particular conditions of 

 these earlier experiments, since other "reducing" 

 substances might also have been present. The ques- 

 tion, however, appears to have now been definitely 

 settled through some ingenious experiments devised 

 by Dr. Leonard Dobbin (Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh, vol. xxxix., ii., No. 11). By 

 pressing the leaves of growing nettles between dry 

 filter-paper impregnated with barium carbonate, the 

 contents of many thousands of hairs were absorbed 

 without contamination by juices from any other part 

 of the plant. After appropriate treatment the product 

 vielded barium and lead salts, which were crystallised 

 on glass slides, and the two formates identified under 

 the microscope. Whether or not formic acid is the 

 main cause of the intense irritation produced by nettle- 



