October 2, 1919] 



NATURE 



97 



Editor: Major G. W. C. Kaye. Council: Mr. W. E. 

 Schall, Dr. G. H. Rodman, Mr. C. Howard Head, 

 Mr. C. R. C. Lyster, Dr. J. Metcalfe, Mr. E. P. 

 Cumberbatch, Dr. A. E. Barclay, Mr. F. J. Harlow, 

 Dr. W. Makower, Dr. E. A. Owen, Mr. J. Russell 

 Reynolds, and Mr. R. S. Wright. 



A CONGRESS attended by 350 persons met at Mar- 

 seilles in January last, under the auspices of the local 

 Chamber of Commerce, to discuss and emphasise the 

 rights of France over Syria. The discussions of the 

 congress were divided into four sections : — Economics, 

 archcBology and history, education, and medicine and 

 hygiene. A summary of the main papers of geo- 

 graphical interest is given in La Giographie 

 (vol. xxxii., No. 5). M. E. de Marbonne contributed 

 a paper on the geographical unity of Syria, in which 

 he showed that Syria cannot be divided latitudinally, 

 but that the natural divisions of the country extend 

 from north to south, and are separated approximately 

 by meridians from the Mediterranean to the valley of 

 the Euphrates. Various papers of considerable value, 

 although from a distinctive point of view, dealt with 

 the trade and ports of Syria. 



At the instigation of the Admiralty, the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society has taken steps to form a permanent 

 committee on geographical names, on which the 

 Admiralty, War Office, Foreign Office, Colonial 

 'Ofilice, India Office, Post OtBce, Board of Trade, 

 Board of Agriculture, and the Royal Geographical 

 Society are represented The chairman of the Com- 

 mittee is Major-Gen. Lord Edward Gleichen, and 

 Mr. A. R. Hinks is acting povisionally as secretary. 

 The Committee hopes eventually to examine all cases 

 of doubtful nomenclature and spelling in the place- 

 names of the British Empire, accepting, wherever 

 possible, official name-lists such as those provided by 

 the Gazetteer of India, the Board of Geographic 

 names of Canada, etc. Place-names of the British 

 Isles are outside the scope of the Committee, as they 

 are dealt with by the Ordnance Survey. Lists of 

 names will be published at intervals after they have 

 been submitted for approval to the authorities of the 

 country concerned. Correspondence regarding con- 

 fused or doubtful place-names of which the writer 

 has personal knowledge is invited, and should be ad- 

 dressed to the Secretary, Committee on Place-Names, 

 c/o Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, 

 London, S.W.7. 



The Journal of the Royal Micioscopical Society for 

 June {part 2, 1919) contains an important paper by 

 Mr. J. Bronte Gatenby on the identification of intra- 

 cellular structures. Considerable difficulty is often 

 experienced in distinguishing several categories of 

 cell elements. The Golgi apparatus, 'mitochondria, 

 yolk, and fat are, or contain, substances often iden- 

 tical and generally chemically allied. For this reason 

 care must be exercised in any attempt to identify a 

 given cell body, and it is clearly recognised that the 

 mixture of two or more of the above-mentioned 

 elements may lead to confusion. The characteristics 

 of the various elements of the cell which the zoologist 

 may meet with, and the manner in which they may 

 be distinguished by staining methods and micro- 

 chemical tests, is indicated in tabular form. 



The Review of Work in 1918 of the Rockefeller 

 Foundation has recently been issued. The activities 

 of the foundation include a campaign against tuber- 

 culosis in France, which is mainly engaged in co- 

 ordinating the various agencies already in existence 

 for combating this disease. Demonstrations to test 

 the possibility of ridding a community of malaria by 

 NO. 2605, VOL. 104] 



anti-mosquito measures have been carried out in 

 Arkansas with considerable success, and an epidemic 

 of yellow fever in Guatemala has been stamped out. 

 Measures for the control and prevention of hook- 

 worm disease have been undertaken in many tropical 

 countries. Medical education is also encouraged by 

 the foundation ; the Pekin Union Medical College is 

 being built under its auspices, and grants are made 

 to many missionary hospitals. The total disburse- 

 ments of the foundation for 1918 amounted to more 

 than 15,000,000 dollars, and war-work expenditure 

 during the war totals nearly 22,500,000 dollars. 



In an article published in a recent issue of the 

 North China Daily News Mr. Austin J. Clements 

 estimates that to maintain the trade in musk which 

 passes across the Szechuan-Tibetan border, about 

 100,000 musk-deer must be captured and killed each 

 year. The quantity of musk brought into Tachienlu, 

 the chief centre of the trade, shows no sign of 

 diminution, so that apparently the annual drain, 

 large as it is, has so far had no noticeable effect on 

 the musk-deer population of Eastern Tibet. Mr. 

 Clements thinks it may be feasible to rear musk- 

 deer in semi-captivity, and to collect musk from the 

 animals without killing them. The wholesale 

 slaughter which now goes on is largely unnecessary, 

 since the snaring methods employed lead to the 

 destruction of large numbers of females and im- 

 mature males, whereas only male deer more than 

 three years of age secrete musk. The article con- 

 tains a good deal of information regarding the trade 

 in musk, not the least interesting item being the 

 statement that one firm in Tachienlu devotes itself 

 solely to the manufacture of an adulterant, which 

 resembles true musk in all respects save smell, the 

 latter being provided by the addition of a small 

 quantity of genuine musk. In coping with this and 

 other less ingenious forms of sophistication the 

 Chinese merchant is accustomed to rely on his per- 

 sonal judgment of the appearance, taste and smell, 

 etc., of the article offered to him, so that it is not 

 surprising that some authorities believe that all the 

 musk exported from Tachienlu is more or less 

 adulterated. 



In connection with the Rat Exhibition held a few 

 months ago in the gardens of the Zoological Society 

 of London, special investigations were made into 

 the various methods of rat destruction. Mr. E. G. 

 Boulenger was placed in charge of this research, and 

 on September 26, in a lecture presided over by Prof. 

 E. W. MacBride, and attended by a large gathering 

 of medical officers of health, sanitary officers, and 

 rat officers, he gave an account of the results 

 obtained. He stated that in the course of his inves- 

 tigations it was ascertained that, not only had the 

 common brown rat very greatly increased in numbers 

 in recent years, but also that the old English black 

 rat, or ship's rat, which was supposed to have 

 been practicallv exterminated in this country by 

 the commoner species, and to be restricted to ports 

 and ships, had become much more abundant, and 

 the two species of rats were now found in various 

 parts of London living together in harmony. Where 

 rats were present in large numbers, and where it was 

 not practicable to use gas, poisoning was found to be 

 the best and cheapest method to adopt for their 

 destruction. Of all the poisons experimented with, 

 squill, the extract of the bulb of the Mediterranean 

 plant Scilla maritima, gave the greatest satisfaction. 

 Good results were also obtained with barium car- 

 bonate. Both these poisons, Mr. Boulenger said, 

 were, in the small quantities required to kill rats 



