ii8 



NATURE 



[October 9. igig 



The lions, tigers, and buffaloes are distinctly inferior 

 to the Nineveh hunting scenes described in the 

 previous article. 



Mr. V. Stek.wsson describes his successful method 

 of Arctic exploration in an interesting article entitled 

 " IJving Off the Country" in the Mav issue of the 

 Geographical Review (vol. vii.. No. 5). Mr. Stefans- 

 son's well-known adoption of Eskimo habits and diet 

 have enabled him to travel with very light loads and 

 to penetrate far into the unknown for long periods 

 without any anxiety. He contends that from experi- 

 ence he has found that a diet of flesh or fish is quite 

 sufficient to sustain a person in good ph\sical and 

 mental condition, and that salt is not necessarv for 

 health. White men whom he has known to have 

 lived for a year or more on an exclusive meat diet 

 have shown no desire to return to the varied and 

 elaborate diet of civilisation. So convinced is Mr. 

 Stefansson of the abundance of food' in the Arctic 

 lands and seas he knows that he asserts that any 

 man conversant with the ways of wild animals and 

 the hunting and living methods of the Eskimo can 

 load on one dog-team all the equipment he needs for a 

 journey of several vears. Where previous explorers 

 had carried food and fuel, Mr. Stefansson carried 

 neither, choosing to adapt himself to his environment 

 rather than fight it. Instead of taking food and fuel 

 he carried meiely the instruments for obtaining them. 

 Bv economv in the use of ammunition one can obtain 

 as much as two tons of food for a pound of am- 

 munition, or, in other words, ammunition is several 

 thousand times as economical to carry as the most 

 condensed kind of food. The paper deals at length 

 with the methods of .Arctic hunting, particularly seal- 

 stalking. 



In his presidential address to the seventeenth 

 meeting of, the South .African .Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, held in July last, the Rev. 

 Dr. W. Flint discussed the thorny problem of " Race 

 Consciousness " in the light of modern scientific 

 opinion. He regarded "national consciousness" as a 

 mental tendency which had been fostered among the 

 peoples of Europe, by territorial and linguistic 

 boundaries, and by the propagation of a community 

 of ideas. " Race consciousness," as seen in South 

 Africa and in the Southern States of .America, on the 

 other hand, was an inherent proclivity or "property 

 of human nature," and demanded the closest scrutiny 

 and most accurate study on behalf of all men of 

 science if political bankruptcy was to be avoided. In 

 Spanish .\merica lacial animosities had been dis. 

 solved bv miscegenation, but that method was un- 

 thinkable as a solution of South .African racial diffi- 

 culties. There was also another plan, the proposal 

 to segregate native races in demarcated territories, 

 but in practice that proved an impossible working 

 policy. There was a third proposal which had been 

 debated, the frank recognition of racial antagonism 

 and the resolution on the part of each race to live 

 within its own armed camp. The solution advocated 

 bv Dr. Flint was none of these, but the cultivation 

 and recognition of an "international consciousness," 

 which could be fostered by education and by the 

 recognition on the part of "superior" peoples that 

 every race has its rights, economical, political, and 

 social. Dr. Flint holds that "racial con.sciousness " 

 can be uprooted and replaced by an intellectu.il " inter- 

 racial consciousness," and that racial conflicts can 

 be avoided only bv edutation^of whites as well as of 

 blacks. On the biological significance of "race con- 

 .sciousness " Dr. Flint did not attempt to throw any 

 light ; that is a matter which still awaits patient 

 investigation. Everyone interested in the problems 



NO. 2606, VOL. 104] * 



of racial contact will find food for thought and sub- 

 jects for observation in Dr. Flint's presidential 

 address. 



The Board of .Agriculture has received the follow- 

 mg mformation from the International Agricultural 

 Institute at Rome :— The yield of wheat in Spain, 

 .Scotland, Italy, Canada, the United States, India. 

 Japan, and Tunis is estimated at 929,525,000 cwt., or 

 56 per cent, below the 1918 crop, and" i-i per cent, 

 below the average yield of the five years 1913-17. 

 The estimated production of rve for Italy, Canada 

 and the United States is given 'as 48,274,000 cwt., or 

 7-1 per cent, below last year's production, but 67-3 per 

 cent, above the average crop for the vears 1913-17 

 The barley crop for Scotland, Italy,' Canada, the 

 United States, Japan, and Tunis is estimated at 

 '59.397.ooo cwt., or 151 per cent, below last year's 

 production, and 41 per cent, above the average pro- 

 duction of the years 1913-17. The estimated produc- 

 tion of oats in Scotland, Italy, Canada, the United 

 States, Japan, and Tunis is 491,933,000 cwt., or 

 i8-4 per cent, below the 1918 vield, and 72 per cent, 

 below the average yield of the five vears 1913-17. 

 The maize crop in Italy, Canada, and the United 

 States IS estimated at 1,473,592,000 cwt., or 10-2 per 

 cent, above the 1918 production, and 3 per cents above 

 the average yield of the years 1913-17. 



The flora of Aldabra and other small islands of 

 the western Indian Ocean is the subject of an article 

 by Dr. Hemsley in the Kew Bulletin (No. 3, 1919). 

 .Aldabra is an atoll, similar in size to the Isle of 

 Wight, 220 miles north-west of .Mad.agascar, and about 

 600 miles from the Seychelles Archipelago. Assump- 

 tion, the nearest island, is about twenty miles distant. 

 .Aldabra is densely clothed with vegetation, which is 

 unusually rich for an atoll flora, comprising 

 herbaceous, shrubby, and arboreous species. Exclud- 

 ing species intioduced by human agency, the flora com- 

 prises more than 170 species of flowering plants, repre- 

 senting 127 genera and 54 families, proportions which 

 are characteristic generally of insular floras. Gras.ses 

 number 14 species, Rubiace» 15, and I.eguminosse 12. 

 The Rubiaceee constitute the predominating element 

 in the woody vegetation, both as to number and 

 diversity of genera and number of species, but are 

 less con.spicuous in the scenery than the mangroves, 

 the figs, and a species of Euphorbia. The vegetation 

 consists of four types: — (i) Mangrove swamp, which 

 fringes the lagoon. (2) Pemphis bush, a dense growth 

 of the hard-wooded Feinpliis acidiila (Lvthraceaj), a 

 widely distributed sea-coast plant. (3) Open bush, 

 mostly of low trees and bushes, which are usually 

 leafless in the dry season and flower at the beginning 

 of the rains; herbaceous plants are scarce, and only 

 found in the wet season. .Almost all the .Aldabra 

 plants are to be found in this ty|x; of country. (4) Shore 

 zone, extending round th<' atoll, varying much in 

 width and supporting some widely distributed littoral 

 species. The coco-nut, of which there are conspicuous 

 plantations, is regarded as an introduced plant. Dr. 

 Hemslev is convinced that this palm is a native of 

 .South .America, the home of all the numerous species 

 of the genus, and that its present wide distribution is 

 due to human agency. Some particulars are also 

 given of the floras of other islands in the western 

 Indian Oce.in, and of their relations with the flora of 

 .Aldabra. The data collected point to the common 

 origin of the flora of .Mdabra and the neighbouring 

 islands, and indicate that the flora is essentially 

 .African and almost without any infusion of a Malayan 

 element, such as exists in the Seychelles and the 

 Mascarene Islands. 



