May 26, 1898] 



NATURE 



87 



From the Cornell University Experiment Station, located at 



Ithaca, N.Y., we have received Bulletin No. 145, devoted to 



two important diseases of the pear, the " leaf-spot " (5£//oWa 



iricola), and the "leaf-blight" {Etitoinosporium mactilatnm), 



y Mr. B. M. Duggar, admirably illustrated ; and from that for 



I he University of Wisconsin Bulletin No. 65, on a bacterial rot 



. >f cabbage and allied plants (Bacillus campestris), by Mr. H. 



L. Russell, also well illustrated. These bulletins and the 



annual reports are sent free to all residents in the State on 



request. From the Michigan State Station we have also 



■jceived Bulletins^os. 151-153, containing a very large amount 



I practical information on the growth of vegetables and fruits 



aitable for cultivation in that State. 



In a recent article (March 17, p. 464) on the resources of the 

 West India Islands, reference was made to the necessity for 

 supplementing the staple products by the introduction of a 

 variety of cultural industries which would increase the wealth 

 of these Colonies The obvious way to lead to such develop- 

 ments is to establish a department of economic botany, for the 

 purpose of carrying out systematic experiments concerned with 

 agricultural cultivation, wherever necessary, and to extend the 

 equipment of existing botanic gardens so that proper attention 

 can be given to the introduction of new plants. Mr. J. H. 

 Hart, the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Trinidad, 

 in a lecture reprinted in the Bulletin of the Gardens, shows 

 that many at present minor industries might be developed with 

 profit in the Colony. He points out that Trinidad could grow 

 enough mahogany and cedar to supply the markets of Great 

 Britain, and if the island was simply a mahogany and cedar 

 forest, it would be one of the richest of our colonial possessions. 

 Yet no one plants cedar trees in the island, and no one plants 

 mahogany, Jamaica exports logwood to the value of 300,000/. 

 annually, but Trinidad, where logwood of the very finest 

 quality can be grown, sends none to market. Rubber trees 

 grow well in the Island, the trees in the Botanic Gardens 

 yielding from four to six pounds of rubber per tree per annum, 

 but they are not cultivated to any extent outside the Gardens. 

 In addition to these potential crops, Mr. Hart enumerates 

 fifty other products which could be successfully grown in 

 Trinidad. His lecture shows the valuable assistance which 

 botanic gardens are able to give to cultivators ; and we are 

 glad to see that the botanical department under his direction is 

 to be extended, land having now been allotted for the purpose 

 of establishing a section for economic and scientific work. The 

 extension encourages the hope that the reproach, that " Trinidad 

 has the wealth of the Straits Settlements going to waste," will 

 soon be removed. 



The fifth and sixth Reports on the Yorkshire Carboniferous 

 Flora, by Mr. Robert Kidston, are reprinted from the Trans- 

 actions of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union. 



The third edition of Mr. W. T. Lynn's little book on 

 "Remarkable Eclipses" has just been issued by Mr. Edward 

 Stanford. The book has been brought up to date by mention 

 of the total solar eclipses of August 1896, and January last. 



A SECOND edition of "Applied Bacteriology," by Messrs. 

 T. H. Pearmain and C. G. Moor, has just been published by 

 Messrs. Bailliere, Tindall, and Cox. Several parts of the book 

 have been enlarged and improved, and the whole has undergone 

 revision. A short account of the bacteriology of sewage has 

 been added. The volume provides stud<'nts, medical officers of 

 health, analysts and sanitarians with a good general survey of 

 the science of bacteriology. 



The second part of Mr. W. P. Hiern's " Catalogue of the 

 African Plants collected by Dr. Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853- 

 NO. 1 49 1, VOL. 58] 



61," comprising the natural orders of Dicotyledons from Com- 

 bretacere to Rubiace?e, has just been published by the Trustees 

 of the British Museum (Natural History). Another publication 

 which has just been issued from the Museum is a list of the 

 types and figured specimens of fossil Cephalopoda in the col- 

 lection, prepared by Mr. G. C. Crick. 



Three papers of interest to anthropologists appear in the 

 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania (1897). One 

 contains the results of measurements of the crania of Tasmanian 

 aboriginals now in the Ilobart Museum, compared with measure- 

 ments of the skulls of Europeans, by Dr. A. H. Clarke and Mr. 

 W. E. Harper. The authors do not attempt to draw con- 

 clusions as to the origin of the Tasmanian aboriginals, nor to 

 define their characteristics ; but the measurements of the skulls 

 of an extinct race constitute a work of value to anthropologists. 

 The two other anthropological papers in the Proceedings are by 

 Mr. J. B. Walker ; they contain a number of interesting notes 

 on the Tasmanian aborigines, extracted from the journals of 

 his father. 



The Rev. Prof. (j. Henslow has in preparation a volume 

 entitled *' Medical Works of the Fourteenth Century," consist- 

 ing of transcripts with notes from four MS. volumes con- 

 temporary with the works of Wiclif and Chaucer. These 

 transcripts will furnish illustrations of the crude and quaint 

 conceptions of the value of plants as drugs prevailing in the 

 Middle Ages. The volume will also contain an alphabetical 

 list of upwards of 700 medical and other plants mentioned in 

 works of the fourteenth century, compiled and identified with 

 their modern English and Latin equivalent names. 



Prof. T. W. Richards, of Harvard, whose name is already 

 identified with" the accurate determination of atomic weights, has 

 recently published the results of a redetermination of the atomic 

 weights of nickel and cob.ilt. The close approach to equality in 

 the atomic weights of these elements has always given a special 

 interest to any such redetermination, and this interest has been 

 increased in recent times by the suggestion that the two elements 

 are ordinarily associated with a third new element — "gnomium," 

 which is not separated from them in the usual course of analysis. 

 The evidence on which this suggestion was based by Kriiss and 

 Schmidt was subsequently rebutted by the work of Winkler ; yet 

 Winkler's own determinations of the atomic weight of cobalt by 

 two different methods gave results which differed by i part 

 in 200, viz. 59-82 and 59-52. Still later determinations by 

 Hempel and Thiele, by three methods, gave respectively 58 99, 

 5878 and 58 91. The method employed by Prof. Richards 

 consisted in the preparation of the bromides of nickel and cobalt, 

 and their analysis by means of pure silver nitrate. The greatest 

 precautions were taken in order to obtain pure anhydrous 

 materials, and the same methods of manipulation employed as 

 in the previous case of the determination of the atomic weight of 

 magnesium. The fourteen experiments with nickel bromide 

 agree remarkably, the extreme differences being just over I part 

 in 1000. Thirteen experiments with cobalt bromide show an 

 equally good agreement. The numbers given finally are for 

 nickel 58-69 and cobalt 58-99 (0=16). Prof. Richards, antici- 

 pating the criticism that his determinations are based on a single 

 method, remarks that a series of carefully conducted determina- 

 tions by a single reliable method have especial value in the case 

 of nickel and colialt, where hitherto accuracy has been sought by 

 varying the methods rather than by securing constancy in the 

 results attainable by any one of them. Prof. Richards concludes 

 that discrepancies among previous determinations of the atomic 

 weights of nickel and cobalt afford no evidence of the existence 

 of the hypothetical gnomium, nor do his own observations in any 

 way indicate the existence of such an element. 



