52 



NATURE 



[March 15, 1917 



ance, in spite of the arduous work and heavy respon- 

 sibilities which the provision of maps for the French 

 Army entailed. In these, too, he made numerous 

 improvements. The remea^surement of the arc ot 

 meridian in France naturally suggested a revision 

 of the arc of Peru, which had been measured in the 

 eighteenth century in connection with the geodetic 

 operations in France. A proposal to this effect was 

 warmly supported by the International Geodetic Com- 

 mission at its meeting at Stuttgart in 1898, and in 

 June, 1899, work was commenced under the direction 

 of General Bassot, and has since been carried to a 

 successful termination. At several meetings of the 

 International Geodetic Commission General Bassot 

 presented reports on various geodetic operations, and 

 at its meeting of 1903 he was elected president, which 

 post he held until the commission automatically 

 ceased to exist at the end of 19 16, a few days before 

 his death. On his retirement from the Army he 

 became director of the Observatory of Nice in 1904, 

 and devoted his energies to scientific work there and 

 to his geodetic studies, besides taking part in an 

 expedition to Spain in 1905 to observe the eclipse of 

 the sun of that year. He was elected a member of 

 the Acad^mie des Sciences in 1893. 



The Journal of Mental Science for October, 1916, 

 contains an interesting article by Prof. E. W. Scripture 

 on " Reaction Time in Nervous and Mental Diseases." 

 The fact that we judge whether a person is normal 

 or not by our observations or how he reacts to his 

 environment suggests that the study of nervous and 

 mental diseases would be furthered by having some 

 method by which we could study in detail the reac- 

 tions of a patient to various stimuli. The usual 

 reaction time apparatus is complicated, and involves 

 much laborious calculation before the records can be 

 utilised; it is therefore unsuitable for clinical work. 

 The author of the article has devised, in order to 

 obviate this, a self-recording method that shows 

 directly to the eye, without measurement, how quick 

 the reaction time is and how it varies. He gives 

 details of records obtained with this apparatus from 

 normal people and from patients suffering from alco- 

 holism, hysteria, epilepsy, and general paralysis. The 

 few diseases studied show marked reaction types, even 

 for the simple form of reaction, and the author thinks 

 that the test can be made so complete and trustworthy 

 as to give an accurate diagnosis of many nervous 

 diseases. 



Profs. M. Boule and R. Anthony, in the Journal 

 of Anatomy for January, make a spirited reply to 

 Prof. Symington's strictures on deductions drawn 

 from endocranial casts taken from human skulls. In 

 their paper, "Neopallial Morphology of Fossil Men as 

 Studied from Endocranial Casts," they contend that 

 Prof. Symington's mistake lies in assuming, implicitly 

 and without question, that what is true of modern 

 men must also, necessarily, be true of Neander- 

 thalians. As a matter of fact, they show that, while 

 in modern man furrows are to be seen only at the 

 base of such brain casts, in Neanderthalians these 

 furrows are traceable on the frontal and occipital 

 regions. They also show that in the case of the 

 lemurs, and in carnivores and ungulates, endocranial 

 casts show the neopallial foldings over the whole 

 bram, which can be read on a cast nearly as easily, 

 and with as much exactitude and precision, as on the 

 surface of the brain itself. 



^According to Commerce Reports (Washington) of 

 June 12, 19 15, nearly 400 square miles of seaweed- 

 beds exist along the United States Pacific coast. 

 From this area it is oflficially estimated that 59,000,000 

 NO. 2472, VOL. 99] 



tons of seaweed might be cut annually, from which 

 2,300,000 tons of potassium chloride could be pro- 

 duced. Arrangements have been made by the United 

 States Department of Agriculture for experimental 

 work on the production of potash from this seaweed 

 to be carried out on a commercial scale. In the New 

 York Journal of Commerce of November 24 (quoted 

 in the Journal of the Board of Agriculture, February, 

 p. 1 158) it is stated that an appropriation of 175,000 

 dollars has been made for the purpose, and that the 

 plant will probably be established in southern Cali- 

 fornia, either at Santa Barbara or Long Beach. A 

 plant capable of dealing with about 200 tons of wet 

 seaweed per day will be erected, and a daily yield 

 of about five tons of potassium chloride is expected. 

 Numerous methods will be employed experimentally, 

 but for the most part distillation processes will be 

 used. 



In a recent communication from the National 

 Health Insurance Commission (England) to the 

 Board of Agriculture and Fisheries the opinion is 

 expressed that of the many home-grown plants used 

 in the treatment of disease only four can be regarded, 

 from a medical point of view, as really essential — 

 namely, belladonna, henbane, digitalis, and colchicum. 

 The communication, which is published in the Feb- 

 ruary issue of the Journal of the Board of Agri- 

 culture, proceeds further to give approximate estimates 

 of the amounts of these essential plants required 

 annually for home consumption, ranging from about 

 50 tons each of dried leaves and roots in the case of 

 belladonna to about 20-25 tons each of dried leaves of 

 henbane and digitalis, and a much smaller quantity 

 of colchicum. It appears that there is sufficient 

 digitalis and colchicum growing wild in this country 

 to meet home requirements, and that a considerable 

 proportion of the home demand for belladonna and 

 henbane could also be met by the collection of wild 

 plants with well-organised schemes for collection and 

 drying. Moreover, the cultivated area under bella- 

 donna and henbane has considerably increased since 

 the outbreak of war, and probably now suffices, to- 

 gether with the supplies obtainable from wild plants, 

 for home requirements. 



The relation of the geographical conditions to the 

 present situation in Mexico, as it may affect the 

 United States, Is the subject of some notes in the 

 Geographical Review for January (vol. ill., No, i). 

 It is p>ointed out that the scene of action, if the 

 United States intervenes in the affairs of Mexico, 

 must be in the thinly peopled and arid northern 

 frontier regions, where conditions are greatly in favour 

 of the Mexicans. Water is scarce, and transportation 

 of men, food, and materials will be difficult, which 

 will handicap the Americans, but, on the other hand, 

 will be correspondingly an advantage to the Mexicans, 

 habituated to life in these desert conditions. A 

 campaign in northern Mexico would therefore involve 

 transport arrangements costly out of all proportion 

 to the number of troops employed, and it would be 

 far removed from the high plateau on which are 

 situated nearly all the great cities of Mexico and most 

 of its population. The article has a short but useful 

 bibliography of geographical works on Mexico, and 

 is accompanied by a map of the • northern frontier 

 regions. 



In a paper in the Geographical Journal for 

 February (vol. xlix., No. 2) Mr. C. B Fawcett has 

 tried to devise administrative divisions for England 

 and Wales more rational and more in harmony with 

 local and regional consciousness than the divisions into 

 counties. The aim of his divisions is to facilitate good 

 local government. This entails certain considerations. 



