70 



NATURE 



[March 22, 1917 



used for various purposes, and before the war was 

 sold at prices ranging- from about 31/. to about 50Z. 

 per ton, according to the degree of purity. Podszus 

 proposes to malce refractory ware ot fused zirconia, 

 burning at 230o°-24oo° C. in a furnace made chiefly 

 of fused zirconia, using coal-gas, petroleum, or acetyl- 

 ene, first with air-blast and finally with oxygen-blast. 

 Ruff and Lauschke found the melting point of pure 

 zirconia to be 2563° ± 10° C, and that addition of small 

 proportions of alumina (i i^er cent.), thoria (i per 

 cent.), or yttria (i to 3 per cent.) was beneficial when 

 burning zirconia up to 2000°, 2200°, or 2400° C. re- 

 spectively. Dr. J. W. Mellor ascribed the spalling of 

 magnesite bricks to two main causes : the shrinkage 

 resulting from the change of calcined magnesite from 

 a form having a lower specific gravity to a form with 

 a higher specific gravity, and the shrinkage caused by 

 the closing of the pores on heating. The feasibility 

 of setting up a definite standard was asserted. Prof. 

 J. W. Cobb, referring to methods of control for the 

 temperature-time-atmosphere effects, said he had found 

 it necessary to make Seger cones considerably larger, 

 so that they might be easily visible in position and 

 better able to withstand accidental heat-waves. He 

 also found it advantageous to modify the shape, so 

 as to give an edge instead of a point above. He hoped 

 that now they are being made in England their dis- 

 advantages will not be perpetuated. 



The death of Mr. Baldwin Latham. at the advanced 

 age of eighty removes a notable link with the engineer- 

 ing profession in Victorian days. A generation ago 

 Mr. Latham was in the forefront of practising civil 

 engineers, and was widely known and respected as an 

 authority on all matters connected with the science of 

 sanitation. He was twice president of the Royal 

 Meteorological Society and president of several other 

 scientific societies, as well as twice Master of the Play- 

 ing Card Makers' Company. His book on sanitary 

 engineering, first published in 1873, speedily obtained 

 recognition as a standard work, and was awarded a 

 diploma of honour at the Health Exhibition of 1884. 

 In the course of his practice, Mr. Latham was com- 

 missioned to prepare a great number of reports on 

 schemes of water supply and sanitation for various 

 localities. In Great Britain he actually carried into 

 execution more than one hundred such works, in 

 addition to advising on a great many more. 

 Abroad, he designed and constructed water-supply and 

 sewage-disposal works for Calcutta, Bombay, Ahmeda- 

 bad, and other Indian cities, and he also prepared a 

 scheme for Cairo. He was a great authority on under- 

 ground water, and carried out extensive hydro-geo- 

 logical surveys. By the knowledge he acquired, he 

 was enabled to forecast the outbreaks of the Croydon 

 Bourne, which in some years flows down the Cater- 

 ham Valley. 



By the death on March 3' of Mr. A. E. Gibbs, at 

 fifty-eight years of age, St. Albans has lost one of its 

 most esteemed citizens, and science an able and 

 assiduous naturalist. Although engaged in business 

 as a printer and part proprietor of the Herts Advertiser 

 and the Luton News, Mr. Gibbs took an active part 

 m all local educational matters, having been honorary 

 secretary of the School of Science and Art, a member 

 of the Education and Public Library Committees, and 

 one of the founders of the new High School for Girls, 

 and also of the Hertfordshire County Museum, of which 

 he was a secretary and the curator of the natural 

 history and numismatic collections, to each of 

 which, and also to the archaeological collection, he 

 contributed largely. Commencing his scientific 

 studies with geology, he early turn^ his attention to 

 botany, especially cryptogamic, but lately he had 



NO. 2473, VOL. 99] 



chiefly devoted his energies to entomology, collecting 

 Lepidoptera and other insects, not only in this 

 country, but also on the continent of Europe and in 

 northern Africa. He was a fellow of the Linnean, 

 Zoological, Entomological, and Royal Horticultural 

 Societies, and when he died was near the end of his 

 two 5ears' term of office as president of the Hertford- 

 shire Natural History Society, his last publication, 

 one of many papers he contributed to the society, 

 being a presidential address on the " Satyrid Butter- 

 flies of Hertfordshire," illustrated by a coloured plate 

 of Pararge aegeria and its varieties. 



It is with deep regret that we record the death, 

 at the age of seventy-one, of Charles Achille Muntz, 

 the distinguished French agricultural chemist, who 

 was well known for his investigations on air, soil, and 

 agricultural products generally. Muntz was of 

 s^lsatian birth,- and began his scientific career as " pre- 

 parateur " for Boussingault at the Conservatoire des 

 Arts-et-Metiers, by whom he was attracted to agri- 

 cultural chemistry. His first Important work was 

 done in connection with Schloessing in 1878, and 

 formed a simple yet striking investigation, which at 

 once attracted world-wide attention and has since led 

 to remarkable developments. It had long been known 

 that nitrates are formed in soil from nitrogenous 

 organic compounds, and the reaction was proved to 

 be of the highest agricultural importance. But the 

 mechanism of the change was unknown ; neither 

 chemical nor physical causes seemed to account for 

 it, and no other agent was susi>ected. Schloessing 

 and Muntz began by measuring the amount of nitri- 

 fication taking place when dilute sewage was allowed 

 to trickle down ? tube packed with chalk ; they found 

 that no action occurred for twenty-one da)fs, but then 

 it suddenly set in. Why, they asked, was this delay? 

 If the process were chemical or physical, it should 

 set in at once; the only explanation appeared to be 

 that it was biological, the period of delay being the 

 time needed for the multiplication of the organisms. 

 This hypothesis was tested by adding a little chloro- 

 form ; the process at once stopped ; it was started 

 again, however, when the chloroform was removed 

 and some soil extract added. Although Muntz did 

 not proceed further with the work, others took it up,, 

 and it led to the establishment of a new branch of 

 science — soil bacteriology. Some years afterwards he 

 showed how nitrification might be intensified so as to 

 give a commercial source of nitrate if necessary; but 

 subsequent electrical developments have probably dis- 

 placed biological methods on the large scale. His 

 other investigations, if they attracted less attention, 

 were no less meritorious ; he did good work on the 

 chemistry of the atmosphere, determining its content 

 of ammonia and nitric acid, and demonstrating also 

 the presence of alcohol. His other chemical work 

 dealt with mannite and other sugars, and with the 

 nutrition of animals ; finally, mention must be made 

 of his admirable book on manures. 



In the March issue of Man Prof. C. G. Seligman 

 discusses a series of canoe prow ornaments from 

 Netherlands New Guinea. The occurrence of repre- 

 sentations of birds in these carvings suggests that 

 the natives of this region may have totem birds. 

 It is remarkable that ornaments of this type do not 

 seem to occur in British New Guinea west of Cape 

 Nelson promontory. The suggestion is made that 

 the Humboldt Bay ornaments represent the more 

 archaic form which became modified m the Massim 

 area by the influence of a foreign culture, Polynesian 

 or Melanesian, of which there is abundant evidence 

 in that district. " In other words, while the basic 

 idea of the ornament remained unaltered, a people 



