June 28, 19 17] 



NATURE 



OD 



dexterity, of comprehension, of judgment, etc., which 

 he suggests might be advantageously used by em- 

 ployers of labour when selecting workmen. It is, 

 however, necessary to issue a warning to those enthu- 

 siasts who are tempted to accept "tests" uncritically, 

 viz. that one is not entitled to assume that, because a 

 person does well in any given test, he will necessarily 

 be willing to do well in work demanding that same 

 quality for an employer. That he can do it is not 

 equivalent to that he isjill do it. Again, it is necessary 

 to be on one's guard against believing in some one 

 test as a test of a particular capacity. It is possible 

 to have, e.g., an excellent memory in a given line of 

 interest, and a very weak one in some other direction. 

 The article is interesting and timely, but much yet 

 remains to be done by trained scientific workers before 

 the method of tests can be generally applied. 



We have received a copy of a pamphlet published 

 by the justice to the Mountain Committee in Tacoma, 

 Washington, and containing the appeal submitted to 

 the United States Geographic Board urging that the 

 mountain now officially known as Mount Rainier 

 should in future be called Mount Tacoma. The re- 

 quest is supported by the House of Representatives of 

 the State of Washington, the Federation of North- 

 West American Indians, and public opinion generally 

 in Seattle and Tacoma. The mountain, which lies 

 about fifty miles east of Puget Sound, in the Cascade 

 range, was discovered in 1792 by Vancouver, and 

 named by him after Rear-Admiral Rainier, R.N. 

 Rainier had certainly no connection with that coast, 

 but the arguments adduced against the use of his 

 name for the mountain do not seem to us to be very 

 convincing. On the other hand, a great deal is to 

 be said for the use of the name Tacoma, which is 

 the modern version of the old Indian name, and the 

 one by which the mountain is generally known in the 

 district. And, after all, the local residents must be 

 the arbiters in the matter, and no decision of the 

 United States Geographic Board can alter local usage. 

 The committee has gone to a great deal of trouble 

 in collecting evidence as to written and oral usage, 

 and has made out a good case for the use of Tacoma 

 in preference to Rainier. 



We have received the report of the bacteriologist 

 (Mr. Ward Giltner) of the Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, East Lansing, Mich., U.S.A., for the year 

 ending June 30, 19 16. Much research has been car- 

 ried out on contagious abortion of the cow. Attempts 

 have been made to render animals insusceptible 

 \ to infection with this disease, which is caused by 

 Bacillus abortus, by vaccination with living and dead 

 cultures, but with little success. Details are also 

 given of the routine work carried out at the station. 



i _ Jhe number of cases of paralysis following gunshot 



; injury of nerves in the present war has given promin- 



' ence to the subject of electrical testing of nerve and 



muscle, and the value to be attached to results of such 



I testing for diagnosis and prognosis. The methods of 



testing commonly applied are by means of condenser 



discharges or by the faradic or 'the galvanic current, 



; but it is doubtful if the reactions of the muscles in- 



! duced thereby give information of the state of the 



j nerve supplying them when once reaction of degenera- 



I tion has developed. In a paper in the Archives of 



j Radiology and Electrotherapy for May (No. 202) Dr. 



, Adrian has applied to the human subject a method 



I that was employed bv Keith Lucas at Cambridge. A 



galvanic current of known and variable strength and 



duration is used. Dr. Adrian makes use of a time- 



! constant known as the chronaxie. It is remarkably 



j constant for muscle with undamaged nerve, and has a 



I NO. 2487, VOL. 99] 



short duration ; for denervated muscle it is very much 

 longer. The method promises to be a useful one. 



The Geographical Journal for May (vol. xlix.. No. 5) 

 includes a singularly interesting paper by Mrs. 

 Scoresby Routledge describing the results of the expedi- 

 tion to Easter Island under the leadership of her hus- 

 band and herself. We probably now possess all the in- 

 formation which local investigation can secure about 

 the strange buildings and statues which have so long 

 been a problem for anthropologists. The reading of 

 this suggestive paper at a recent meeting of the Royal 

 Geographical Society was followed by a discussion in 

 which Sir Hercules Read^ Sir H. Howorth, and 

 Messrs. T. A. Joyce, A. P. Maudslay, Basil Thomson, 

 and Henry Balfour took part. A most interesting 

 suggestion was made by Mr. Joyce that on the basis of 

 skull measurements the earlier Easter Island natives 

 displayed Melanesian affinities. Mr. Balfour added 

 that for affinities with their culture we must look 

 rather to the West than to the East, the New World 

 influence being practically ruled out. In his opinion 

 the statues appear to show a relation to Melanesian 

 art. This is the latest phase of this long-protracted 

 controversy, and though the results are still to some 

 extent uncertain, the problem has now decidedly ad- 

 vanced towards a definite solution. 



The Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological 

 Society, new series, vol. xix., part iii., March, 19 17 

 (Hull : A. Brown and Sons, Ltd. ; price 75. 6d. net) is 

 devoted to a paper by Mr. T. Sheppard, entitled 

 "William Smith: His Maps and Memoirs." No seri- 

 ous student of geology can fail to be interested in the 

 life of William Smith, whose stupendous labours laid 

 a sure foundation for the science of stratigraphy. 

 Several memoirs of his life and work are in existence, 

 and Mr. Sheppard has now said what may be presumed 

 will be the last word on this subject. The papec is 

 naturally concerned with Smith's work in Yorkshire 

 as lecturer and geological explorer, but much space is 

 given to full details of the publication of his maps, 

 sections, and memoirs, and this information will be of 

 great value to librarians and others. Reference is also 

 made to the efforts of earlier, writers to understand and 

 explain geological features, and in this connection the 

 ideas of George Owen, Martin Lister, John Strachey, 

 John Woodward,' Nicolas Desmarest, Christopher 

 Packe, John Michel, John Whitehurst, John Smeaton, 

 Prof. Jamieson, and James Parkinson have been briefly 

 summarised. The paper is illustrated by numerous 

 plates and figures in the text, and concludes with a 

 bibliography. 



Messrs. Ricard and Barral have recently communi- 

 cated to the Soci^t^ M^dico-Chirurgicale Militaire de 

 la XIV» Region a very simple method of ascertaining 

 rapidly and easily whether water has been poisoned. 

 It consists in placing a few fish — blay, gudgeon, etc. — 

 in a jar filled with the water to be tested. Two drops 

 of nicotine per litre kill the fish in less than a minute; 

 two drops of conicine paralyse them in six minutes 

 and kill them in eight; one decigram of solanine 

 kills in one and a half hours, the same quantity of 

 cocaine in one hour, and the same quantity of stovaine 

 in ten rninutes. One milligram of aconite kills in 

 three and a half hours ; twenty drops of aniline in 

 one and three-quarter hours ; seven milligrams of digit- 

 alin only take effect in four hours. Veratrine does not 

 appear to have any effect; one decigram of potassium 

 cyanide kills the fish in two minutes ; two decigrams 

 of corrosive sublimate in ten to twelve minutes ; two 

 grams of lead acetate In five hours ; five grams of 

 zinc sulphate in two hours ; two grams of copper 

 sulphate in forty-five minutes ; and thirty-five centi- 



