I70 



NATURE 



[May I, 1919 



Another important investigation had to do with 

 the movements of lime in the soil. The conditions 

 of solubility. were determined, and deductions were 

 drawn which threw important light on the prac- 

 tices of liming and marling, and on the presence 

 oilime in natural waters. 



rurther, Schloesing studied the effect on plant 

 growth of the carbon dioxide and ammonia present 

 in i the atmosphere, in the soil, and in natural 

 waters. He set up the well-known hypothesis that 

 the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 

 is related to the extent of dissociation of the bicar- 

 bonates in the sea. The sea was thus regarded 

 as a reservoir which equalises the stock of carbon 

 dioxide in the atmosphere, taking up any excess 

 that might be formed at any time, and supplying 

 any deficit from the average amount should such 

 evfer arise. 



Schloesing's best-known work, however, was 

 on nitrification. For a long time it had been 

 known that nitrates are gradually formed when 

 plant or animal residues, farmyard manure, etc., 

 are incorporated in the soil. The process was cf 

 much technical importance in the seventeenth and 

 eighteenth centuries as the source of nitrate for 

 gunpowder. During the Thirty Years' War and 

 other great Continental wars the various Govern- 

 rnents had been seriously concerned in these so- 

 called nitre beds, and had done a good deal to 

 stimulate their development. The conditions of 

 the change were tolerably well ascertained, but 

 nothing was known as to its mechanism. 



It has several times happened in the history of 

 civilisation that agriculture has benefited by know- 

 ledge gained during war. The mass of informa- 

 tion accumulated during the eighteenth-century 

 wars, and apparently rendered useless in the nine- 

 teenth century by the promise of peace and the 

 discovery of nitrates in Chile, was found to be of 

 fundamental importance in agriculture. It was 

 found that the nutrition of plants so far as nitrogen 

 was concerned depended on the nitre-bed pro- 

 cesses ; organic nitrogen compounds, useless as 

 plant nutrients, when added to the soil became 

 converted Into highly valuable nitrates ; the more 

 rapidly this change could be brought about, the 

 better for the plant. So long as the mechanism 

 of the change was unknown, the old knowledge 

 was simply empirical and incapable of full utilisa- 

 tion. Many investigations were therefore made, 

 but for years the problem remained unsolved. The 

 balance of opinion was In favour of a purely 

 physical process, but there was also a strongly 

 supported chemical hypothesis. 



Schloesing and Muntz had been working at the 

 formation of nitrates in sewage during the process 

 of nitrification, and they noticed an Inert period of 

 twenty days before the commencement of nitrifica- 

 tion. With characteristic shrewdness they ob- 

 served that this delay could scarcely arise If the 

 process were purely physical or chemical; some 

 bidlog^Ical factor seemed to be Indicated. In order 

 to' test this possibility they added a little chloro- 

 form to the sewage ; nitrification at once stopped. 

 They then removed the chloroform, and "seeded " 

 NO. 2583, VOL. 103] 



with a little fresh sewage ; after an interval nitri- 

 fication began again. This afforded strong 

 evidence that the process was due to living 

 organisms, and in course of time the proof was 

 made more rigid by Winogradsky's isolation of 

 the specific organism. 



This research Is one of the foundations of 

 modern soil bacteriology, and for this alone 

 Schloesing would be remembered. But his other 

 work has also played an important part in the 

 development of the subject, and he may justly be 

 regarded as a worthy successor to the great Bous- 

 slngault, whom he followed at the Conservatoire 

 des Arts et Metiers in 1887. He carried on the 

 high standard set by his predecessor, and leaves 

 a name that will long be held in high honour and 

 esteem. E. J. Russell. 



NOTES. 



The Prime Minister's list of New Year honours, 

 the publication of which has been delayed by circum- 

 stances arising out of the armistice, was issued on 

 Monday, and includes the following names of workers 

 in scientific fields: — Baitonet: Dr. Norman Moore, 

 president of the Royal College of Physicians. 

 Knights: Mr, R. T. Blomfield, past president of the 

 Royal Insdtute of Bridsh Architects; Lt.-Col. J. M. 

 Cotterill, C.M.G., consulting and late acting sur- 

 geon, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and lecturer in 

 clinical surgery, Edinburgh School of Medicine; Prof. 

 Israel Gollancz, secretary of the British Academy 

 since its foundation; Prof. R. A. Gregory, chairman 

 of the Organising Committee, British Scientific Pro- 

 ducts Exhibition; Mr. H. J. Hall, organiser under 

 the Ministry of Munitions of the section dealing with 

 the production of fertilisers ; Dr. Edward Malins ; 

 Mr. J. H. Oakley, president of the Surveyors' Institu- 

 tion ; Prof. W. Ridgewav, professor of archaeology, 

 University of Cambridge;' Dr. C. S. Tomes, F.R.S. ; 

 and Dr. T. J. Verrall, chairman of the Central 

 Medical War Committee. 



The joint meeting of the Faraday Society and the 

 Rontgen Society, held at the Royal Society on Tues- 

 day for the discussion of "The Examination of 

 Materials by X-rays," afforded remarkable testimony 

 to the wide interest taken in the opportunity which 

 such a meeting provides of bringing together 

 theoretical knowledge and practical experience of a 

 scientific subject. The meeting-room of the Royal 

 Society was crowded, and one twice the size could 

 easily have been filled. The discussion, of which we 

 shall give an account in a later issue, began in the 

 afternoon, and was continued in the evening after 

 adjournment for dinner, to which a large company 

 was' invited by the president of the Faraday Society, 

 Sir Robert Hadfield. It was an unusual privilege for 

 the Royal Society to grant the use of its meeting- 

 room for a discussion organised by other societies, 

 but there could not be a more appropriate place for 

 such a meeting, and the society itself might with 

 advantage arrange for similar meetings at which all 

 scientific workers in wide fields are actively interested. 

 The success of the Faraday Society discussions is 

 due chiefly to the rare combination of pure and 

 applied science and unbounded energy manifest in Sir 

 Robert Hadfield, and to the untiring work of the 

 secretary of the society, Mr. F. S. Spiers. It was 

 particularly pleasing to note the number of the 

 younger generation of scientific workers present at 

 the meeting. No more encouraging sign could be 



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