172 



NATURE 



[April 7, 1910 



further research would be most useful were therefore 

 mentioned in the hope that the members of the Glasgow 

 Geological Society would investigate them. 



The problem is of interest from its bearing upon the early 

 geological history and geography of north-western Europe. 

 The structure of western Europe has been dominated 

 by the formation of three great mountain systems, 

 each due to pressure usually from the south, and each 

 having its younger rocks exposed mainly on the northern 

 flanks of the chain. The youngest is the Alpine system, 

 formed mainly in Upper Cainozoic times, and including 

 the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians, &c. A somewhat similar 

 mountain system, of which fragments remain in southern 

 Ireland, Devonshire, Brittany, and Germany, had been 

 formed in Upper Pala;ozoic times ; from its analogy with 

 the Altai Mountains of Asia, Suess has called its moun- 

 tains the European Altaids. Still earlier, in later Archaean 

 times, there was formed the first of these European moun- 

 tain systems, of which fragments occur in northern 

 Ireland, the Grampians, and Scandinavia. There are many 

 interesting analogies between these old Grampians and the 

 later Altaids and Alps. The old mountain system to which 

 the Grampians belonged probably extended far westward 

 into the North Atlantic, and to its influence may be 

 attributed the desert climate of Scotland during the 

 deposition of the Torridon Sandstone. 



lUE ETIOLOGY OF LEPROSY. 



HTHE eighteenth report of the Board of Health on 

 ■^ leprosy in New South Wales contains the usual 

 careful clinical records of the features of the disease in 

 the patients admitted during the year, as well as a record 

 of all the cases occurring in the Commonwealth during 

 1908. No case of leprosy has ever been heard of in 

 Tasmania. In the other States the disease occurs appar- 

 ently most frequently in Chinese and in aboriginals, and 

 is more frequent in northern than in southern territories. 



An account is given of a systematic test of Prof. 

 Deycke's " nastin " treatment. Nastin is a vaccine made 

 from a leptothrix found in some recent Lepromata, and 

 not from the bacillus leprae. It is pronounced valueless, 

 any beneficial result being assigned to the natural fluctua- 

 tions in the progress of the disease ; one or more cases 

 of spontaneous cure are noted. F'or the rest, the report 

 is remarkable for the scepticism the author. Dr. J. Ash- 

 burton Thompson, expresses on the etiology of leprosy and 

 on the value of isolation as a preventive of transference 

 of the disease. 



It will be remembered that the International Congress 

 at Bergen last year endorsed the view that the bacillus 

 leprae of Hansen was the etiological agent. Dr. Thomp- 

 son's views are seemingly published as a protest, and, hold- 

 ing the views he does, it is gratifying to learn that Dr. 

 Thompson recognises that, as the presiding and executive 

 member of the central health authority to which the 

 Leprosy Act is entrusted, he has a clearly defined duty to 

 perform, and that he performs it, notwithstanding his 

 thinking " the mere idee on which that law is based to be 

 of doubtful utility," and his statement, " I can at all 

 events safelv assert that its validity has not been demon- 

 strated." One would have thought that the success which 

 has attended the practice of isolation in Norway during 

 the past forty years afforded sufficient evidence of its value 

 even to the most sceptical, for Hansen's prophecy some 

 forty years ago that in 1920 there would be no leprosy 

 in Norway is in more than a fair way of being fulfilled. 



HELIUM IN AIR AND MINERALS. 



A N interesting paper on the occurrence of helium in 

 ■^ the air of Naples and in minerals from Vesuvius is 

 published by Prof. A. Piutti in the Rendiconto of the 

 Royal- Society of Naples (third series, vol. xv., p. 203). 

 It is well known that in 1881 Prof. Palmieri read a paper 

 before the same academy in which he claimed to have 

 recognised the characteristic line D3 of helium in the 

 flame spectrum obtained by heating in a Bunsen flame 

 " an amorphous, buttery substance of a yellow colour 

 which was found as a sublimate on the edge of a fumarole 



NO. 2 TIG, VOL. 83] 



near the mouth of Vesuvius." This is generally accepted 

 as the first discovery of terrestrial helium, although Nasini 

 and Anderlini in 1906, on examining the flame spectrum 

 of a large number of volcanic incrustations, failed to 

 recognise the presence of helium in any of the specimens 

 they examined under the conditions described by Palmieri. 



Prof. Piutti has now investigated with especial care, and 

 by an ingenious method, the gas evolved on heating several 

 Vesuvian minerals. The gas was expelled by heating the 

 mineral in a quartz tube connected, through a three-way 

 cock, with a Pliicker tube, a Gaede air-pump, and a glass 

 bulb containing cherry-stone carbon, which could be cooled 

 to — 192° C. The latter served to absorb nitrogen and 

 inert gases other than helium. All air was first entirely 

 removed from the apparatus by the Gaede pump, special 

 care being taken to ensure its complete absence prior to 

 heating the mineral and during the course of the experi- 

 ments. When the carbon is cooled by liquid air and the 

 vacuum applied, any nitrogen present is first absorbed by 

 the carbon, and the lines of argon and neon appear until 

 the kathode space is formed. At this point, if even the 

 smallest trace of helium is present, the D, line is seen 

 distinctly by the side of the sodium lines. Control experi- 

 ments showed that 0-073 cubic mm. could be detected in 

 the apparatus employed. Helium can also be detected ia 

 the same way in 3-5 c.c. of ordinary air. 



The examination of several radio-active forms of 

 sanidinite from Vesuvius showed that the radio-activity 

 was due to particles of zircon contained therein. ITiis 

 zircon was found to evolve helium, and other samples of 

 zircon from different localities, Italian and otherwise, were 

 also found to contain helium in varying proportions. No 

 relation could, however, be traced between the proportion 

 of helium and the radio-activity or density of the samples. 

 The Vesuvian zircon had the highest radio-activity, but 

 the proportion of helium was relatively low. 



THE SUGAR INDUSTRY IN HAWAII.' 



LJ AWAII and its associated islands, Maui, Oahu, Kauai 

 ■^ and others, form a volcanic group in the Pacific 20° 

 north of the equator, largely devoted to sugar production. 

 In 1895 the Sugar-planters' Association established an 

 experiment station at Honolulu, and some five years later 

 the islands were annexed by the United States. The 

 enormous importance of these two events is reflected in 

 the statistics for sugar production : — 



Hawaii Maui Oahu K-iuai To'al 



1P95 61,643 27,735 17.43} 42.816 149,627 tons 

 )89') 109,259 29097 35.782 51,650 225,828 ,, 



1900 115,224 57,347 53625 63,348 289,544 ,, 



1901 134,618 58.349 99,534 67. 5U 360.038 ,, 

 1905 126,405 ioo,4?4 123,095 76,314 426,248 ,, 

 1908 180,159 122,629 137,013 81,322 521,123 ,, 



The increase during the fourteen years has been from less 

 than 150,000 tons to more than 520,000 tons, and detailed 

 statistics show that the produce per acre, as well as the 

 total acreage, has increased. 



Practically all phases of the sugar industry are dealt 

 with at the experiment station. Varieties of canes are 

 tested, seedlings are raised and examined, and the effect 

 of change of variety is investigated, the object being always 

 to obtain plants more prolific, better adapted to tTie local 

 surroundings, and more resistant to the local diseases or 

 insect pests than those at present grown. Considerable 

 attention is paid to insect pests, which naturally do an 

 increasing amount of damage as cultivation becomes more 

 and more intense. Methods of working up the sugar are 

 also studied, the chemical and milling problems involved 

 are gone into, nothing within the power of the staff and 

 likely to benefit the planters being omitted. 



In consequence there is a constant tendency to economy 

 in production ; thus in the early years fertilisers were often 

 applied without any reference to the specific requirements 

 of the crop or the general deficiencies of the soil ; now, 

 however, these, and also climatic considerations, are taken 

 into account, and the staff are able to give useful definite 

 information as to the mixture of fertilisers required. 



1 Trapiral T.ife, No. 2, vol. vi., 1910. Bulletins of the Sugar-planters 

 Association!:, Hawaii. 



