14 



NA TURE 



[November 7, 1895 



to be abundantly distributed in the interior forests of the colony. 

 The tree has been identified at Kew as Kickxia africana, 

 Benth., and the history of its discovery, and the remarkable 

 influence it has had upon the rubber industry, is full of interest, 

 and illustrates the wonderfully rich resources of the forests of 

 West Africa. The account also shows very clearly how these 

 resources can be developed by judicious and intelligent action 

 on the part of the Government. 



A SPECIAL feature of the recent meeting of the British 

 Association at Ipswich was the consideration given to agricul- 

 ture and allied subjects. As already reported in our columns, a 

 joint sitting of the Sections of Chemistry and Botany was held for 

 the purpose of discussing the relations of agriculture to science. 

 The discussion was opened by Prof. Warington, who read a 

 paper on this subject. Mr. J. Hendrick, of the Glasgow Tech- 

 nical College, and Mr. M. J. R. Dunstan, the Director of Tech- 

 nical Education for Nottingham, also sent papers by way of 

 contributions to the proceedings. One very good feature of this 

 organised discussion was that copies of the opening paper had 

 been freely circulated some time before the meeting, so that the 

 speakers were prepared for the mode of treatment which Prof. 

 Warington adopted. If this plan were more generally followed 

 when discussions at joint sectional sittings were to be held, the 

 value of such meetings would be greatly raised. In response to 

 a widely-expressed desire, the three papers referred to, and a 

 condensed report of the remarks made by the various sj^eakers, 

 have now been reprinted in pamphlet form, and can be had, at a 

 trifling cost, from the Secretary of the British Association, Bur- 

 lington House, or from the office of the East Anglian Daily 

 Times, Carr Street, Ipswich. All who are interested in the 

 agricultural question, from the educational or from the scientific 

 side, will find much material for serious consideration in the 

 various views expressed by a series of speakers of recognised 

 authority. 



Dr. Simpson, Health Officer in Calcutta, in his annual report, 

 refers at some length to Prof. Haff'kine's anti-choleraic vaccina- 

 tions, and expresses himself as very favourably impressed with 

 the treatment, as far as can be judged at this early stage of the 

 inquiry. Some interesting facts are quoted relative to the 

 manner in which the progress of cholera in particular houses 

 seemed to be arrested by inoculation. Thus, in one instance 

 cholera attacked fatally one member of a household ; two days 

 later, eleven members of the family out of eighteen were 

 inoculated. "It so happened," continues Dr. Simpson, "that 

 cholera again breaking out in the house, attacking four persons, 

 three of whom died, selected four of the seven not inoculated, 

 while the eleven inoculated remained perfectly free." Again we 

 read that two fatal cases of cholera and two of choleraic diarrhoea 

 occurred in Katal Bagan Basti in a population grouped around 

 the tanks. This outbreak led to the inoculation of 1 16 persons in 

 the district out of about 200. Since the 116 cases were inocu- 

 lated, nine more cases of cholera, of which seven were fatal, and 

 one case of choleraic diarrhoea took place. All these ten cases 

 of cholera occurred exclusively among the non-inoculated portion 

 of the inhabitants, and not one of those treated with the vaccine 

 were affected. Dr. Simpson recommends the Commissioners to 

 give the system an extended trial, and he considers that such 

 observations, if carried on in Calcutta on a large scale in its most 

 affected parts during the next one or two years, would solve the 

 question as to its efficacy. As regards the discomfort caused by 

 the inoculations, he states that it is on the whole milder and of 

 shorter duration than that of vaccination against small-pox. 

 Two vaccines are used, one mild and the other strong, and for 

 a complete vaccination two inoculations are necessary, first with 

 the mild vaccine, which produces some pain at the seat of 

 inoculation, or discomfort and fever for about one day ; after a 

 NO. 1358, VOL. 53] 



period of five days the second inoculation takes place with the 

 stronger vaccine, which produces a similar form of malaise to 

 that caused by the first inoculation. The harmlessness of the 

 treatment has been established beyond question. 



As one of the results of a long piece of work carried out 

 in the botanical laboratory of Trinity College, Dublin, Mr. 

 Henry H. Dixon believes that his preparations of the pollen- 

 mother-cells of Lilium lo7igiflorum before their first divi- 

 sion show that origin of the double nuclear thread is not 

 from the cleavage longitudinally of an originally single thread , 

 but from the approximation of portions of the single thread, so 

 that these portions j come to lie more or less parallel to one 

 another. When the thread breaks into the chromosomes the 

 divisions affects both portions, so that each chromosome is com- 

 posed of two more or less parallel pieces. These pieces may lie 

 side by side, or may be fused together at one end while the other 

 ends are somewhat parted asunder, or they may be bent in- 

 such a manner that] they come to lie across one another in two or 

 three places, or they may be fused together at both ends. As 

 the chromosomes arrange themselves in the equator they become 

 shorter and thicker, and they are so disposed that the plane of 

 separation between their two parts lies vertically, and conse- 

 quently they appear double when viewed from the polar aspect. 

 At this stage, when seen from the equatorial plane, they have 

 the appearance of short thick rods. Later on, horizontal fission 

 takes place in each, beginning from the inner end. As this pro- 

 ceeds they assume the T-shape described by Belajeff^ The 

 daughter chromosomes have the V-shape as they leave the nuclear 

 plate, having passed through stages similar to those described by 

 this author. As they approach the poles each V-shaped chromo- 

 some cleaves transversely at the angle, and breaks into two short 

 straight rods, so that at the poles there appear to be twice as- 

 many chromosomes as in the nuclear plate. Thus it appears 

 probable, both from the origin of the two portions of the chromo- 

 somes forming the nuclear plate, and the subsequent division of 

 the daughter chromosomes at the poles, that each chromosome 

 of this mitosis corresponds to two chromosomes of previous nuclear 

 divisions fused more or less completely end to end. The divi- 

 sion following, to form the pollen-tetrads, was not observed in 

 this plant, but it probably conforms in its details to the norm al 

 karyokinesis in plant cells, as in Lilium Martagon and L. 

 chalcedonicum it was followed, and the normally-proportioned 

 chomosomes undergoing longitudinal fission in the nuclear plate 

 were observed. 



A LONG paper on the working of iron and steel, by M. E.. 

 Demenge, appears in the Revue Gdnirale des Sciences for October 

 15 and 30. The article is illustrated by twelve full-page plates> 

 chiefly representing modern forging and rolling machinery. 



In Botany Bulletin, No. Ii, of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, Brisbane, Mr. F. M. Bailey gives a complete list of the 

 Freshwater Algse of Queensland, including descriptions of 

 several new species. 



Mr. G. Massee has reprinted from the Annals of Botany 

 his paper on the "Spot-disease of Orchids," which shows that 

 the disease is not of a parasitic nature, the initial cause being the 

 presence of minute drops of water on the surface of the leaves 

 at a time when the temperature is exceptionally low and the roots 

 copiously supplied with water. 



We have received a further communication from Mr. Radcliffe, 

 the inventor of the " 38" puzzle (Nature, No. 1352, p. 525), 

 in which he shows how, by the sacrifice of his three extra 

 symmetrical arrangements, the maximum number of 1 5 straight 

 lines (all totalling to 38) can be obtained. He points out also 

 some other symmetrical arrangements. 



