I 



DISCOVERY 



A MONTHLY POPULAR 

 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE 



Vol. Ill, No. 36. DECEMBER 1922. 



PRICE Is. NET. 



DISCOVERY. A Monthly Popular Journal of Know- 

 ledge. 



Edited by Edward Liveing, B.A., Rothersthorpe, 

 Northampton, to whom all Editorial Communications 

 should be addressed. (Dr. A. S. Russell continues to 

 act as Scientific Adviser.) 



Published by John Murray, 50A Albemarle Street. 

 London, W.i, to whom all Business Communications 

 should be addressed. 



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 Ludgate Hill, London, E.C.4. 



Annual Subscription, 12s. 6d. post free ; single numbers, 

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Editorial Notes 



The first organised gliding-tests in England have 

 been concluded, and have astonished even the experts 

 by the revelation of what is possible in a district 

 not naturally the most suitable for the purpose. 

 A mere onlooker is left with a feeling of admiration 

 tempered with almost superstitious awe in contemplat- 

 ing such successes as those of Maneyrolle, Raynham, 

 and Gray. For the personal factor — the flying sense 

 — must be supreme in gliding, far more so than in 

 the piloting of a modern aeroplane, which can be 

 flown for miles without the pilot having to touch a 

 lever. The glider, of course, has a steady wind 

 for the most part to deal with — gusty weather is not 

 for him. All the same, the air near the ground is 

 never uniform, and the failures and minor accidents of 

 the meeting proved more clearly than words can what 

 difliculties the successful had to surmount, and what 

 a delicate sense of balance and instantaneous action 

 in quickh' shifting circumstances are called for. 



How much do we even now know of the varied 

 conditions of the air within a thousand feet of the 

 ground ? Any airman will tell you that there are 

 queer uncharted spaces in the air, and that now and 

 again circumstances arise utterly unlike the normal. 

 On one occasion during the war, in France, without 

 any warning or any movement of the controls, a 

 certain pilot's machine slowly assumed a " bank " 



of 45 degrees, in a manner completely unlike the 

 ordinary " bump," which is so familiar to all who 

 fly. Inexplicable disasters to experienced pilots are 

 still an all too common feature of the conquest of the 

 air ; and some personal experience of seeing aeroplane 

 accidents have convinced the present writer that 

 the air is as full of hidden dangers as is the sea. It 

 is such uncharted and intangible dangers that gliding 

 may reveal to us. For the sea has been yielding its 

 secrets ever since he of the oak and triple bronze 

 first trusted his flimsy craft to it ; but the air is an 

 element which has been tested only hx the last few 



Every week brings its fresh theory of the cause and 

 nature of cancer, but not one of them has as yet 

 yielded a hint of a cure. Some of these theories are 

 fanciful — the mere brain-spinning of the arm-chair 

 scientist. Such a one is that of a French writer who 

 suggests that it is due to the union of a primitive 

 organism — which has strangely eluded observation 

 — with a cell of the body, in a species of unholy 

 matrimony. Re- born, the cell sets out on the pro- 

 liferating road which is typical of cancer, knowing 

 neither end nor boundaries. He suggests that the 

 theory might be tested by confining together in 

 test-tubes living cells of the body and various arbi- 

 trarily selected organisms, in case one of them proved 

 to be the culprit. But it is not probable that the 

 matter will be put to the test. 



***** 



A more reasoned hypothesis is presented by Sir 

 George Beatson,^ a name intimately associated 

 with the problem for many years. He inclines to the 

 opinion that it is to be solved by a closer in\'estigation 

 of the colour- bearing cells of the body, namely the 

 pigment-cells. These are present in the skin (especi- 

 ally of negroes), in the eye, and in other places. 

 There is evidence that cancer is commonest at the 

 period in life when the body pigments are diminishing, 

 when the hair is growing white and the skin often darker 

 in small patches. Some cancers, too, are definitely 

 composed mainly of pigment- bearing cells, and these 

 1 The Lancet, September 23, 1922, 



309 



