DISCOVERY 



125 



crop yields under given conditions, which could form 

 the basis of insurance against low yields in the same 

 way as mortality tables form the basis of ordinary 

 life insurance. 



Artificial Farmyard Manure 



In spite of their great value in agriculture, the 

 artificial manures have not proved quite as efficient 

 over a period of years as farmyard manure ; there has 

 been more variation in yield, and they have not main- 

 tained the fertility of the soil so well as farmyard 

 manure. The causes of this remarkable result are 

 being worked out, but in the meantime a successful 

 attempt has been made to find a solution of the farmer's 

 problem and obtain more farmyard manure. Economic 

 conditions prevent the making of farmyard manure 

 in the usual way ; it has been prepared at Rothamsted 

 from straw by the agency of organic organisms and 

 without the intervention of animals. Straw is watered 

 with an ammoniacal solution (actually ammonium 

 sulphate, but calcium carbonate is mixed with the 

 straw), and the heap is kept moist so that the 

 air can get in. The organisms then break down 

 the straw and convert it into a black product 

 looking very much like ordinary farmyard manure 

 but without smell. This artificial farmyard manure 

 is not yet equal to the natural substance, but it is 

 steadily being improved and the very serious diffi- 

 culties are gradually disappearing in Mr. Richards' 

 capable hands. Five years ago a few ounces only of 

 this artificial farmj'ard manure had been prepared ; 

 last year several thousand tons were made on different 

 farms in various parts of the country. The serious 

 problem of developing the work from the laboratory 

 to the farm scale was possible through the generous 

 and public -spirited action of Viscount Elveden. There 

 seems here the probability of valuable aid to the farmer 

 and of the development of an important new industry. 

 Some extraordinaril}' interesting results have been 

 obtained by following up the discovery that farmj-ard 

 manure and other organic substances of like nature are 

 ineffective as fertilisers tiU they have been broken down 

 by micro-organisms in the soil. Indeed, it may safely 

 be said that the population living in the upper 6 inches 

 of soil is as important to us as the larger and more 

 famQiar population of animals living on the surface of 

 the earth. 



BACTERIA AND THE SOIL 



I.v the next issue of Discovery will be published an article by 

 P. H. H. Gray, M.A., of the Rothamsted Experimental 

 Station, which will relate some of the results referred to by 

 Sir E. J. Russell in his final paragraph. It will deal particu- 

 larly with the utilisation for food of such disinfectants as 

 carboUc acid by the bacteria of the soil. The importance 

 of this subject to agriculturalists can scarcely be over-em- 

 phasised. — Ed. 



A Dimensional View of 

 Music 



By E. F. Bozman, M.C., B.A. 



Everyone who listens analj-tically to music must be 

 at times lost in wonder that the reverse process is 

 possible — the process of synthesis from entirely in- 

 tangible materials, within very few fi.xed laws, of a 

 real and living entity which takes form as a musical 

 composition. From the analytical point of view it is 

 apparent that the three essential ingredients of musical 

 matter are melody, harmony, and rhythm ; these we 

 may term the three dimensions in music, arbitrarily 

 chosen as are the three dimensions in space, having an 

 independent existence not in any concrete sense, but 

 only in the mind of an observer. Music can be built 

 up from these three factors, each of which may be con- 

 sidered as almost independent of the other two — almost, 

 but not quite, for harmony can be thought of as having 

 developed " contrapuntally," from the interlacing 

 of several melodic forms, and conversely melody can 

 be regarded as having arisen from some such essenti- 

 ally harmonic structure as a " scale." But whatever 

 their origin, they have now grown to a strongly inde- 

 pendent existence, and are at the disposal of the com- 

 poser for him to mould to his design. 



The Essence of Music 



Melody is to music what line is to art ; we can almost 

 see the powerful lines of a Bach fugue, or the delicate 

 tracery of a Mozart theme. Harmony is the colour 

 of music ; a rich chord impinged suddenly on a purely 

 melodic passage gives the same shock of pure delight 

 as is given by a daring splash of bright colour. Debussy 

 knows how to administer these " cool, silvery shocks 

 more effectively, perhaps, than any other composer. 

 And rhythm — we can carry the analogy no farther, for 

 herein lies the vast gulf which is fixed between music 

 and the other arts ; music is dependent on the factor 

 of time both in the conception and in the performance, 

 is sequential, and has no meaning or existence apart 

 from its beginning and its end, whereas the picture 

 is static. Music is a cinematographic sound-picture, 

 and rhythm is of its very essence ; rhythm is, indeed, 

 the groundwork and basis of musical art, the elementary 

 structure on which the musical web is woven. 



Let us assume, then, that melod}', harmony, and 

 rhythm are such stuff as music is made of, that they 

 together form the whole. They, can, of course, be 

 exploited individually, as, for e.xample, melody was in 

 the biUads of twenty years ago ; harmony in the 

 organist's vague improvisations which float through 

 many a dimly lit church on Sunday evening ; rhythm 



