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KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[August, 1904. 



1 he United States Department of Agriculture lias re- 

 cently issued a useful bulletin, by Dr. G. T. Moore and 

 Mr. K. F. Kellerman, on " A Method of Destroying or 

 Preventing the Growth of .-Mgae and certain Pathogenic 

 H.icteria in Water Supplies." The presence of .^Igae 

 in water frequently causes trouble, and many of the 

 methods recommended for getting rid of it are im- 

 practicable, inasmuch as their adoption would spoil the 

 water. According to the writers mentioned above, " it 

 has been found that copper sulphate, in a dilution so 

 great as to be colourless, tasteless, and harmless to 

 man, is sufficiently toxic to the Alga: to destroy them 

 or prevent their appearance. A solution of one part 

 of the sulphate to about 50,000,000 parts of water has 

 been found fatal to Spirogyra, and one part to 

 4,000,000 appears to be destructive to the blue-green 



Alga-." 



* » * 



In an interesting paper by Prof. D. H. Campbell in 

 Tcrreza for June, on the " Resistance of Drought by 

 Liverworts," which are usually considered to be 

 moisture-loving plants, attention is drawn to the re- 

 markable vitality exhibited by the fronds of the " gold 

 back fern," Gymnogrammc triangularis, which grows in 

 the neighbourhood of Stanford University, California. 

 In the resting season the fronds of this fern do not die 

 down, as is commonly the case in ferns, but they dry 

 up and persist, and to all appearance are dead. How- 

 ever, on placing such a frond in water its freshness and 

 activity are quickly restored by the absorption of water 

 through its superficial cells. The prothallia of this 

 fern are able to survive complete drying up. Some 

 were allowed to remain perfectly dr\' during the whole 

 summer of 1903, and on receiving water in the autumn 

 produced numerous young plants. Prof. Campbell 

 refers to certain devices in Liverworts for preventing 

 excessive loss of water during periods of drought. In 

 some the growing point is protected by hairs or scales, 

 which sometimes secrete mucilage ; while the life of 

 others is continued by the development of tubers, 

 which, being more or less subterranean, are less in- 

 fluenced by a dry season. 



The British Association. 



1\ a fortnight's time, at Cambridge, the British 

 Association will once more engage in its annual tourna- 

 ment of meetings and discussions, and the swing of 

 the scientific and social pendulum will proceed for a 

 week as smoothly and hospitably as loyal endeavour 

 can ensure. That the Right Hon. .\. J. Balfour will 

 deliver an address as the in-coming president, is a 

 circumstance which must naturally lend distinction and 

 fclat to the congress. 



So long is it since the Association met at Cambridge, 

 that it is permissible to indulge in a brief retrospect in 

 order to call up from the past some of the doings of 

 the former gathering. The last occasion of meeting 

 in the university town was in the year 1862, under the 

 presidency of the Rev. Prof. Willis, F.R.S., Jacksonian 

 Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. 

 The Association was then holding its thirty-second 

 meeting, while it now inaugurates its seventy-fourth. 

 .Among the presidents of sections was Prof. G. Gabriel 

 .Stokes, who filled the office for .Mathematics and 

 Physics, and it was at this meeting that the late 

 Master of Pembroke presented his valuable report on 



Double Refraction. Mr. Francis Gallon — happily 

 still among us — was president of the section apper- 

 taining to Geography and Ethnology. Huxley, too, 

 was there, presiding over the proceedings of Section D. 

 Tyndall discoursed on the Forms and .Action of Water. 

 Sir Rutherford .Alcock, in Section E, read a com- 

 munication on the civilisation of Japan, of which it is 

 interesting to note that his pregnant sentences stand 

 forth to-day in honour of Japanese progress. The 

 race might tell us with truth, he said, that for cen- 

 turies they had had under their own laws, customs, 

 and institutions, a degree of peace, prosperity, and 

 freedom from foreign wars which no country in 

 Europe had enjoyed during any century of its exist- 

 ence. They were possessed of so many excellent 

 qualities and such an aptitude for a higher civilisation 

 than they had yet attained, that within a very few 

 years not only might we see them make a great and 

 unexampled advance, but reach a trade development to 

 which it was really difficult to fix any limit. Sir Roderick 

 Murchison read a letter from Livingstone, dated 

 Shupanga, River Zambesi, informing him in pathetic 

 terms of the death of his wife, and the darkened 

 horizon it occasioned. The attendance at the con- 

 gress reached a total of 1,161. 



.As regards the forthcoming assembly, it is reason- 

 able to expect that the special attractions of Cam- 

 bridge, coupled with the presence of a Prime Minister, 

 will raise the inconveniently low average of attendance 

 which has prevailed during the past three years of the 

 .Association's meetings. Such a result was seen at its 

 Oxford gathering in 1894, when the Marquis of Salis- 

 bury was President. Nevertheless, the British Associa- 

 tion cannot afford to rely upon quadrennial fortune, 

 and its friends are concerned not only to secure the 

 adhesion of a greater number of annual members and 

 other stead)' supporters, in consonance with the activi- 

 ties of modern science, but to improve the attendance 

 at the congresses of the general public. There has 

 been a steady decline in numbers in recent years. At 

 Glasgow, in 1901, the attendance was 1,912, and the 

 receipts ;£r2,o46 ; at Belfast, in 1902, they were, re- 

 spectively, 1,620, and ;^i,644 ; at Southport, last year, 

 1,754 and ;^i, 700, the former nearly i,goo less than at 

 the Southport meeting in 1883. -As a matter of course, 

 grants for scientific purposes decrease with lessened 

 prosperity' while other avenues of usefulness remain 

 unopened. Good attendances prophesy revenue, and a 

 satisfactory balance-sheet connotes ability to make 

 allotments for such investigations as are deserving of 

 recognition and help. Congressional bodies, in fact, 

 cannot nowadays despise the legitimately commercial 

 side of their gatherings, and the British Association in 

 this respect should " wake up." 



Certainly no one would wish to extend carping 

 criticism to an organisation which has done yeoman's 

 service in the interests of science and of national en- 

 lightenment. .Apart, however, from the foregoing 

 considerations, there would appear to be channels for 

 improvement. Take, for instance, the sectional ad- 

 dresses. Some of these have latterly become in- 

 ordinately long, and suggest limitation. Curtailment 

 in the addresses of a President of the Association 

 would not be good policy, nor is it required. The man 

 of science elected to that honourable office has some- 

 thing to say, and should have space for his utterance. 

 But those who fill the chairs of the sectional com- 

 mittees might surely give pause, and compress. The 

 tendency is towards enlargement, and accompanying 

 aggrandisement of tyf)e ; this weighs heavily on many 



