April's, 1894.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



91 



VV-! 





A7 "^^ "K) 4- • w ^ vA/. 4 



^^X^fty 



r) 



^J. 



M 



1. 



3. 



4. 



e. 



Copy of Inscription of Siloam. 



Translation. 



Beliohl the excavation ! Now this is the history of the tunnel. 

 While the excavators icere using 



the pick eacli to his neighbour, and while there were yefc three 

 cubits to be excavated the voice of one call- 

 ed to his neighbo\ir, for there was an excess in the rock on the 



right. They arose they struck on the west of the 



excavation, the excavators struck each to meet his neighbour, 



pick to pick, and there flowed 



the waters from the outlet to the Pool for the distance of 1000 



cubits, and 



of a cubit was the height of the rock at the head of the 

 excavation here. 



We have here the experience m constructing the Mont 

 Cenis tunnel anticipated by two thousand six hundred 

 years. It is clear the tunnel to the Siloam Pool was 

 commenced simultaneously from both ends ; that in 

 consequence of imperfect engineering skill the workmen 

 nearly missed meeting in the centre and overlapped, but, 

 directed by the sound of the picks, altered their course 

 until they joined, and the water flowed throughout the 

 conduit. As might be expected from the difficulty in 

 determining many of the half-obliterated letters, the 

 translation given by Canon Taylor differs somewhat from 

 that of Prof. Sayce, but the general meaning is in no way 

 affected thereby. 



An object of considerable interest in the Third Eoom is 

 the large bronze Lion-weight, of some twenty manehs, 

 engraved with the inscription in Phoenician characters : 

 " Verified in presence of the supervisors of the silver." 

 In the Babylonian Room, close by, are several of these 

 weights, evidently of Phcenician manufacture, of from one 

 to ten manehs each. These were found in Babylonia, and 

 are stamped with the official stamp in both Phcenician and 

 ctmeiform characters, and were probably cast exclusively 

 for the Babylonian trade. We know the commerce of the 

 Phoenicians was most extensive. They carried on an 

 active export and import trade with Syria, Judasa, Egypt, 



prized, and ap- 

 pears to have 

 secured a mon- 

 opoly of the 

 markets within 

 Phoenician in- 

 fluence. 



There are many 

 other objects and 

 inscriptions also 

 of great interest, 

 as the sarcopha- 

 gus of the King 

 ofSidon,B.c.850, 

 the ancient Cop- 

 tic, Himyritic, 

 Palmyrene, and Hebrew inscriptions, all of which are 

 admirably arranged, and form a deeply instructive chapter 

 in the book of the past. 



A^X 



Arabia, Babylonia, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Cen- 

 tral Asia Minor, Ionia, Cyprus, Hellas, Spain, the Scilly 

 Isles, and the coast of Cornwall. British tin was highly 



T 



THE ROOT-TUBERCLES OF PEAS AND BEANS.* 



Part II. — Continued from paye 70. 

 By J. Pentland Smith, M.A., B.So. 

 |HE life-history, so far as it is known, of the organism 

 that is the cause of the formation of these 

 tubercles has been worked out by Prof. Marshall 

 Ward, Prazmowski, and others, while Lawes and 

 Gilbert, Berthelot, and Warrington have studied 

 its life-history from the chemical standpoint. 



The nodules vary in size. Last month we gave a 

 photograph of the roots of a pea with badly-developed 

 tubercles. Fig. 1 shows a well-grown tubercle on the root 



of a bean. This is seen in 

 transverse section in the next 

 illustration (Fig. 2). At rt 

 the cells of the tubercle are 

 still growing,and almost free 

 from the irritating organism; 

 lower down in the tissues 

 are found thread-like bodies 

 (hyphaB), and still further 

 towards the base the parasite 

 has been very active. Fig. 3 

 a partly diagrammatic 



FiCr 



1. — Tubercle on 

 a Bean. 



oot of 



root 

 in the 



section of a root with a tu 

 bercle on one side, and with a 

 rootlet arising from another portion. In the centre of 

 the root is the axile vascular bundle of the usual type, 

 composed of alternating patches of xylem (wood) and 

 phloem (soft bast); around this is the cortex (bark), 

 through which the root has pierced. The lateral 

 arises opposite a xylem strand. Two stages 

 development of the tubercle-causing organism are seen 

 in the nodule. On the outside is 

 the cortex, continuous with that of 

 the root, and exhibiting a zone of 

 merismatic tissue — that is, a tissue 

 composed of cells dividing up to 

 form new cells. In the cells internal 

 to this, hyphie are seen from which 

 minute corpuscular bodies are being 

 budded off. This process will be 

 seen more distinctly in another 

 figure. Still nearer the point of 



* I am indebted to Prof. MarshaU Ward, F.E.S., etc., for his kind 

 permission to copy the figures illustrative of his monograph on the 

 "Root-Tubercles 'of the Leguminosffi,' 

 Soyal Society for 1887. 



Fia. 2. — Vertical sec- 

 tion of Tubercle on root 

 of Bean. 



the Transactions of the 



