July 20, 19 16] 



NATURE 



427 



planted; another on the species of Sansevieria, the 

 source of bowstring hemp, with numerous figures; 

 and a third on Iburu and Fundi, two cereals from 

 Upper Guinea, deserve particular notice. Of papers 

 dealing with systematic botany, those on South 

 African Santalacaceae, the genus Meconopsis, new 

 tropical African species of Ficus, and the genus 

 Phelipea, a remarkable parasitic genus containing 

 three species, are among the more important con- 

 tributions. 



In the Memoirs of the Department of Agriculture in 

 India, vol. vii., No. 7, Mr. and Mrs. Howard and Mr. 

 Khan contribute important papers on the Indian oil 

 seeds, safflower and mustard. As in the Howards' 

 earlier investigations into the economic plants of India, 

 the various races have been collected and carefully 

 studied at Pusa. Twenty-four types of safflower, Car- 

 thamnus tinctorius, L., have been isolated and separated 

 on the characters afforded by leaves, bracts, flower- 

 colour, and general habit. As a dye plant the saf- 

 flower has only local importance, but it is interesting 

 to find that some of the types which yield most dye 

 also yield a high oil content in the seeds. Improve- 

 ment by selection could be undertaken with ease as 

 a result of the work done at Pusa, though it may 

 not be an easy matter to establish a superior variety 

 on a large scale. Not only may it be difficult to 

 replace the country crop, but owing to the frequency 

 of natural crossing in the -plant, the deterioration of 

 an improved variety would be very liable to take place. 



Several important publications have been received 

 from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. The 

 Jahrbuch for 19 15 contains a summary of the meteor- 

 ological observations of all the stations in Norway 

 for the 3ear 19 15, including the station at Green 

 Harbour, in Spitsbergen, which is maintained in that 

 no man's land by the Norwegian Government. This 

 station, in 78° 2' N., is the most northerly permanent 

 observatory in the world. The annual volume on the 

 rainfall of Norway (" Nedb0riagttagelser i Norge ") 

 gives the rainfall and snowfall for nearly 500 stations 

 for the year 1915, and includes a large-scale rainfall 

 map in two sheets. A further pamphlet (" Oversigt 

 over luftens temperatur og nedbpren i Norge i advet 

 1914 ") gives the monthly mean temperatures and the 

 rainfall for Norwegian stations, with their departure 

 from the normal, in 1914. 



The May number of the Proceedings of the Tokio 

 Mathematico-Physical Society contains a paper on 

 the silver voltameter, by Mr. J. Obata, of the Depart- 

 ment of Communications. In accordance with the 

 specifications of the London conference of 1908 and of 

 the Washington committee of 1910, the kathode was 

 one of three platinum bowls, and the anode a plate of 

 silver. After deposition the deposit was transferred 

 from the bowl to the silver by electrolysis. Acidity 

 of the silver nitrate solution was found to produce a 

 decrease in the deposit of rather more than four parts 

 in a million for an acidity near the kathode of one part 

 in a million. With the help of two ohm coils previ- 

 ously standardised by comparison with the mercury 

 ohm, the electromotive force of the normal Weston 

 cell was found to be i"oi827 international volts at 

 20° C. The author recommends for ordinary labora- 

 tory work a silver voltameter in which anode and 

 kathode are strips of silver bent into cylindrical hoops, 

 the one of greater diameter being the kathode, placed 

 in a glass dish, with a shallow glass dish below the 

 anode to catch any particles of silver detached from it 

 during the experiment. 



In the development of the sugar industry the sac- 

 charimeter has been a noteworthy factor, because of 



NO. 2438, VOL. 97] 



the accuracy and simplicity with which, by its aid, 

 sugar and sugar-products can be evaluated. Moreover, 

 in recent years the instrument has been increasingly 

 used for the purposes of general scientific research. 

 It is therefore important that any questions regarding 

 the accuracy of the fundamental constants of the 

 apparatus, and of sugar polarimetry in general, should 

 be critically examined, and any uncertainty respecting 

 the basis of standardisation removed. In No. 268 of 

 the " Scientific Papers " issued by the United States 

 Bureau of Standards an account is given of investi- 

 gations carried out with this object in view by Messrs. 

 Bates and Jackson, who have studied the "constants" 

 of the quartz-wedge saccharimeter and the specific 

 rotation of sucrose. They find that pure sugar gives 

 a reading of only 99*89° for the normal solu- 

 tion, instead of 100° as hitherto accepted. In other 

 words, the " 100° sugar point " was found to be rather 

 more than one-tenth of i per cent, too high, thus 

 making the proportion of sugar in specimens tested 

 with the saccharimeter too low by this amount. The 

 authors' result, if confirmed, is important, not only 

 to producers of sugar, but to fiscal authorities, inas- 

 much as sugar is assessed for duty by means of the 

 saccharimeter. The specific rotation of sucrose in 

 solutions of normal concentration was found to be 

 66'529°, light of wave-length 5892'5 A being used; 

 this is a slightly higher value than that generally 

 accepted, namely 66'502°. 



In view of the abnormally high price of petrol and 

 the difficulty of obtaining it, an article in the Engineer 

 for July 7 will be read with interest. The article is 

 descriptive of the Binks vaporiser and carburettor, by 

 use of which paraffin may be substituted for petrol 

 in motor-driven vehicles. A small petrol tank is fitted 

 for the supply of petrol for starting the engine ; paraffin 

 is employed after the vaporiser has become sufficiently 

 hot. The carburettor has two float chambers, one 

 for petrol and the other for paraffin, and has a main 

 jet and two pilot jets. The sprayed paraffin enters 

 the vaporiser, which consists of two concentric tubes, 

 between which the exhaust gases from the engine 

 pass, and thus heat the walls of the inner tube. The 

 latter tube contains a worm which causes the mixed 

 air and paraffin to whirl as the mixture traverses 

 the inner tube. There is thus a tendency to throw- 

 any unvaporised paraffin into contact with the hot 

 walls, where vaporisation is completed. With present 

 prices, application of this and similar devices may 

 reduce the cost of fuel for motor-engine's by 50 per 

 cent. 



The following books of science are to be found in 

 Mr. John Murray's new list of forthcoming books : — 

 "David Gill: Man and Astronomer," by Prof. G. 

 Forbes ; " Man as He Is," by Sir B. Fuller ; " The 

 Ages of Man," by C. Sayle; "What is Instinct? Some 

 Thoughts on Telepathy and Subconsciousness in 

 Animals," by C. B. Newland ; " British Forestry : its 

 Present Position and Outlook after the War," by 

 E. P. Stebbing; "The Lost Cities of Ceylon," by 

 G. E. Mitton, illustrated; "A Book-Lover's Holidays 

 in the Open," by T. Roosevelt, illustrated ; " Form and 

 Function : a Contribution to the History of Animal 

 Morphology," by E. S. Russell, illustrated; "Hunting 

 Pygmies," by Dr. W. E. Geil, illustrated; "Vegetable 

 Fibres," by Dr. E. Goulding (Imperial Institute Hand- 

 books) ; and new editions of " Recent Progress in the 

 Study of Variation, Heredity, and Evolution," by Dr. 

 R. H. Lock, revised by Dr. L. Doncaster, with a 

 Biographical Note by B. S. Woolf (Mrs. R. H. Lock) ; 

 and "The Study of Animal Life," by Prof. J. A. 

 Thomson, illustrated. 



