for 
DECEMBER 20, 1906 | NATURE 185 
1g01* (published 1905) contains, in addition to the | and helped the Huxley. ‘Ihe association asked for a con- 
summary report (published in 1902), a report on the Klon-| tinuation of the grant which for the last five years the 
dike goldfields, by R. G. McConnell, 1905; a report on 
an exploration of Ekwan River, Sutton Mill Lakes, by 
D. B. Dowling, 1904; Dr. Barlow’s elaborate report on 
the nickel and copper deposits of the Sudbury mining dis- 
trict, 1904; and other papers. Both volumes are illustrated 
and accompanied by separate portfolios of maps. The 
volume for 1902-3 contains the summary reports for 1902 
(published in 1903) and for 1903 (published in 1904). There 
is also a report on the coalfield of the Souris River, East 
Assiniboia, by D. B. Dowling, and the ‘* Section of Mines ”’ 
annual report for 1902. 
SCIENTIFIC FISHERY INVESTIGATIONS. 
[X the unavoidable absence of the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, Mr. R. M’Kenna received a deputation at 
the Treasury on December 18 in support of the application 
of the Marine Biological Association for a grant to con- 
tinue the scientific fishery investigations which are at 
present being conducted in the North Sea and English 
Channel. The deputation was introduced by the Right 
Hon. Austen Chamberlain, M.P., ex-Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, and among those present were Prof. E. Ray 
Lankester (president of the Marine Biological Association), 
Sir Michael Foster, Sir William Ramsay, Mr. A. E. 
Shipley (chairman of the council), Sir Charles Eliot, Mr. 
Chas. Hellyer, Mr. J. A. Travers, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, 
Prof. E. A. Minchin, and Dr. H. R. Mill. 
In introducing the deputation, Mr. Austen Chamberlain 
stated that, as a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, it 
had been his duty to review the work which had been 
done by the Marine Biological Association, and he had 
come to the conclusion that it was most necessary, and 
that it had been efficiently performed. He considered that 
British Governments of both parties should do more to 
Support both science and art. Prof. Lankester gave a 
brief account of the history of the Marine Biological 
Association, and explained the circumstances in which the 
association undertook, at the request of His Majesty’s 
Government, to carry out the English portion of the inter- 
national scheme of fishery investigations. He directed 
attention to the fact that the present application of the 
association for funds to continue their researches had 
received the special support of the Royal Society, which 
recorded in a strong minute its appreciation of the value 
and efficiency of the work being done. 
Mr. A. E. Shipley said the Government has gained 
directly and in money by entrusting the North Sea work 
to the Marine Biological Association. He referred to the 
importance of extending over a suflicient period of years 
-the kind of investigation which the association is making. 
Only so can the effects of secondary causes and excep- 
tional fluctuations be eliminated from the essential, 
primary, normal factors. While time advances in an 
arithmetical progression so does the value of the results 
increase in a geometrical ratio. Mr. Shipley gave a short 
résumé of the work accomplished, and because it has 
furnished the problems of most pressing importance he 
confined his remarks chiefly to the plaice. During the 
last four years the association has devoted much hard 
work to tracing the life-history and the distribution of 
this species throughout the North Sea, with the result that 
many important facts concerning it have been established. 
Similar investigations have been carried on, but not yet so 
thoroughly, into the life-histories, the distribution, the 
migrations, and rate of growth of many of the other food 
fishes, the cod, the haddock, the sole, the turbot, and others. 
Special experiments have been made on the Huxley to deter- 
mine the vitality and the extent of injury inflicted upon 
trawl-caught fish by the operations of trawling. The 
hydrographic observations and the investigations into the 
minute organisms which crowd the surface of the waters 
and form the ultimate food of fish have been efficiently 
carried on in accordance with the programme laid down 
by the international conferences. In this work especially, 
the Plymouth steamer, the Oithona, has supplemented 
1“ The Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Canada for 1901.” 
(x905.) With separate folio of maps. The Annual Report of the Geological! 
Sarvey of Canada, vol. xv., 1902-3. (1906.) 
NO. 1938, VOL. 75] 
Government has made towards the expense of carrying on 
the English part of the North Sea international investi- 
gations. A grant of 6o0ol. a year is needed to continue 
the international work, and a grant of 2o000l. for the work 
on the south coast, making a total grant asked for of 
8000]. Next spring, for the first time, the International 
Congress has been invited to meet in England. There will 
be gathered together in London some thirty or forty of 
the leading men of science from Russia, Finland, Sweden, 
Norway, Denmark, Germany, Holland, and Belgium. It 
will be a pitiful thing, and also a deep humiliation, if 
we have to greet these gentlemen with the tidings that 
England, who takes from the North Sea far more than 
all the other eight countries together, more, in fact, than 
go per cent. of the total yield, is too impoverished to con- 
tinue to do her share of this important work. 
Sir Michael Foster, speaking on behalf of the British 
Science Guild, considered that the money asked for ought 
to be regarded as of the nature of an investment, and not 
as expenditure. He believed that scientific investigation 
was the only sound foundation upon which fishery legis- 
lation could be framed, and that experimental legislation, 
which was the only possible alternative to experimental 
research, would involve the country in far greater expendi- 
ture than the sinall sum required by the Marine Biological 
Association. 
Mr. Charles Hellyer, chairman of committees of the 
National Sea Fisheries Protection Association, speaking 
as a practical man connected with the fishing industry, 
emphasised the importance to the industry of the know- 
ledge being accumulated by the scientific investigations 
now in progress. 
Mr. J. A. Travers, in the absence of the Prime-Warden, 
referred to the support which the Fishmongers’ Company 
had always given to the work of the Marine Biological 
Association in the belief that an increase of scientific 
knowledge was bound to be advantageous to the best 
interests of the fishing industry. 
Dr. H. R. Mill spoke of the very valuable results which 
had been obtained from the hydrographical work carried 
out in the North Sea and adjacent waters during recent 
years, and expressed the view that the time was not far 
distant when it would be possible to predict the movements 
of the migratory fishes from a knowledge of the hydro- 
graphical conditions of the sea. 
Mr. M’Kenna, in reply to the deputation, stated that 
after what had been said there could be no question as 
to the value of the work upon which the Marine Bio- 
logical Association was engaged. But the demands upon 
the national Exchequer were very heavy, and as a matter 
of experience they found that the satisfaction of one 
demand led to a number of others being brought forward. 
He promised to lay the views expressed by the deputation 
before the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who would, he 
had no doubt, give them his most careful consideration. 
AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH. 
[N concluding a course of Cantor lectures at the Society 
of Arts on Monday, on the subject of “‘ Artificial 
Fertilisers,’’? Mr. A. D. Hall, director of the Rothamsted 
Experiment Station, pointed out that only by continued 
investigation and experiment can a knowledge be obtained 
of the conditions necessary to make the maximum profit 
out of the land, crops, and stock. The teacher can only 
hand on what is already known; and much yet remains 
unknown about the growth of our commonest crops and 
the action of standard fertilisers. Adequate provision for 
scientific investigation of agricultural matters is gf national 
importance, as the following remarks made by Mr. Hall 
show; but though a few counties and other local bodies 
are carrying out demonstrations, Rothamsted, with its 
comparatively small endowment, remains practically our 
only experiment station where problems in agricultural 
science are studied with the object of making new know- 
ledge, and State aid for research amounts only to a few 
hundred pounds a year for the whole country. 
The grants of our Board of Agriculture for agricultural 
