APRIL 11, 1907 | 
IAT ORL 
567 
fruits of plants raised from imported Asiatic seed, but 
the cost of labour proved prohibitive; further, the yield 
was found to be uncertain. 
WHETHER it is regarded as an exposition of the new 
rules for botanical nomenclature or as an authentic re- 
vision, the thanks of the botanical community are due to 
the trustees of the British Museum for publishing, and 
to Dr. A. B. Rendle and Mr. J. Britten for compiling, a 
list of British seed plants and ferns to conform with the 
decisions adopted at Vienna in 1905. The sequence of 
orders follows Bentham’s ‘‘ Handbook ’’; the limitation 
of species is based on Messrs. Groves’s revised edition of 
Babington’s ‘‘ Manual,’’ while additional insertions corre- 
late the names given in Bentham’s ‘‘ Handbook,” 
Hooker’s ‘‘ Student’s Flora,’’ and the previous edition of 
Babington’s “‘ Manual.’’ The form is similar to that of 
the London Catalogue, which it presumably will supplant. 
White studying the subject of polymorphism in the 
Hymenomycetes, a basidiomycetous subclass of fungi, Mr. 
G. R. Lyman has added to our knowledge of subsidiary 
spore-forms. It was found that oidia are commonly de- 
veloped upon the mycelia in the Polyporacez and 
Agaricacez, but rarely or never in the lower orders. 
Chlamydospores previously recorded for a few agarics and 
many of the Polyporaceze were produced under cultivation 
on the mycelia of species of Corticium and some of the 
Hydnaceez. Conidia were most frequently observed in the 
Thelephoracez. Peculiar reproductive structures not un- 
like immature ascocarps, receiving the name of bulbils, 
were discovered in Corticium alutaceum, this being the 
first record for a basidiomycetous order. The paper is 
published in vol. xxxiii., No. 4, of the Proceedings of the 
Boston Society of Natural History. 
TuHE issue of Irish Gardening for the current month con- 
tains an article by Dr. G. H. Pethybridge on the American 
gooseberry-mildew in Ireland. This mildew (Sphaerotheca 
mors uvae) was the subject of an article in these columns 
on December 13 last (vol. Ixxy., p. 160), and of a letter 
from Mr. E. S. Salmon in our issue for January 10 (vol. 
Ixxv., p. 247). Dr. Pethybridge says that everyone who 
has come into working contact with the disease in Ireland 
admits its destructive nature. Last year nineteen counties 
out of Ireland’s thirty-two had records of the disease, and 
the ninety-eight localities in which it has been reported 
since the first case in 1900 are indicated on a map accom- 
panying the paper. There are now about 100 cases of 
the mildew in Ireland, and to state that the disease exists 
“in hundreds of gardens’’ in Ireland is an unnecessary 
exaggeration. The greatest stronghold of the disease is 
at present in the north-east of Ireland, more or less in 
the neighbourhood of the first outbreak, and many of 
these cases have undoubtedly arisen by the transference 
of the spores by natural agencies from one garden or 
plot to neighbouring ones. Corresponding to the increased 
number of cases during last summer, there has been an 
increased effort to eradicate the disease, especially by spur 
pruning and burning, and it is to be hoped that systematic 
spraying with potassium sulphide solution will be carried 
out in every garden or plot in which the disease existed 
last summer. In order to settle the question as to whether 
spraying is of use or not in combating the disease in 
Ireland, what is wanted is a carefully carried out set of 
experiments with the necessary controls, and Dr. Pethy- 
bridge understands that the Irish Department of Agri- 
culture has such experiments in hand for the coming 
season. 
NO. 1954. VoL. 75] 
Tue Home Office reports on the Wingate Grange colliery 
explosion on October 14, 1906, have been issued as a Blue- 
book (Cd. 3379). It is shown that the explosion, which 
caused forty-four deaths, was due to coal dust and not 
fire-damp, and that the cause of the 
charge of geloxite, a permitted explosive, fired by means 
of a fuse. It is evident that, as coal mines are becoming 
deeper and drier, and larger areas are being worked from 
a pair of shafts, care should be taken to mitigate the 
dangers arising from the presence of coal dust. For this 
purpose steps should be immediately taken to make obli- 
gatory the removal of all coal dust from the in-take air 
ways and mechanical haulage roads of collieries. Atten- 
tion is directed to the Blue-book by Mr. John Wilson, 
M.P., in his circular to the Durham Miners’ Association, 
and also by Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P., in his monthly 
circular to the Northumberland Miners’ Association. 
explosion was a 
Tue increasing application of electric power to mining 
operations was clearly shown in two papers by Mr. M. 
Kellow and Mr. A. H. Preece read before the Institution 
of Civil Engineers on March 26. Mr. Kellow described 
a hydroelectric plant containing many features of novelty 
installed at a Welsh slate mine. The scheme has been 
carried out in the Croesor and Cwmfoel valleys, in the 
vicinity of Snowdon, and includes all the essentials of a 
complete power system, it being the first example of so 
high a head of water as 860 feet being utilised in the 
United Kingdom. The advantages of the three-phase 
system as applied to slate mining were summarised, and 
the plant installed for mill-driving, winding, haulage, 
pumping, and lighting at the Croesor slate mine was de- 
scribed. In the second paper Mr. Preece dealt with 
electrically driven winding gear, and referred to various 
points relating to the cost of electric power in mines. 
Tue Geological Survey of Canada has issued the annual 
report of the section of mines (No. 928), giving the com- 
pleted and revised information descriptive of the mineral 
industries of Canada for 1904. The report has been 
drawn up by Mr. E. D. Ingall. The Geological Survey 
has also issued reports on the Chibougamau mining region 
in the northern part of the province of Quebec, by Mr. 
A. P. Low (No. 923), and on the Rossland mining dis- 
trict, British Columbia, by Mr. R. W. Brock (No. 939). 
The former, which covers sixty-one pages and is accom- 
panied by a coloured geological map on a scale of four 
miles to the inch, records the discovery of an area of 
serpentine rocks containing asbestos of excellent quality, 
and the finding of a large vein of gold-bearing quartz and 
numerous indications of copper ore. The latter report, 
which is of a preliminary nature, clearly shows the de- 
velopment and progress of gold, copper, and silver mining 
in the Rossland district. We have also received a some- 
what belated report (No. 908, Ottawa, 1905) on recent 
mineral discoveries on Windy Arm, Tagish Lake, Yukon, 
by Mr. R. G. McConnell. The deposits consist of quartz 
veins, the principal values in which are in silver. 
A VALUABLE paper on the testing of electric machinery 
and of materials for its construction, read by Prof. 
Epstein before the Institution of Electrical Engineers, is 
published in full in the last issue (vol. xxxviii., February) 
of the journal of the institution. The paper was the 
direct outcome of the information supplied to one of the 
Engineering Standards Committees during the last eighteen 
months by the author, and is exceptionally interesting from 
both the purely scientific and practical engineering points 
Prof. Epstein describes fully the various methods 
the materials used in the manufacture of 
of view. 
of testing 
