454 



NA TURE 



[September 5, 1901 



own special purposes, but for general constructive works, necessi- 

 tating contact with soil and water, the timber of this tree stands 

 foremost. The karri is not so well known as the jarrah owing 

 to the limited area and, at present, comparative inaccessibility 

 of its field of growth. It is the giant tree of Western Australia, 

 if not of the whole Australian continent. For street blocking 

 karri timber is most valuable, and for this purpose seems to be 

 equal to, if not better than, the jarrah, in that its surface, by the 

 wear caused by the traffic, does not render it so slippery for the 

 horses' feet. As is well known, this timber is now largely 

 used for London street paving. 



Some farmers believe that the moon has a direct effect upon 

 vegetation, and that the time of sowing seeds should be regu- 

 lated by the lunar phases. No accurate experiments appear to 

 have been made to investigate this influence ; and a note in the 

 U.S. ilonthly Weather Review points out that the belief is one 

 that has come down to us from very early times, and began before 

 accurate observations were recorded. Two proverbs relating 

 to the influence of the moon upon vegetation, as handed down 

 to us through folk-lore, read as follows : — 



" Go plant the be.in when the moon is light, 

 And you will find that this is right ; 

 PKint the potatoes when the moon is dark, 

 And to this line you will hark." 



(Dun'Moady, Weather Prererbs.) 



" Sowe peason and beans in the wane of the moone 

 Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soone." 



{IVcre/i/els, Dissertation upon Superstition, 174S.) 



Here are two different sayings as to the phase of the moon 

 during which to plant : (1) a bright moon for beans and a dark 

 moon for potatoes; (2) a waning moon for peas and beans. 

 Another proverb states that sowings should always be made at 

 the period of an increasing moon. Further astrological con- 

 siderations are also often introduced, and if they were permitted 

 to determine the time of planting seeds, farmers would find 

 that there are only one or two full working days in a whole 

 month when the moon and the signs are favourable. Fortu- 

 nately, farmers as a class wisely busy themselves with seed- 

 sowing when the soil (not when the moon) allows it, and have 

 more faith in laborious cultivation, manure, rainfall and 

 temperature than in lunar inf uence. 



Mr. J. H.ALL-Edwards, who was surgeon radiographer to 

 the Iinperial Yeomanry Hospital, South .Africa, described 

 some of his experiences as to the value of Rontgen rays in war- 

 fare at the recent meeting of the British Medical Association. 

 He found that the plan of obtaining the current for charging 

 the accumulators from a dynamo connected with a belt to a foot 

 motor of the bicycle type was altogether impracticable, as no one 

 could work the bicycle arrangement long enough to be of much 

 use. A small oil engine was used instead of the foot power, 

 and worked very satisfactorily. As to the results of the intro- 

 duction of Rontgen rays into military surgery, Mr. Hall- Edwards 

 remarks : — " With the friendly aid of these rays, we are enabled 

 to record the effects of small-bore projectiles under the various 

 conditions which occur in actual warfare. We are enabled to 

 localise the position of a bullet or other foreign body with ab- 

 solutely scientific accuracy ; and, if our present knowledge be 

 used to its fullest extent, we can sec the condition of the parts 

 as plainly as we could do were the so(t tissues composed only 

 of transparent gelatine. These facts being recognised, it is easy 

 to see that the application of the rays to military surgery must 

 produce results of the greatest possible value for future guidance, 

 and that their complete application in a great war — such as we 

 are at present engaged in — must prove of inestimable service in 

 increasing our knowledge upon this most important subject. 

 Many of the time-worn, useless and dangerous methods of find- 

 ing the whereabouts of hidden bullets may now be forgotten ; 

 for with these rays we have at our disposal an aseptic, scientific 

 NO. 1662, VOL. 64] 



and absolutely accurate method of localisation, which may be 

 improved, but which even now is as near perfection as our 

 present knowledge can make it. There can be little doubt 

 that, in the face of the new facts brought to light by means of 

 these rays, military surgery will have to be rewritten, and the 

 advance made will mark an epoch in its progress." 



" I RETURNED, and saw under the sun, that the race is not 

 to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," wrote the wise man. 

 Writing in the same prophetic vein, M. J. de Bloch in the cur- 

 rent Contemporary Review, and Mr. H. G. Wells in the 

 Fortnigittly for September, depict in graphic colours the trans- 

 formation which the immediate future will witness in the methods 

 of warfare. Both writers are convinced that the military tactics 

 of the past are irretrievably dead. The eftective soldier of the 

 future will be a man whose capacity for individual action has 

 been cultivated and developed. The day for all the picturesque 

 accompaniments of war is done, and exhibitions of mere brute 

 courage will be of no avail. Mr. Wells takes into account the 

 resources which modern science has made available for the 

 business of war, and proceeds to anticipate the most likely 

 directions that future advances will take. Of one thing he leaves 

 his reader in no doubt, victory is bound to be with the nation 

 that most sedulously attends to the education of its people in 

 the scientific method. The great war of the future will be fought 

 by citizens familiar with destructive instruments of precision, 

 who have learnt to utilise all the accessory helps which science 

 is gradually perfecting. There will be few professional military 

 men of the type of to-day in the ranks of the victorious nation. 

 In Mr. Wells's words, " the warfare of the coming time will 

 really be won in schools and colleges and universities, wherever 

 men write and read and talk together. The nation that pro- 

 duces, in the near future, the largest proportional development 

 of educated and intelligent engineers and agriculturists, of 

 doctors, schoolmasters, professional soldiers, and intellectually 

 active people of all sorts ; the nation that most resolutely picks 

 over, educates, sterilises, exports, or poisons its People of the 

 Abyss ; . . . the nation in a word, that turns the greatest pro- 

 portion of its irresponsible adiposity into social muscle, will 

 certainly be the nation that will be the most powerful in warfare 

 as in peace." 



We have received a report by Prof. Elster on progress in the 

 study of Becquerel rays, reprinted from Dr. Eder"s photographic 

 Jalirhucli for 1901. It is a summary of experimental work done 

 in this direction subsequent to the report by the same author 

 for the previous year. 



A REPRINT from the Proceedings of the South London Ento- 

 mological Society contains a paper on the ova of Lepidoptera, 

 by Mr. F. Noad Clark. Mr. Clark has been highly successful 

 in photographing these eggs, especially when account is taken 

 of the difficulty of obtaining good photographs of opaque micro- 

 scopic objects. 



From the annual Report for 1900 we learn that, the Botanical 

 Exchange Club of the British Isles now has a membership of 

 fifty. During the year 373 covers were sent in, 67 containing 

 Rubi,49 Hieracea, and 14 Euphrasiiv, the total number of speci- 

 mens received and distributed being 457$. The report contains 

 a large number of notes of new varieties, new localities, and 

 records confirming the persistence of rare species and varieties 

 in previously recorded habitats. 



A THESIS recently presented to the Paris F.aculty of Science 

 by M. Henri Bi»nard deals with the cellular distribution of 

 eddies produced in liquid films when convection currents are set 

 up. Although the phenomena herein described have been 

 previously recorded, but little appears to have been done in 

 submitting them to systematic observation. These phenomena 



