August 25, 1904] 



NATURE 



395 



OVR BOOKSHELF. 



Warrington's Roman Remains. By Thos. May. 



F.E.I. Pp. S7. (Warrington: Mackie, 1904.) 



Price 5i. net. 

 Akcii.kolocists liave long known that a Roman site 

 e.\.isted near Wilderspool Brewery, close to the Mersey 

 on the south side of Warrington. Discoveries have 

 been made during tlie constructions of various canals, 

 and remains have accumulated in Warrington 

 Museum. Now a local antiquary, Mr. May, has 

 attempted during the last eight or nine years to 

 e.\cavate a small portion of the site — soine two or 

 three acres out of an estimated total of thirty or thirty- 

 five acres. In the volume before us he collects, re- 

 vises, and illustrates various accounts of his work 

 which ho had previously published in scattered papers. 

 The collection is a useful contribution to the local 

 study of Roman remains. It has the merits and 

 •demerits of many books of the same kind. In his 

 g'eneral attack on the problem of what Roman 

 Warrington was, we think Mr. May has not succeeded. 

 He calls it " a partly fortified industrial town " ex- 

 tending over a quarter of a mile on both sides of a 

 Roman road ; but hi^ fortifications are puzzling, and 

 his furnaces, smelting floors, &c., do not constitute 

 .•ui ■■ industrial town " in any proper sense of that 

 ])hrase. On the other hand, he records interesting 

 minor discoveries in the way of pottery and small 

 objects, and the traces noted by him of glass w orkers, 

 iron workers, and potters are noteworthy, though it 

 may be rash to call them "the earliest in Britain." 

 The little volume is well illustrated, though printed on 

 rather unpleasant paper. 



The K.\pL'rimcntal Bacterial Treatment of London 

 Si-uuigc. (London County Council.) By Prof. 

 I'rank Clowes, D.Sc, and A. C. Houston', M.B., 

 D.Sc. Pp. xii + 242. (London: P. S. King and 

 Co.) Price 10s. 



This report contains an account of the experiments 

 carried out by the London County Council during the 

 years ii)02 and 1003. The main conclusions arrived at 

 by Prof. Clowes in the first part (chemical and general) 

 of the report are that coke is a suitable material for 

 bacterial beds and does not disintegrate during use, 

 that the bacterial effluent of settled sewage from sucli 

 beds does not undergo offensive putrefaction and sup- 

 ports fish life, and that the use of chemicals is 

 unnecessary when this mode of treatment is adopted. 

 In the second nart Dr. Houston deals with the bacteri- 

 ological f>ortion of the experimental work. His results 

 seem to show that though the number of bacteria in 

 the effluent from coke beds is less than in the corre- 

 sponding crude sewage the reduction is not well 

 marked, and while the bacterial effluent is chemically 

 satisfactory, the bacteriological results are usually 

 quite the reverse, because the microbes pass through 

 the coke-beds. There seems to be small ground for 

 belief that the typhoid bacillus would be destroyed in 

 the beds; an important conclusion. 



The report is copiously illustrated with diagrams and 

 photomicrographs. R. T. Hewlett. 



Round the Coast. A Reading Book for Schools. By 

 George F. Bosworth. Pp. viii + 248. (London: 

 George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., IQ04.) Price 

 IS. 6d. 



These short, miscellaneous reading lessons will serve 

 to teach boys and girls many interesting facts about 

 the geography and history of England. Numerous 

 poetical pieces are included, and the maps and pictures 

 much increase the book's attractiveness. 



NO. 181 7, VOL. 70] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertatie 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is talcen of anonymous communications.] 



Synthesis of Radio-active Substance. 



I.\ connection with the suggestive letter of Sir William 

 Ramsay and Mr. Cooke, the following observation appears 

 to be of some interest. My friend Prof. H. H. Dixon, in 

 conjunction with Dr. Wigham, in the course of some ex- 

 periments on the S and y radiations of radium on bacteria 

 used a platinum rod to cast a shadow on the culture, in 

 order the better to estimate by contrast whether the rays 

 had effected the culture or not. The platinum rod so used 

 to intercept the rays was of cylindrical form and about 

 J mm. in diameter. Prof. Dixon's and Dr. Wigham's 

 observations are published in the Proc. R.D..S., and also in 



N.ATURE. 



Happening at the time to be repeating" some of Dr. 

 Russell's well known experiments on the influence of metals 

 on photographic plates, I used this rod, among other speci- 

 mens of metallic elements, to observe their photographic 

 activity. This was about thirty days after Dr. Dixon had 

 made his experiments. I was surprised to find that the rod, 

 after resting twenty-four hours upon an instantaneous plate, 

 had not only affected the plate, but had also produced all 

 the appearance of intense solarisation, darkening the plate 

 in its neighbourhood, but clearing it completely along the 

 line of contact. The negative is still in my possession. 



In this experiment the only action upon the plate was 

 from the 7 and ;8 rays, the radium (5 mgrs.) being enclosed 

 in a sealed glass tube. 



In a subsequent experiment, a copper coin kept enclosed 

 along with some radium contained in an aluminium button, 

 when tested photographically, gave no specially marked 

 result. 



It would be desirable in experiments of the kind described 

 by Sir William Ramsay and Mr. Cooke that a rays should 

 in some cases be permitted to exert their influence. If Dr. 

 Harold Wilson's suggestion as to the nature of these 

 radiations is correct, it may well be that these positive ions 

 may take part in synthetic effects. 



I have already ventured to suggest the possibility of the 

 synthetic origin of radium, partly in answer to a difficulty 

 I have not seen discussed, i.e. what becomes of radiated 

 ions when these are absorbed by atoms. J. JOLV. 



\'alencia, Co. Kerry. .August 14. 



Action of Metals on Photographic Plates. 



In the course of the experiments referred to above, as to 

 the nature of the Russell effect, I found that metals (pure 

 mercury and polished speculum metal) placed in contact with 

 a rapid plate submerged under absolute alcohol, and the 

 whole enclosed in an air-tight desiccator over calcium 

 chloride, afforded the photographic marks on subsequent 

 development just as vigorously as if obtained in ordinary 

 moist air. Is not this experiment sufficient to show that 

 Dr. Russell's explanation, which refers these marks to the 

 formation of hydrogen peroxide, cannot be correct? Ought 

 we not rather to seek the explanation in the ionising 

 properties of metals indicated by other observations? 



.\ugust 14. J. Joi,Y. 



" The Primrose and Darwinism." 



YoL'R readers may remember a book published under the 

 above title some few years ago, and my apology for bring- 

 ing up the subject again is the delight with which manv 

 reviewers hailed it as totally destructive of Darwin's theory 

 of the fertilisation of the primrose. Whilst viewing with 

 distrust the entirely unscientific method displayed in the 

 book, I considered a useful purpose might be served by 

 repeating some of Darwin's primrose experiments under 

 different conditions. 



Plants of primroses were therefore potted up and forced 

 in a hothouse in February, 1904, and crossed and self- 



