January 9, i9 x 9] 



NATURE 



37i 



In issued, under the title of "The Study of the Bio- 



1 Ferns by the Collodion Method," a useful, prac- 



study of fern-structure, especially of the sporangia, 



.1. But bis work was 



mainly oil the fungi, and he published numerous 



rs on the life-history, physiology, and taxonomj 



.(i members of this group. .Much of his work dealt 



with fungi as the cause of disease, especially in cotton 



.md other cultivated plants. As a guest of the British 



iation and an active member of the meetings of 



I iternational Botanical Congress at Vienna in 1905 



! Brussels in 1910, Prof. Atkinson was known 



onally to, many British botanists. He took a keen 



interest in the meetings of the Section of Nomen- 



clature ai Vienna and Brussels, particularly as regards 



the various groups of cryptogams. 



On January 1 last, by arrangement with the 

 Director of the Meteorological Office, the Morning Post 

 commenced the regular publication of the weather map 

 of the previous evening (6 p.m.). The map, two 

 columns wide, is on the same scale as those for 1 a.m., 

 7 a.m., and 1 p.m. which are given in the official 

 Daily Weather Report. There would seem to be con- 

 oid. 1 able delay in the telegraph service of observa- 

 tions from France, for while reports from the Low- 

 Countries, Scandinavia, and Iceland arrive in time 

 for inclusion in the map, those from France are con- 

 spicuous by their absence so far. Their prompt arrival 

 would add greatly to the value of the map. Wireless 

 reports from ships out at sea are to be added as soon 

 as the new service is organised. 



The year 1918 ended with a remarkably mild 

 December, the mean temperature at Greenwich for 

 the month being 45-8°, which is 5-8° in excess of the 

 normal. The whole month was mild except two days 

 at Christmas and on December 20 and 21. The 



1 temperature was 2-6° higher than November, 



and it was warmer than any of the months from 



1 j to April inclusive. December was also very 



damp, although the rainfall was 0-25 in. less than the 



lal. At Greenwich the mean temperature for 191S 

 was 50-5°, which is 0-5° above the average. The 

 warmest month was August, with a mean 62-9°, and i 

 in July the mean was 62-6° January was the j 

 coldest month, with the mean 397°. The change 1 

 of temperature from month to month was greatest 

 from April to May, the mean increasing from 

 45 2 to 56-4°, a difference of 11-2°. Rain fell 

 on 190 days at Greenwich during the year; the 

 gate measurement was 285 in., which is 5 in. 

 more than the normal. July was the wettest month 

 with 734 in., which is 516 in. more than the normal; ! 

 the month was the wettest July on record, whilst j 

 October, 1880, is the only month at any period of the j 

 vear with a heavier rainfall during the last hundred 

 September was also very wet, the rainfall 

 measuring 272 in. more than the normal, and at | 

 Greenwich it was the wettest September since 1896; [ 

 of recent years September has been generally dry. | 

 March was the driest month with 097 in., and 

 February was almost equally dry. Snow fell in 

 London on seventeen days, all from January to April ; ! 

 there was no snow during the later months of the year. I 

 Bright sunshine was registered for [510 hours, which 

 is forty-two hours more than the normal. June was 

 the brightest month with 224 hours' duration of sun- 

 shine, and December the dullest with only twenty-six 

 bright hours. 



Prof. df. Quervain, the well-known Swiss seismo- 



. lias mad'- a suggestion which deserves the 

 I attention of our military authorities and of 

 scientific men in this country. There are at present 



2567, VOL. I02] 



large stocks of high explosives in every country which 

 eannot be preserved and must be denitrated or 

 exploded. He _ suggests that fifty tons should be ex- 

 ploded at definite times and under various atmospheric 

 conditions, and that observers in all the surrounding 

 area should be requested to listen for the sound. Prof, 

 de Quervain is discussing the neo ssary arrangements 

 for making such experimental explosions in Switzer- 

 land with the military authorities of that country; and 

 it would be difficult to support too strongly his wish 

 that concurrent experiments should be made in Great 

 Britain. If made in the neighbourhood of seismo- 

 logical stations — for example, near Eskdalemuir — the 

 experiments might be of military value. They could 

 not fail to throw far more light than accidental un- 

 prepared explosions on the many problems presented 

 by the transmission of sound-waves by the atmosphere. 

 YVe may add that the Swiss War Office has already 

 presented ten thousand kilograms of lead and steel 

 from its surplus stores for the bob of the new three- 

 component seismograph. 



We have received from the Scripps Institution for 

 Biological Research, University of California, a copy 

 of a lecture by Dr. Francis B. Sumner on the value 

 to mankind of experiments on animals. Public 

 opinion over here tends to dismiss the subject as 

 chose jugee : and one of the many lessons of the war 

 has been in the proof that thousands and thousands 

 of our men have been safeguarded against tvphoid 

 and tetanus by methods gained from experiments on 

 animals. Perhaps in the United States there is more 

 need of this sort of scientific propaganda : and this 

 lecture is a very good historical review of the whole 

 subject. We will not here go over the ground which 

 we have won. But Dr. Sumner makes a point which 

 some of us are apt to forget. He directs attention to 

 the fact that some of the more violent opponents 

 nf all experiments on animals are not only lovers 

 of animals, but haters of science and of orthodox 

 medicine. He quotes, for instance, an invitation from 

 the lady who is president of the New York Anti- 

 Vivisection Society to "all anti-vaccinationists, anti- 

 vivisectionists, eclectics, homoeopaths, chiropaths, 

 osteopaths, naturopaths of al! branches, Christian 

 Scientists, New-Thoughtists, Theosophists, Medical 

 Freedomists, and all brave and honest physicians of 

 the allopathic school (who secretlv denounce the 

 machinations and conduct of the political doctors) to 

 enrol as active participants in an Association of Free 

 People against Medical Tyranny." And there are one 

 or two people among us over here who talk more or 

 less like this. It may be perfectly true that the 

 medical man is no better than he ought to be. But, as 

 Dickens says, what a blessing it would be if we were 

 all of us only as good as we ought to be ! 



The Kew Bulletin (No. 10, 1918) contains a remark- 

 able letter sent to Kew by the late Mr. C. O. 

 Farquharson, mycologist in Nigeria, who was drowned 

 as the result of the loss at sea through collision of 

 the s.s. Burutu, on which ill-fated ship he was coming 

 home on leave (see Nature, November 7, 1918). The 

 letter is an epitome of Mr. Farquharson 's life-work in 

 Nigeria, and gives a very graphic account of the 

 nature of the work of a tropical mycologist, the methods 

 by which he sought to solve the many difficult 

 problems with which he was confronted, and the kind 

 of education that his experience had led him to believe 

 best for such work. In the course of the It tier si me 

 interesting observations on the cultivation of ground- 

 nuts and on cacao diseases are recorded. The main 

 theme of the letter is that most tropical diseases of 

 cultivated plants are amenable to good cultivation and 

 proper sanitation, and that spraving and the introduc- 



