Marcu 10, 1904] 
NATURE 
45. 
kinematographic and phonographic records of corroborees 
and ceremonies. The lecture was an outcome of two 
journeys with Mr. Gillen from Adelaide to the Gulf of 
Carpentaria; the most important ceremony, not dealt with 
in their book, referred to certain burial customs, notably 
the removal of the bones from their first ‘‘ tree-grave,’’ their 
burial in an ant-hill, but the reservation of one arm-bone 
for future elaborate ceremonial, which was shown by the 
kinematograph. 
The session, at which nearly 1000 members and associates 
were present, closed on January 13. 
At the close of the session the ‘‘ Marine Fish Hatchery 
and Biological Station,’’ situated in the Otago Harbour, 
was visited and formally opened, although it is not yet 
complete. The establishment of this, the first biological 
station in Australasia, is the outcome of the persistent efforts 
of Mr. Geo. M. Thomson, of Dunedin. 
On the following day a small party—Mr. Hedley, Prof. 
Benham, and Prof. Kirk—made an excursion to the edge 
of the ‘‘ continental shelf,’? which is about 15 miles due 
east of the Otago Head, but owing to the rough sea part 
of the deep-sea dredging gear was carried away as it was 
being hauled up, and later efforts with other gear resulted 
in but a small-reward for the day’s work. The association 
has made a grant for pursuing this work. 
BREWING AND RESEARCH. 
By 1g01 the great brewing firm of Messrs. Guinness in 
Dublin instituted a research laboratory, in which the 
work has been conducted by four trained investigators 
under the direction of Dr. Horace T. Brown. With 
characteristic generosity, Messrs. Guinness have rendered the 
results so far obtained available for other workers in the 
same field by the publication of a first volume of Trans- 
actions. Appreciation of these results will by no means be 
confined to the circle of scientific men technically interested 
in brewing, for Messrs. Guinness’ investigators have 
‘been seeking for that exact knowledge which is of 
permanent scientific value and at the same time affords a 
basis whereon technical process can be built with some 
degree of confidence and promise. The problems of the 
ibrewer really appeal to a very wide circle; because they are 
ithe problems involved in the biological chemistry of the 
germinating plant and of the yeasts and other lower 
organisms, they become the problems of the plant physio- 
logist, of the agricultural chemist, and even of the animal 
physiologist. As Dr. Brown says in his preface, ‘‘ Could 
we determine, in the early stages of the germination of a 
grain of barley, all the ‘down grade’ chemical changes 
‘of the nitrogenous substances stored in the endosperm, and 
follow the products as they enter the embryonic plant and 
are once more built up into proteid, we should have a key 
‘to many obscure problems connected with the life processes 
of plants and animals.’’ 
The first problem dealt with in the present volume is the 
investigation of the nitrogenous constituents of malt, 1.e. 
of the soluble bodies which are formed by the hydrolysis of 
the barley proteid under the action of the enzymes produced 
during germination, or which may turn out to be built up 
from simpler substances as the new plant develops. No one 
who has not worked amongst that maze of bodies generally 
““lumped’’? as amides can appreciate the thick darkness 
which envelops their separation, and consequently all 
attempts to appreciate their physiological significance. In 
the first place Dr. Brown decided upon a critical examin- 
ation of the various processes which have been proposed 
for the determination of bodies of the amide and amino 
acid type; none of the previous results, not even those of 
Schultze, hitherto the chief worker in this field, have been 
accepted without examination, and the figures given show 
the need for revision that existed. 
As a result, the Sachsse method, which depends on the 
hydrolysis of the amide group, and the Sachsse-Korman 
method, which depends on the reaction of the amide and 
amino group with nitrous acid, have been improved until 
they are capable of giving exact results, as tested with pure 
1 Transactions of the Guinness Research Laboratory, vol. i. part i. 
Pp. 141. (1903.) : 
NO. 1793, VOL. 69]° 
specimens of asparagin, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, 
leucine, tyrosine, alanine, &c. Thus by a combination of 
the two methods the amount of nitrogen present in a com- 
plex mixture as amide and as amino acid can be dis- 
tinguished and determined. A novel and exact method for 
the direct determination of tyrosine in such mixtures has 
also been devised. 
Much yet remains to be done before each one of these 
bodies can be estimated separately, probably, as Dr. Brown 
indicates, by the application of E. Fischer’s esterification 
method, but the processes here set out with careful detail 
will be of the greatest possible service to other workers in 
plant chemistry. 
Another old stumbling block has been the want of an 
accurate method for the estimation of so fundamental a 
substance as starch; O'’Sullivan’s method is exact enough, 
but is too prolonged to be anything but a research method, 
whereas it is often desirable to repeat starch determinations 
by the dozen. The volume contains a critical examination 
of a new starch method, which depends on a preliminary 
removal of the reducing sugars, &c., with alcohol, followed 
by hydrolysis to the standard conditions which have already 
been laid down by Brown and Morris, whereupon the 
maltose is determined by its cupric reducing power. This 
method is likely to be of general service in the analysis of 
a large number of bodies containing starch. 
Finally, the volume contains an examination from the 
plant physiological side of the factors associated with 
‘quality ’’ in barley, including an interesting cytological 
test of maturation. 
The standard of the work recorded in these papers is so 
high, and their value so great to all others who are engaged 
with the chemistry of the plant and plant products, that we 
can only again express our thanks to Dr. Brown and his 
co-workers, and to Messrs. Guinness for allowing the record 
of their investigations to be made public. Would there 
were many great industrial firms with the same enlightened 
views on research! ENS IDI isl 
MARINE BIOLOGY. 
THE number of the Journal of the Marine Biological 
Association recently issued (new series, vol. vi., No. 4) 
contains a detailed report on the trawling and other in- 
vestigations carried out by the association in the bays on 
the south-east coast of Devon during 1901 to 1902. The 
report has been prepared for the information of the Devon 
Sea Fisheries Committee by Mr. Walter Garstang, the 
naturalist in charge of the fishery investigations of the 
association, and is based upon a series of experimental 
trawlings and fish-marking experiments carried out by Dr. 
H. M. Kyle. The bays investigated are at present closed to 
trawlers, and as this closure has been found to press some- 
what hardly on the smaller fishermen, the Sea Fisheries 
Committee were anxious to ascertain to what extent it was 
likely to be beneficial to the fisheries of the district as a 
whole. The general conclusion arrived at in the report is 
that, having regard to the permanent maintenance of the 
fishery, it would appear to be highly inadvisable to rescind 
the regulation which prohibits trawling in Teignmouth Bay 
and Torbay, where small fish congregate. On the other 
hand, there are no biological reasons against the reopening 
of Start Bay, since small fish are found in inappreciable 
numbers, whilst large plaice concentrate there during the 
autumn months. 
A particular feature of these experiments was the success 
attained in the study of the migrations of plaice by mark- 
ing individual fishes, which were subsequently recovered by 
the fishermen. Of 349 fish 9 inches and upwards in length 
marked and liberated in the bays, 96 were subsequently re- 
covered, that is, 27-5 per cent., whilst of 71 fish liberated 
outside the bays 25 were recovered, or 35:2 per cent. The 
fishes had in many cases travelled considerable distances. 
To the same number of the Journal Dr. Petersen, of 
Copenhagen, contributes a paper entitled ‘‘ What is Over- 
fishing? ’’ in which an attempt is made to define the 
problem now receiving so much attention from those re- 
sponsible for fishery administration. Dr. Kyle furnishes 
notes on the physical conditions existing within the line 
from Start Point to Portland, and a paper on fishing nets, 
