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NATURE 
[APRIL 7, 1904 
was experiencing a deficiency of pressure, and vice 
versa. 
This apparent see-saw of pressure between the two 
hemispheres, which has a period of about four years or 
a little less on the average, indicates the importance 
of being acquainted simultaneously with the pressure 
conditions on both sides of the earth. 
There seems every reason, then, for the purpose of 
long-period forecasting, for meteorological institutions 
to extend their spheres of inquiry still further afield. 
Such being the case, it is important, therefore, that 
in this connection the views of Sir John Eliot, included 
in the following quotation from Broad Views, should 
be widely known, for who is there better capable of 
judging what is required than one who has so ably 
and successfully directed the Indian Meteorological 
Department for so many years? 
“The next development of weather study will almost 
certainly be in the direction of international or world 
meteorology, and its relation to the phenomena of 
sun-spots and terrestrial magnetism. 
‘Sir Norman Lockyer has, we believe, made a most 
valuable and fertile suggestion which might lead up 
to this development. It is that the English Meteor- 
ological Office should collect meteorological data from 
the whole Empire, and should have a special branch 
to deal with and discuss the larger problems which 
would arise from such an extension of its field of 
work. 
“It may perhaps be objected that Great Britain is 
outside the tropics, and that its weather has no con- 
nection with that of either India or Australia. This, 
however, is a matter which has not been taken up 
by any meteorologist for investigation and definite 
conclusions. The facts of the past ten or twelve years 
are, to say the least, suggestive. Whilst the Colonies 
and Empire in the East were suffering from drought 
parts of England were experiencing year after year 
shortage of rain. When the drought in Australia and 
in East India was giving way in 1903, England had a 
plethora of rain, almost tropical in character, 
disastrous to the crops. 
“World Empire entails world duties, and one of 
these appears at the present time to be the study of 
meteorology from the imperial, and not solely from 
the national or parochial standpoint.” i 
LABORATORIES FOR BOTANICAL RESEARCH. 
apr publicity given to the opening ceremonials 
of the new science laboratories at Cambridge by 
the King and Queen on March 1 will, it may be hoped, 
do something to rouse those who are responsible for 
the welfare of the nation to a wider sense of their 
duties. The time has surely passed when the remarks 
of a well-known prelate and of a Prime Minister to 
the effect that they were born in a pre-scientific era 
could be received, if not with overt applause, at least 
with sneaking sympathy. 
Sluggish as we are, some progress has been made. 
Up to the middle of the last century, and for some 
time after, there was scarcely a botanical laboratory 
properly so-called in the whole country. Now we 
have the Jodrell laboratory at Kew, a very modest 
institution when compared to the necessities of the 
case or to the excellent equipment of other depart- 
ments of this great national establishment. The 
Jodrell laboratory is not intended for instructional 
purposes, but chiefly for study and research, and much 
good work has been done there. 
At Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, at 
University College, London, the Royal College of 
NO. 1797, VOL. 69| 
Science, and in many other universities, agricultural 
colleges and technical institutes, there are now more 
or less well equipped laboratories under competent 
direction. But these are mainly for the instruction 
of students. Research laboratories are still rare, and 
those willing and competent to utilise them are also 
few in number. This condition of affairs is largely 
due to the indifference and lack of encouragement on 
the part of those who ought to know better. The 
cui bono question is ever in their minds, and much 
too frequently on their lips. Abstract science does 
not appeal to their sympathies, or to their intelligence, 
unless some immediate practical result at once comes 
into view. When that happens, the commercial instinet 
may perchance be aroused, and they begin to ask, 
will it pay? Of course, no reader of this Journal is 
likely to undervalue abstract science, and most of 
them are well aware of the enormous value of the 
practical results that may and do result from it. 
But even such persons must have been startled to 
find how the observations of Bower and others on the 
minute anatomy of the prothallus and spore-producing 
tissues of ferns, observations which might have been 
thought to be too abstruse and recondite to be of 
any practical value whatever, have directly led up to 
the extremely important researches of Farmer and 
his associates into the essential nature of cancer! 
Satisfactory as this undoubtedly is, we have only 
to look across the Channel to see how puny—numeri- 
cally and financially speaking—are our efforts to pro- 
mote original research. Our cousins across the 
Atlantic, a practical people if ever there was one, are 
even more energetic. Does a ‘ freeze’’ destroy or 
seriously injure the oranges of Florida, what 
matter? In a very short time a man of science and 
a man of resource is on the spot. He looks for and 
finds a hardy stock whereon to graft the tender 
scion, he puts the resources of hybridisation to the 
test in the endeavour to procure hardy seedlings. 
All this is done at once by State or Government 
agency. Here, if anything were tried in a parallel 
case, it would be with great deliberation and with 
little or no encouragement or support. 
Those familiar with what is done to promote re- 
search in the universities and colleges of the United 
States, as at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and 
in California, not to mention the older foundations 
of Harvard and Yale, must feel almost aghast at the 
progress that is being made, and at our own back- 
wardness. In the Gardeners’ Chronicle for January 
30 is an article contributed by a well-known professor 
familiar with what is being done here as well as 
there. In that article he gives details as to the 
astonishing activity manifested in the American 
universities, mainly by the aid of funds provided by 
private individuals. We too have reason to know 
and appreciate what is done by the Government 
Agricultural Department, and by the very numerous 
experimental stations scattered all over the wide 
territories of the United States. 
As we write, there comes to us a report of the 
establishment, under the auspices of the Carnegie 
Institution, of a ‘* Desert Botanical Laboratory, the 
purpose of such establishment being to study thor- 
oughly the relation of plants to an arid climate and 
to substrata of unusual composition.’? A laboratory 
has accordingly been erected near Tucson, in Arizona, 
under the management of Dr. W. A. Cannon, of the 
New York: Botanical Garden, who has been appointed 
resident investigator in charge of the laboratory. 
What may be described as a sort of preliminary report 
has been drawn up by Mr. Coville and Dr. 
