JANUARY I5, 1914] 
culture solution was present, and that a mixture 
of the three constituents gave better results than 
either separately:. Maximum results were obtained 
when 150 parts of the substance per million were 
present. Evidence is presented to show that the 
organic compounds are absorbed as such by the 
plant, and are not decomposed to form ammonia, 
nitrites or nitrates in the solution. 
The development of this new view will be 
watched with interest, not only by plant physio- 
logists, but by soil students as well. 
In another bulletin Messrs. Schreiner and Brown 
investigate the black soil material insoluble in 
alkalis, and find lignite particles, coal particles, 
and other materials, some of which suggests inter- 
mediate stages of formation. The coal-like 
material seemed to be present in every soil, and 
is considered to be formed during the decomposi- 
tion of the organic matter. If this turns out to be 
the case it will add one more to the remarkable 
reactions going on in the soil. 
Messrs. Sullivan and Reid have investigated the 
power of soils to decompose hydrogen peroxide, 
and they suggest that this catalytic power is due 
not to an enzyme, but to the inorganic and 
organic matter in the soil. The subject is of 
some interest because it is important to study the 
conditions under which the reactions go on in the 
soil. 
An entirely different problem is attacked by 
Prof. A. Wieler in his monograph on the effect 
on plant growth of removing calcium carbonate 
from the soil, especially when this removal is 
brought about by smoke. This is a continuation 
of the author’s earlier work on the effect of 
sulphur dioxide on plants, which led him to con- 
clude that the injurious result was due not-only 
to an action on the leaf, but to one on the soil. 
The Claustal (the region investigated by the 
author) has, like parts of our own Lancashire, 
lost its trees, and the author concludes that this 
has come about because the soil has become too 
depleted of lime for tree growth to be possible. 
This thesis is developed at considerable length, 
and a section is added on the injurious effect of 
metallic salts on plant growth. 
NOTES. 
Tue council of the Royal Geographical Society has 
made a grant of roool. towards the expenses of Sir 
Ernest Shackleton’s Transantarctic expedition. Mr. 
Rudyard Kipling is to lecture before the society on 
February 17 upon ‘‘Some Aspects of Travel.” 
Tue Geological Society of London will this year 
award its medals and funds as follows :—Wollaston 
medal, Dr. J. E. Marr, F.R.S.; Murchison medal, 
W. A. E. Ussher; Lyell medal, C. S. Middlemiss; 
Wollaston fund, R. B. Newton; Murchison fund, 
FF. N. Haward; Lyell fund, Rev. W. Howchin and J. 
Postlethwaite. 
Aw Institution of Petroleum Technologists has been 
formed, with Sir Boverton Redwood, Bart., as presi- 
dent. Dr. D. T. Day, of the United States Geological 
NO. 2307, VOL. 92] 
NATURE . 
561 
Survey, and Prof. C. Engler have been elected 
honorary members of the institution. Form of appli- 
cation for mebership may be obtained from the secre- 
taries, 17 Gracechurch Street, E.C. 
Tue council of the Royal Anthropological Institute 
has made arrangements for an address by Prof. Bald- 
win Spencer, C.M.G., F.R.S., on the life of the Aus- 
tralian tribesmen, to be given in the theatre of the 
Civil Service Commission, Burlington Gardens, W., on 
Tuesday, January 27, at 8 p.m. The address will be 
illustrated by means of kinematograph films and 
phonograph records. 
On Tuesday next, January 20, Prof. W. Bateson 
will deliver the first of a course of six lectures at the 
Royal Institution on animals and plants under domes- 
tication, and on Thursday, January Mr. W. 
McDougall will begin a course of two lectures on the 
mind of savage men. The Friday evening discourse 
on January 23 will be delivered by Sir James Dewar 
on the coming-of-age of the vacuum flask. 
22 
22, 
Tue volcanic Mount Sakurashima, which forms an 
island situated at the head of Kagoshima Bay, south 
of Kiushiu, after being dormant for a century and a 
quarter, burst into eruption on Monday, destroying 
the villages on the island and affecting the ancient 
city of Kagoshima on the mainland a few miles away. 
It is reported that from Sunday morning to Monday 
more than two hundred shocks were felt in Kago- 
shima. When the eruption began, enormous columns 
of illuminated dust and vapour burst out from the 
sides of the volcano, and soon enveloped the whole 
island of Sakurashima. Forty minutes later an 
eruption began from the summit. The heat from the 
voleano was intense, and could be felt in Kagoshima. 
The city of Nagasaki, a hundred miles from Sakura- 
shima, has been covered with a fine deposit of volcanic 
ash. 
Tue death is reported, in his eighty-fourth year, of 
Mr. John Phin, the author of many popular scientific 
text-books, and a former editor of several New York 
papers, including The Manufacturer and Builder, The 
Technologist, and The American Journal of Micro- 
scopy. He was born in Melrose, Scotland, and was 
educated at the parish school, and the Musselburgh 
Academy, subsequently studying civil engineering in 
Edinburgh. He went to the United States in 1851, 
and afterward became professor’ of chemistry and 
technology in the People’s College,. Havana, N.Y., 
and professor of agriculture in the’ Pennsylvania Agri- 
cultural College. In addition to his scientific interests, 
he was a devoted Shakespeare student, and compiled 
a Shakespeare cyclopzedia and glossary. 
Mr. GrirFitH Tayior, in a paper read before the 
Royal Geographical Society on Monday last, described 
at length the topographical and geological features of 
the Australian federal territory, which forms an enclave 
in New South Wales. It is an area of considerable 
physiographical interest, and though only of some 
goo square miles’ area, ‘participates (with the sur- 
rounding country) in four well-marked divisions, 
namely the Lake George plains, an undissected country 
of recent surface-form, the Murrumbidgee scarp and 
