December 14, 1905] 



NATURE 



159 



The American gooseberry mildew, Sphaerotkeca mors- 

 uvac, which was reported from Ireland in 1900, and from 

 Russia in the succeeding year, has also appeared in 

 Sweden. E)r. J. Eriksson, writing in Bulletin No. 87 of 

 the experimental station of the Royal Agricultural 

 College, traces the disease that developed in Karlshamm, in 

 the south of Sweden, to bushes that had been imported 

 from Denmark. 



The monthly journal Tropical Life deals chiefly with 

 tropical agriculture and commerce. Reference is made in 

 the November number to two American machines recently 

 brought out, the one a sugar-cane harvester, the other an 

 auto-cottonpicker. The latter machine is provided with 

 two long mechanical arms moving lightly in a universal 

 joint ; along each arm runs an endless belt studded with 

 hooks. The arms are tilted to come in contact with the 

 bolls, when the hooks pull away the whole mass, and the 

 cotton passes along the belt to a receptacle. The possi- 

 bility of utilising banana stems and trash for the manu- 

 facture of paper is discussed in view of the large amount 

 of material that is produced in the cultivation of the fruit. 



The cultivation of tomatoes under glass, with special 

 reference to the value of pruning, is discussed in Bulletin 

 No. 105 issued from the Hatch Experimental Station 

 of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. The writer, 

 Mr. G. E. Stone, advocates planting in beds rather than 

 in pots, although the root restriction in pots favours early 

 maturity. Pruning is said to promote early ripening and 

 to produce increased size of fruit. There is some differ- 

 ence of opinion whether it is better to prune to one or 

 three stems, but there is a general consensus in favour of 

 cutting out the leader. 



The report of the chief of the United States Weather 

 Bureau for the fiscal year 1903-4 (pp. xxxix+381) con- 

 tains, in addition to tables of observations and summaries 

 at some 1650 stations, an interesting account of the very 

 useful operations of that organisation. Weather forecasts 

 for thirty-six and forty-eight hours in advance are issued 

 for each State, besides special warnings of gales, cold 

 waves, floods, &c. To mention one case only of the 

 utility of the storm warnings — a hurricane which advanced 

 from the West Indies destroyed property to the value of 

 100,000 dollars during its progress over Florida, but, owing 

 to timely notice, comparatively little damage was done to 

 vessels, as they remained in port in consequence of the 

 warnings. Prof. W. L. Moore reiterates the hope that 

 the time will come when it will be possible to forecast the 

 weather for coming seasons, but that time has not yet 

 arrived, and the officials of the Weather Bureau have been 

 instructed to warn the public against imposition by long- 

 range forecasters. A course of lectures on meteorology has 

 been delivered by Prof. Abbe to students frequenting the 

 Bureau, and we understand that this useful practice is now 

 being carried out at our own Meteorological Office. The 

 lectures present the results of work done by some of the 

 ablest meteorologists in various parts of the world, and 

 undoubtedly tend to excite greater interest in the science 

 generally. 



In the Transactions of the American Mathematical 

 Society for October Mr. F. R. Sharpe discusses the stability 

 of motion of viscous liquids. It was found by Reynolds in 

 1895 tna t for a liquid of density p and viscosity n moving 

 between two planes at distance 20 apart, the motion was 

 unstable when 2bpU/fj.>$iy, while for a cylindrical pipe 

 of radius a the critical velocity was given by 2ba//i = io34. 

 Mr. Sharpe now obtains for the first case the constant 167 

 instead of 517, and for the second 470 instead of 1034. 

 NO. T885, VOL ■/■!,] 



In the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 

 xlvii., Prof. E. W. Scripture gives a first report of his 

 studies on the construction of a vowel organ. The first 

 experiments were made with reeds, but it was soon found 

 necessary to replace these by rubber membranes held in 

 various frames, and representing more closely the action 

 of the human glottis. It is now possible to imitate all the 

 vowels and their variations, and the remaining problem is 

 to replace the rubber glottis by something that changes its 

 form of vibration for different vowels and does not alter 

 with time. When this can be done it will be possible to 

 construct either a complete organ or a vowel register such 

 as could be effectively used in church music. A register 

 of one octave would require 124 vowel pipes. 



In a note contributed to the Journal of the Royal Micro- 

 scopical Society (first read before the New York Micro- 

 scopical Society in April last) Mr. Daniel D. Jackson 

 advances the view that the movements of diatoms are 

 caused by the evolution of gas. This idea was first sug- 

 gested to the author by noticing the behaviour of a lithia 

 tablet in a glass of water: The bubbles of carbonic acid 

 gas given off set up the exact motions in the tablet that 

 have been so often described for the movements of diatoms 

 — " a sudden advance in a straight line, a little hesitation, 

 then other rectilinear movements, and, after a short pause, 

 a return upon nearly the same path by similar movements." 

 Mr. Jackson next made small models of diatoms ot 

 aluminium, 2 mm. thick, having longitudinal grooves re- 

 sembling those of the diatoms. When placed in caustic- 

 soda these models not only reproduced the actual move- 

 ments of the diatoms, but also gave rise to currents in the 

 matter closely resembling those described by Prof. H. L. 

 Smith as the result of observations made by placing indigo 

 in the water. 



We have received the Transactions of the English 

 Ceramic Society, including the papers and discussions for 

 the season 1904-5. It is satisfactory to note that the 

 president, in the course of his address, considered that the 

 scorn for technical instruction affected by pottery manu- 

 facturers in the past appeared to be dying out. Allusion 

 was also made to the steps taken by the Joint Committee 

 of Manufacturers of Staffordshire to foster research in 

 pottery by offering prizes for original work bearing on 

 certain subjects. The society appears to be in a prosperous 

 condition, and its efforts are becoming more and more 

 appreciated both at home and abroad. Amongst the various 

 papers we notice an interesting contribution by the pottery 

 instructor, Dr. J. W. Mellor, on crystallisation in pottery. 



In No. 7 of the Bulletin of the Royal Academy of 

 Belgium Prof. W. Spring describes experiments extending 

 his well known work on the colour of natural waters. 

 He comes to the conclusion that the calcium compounds 

 present in natural waters have no colour peculiar to them- 

 selves, and hence are not responsible for the green tint of 

 many waters containing them. This is probably due 10 the 

 diffraction produced by minute solid particles, the presence 

 of which can be demonstrated by an intensely luminous 

 ray of light. Calcium salts really tend to conserve the 

 pure blue colour of water by causing the elimination of 

 ferric salts and humic materials. When a highly calcareous 

 water is of a greenish hue it generally indicates that there 

 is an equilibrium between the influx of brownish water 

 containing humic material and ferric salts, and the purify- 

 ing action of the calcium salts. In No. S of the same 

 Bulletin Prof. Louis Henry discusses in a theoretical paper 

 the properties of water and their relation to the formula 

 H,0. The physical properties point to a polymerisation of 



