82 
NATRORLE. 
[May 25, 1899 
with 100,000 dollars a year for the next five years the 
insect will be practically exterminated, and the re- 
maining five years will be spent in a careful watch of 
the entire territory, lest a few insects might have 
been overlooked in isolated localities. Unless a suf- 
ficient amount is appropriated to make a very substantial 
gain each year, it would be better to abandon the work 
entirely.” 
It is perhaps not surprising that, after having already 
spent half a million of dollars in what many persons, 
rightly or wrongly, considered the hopeless task of ex- 
terminating a single insect, the Committee’s application 
for a continuous grant of 200,000 dollars annually should 
have met with much opposition. A proposal was made 
to reduce the amount of the grant for 1898 to 75,000 
dollars ; but it was successfully resisted, and ultimately 
the full amount of 200,000 dollars asked for was granted 
for the year. 
Another European moth-pest has lately been intro- 
duced into America—the Wood Leopard Moth (Zeuzera 
pyrina), which is at present rapidly destroying the shade- 
trees of New York. But this insect is still more difficult 
to deal with than the Gipsy Moth, for its naked yellow, 
black-spotted caterpillar feeds inside the wood of the 
trees, like that of the Goat Moth, to which it is allied ; 
whereas the black, red-spotted tufted caterpillar of the 
Gipsy Moth feeds exposed on the leaves of its food- 
plants. 
Different countries exchange their injurious animals 
and plants from time to time, but no one can tell before- 
hand which species are likely to establish themselves 
and to become injurious. We have seen that the Gipsy 
Moth had ample opportunities of becoming as injurious 
in England as in America; but, nevertheless, it has 
died out. 
On the other hand, the Woolly Aphis (Schézoneura 
Janigerva), which is one of the worst pests of our apple- 
trees, is said to have come from America, and is often 
called the American Blight. The vagaries of plants are 
equally uncertain. Our common water-cress, a harmless 
plant enough, one would think, has developed a giant 
form in New Zealand, which is blocking up the water- 
courses. In the middle of the present century, an 
American water-plant (Avzacharis alsinastrum) was 
introduced into England by some accident, like the 
Gipsy Moth into America, when it was called the 
new water-weed, and caused great trouble for a time 
by choking up rivers and ponds. Fortunately, how- 
ever, after a few years the plant seems to lose its 
vitality, and ceases to become a pest, owing, as is 
supposed, to the female plant only having been intro- 
duced into England, and it therefore propagates by buds 
alone. 
Time will show whether the Gipsy Moth will continue 
its devastations in America, or whether it will either be 
exterminated by the energetic measures taken for its 
destruction, or by the conditions of American life proving 
ultimately unfavourable to it, notwithstanding its first 
rapid increase. It is evident that, although we cannot 
avoid the accidental introduction of injurious plants and 
animals from abroad, some care should be taken in 
introducing any which might become injurious into 
another country. M. Trouvelot’s experiments were 
intended to benefit the silk industry in the United 
States ; but they have resulted in letting loose a pest 
which hundreds of workers are now striving, at enormous 
annual expense, to eradicate if they can. Let us hope 
that their efforts may be crowned with success, for 
otherwise the whole of temperate North America may 
suffer more or less severely, as the infested districts 
of Massachusetts are now suffering. 
W. F. KIRBY. 
NO. 1543, VOL. 60] 
THE AUSTRALASIAN ASSOCIATION.' 
Ae Association for the Advancement of Science which 
can produce, as the record of one year’s proceed- 
ings, such a volume as the one before us, is at once an 
indication that a widely-spread interest in science and a 
vigorous scientific activity already exist, and a promise of 
future progress. It is a volume on the production of 
which the Australasian Colonies may be sincerely 
congratulated. 
The Australasian Association for the Advancement of 
Science held its first session at Sydney in 1888; it next 
met in Melbourne in 1890; then in Christchurch (New 
Zealand) in 1891, in Hobart (Tasmania) in 1892, in 
Adelaide in 1893, in Brisbane in 1895, and in Sydney 
again in 1898. Wedo not know whether the fact that 
only one meeting was held in the five years from 1893 to 
1898 was connected with the commercial difficulties 
through which Australia has recently passed ; if so, we 
trust that the resumption of meetings last year may be 
taken as a sign of returning prosperity. 
The constitution of the Association and the order of 
proceedings at the general meetings are evidently closely 
modelled on those of the British Association. The public 
proceedings begin with an evening address delivered by 
the President for the year ; on the following days, meet- 
ings of the several Sections are held, relieved by evening 
lectures, including one to ‘‘ working men,” conversazioni 
and concerts, garden parties (with “ the number of invita- 
tions limited”), Saturday afternoon excursions, and, to 
wind up the whole entertainment, excursions going 
further afield. One who is accustomed to the doings at 
the annual gatherings of the British Association would 
find himself familiar with the whole programme of its 
Colonial counterpart. Perhaps he might find his way 
into a Section whose name and subject he had not been 
used to in the old country, but he would find most of them 
just what he was accustomed to, as the following list of 
Sections will show, namely :—Section A—Astronomy, 
Mathematics, and Physics; Section B—Chemistry ; 
Section C—Geology and Mineralogy ; Section D— 
Biology, with the sub-departments Botany and Zoology; 
Section E—Geography; Section F—Ethnology and 
Anthropology ; Section G—Economic Science and Agri- 
culture ; Section H—Engineering and Architecture ; 
Section I—Sanitary Science and Hygiene; Section J— 
Mental Science and Education. 
To review with any completeness a volume of over 
eleven hundred pages, dealing with the almost unlimited 
range of subjects covered by the ten Sections here 
enumerated, is obviously impossible. All that we can 
attempt is to indicate some of what appear to us to be 
among its more noteworthy contents. 
There can be little doubt that the most serious contri- 
bution to pure science contained in it is the “‘ Report on 
our Knowledge of the Thermodynamics of the Voltaic 
Cell,” by Mr. E. F. J. Love. This is a really admirable 
account of the results that have been obtained, chiefly by 
Lord Kelvin, Willard Gibbs, and von Helmholtz, by the 
application of thermodynamic considerations to voltaic 
phenomena. These results are deduced simply and con- 
cisely, and are discussed throughout in relation to the 
experimental tests to which they have been subjected by 
various observers. It would, we think, be welcome to 
many physicists if this paper were reprinted in some 
more generally accessible publication than the bulky 
volume before us. 
In his presidential address to Section A, Mr. Baracchi, 
Government Astronomer at Melbourne, gives a very in- 
teresting account of the great International Photographic 
Survey of the Heavens, and especially of the share in this 
1 ‘Report of the Seventh Meeting of the Australasian Association for 
the Advancement of Science,” held at Sydney, 1898. Pp. lii + 1161. 
