NA TURE 



\y%ly 5, 1877 



had numerous opportunities of studying the phenomena in that 

 and the adjoining states of Oregon and Nevada ; more especially 

 in the southern parts of the desert. There they are developed 

 on the largest scale, and there their origin is obvious. 



Prof. Le Conte's account of them vi'ants but a single word to 

 have settled the question. I attributed them, then, exchuively 

 to the action of the wind, and after reading what others have to 

 say about them, see no reason for changing that opinion. The 

 Profesjnr says, " I attribute them to surface erosion." Had he 

 inserted a'ci ial, nothing more would have been wanted ; although, 

 since he speaks of weeds and shrubs taking possession of them, 

 subsequent to their formation, he does not seem to have exactly 

 hit on the rationah of the process. 



One case luay serve as an illustration. In the southern end 

 of the Rtese r<.iver Valley, Nevada, is a broad, perfectly level 

 plain without a water-course ; only a few shallow dry gutters 

 show where tlie rain water runs to scattered spots, where it sinks 

 or evaporates. The region is alm^jst rainless. The plain is 

 covered for many square miles with these mounds, varying up to 

 four or five feet high, and up to twenty, thirty, and even perhaps 

 forty feet in diameter. In every case they are 11 ade up of only 

 the finer particles of the soil, the coarser grains and gravel being 

 visible in the interspaces. The dust and sand has in all cases 

 been heaped up in and around a clump of sage bush which con- 

 tinues to grow out of the top of the mound. Little vegetation 

 grows on the flanks of the mounds, and when it does, it forms 

 the nucleus of a subsidiary hillock. The mounds are thus 

 formed by building up, and only the intervening spaces are 

 caused by an erosion, taking place to day, and not caused by 

 water, much less by ice. Wm. M. Gabu 



Puerto Plata, Sto. Domingo, June S 



Fertilisation of Salix repens 



During May I was watching the movements of the insects on 

 a plant of Salix repens, when I noticed some frets which may 

 prove interesting to some of your readers. It was mainly visited 

 by the common hive-bee {Apis mdlijica 5 ) and the humble-bee 

 {Bonibiis terreslris 9 ). The former of these flew gaily about from 

 catkin to catkin merely taking one bite at each ; but the latter 

 went far more systematically to work ; it never flew at all, but 

 crawled in a ludicrously feeble w:iy from catkin to catkin, and 

 once on a catkin it cleared it thoroughly, thrusting its probos- 

 cis between every pair of florets. I do not know whether this 

 greater thoroughness is at all times characteristic of the humble- 

 bee as compared with the hive-bee and should much like to be 

 informed. And another thing which I do not understand is, that 

 one of these humble-bees appeared to have two kinds of pollen 

 on its legs, one that of Salix repens, the other of a much darker 

 and more-orange coIour,'though when examined under the micro, 

 scope the grains proved to be of the same shape. H. H. 



Wellington College, Wokingham, June 30 



THE FUTURE OF SANITARY SCIENCE- 

 POLITICAL, MEDICAL, SOCIAL^ 



T COULD have wished it had been in my power on the 

 present occasion to produce one of those essays which 

 appeal to the imagination while they prepare the mind for 

 the reception of sanitary principles and practice. Such 

 essays are tempting and, in their place, instructive. To- 

 day I am bound on a voyage less pleasant, yet I hope 

 not less useful. 



There has recently been called into existence a new 

 society under whose summons we now meet. The society 

 has assumed to itself the expressive name of the Sanitary 

 Institute of Great Britain. It starts as a voluntary 

 effort by men and women who are wiUing and anxious to 

 give effect to those teachings of sanitary science which 

 the past half-century has revealed. It invites all who 



• An address delivered before the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain at 

 the Royal Institution, on July 5, 1877, by Benjamin W. Richardson, M.D. , 

 LL.D., F.R.S. 



are concerned to utilise the knowledge that has been 

 acquired in that time. It wishes to encourage new re- 

 search. But it has for its most anxious care to render use- 

 ful to mankind at large the accumulated store of know- 

 ledge which at this moment lies ready for so many grand 

 purposes relating to health. It accepts as its object, work 

 for health, health of all the human family. 



Shall some one say the object is ambitious ? Yea, we 

 reply, it is confessedly ambitious. Shall some one say the 

 means at command for the work to be attempted are 

 weak ? Even so. Life is short, art long. Yet the short 

 yields the long, and but for the short the long could not 

 be. It is out of these littlenesses of human effort that the 

 greatnesses follow. Or, as Benjamin Rush very forcibly 

 puts it, and simply as forcibly : " There are mites in 

 science as well as in charity, and the ultimate results of 

 each are often alike important and beneficial." 



It is my fortune, good or bad, to have to preside over 

 the council of this new society. Of the ability of those 

 who form the council, and of their experience, I need not 

 speak in detail, for their names are familiar to the world. 

 They represent, I may say, sanitary science in all its 

 branches, and from them, working harmoniously together, 

 good results must be expected. 



It seems fitting therefore as we enter on our work to 

 look forward to the future. It is a part at least of our 

 duty to look towards the future with the view of seeing in 

 what directions we may best proceed ; what assistances 

 we may have to call upon ; and chiefly what great powers 

 we may have to consult and propitiate. 



The three great powers with which our society will have 

 to treat are the political, the medical, the social. From 

 each of these we shall expect constant assistance. To 

 one or other of these, whatever we do, our work will be 

 transmitted or transferred. They will bring it into prac- 

 tical form and effect, or they will reduce it to nothingness. 

 We can suggest and set forth initiatives, and with that 

 our functions are complete in each particular branch to 

 which we address ourselves. 



It is our special duty to keep this special fact steadily 

 in view and to limit our labours by it. It too often happens 

 that young societies like young men are apt to believe 

 that they can conduct national processes as easily as they 

 can conceive them, and under this belief fail most signally 

 with the best of attempts. I remember in my early career 

 getting a lesson from one of our late well-known statesmen 

 on this very point. I was explaining to him the efiforts I 

 had made in 1855 and the succeeding three years to 

 establish a registration of the diseases of this kini;dom, 

 and I bewailed the hard experience which proved that 

 the greater the scientific success of the effort the more 

 impossible it became to carry it out. In fact, said I, in a 

 pitiful strain, the success almost ruined me in mind, 

 body, and estate. " Served you right," was the immediate 

 reply, " Served you right. If individual men could carry 

 out national projects where would be the nation.'" The 

 reply was hard as it was unanswerable, and from that 

 time to this I have given up all thoughts of doing more 

 than sowing seed in the field of literature and leaving it 

 to the chance of fructification on that extensive soil ; or in 

 showing some mere model of experiment which, per- 

 chance, may grow into working form. And this, I think, 

 is the whole natural scope of our Institute, — to sow the 



