Ld ee 
a ee a er ee ve Ts 
FEBRUARY 15, 1917] 
large machine can be designed which is certainly not 
inferior to the small ones from a purely aerodynamic 
int of view. The same performance can therefore 
secured if the weight of the machine and the 
horse-power are proportional to the wing area, i.e. to 
the square of the linear dimensions. If it be assumed 
that engines of the same weight per horse-power are 
used, the problem resolves itself into that of con- 
structing large machines with a sufficient factor of 
safety, and with’ the actual constructional weight pro- 
portional to the wing area. Whether this can be done 
or not is an open question; Mr. Handley Page is of 
the opinion that it is possible. Of course, it must 
further be remembered that, in peace time, the same 
high performance in speed and climb will not be so 
necessary as it is for war purposes, and this will 
materially simplify the problem of building larger 
machines. 
Arrer the first day or two of February a change 
occurred in the character of the cold weather which 
had been so persistent since the commencement of 
January, and the night frosts, which were at first of 
a very mild character, became generally severe over 
Great Britain. In the Midland district of England the 
sheltered thermometer fell below zero at well-equipped 
stations. The reports from the health resorts which 
are issued daily through the Meteorological Office 
show 2°, or 30° of frost, at Ross-on-Wye, while at 
coast stations the thermometer in the screen registered 
12° at Southport and Skegness, 13° at Aberystwyth, 
17° at Yarmouth and Weston-super-Mare, and 18° at 
Eastbourne and Dover. The lowest temperature re- 
corded at South Kensington was 21°, but the thermo- 
meter fell 5° lower in parts of the London suburbs, 
on higher ground. Frost had become more general 
and was more severe than on any occasion since the 
winter of 1894-95, but the intense cold was much less 
continuous. A break in the frost occurred over Scot- 
land and the northern districts of England towards 
the close of last week, and by the commencement of 
the present week it had extended to all parts of 
eo although the thaw at first was by no means 
rapid. 
THE report of the Medical Officer of the Local 
Government Board for 1915-16 has recently been 
issued. So far as infectious diseases are concerned, 
with the single exception of measles, the record of 
1915, like that of 1914, remained favourable. Eighty- 
one cases of smallpox occurred, but the disease failed 
to obtain more than a temporary footing in any dis- 
trict. More than a million and a half tubes of vaccine 
lymph have been distributed from the Board’s establish- 
ment. The work of the medical department has 
centred chiefly around the military position, and a dual 
problem has arisen with regard to several infectious 
diseases: the increased risk arising within the United 
Kingdom, and the increased risk of the importation 
of infection. Dr. Bruce Low contributes to the report 
an account of the epidemiology of acute anterior polio- 
myelitis (infantile paralysis) in recent years. A 
number of reports on scientific investigations under- 
taken for the Board have been unavoidably postponed, 
but Drs. Eastwood and Griffin have contributed a 
report on the characteristics of tubercle bacilli in 
human bone and joint tuberculosis, and Dr. Griffin 
one on bovine actinomycosis in which he shows that 
the disease occurring among cattle in this country 
is frequently identical with the special form described 
by Ligniéres and Spitz in Argentina as actinobacillosis. 
In the January issue of Man Sir Hercules Read 
describes two interesting bronze castings of Siberian 
or Scythian work and a monstrous animal in jade, 
No. 2468, VoL. 98] 
NATURE 
‘propagation of the stone fruits. 
‘as Golden Beauty, P. hortulanum, has so far shown 
477 
the castings having been presented to the British 
Museum by Mr. Louis Clarke, the jade figure the 
property of Mr. Oscar Raphael. In one casting an 
animal with a horse-like body, griffin head, and ibex- 
like horns stands calmly while a wolf-like creature 
bites its foreleg. ‘The second represents a combat be- 
tween a lioness and an eagle. The jade figure shows 
an animal in a crouching posture. The recent 
work of Mr. Minns, ‘“‘Scythians and Greeks,’’ sup- 
plies much information which helps towards the inter- 
pretation of these objects of art, which are of special 
interest because many well-known features of our 
pagan Saxon art, and that of Western Europe gener- 
ally, have their roots in the Siberian culture, and it is 
claimed that Carlovingian art is equally in its debt. 
THE object of the elaborate monograph by Dr. 
H. B. Ferris, reprinted from vol. iii. of the Memoirs 
of the American Anthropological Association, on the 
Indians of Cuzco and the Apurimac, is to provide 
materials for the solution of some important problems : 
the derivation of the Peruvians; the time of their . 
advent into the country; the extension and physical 
characteristics of the Aymara and Quichua; and the 
cultural relations of the Peruvian to the Argentine and 
Chilean aborigines. Dealing with the pure Quichuas, 
the author finds them to be mesocephalic, and in very 
large proportion hypsicephalic, the facial index being 
similar to that of the North American Indian. The 
results are not worked out in detail, but he arrives 
at the interesting conclusion that ‘in. many of the 
body proportions and in some physiognomic characters 
bie Quichua resemble certain North American 
ndians.” 
Mr. E. J. Weytanp, in Spolia Zeylanica, vol. x., 
part 38, describes and figures the canine and the first 
left upper molar of a horse found in a bed of grey 
sandy clay at a depth of 23 ft. below the surface 
during the digging of a trench by the Colombo Drain- 
age Works at Wellawatta. The author inclines to the 
view that these teeth represent a Pleistocene species 
scarcely distinguishable from the existing horse, but 
for which he proposes the name Equus seylanicus. 
The author discusses at length the possibility that 
horses may have been introduced into Ceylon by human 
agency, but is of opinion that the evidence, on the 
whole, justifies the assumption that they entered the 
island with the elephant by means of a land-bridge. 
Pror. Crayton Situ, of the University of Cali- 
fornia, contributes to the American Naturalist for 
January a valuable summary of his experiments on 
the comparative resistance of Prunus to Crown gall. 
This disease, known also as plant tumour and plant 
cancer, is due to the presence of the motile Bacterium 
(Pseudomonas) tumifasciens in the cells at the point 
where the root is given off from the trunk. By arti- 
ficially inoculating various forms of Prunus with pure 
virulent laboratory cultures, he sought to find a suit- 
able resistant stock which could be adapted to the 
The variety known 
more marked resistance than other varieties of the 
species hitherto tested, and it further displays a num- 
ber of excellent qualities that would recommend it as a 
stock. P. pumius is entirely resistant to artificial 
inoculation, which constitutes a far more severe test 
than obtains under the usual field conditions. The work 
conducted to the present shows that seedlings of the 
German and Italian prunes might be promising stock 
for certain of the stone fruits, probably of the domestica 
type. However, no definite recommendations can be 
given, as the work is now only in its preliminary 
stages. 
