478 | NATURE 
In Physis, Revista de la Sociedad Argentina de 
Ciencias naturales (No. 11, tomé ii.), an account is 
given by Ana Manganaro of cleistogamic flowers in 
Ranunculus hilairei, Cardamine chenopodifolia, and 
Trifolium argentinense. The article is illustrated by 
photographs of the plants showing the cleistogamic, or 
self-fertilised, flowers, and the way in which they 
bury themselves in the ground. In the Ranunculus 
these small flowers are produced in the axils of the 
outer radical leaves, and the flower stalks bend over 
and lengthen, carrying the developing fruits under- 
ground. In the Cardamine the contrast between the 
normal flowers borne on long inflorescences and the 
small abnormal flowers borne in the axils of the leaves 
of the basal rosette is very striking. In the Trifolium 
the abnormal heads contain some five to eight flowers, 
whilst the normal ones contain as many as thirty. 
M. pe Montessus ve Battorg, the director of the 
Chilean Seismological Service, recommends that scales 
of seismic intensity should be abandoned (Bull. Seis. 
Soc. America, vol. vi., 1916, pp. 227-31). The sugges- 
tion, if carried out, would involve the disappearance 
of isoseismal lines from our earthquake maps. He 
would retain only the following lines:—The curve 
which bounds the disturbed area, and those which 
surround the places of greatest intensity and the area 
of damage. The last-mentioned curve would be fairly 
definite, but the first would be illusive, for the percep- 
tion of a shock depends on certain accidental condi- 
tions. An earthquake which occurs on a Sunday 
afternoon, for instance, will be felt over twice the area 
of one in the middle of a weekday, 
Ir is commonly taught by the agricultural chemist 
that one of the many useful effects of an application of 
lime to the soil is the bringing into solution of a 
portion of the potash contained in the soil. The 
present Jack of potash manures has, indeed, caused 
stress to be laid upon the increased use of lime or 
calcium sulphate as one means of drawing more rapidly 
upon the potash reserves of the soil. The assertion 
seems, however, to rest upon a very slender basis of 
evidence, and, as regards a certain type of soil, is 
directly challenged by Messrs. L. J. Briggs and J. F. 
Breazeale in the Journal of Agricultural Research, 
vol. viii., No. 1 (January, 1917). In experiments with 
orthoclase and pegmatite, and also with soils of 
granitic type, they failed to detect any increase of the 
solubility of the potassium on treatment with various 
proportions of calcium hydroxide or sulphate. In the 
case of orthoclase and of one of the soils, the presence 
of calcium sulphate in solution actually depressed the 
solubility of the potassium, the quantity of the latter 
in solution decreasing progressively as the concentra- 
tion of the calcium sulphate increased. These results 
were fully borne out by the amounts of potash taken 
up by wheat seedlings grown in the respective solu- 
tions. The experiments thus indicate that the avail- 
ability to plants of the potash in soils derived from 
orthoclase-bearing rocks is not likely to be increased 
by the application of lime or gypsum. 
An interesting article on “The Training of an 
Analyst” is contributed to the Chemical News for 
January 26 by Mr. Frank Browne, who.was formerly 
Government analyst at Hong Kong. Mr. Browne ven- 
tures to assert that a chemical student may leave 
college with a good degree and yet know little of 
the practical side of the analytical profession. Such 
a student, going directly into a works laboratory or 
that of a public analyst, will probably in the course 
of time Bae sufficient experience to become very 
useful so Jong as his scope is limited to routine 
analyses. But, given a sample of unusual kind for 
analysis, he may be found wanting on account of lack 
NO. 2468, VoL. 98] 
[FEBRUARY I5, I917 
of training in good, rapid analytical methods. The 
training of an analyst should be such that from a 
work of reference he can devise an analytical method 
for any strange sample and apply it successfully 
without interfering overmuch with his routine duties. 
Emphasis is laid on the fact that, by careful study, 
nearly any system of analysis can be shortened to a 
remarkable degree, and some methods of doing this 
are indicated. The author strongly supports Mr. 
A. Chaston Chapman’s recommendation that to the 
curriculum of chemical students who intend to become 
professional chemists a year should be added in which 
they would be trained under conditions resembling 
those of a technical rather than those of an academic 
laboratory. He suggests that the programme for the 
year should include analyses of water, fuel, oils, fats, 
and waxes, alcoholic liquids, metals and alloys, 
whilst a good working knowledge of the microscope, 
polarimeter, refractometer, and spectroscope should 
be acquired. It is also desirable that the student 
should have a sound knowledge of the British system 
of weights and measures. 
WE are asked to say that the work of Prof. Percy 
Groom upon the Indo-Malayan Yang wood (Diptero- 
carpus sp.), referred to on p. 450 of Nature for Feb-— 
ruary 8, was carried out at the Imperial College of 
Science and Technology, and not at the Imperial 
Institute as stated in the article, 
Tue spring list of announcements of the Oxford 
University Press (Mr. Humphrey Milford) includes : 
“Three Lectures on Experimental Embryology,” the 
late Capt. J. W. Jenkinson, with a.short biographical 
notice of the writer by Dr. R, R. Marett; ‘* The 
Beginnings of English Overseas Enterprise,’’ Sir 
Charles P. Lucas, with notes, references, and an 
appendix of the First Charter to the Merchant Ad- 
venturers; ‘‘Sir Walter Raleigh: Selections from his 
‘History of the World,’ Letters, and other Writings,” 
edited, with introduction and notes, by G. E. Hadow, 
with maps, a portrait, and a facsimile of his hand- — 
writing; ‘‘The Casting Counter and the Counting- 
Board: A Chapter in the History of Numismatics 
and Early Arithmetic,” F. P. Barnard, illustrated; 
“Education To-day and To-morrow,’’ P. Matheson; 
“The Origin and Meaning of Some Fundamental 
Earth Structures,” C. F. Berkey; ‘‘Milk Production 
Cost Accounts: Principles and Methods”; ‘ Aristotle : 
Meteorology,” edited by F. H. Fobes; ‘‘The Order of 
Nature,’ L. J. Henderson; ‘‘An Adequate Diet,” 
P. G. Styles; ‘‘Calculus of Variations,” W. E. Byerly; 
“Organism and Environment,” J. S. Halldane. 
OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 
A Great Sun-spot.—A group of spots large enough 
to be seen with the naked eye has been visible on the 
sun during the past week. A writer in the Times 
of February 9 describes it as one of the largest groups 
ever photographed at Greenwich, and gives the helio- 
graphic co-ordinates as long. 10°, lat. 15° south. It 
is further stated that the disturbed area was 125,000 
miles long and 64,000 miles broad, and consisted of 
two very large spots connected by a group of small 
ones. ‘The diameter of the preceding spot was 35,000 
miles, that of its umbra being 13,000 miles. The 
following spot was larger, with several umbra. The 
spot passed the central meridian on February 9 and 
will remain visible until February 15, when it will be 
near the west limb, 
Prof. Fowler informs us that on February 7 observa- 
tions with the spectroscope indicated great activity, 
especially among the smaller connecting spots; in this 
ace many brilliant reversals of the Ha line were 
noted. 
