754 
NATURE 
[JUNE 2, 1923 

Auckland Islands. The Terra Nova also collected a 
few species in the Atlantic, of which one, obtained 
off Rio de Janeiro, is especially interesting. It is 
referred to Dana’s long-forgotten genus Promysis, 
with which Hansen’s Uromysis is identified. The 
other two species of the genus are from the East 
Indian Archipelago, but the seeming discontinuity in 
the distribution may be obliterated by further research. 
BoraNny AT THE CARNEGIE RESEARCH STATIONS.— 
The Carnegie Institution maintains two _ special 
research laboratories, at Tucson, Arizona, and Carmel, 
California, where desert and coastal vegetation are 
readily studied, but in addition, as Year Book No. 21 
of the Carnegie Institution of Washington shows, its 
workers are far more widely spread. In the Depart- 
ment of Botanical Research, under the general 
direction of Dr. W. T. MacDougal, fundamental 
researches by H. A, Spoehr and his collaborators are 
being carried out upon photosynthesis and respiration. 
Some of this work has been published in full since the 
issue of the Year Book, as Carnegie Publication No. 
325 (Studies in Plant Respiration and Photosynthesis, 
Washington, February 1923). Space only permits 
the mention of the following points from the brief 
summary in the Year Book, which is packed with 
interesting facts and views: levulose is not found to 
be so readily used in respiration as glucose: an 
explanation of the increased diastatic activity of 
leaves kept in darkness is found in the increased 
production of amino-acids and their effect on diastatic 
action: respiration and photosynthesis are found to 
be strikingly inter-dependent and affected alike by 
changes in various external factors. Chemists as 
well as botanists will be interested in the methods 
developed by Dr. F. A. Cajaro for the quantitative 
estimation of small amounts of the separate sugars in 
mixtures of glucose, levulose, sucrose, and maltose ; 
these methods depend upon oxidation under stan- 
dardised conditions and upon estimation of cupric re- 
ducing power. Dr. W. T. MacDougal’s work upon per- 
meability leads him to consider lipins and pentosans 
as important constituents of the plasma membrane ; 
the effect of different kations upon permeability is 
being considered from this point of view, with many 
new experiments in progress to elucidate the puzzling 
phenomena of ‘‘ antagonism.’’ Many ecological in- 
vestigations by Forrest Shreve are in progress, and 
W. Cannon has been studying the evaporating power 
of the air and of the plant in South Africa. Dr. F. E. 
Clements directs another group of researches. One 
notes studies of the water cycle of the plant, of 
vascular conductivity by Prof. J]. B. Farmer’s method, 
and the effect of sap movement upon bud develop- 
ment; this work has supplied no evidence for the 
once very popular assumption of an inhibiting factor 
released by actively growing buds. 
New Fossit Turtle From Arizona.—Attention 
was recently directed (NATURE, March 31, pp. 443-4) 
to the remarkable assemblage of vertebrate remains 
collected by Dr. J. W. Gidley in the Pliocene of 
Arizona, and to the promise of further information 
concerning the reptiles. C. W. Gilmore now supplies 
the description and numerous figures of a new fossil 
turtle from that district (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., vol. 
lxii., art. 5). Kinosteynon arizonense, n.sp., the first 
extinct representative of the genus in America, is 
most nearly allied to the recent K. flavescens (Agassiz), 
which, with one other of the eight living American 
examples, is said to range into Arizona. 
METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS IN H1iGH LaTITUDES.— 
The U.S. Monthly Weather Review for January con- 
tains an article by Sir Frederick Stupart, director of 
the Meteorological Service of Canada, on the above 
NO. 2796, VOL. 111] 



subject, which formed a presidential address, given 
before the American Meteorological Society at Boston, 
Mass., on December 30, 1922. The author, while 
acknowledging the furthering of meteorology when 
aiding commerce and finance, suggests that diffi- 
culties arise in granting funds for the equipment of an 
out-of-the-way Arctic station, although the latter may 
materially improve weather forecasting. In the early 
days of forecasting in Canada and the United States 
the weather services were handicapped by the lack of 
data from the North. This great want has more 
recently led to the establishment of stations in 
Iceland and Spitsbergen, and still later in Jan Mayen 
Island. The Alaskan stations are said to have been 
of the greatest use for forecasters in the United States 
and Canada. Reference is made to the influence of 
radiation during the winter months over the land 
areas of Siberia and northern America, which leads to 
the formation of high pressure and intense cold, while 
in some winters the low pressure of the North Pacific 
tends greatly to modify the pressure distribution in 
northern America, and in these cases mild winters may 
be looked for. In some winters the Siberian high 
pressures extend across as one system into America, 
and great cold waves sweep southwards. The study 
of the dominant anticyclonic and cyclonic conditions 
seem so full of promise that the author emphasises 
augmenting the number of stations in the Arctic zone. — 
The study of the conditions in high latitudes would 
help also to a better understanding of the severe 
storms along the Atlantic steamship routes. 
HistoRY OF AN _ O1L-WELL.— Probably few 
individual oil-wells are of sufficient technical, apart 
from commercial, importance to warrant their being 
the subjects of communications to learned societies. 
Yet the paper read by Mr. A. E. Chambers to the 
Institution of Petroleum Technologists on April 10, 
dealing with one of the earliest, largest, and most 
celebrated wells in Mexico, namely, Potrero No. 4, 
constituted not only an interesting but also a valuable 
dissertation on a matter of more than mere local 
importance. Mexico, in regard to oil-production, is 
a country of surprises ; its wells, even if not always 
big producers, at least provide plenty of variety both 
in behaviour and in the problems they present 
during development and production. Not the least 
of these problems is that connected with salt-water,a __ 
particularly formidable one at the present time. 
The well under discussion was no exception. Situated 
in Vera Cruz State, 50 kilometres N.W. of Tuxpam, 
it was brought in as a gusher at the end of 1910 and 
not got under proper control till March t911. Thence- 
forward it produced oil until 1914 when, after develop- 
ing extensive seepage areas in its vicinity, it caught 
fire, owing to lightning, in August of that year. This 
fire was not finally extinguished until early in April 
of the following year, when the well started producing 
again and continued till the end of r918. Emutlsifica- 
tion set in in 1919, and this closed the history of the 
well. During this chequered career it produced no 
less than one hundred million barrels of oil, and the 
technical difficulties which had to be overcome in 
connexion with its control were of no mean magnitude, _ 
considering the fact that drilling methods in those 
days were somewhat crude compared with present-day 
practice. The oil originally produced was of an ~ 
asphaltic base, s.g. 0-931 at 60° F. The pressure 
(closed well) amounted to 825 lbs. per square inch, 
Its ultimate appearance in the storage tanks was as 
an emulsion having a s.g. of 0-979 and, containing 
54 per cent. of salt water. In this departure it un- 
fortunately foreshadowed the behaviour of many 
more recent wells in Mexico, a feature the significance 
of which has latterly been so widely debated. 
_ 


