
J UNE 16, 1 923) 
821 

-‘Unner the title Open Air the proprietors of Count 
Life have commenced the issue of a new monthly 
magazine for lovers of Nature and outdoor life. 
birds and flowers, photography and weather fore- 
casting, and the charming scenery of the British 
countryside. The policy of the magazine is to put 
within the reach of every one some knowledge of 
Nature, to increase interest and participation in all 
_ outdoor life and pastimes, and to point the way of 
obtaining the most lasting and satisfying pleasures 
from the beauties and wonders of Nature. 
number makes a successful attempt to attain this 
ideal. The articles are simply and attractively 
written and the illustrations are numerous, charming 
in effect, and well reproduced. Special mention 
should be made of the article on Thomas Hardy’s 
county ; of the account of the kingfisher at home, by 
Miss E. L. Turner, illustrated by her own inimitable 
photographs ; and of the description of some of the 
wild flowers of the countryside by Mr. Bedford. If 
the standard of the first number is maintained the 
magazine should appeal to a wide circle of readers. 
WE have received a copy of the fourth annual 
Teport of the Governors of the Imperial Mineral 
Resources Bureau dealing with the year ended De- 
cember 31, 1922. 
gence service in matters relating to the mining and 
metallurgical industries, partly by correspondence 
with representatives in different parts of the British 
Empire and by co-operation with various government 
departments, and partly by a system of indexing 
published information bearing on mineral resources 
in all parts of the world. The information thus 
accumulated is of much value in answering inquiries 
and compiling Teports on mineral resources. This 
work of answering inquiries and putting producers 
and consumers in touch with one another is of growing 
importance in connexion with the Bureau’s work. 
Since the publication of the last report, the compila- 
tion of the “ Mineral Conspectus of the British Empire 
and Foreign Countries ’’ for the period 1913-1919 has 
been almost completed. Special attention is directed 
to the eight volumes on iron ore dealing with the 
present and prospective iron-ore supplies of the world, 
prepared by the request and with the assistance of 
the National Federation of Iron and Steel Manu- 
facturers. Two legal publications were issued during 
the year, dealing with Transvaal and British Columbia. 
A statistical series for the period 1919-1921 is in the 
press, and the parts dealing with the more important 
minerals and metals are being published in advance. 
A review of the mineral industry of the Empire during 
1922 is promised at an early date. During the year 
under review the Bureau continued its efforts towards 
the unification of mineral statistics, an enterprise in 
which it is much to be hoped that success will 
attained. 
Part i. vol, 18 of the Journal of the Royal Horti- 
cultural Society, dated January 1923, contains much 
interesting material for students of horticulture. The 
NO. 2798, VOL. 111] 

All 
kinds of outdoor activities are to be catered for, and 
_ in the first number there appear articles on walking | 
and motoring, camping and yachting, fishing, tennis, 



The first" 
The Bureau maintains an intelli- 
Rev. A. T. Boscawen has a note upon New Zealand 
trees and shrubs grown successfully in Cornish 
gardens ; it is illustrated by seven excellently repro- 
duced photographs. Mr. F. C. Stern has an inter- 
esting note upon cultivation in a garden made in an 
old chalk-pit ; while few plants succeed in pure chalk 
rubble, there is a very long list of plants successfully 
grown in a mixture of chalk and soil. Mr. J. Coutts 
has a paper upon the cultivation of lilies. As a 
contribution from the Wisley Laboratory, appears a 
twenty-page report by Mr. W. J. Dowson upon the 
wilt disease of Michaelmas daisies; as the result 
of inoculation experiments the disease is traced to 
Cephalosporium Asteris Dow., provisionally deter- 
mined as a new species, though ultimately culture 
of the fungus may necessitate its redetermination 
as a micro-conidial stage of a Fusarium. An im- 
portant practical conclusion in this paper is the 
practicability of raising healthy plants by vegetative 
propagation from diseased stocks, by striking cuttings 
from the tips of the rooted suckers. Mr. A. H. Hoare 
briefly describes the Rhododendron bug, Stephanitis 
(Leptobrysa) rhododendyi Horvath, now scheduled 
under the Sale of Diseased Plants Order of 1922 
and the cause of severe damage to rhododendrons 
in many districts. From the annual report of the 
council, the Royal Horticultural Society would appear 
to be in a very prosperous and flourishing condition, 
the membership of the Society having increased by 
1214 during the year 1921. 
A NOTE in Nature of May 19, p. 681, referred to 
the habit of a sparrow in persistently tapping a 
window pane. -Sir David Wilson-Barker writes to 
say that a chaffinch for about two months last 
year did almost the same thing, with this difference, 
that it never settled on the window ledge. Sir David 
suggests that the bird was playing with its own 
reflection. 
Dr. T. H. C. StEvENsoN will read a paper on 
“The Social Distribution of Causes of Death in 
England and Wales,”’ at a meeting of the Society 
of Biometricians and Mathematical Statisticians on 
June 25, at 8 p.m., in the theatre of the Galton 
Laboratory, University College, London. Visitors 
will be welcomed. 
WE have received a copy of No. 142 of the Circular 
of the Bureau of Standards, entitled ‘‘ Tables of 
Thermodynamic Properties of Ammonia.’’ The pam- 
phlet contains some valuable tables, together with an 
excellent Mollier chart of the properties of ammonia, 
and should be very useful to those interested in 
refrigeration. 
Messrs. G. BELL AND Sons, Ltp., announce the 
early publication of ‘‘ The Structure of the Atom,” 
by Prof. E. N. da C. Andrade, and a revised and 
enlarged edition of ‘‘ X-rays and Crystal Structure,” 
by Sir William Bragg and Prof. W. L. Bragg, in 
which the original intention of the authors has been 
maintained, namely, to describe sufficiently the 
elements of the physics, the crystallography, the 
chemistry, and the mathematics required for the 
understanding of the subject. 
