August ii, 19 io] 



NATURE 



185 



heterozygote is intermediate. Experimental difficulties are 

 considerable. The plants are large, the flowers are not 

 entirely :self-fertilised, and some ot the characters fluctuate 

 considerably. Numerous pests attack the plants, including 

 aphides, boll worm, and the cotton stainer bug, while two 

 fungi, the "sooty mould" and "sore-shin," do great 

 damage. An advantage, however, is that the cotton plant 

 tan be grown as perennial by simply cutting it back ; in 

 this v.'ay a further supply of seed from a particular plant 

 can alwajs be obtained if necessary. 



Bees appear to be the chief agents in effecting cross- 

 pollination, and they have to be excluded by mosquito 

 nets covering the whole plant ; there appears to be no 

 wind-fertilisation. Before these nets were used, the pre- 

 paration of self-fertilised seed was laborious and uncertain. 

 Tissue-paper bags were employed for separate flowers, but 

 a large proportion of the bagged flowers were shed. Now 

 the operation is simplified. The flowers are castrated at 

 4 a.m. and cross-pollinated at 9 a.m. No bags are neces- 

 sary if the other open flowers under the net are removed, 

 except, of course, to cover the flower from the plant which 

 is to be employed as the male parent. 



The results are worked out in detail for a number of 

 unit characters, and are plotted on curves. The data thus 

 obtained are nor only interesting in themselves as a studv 

 of a Mendelian problem, but are of distinct practical value 

 for the cotton breeder. 



Mr. Balls also writes on the general position of the 

 cotton crop in Egypt, and gives a number of interesting 

 historical details. It is not certain how or when cotton 

 was first cultivated in Egypt. The old mummy cloths are 

 of flax. Apparently no distinct allusion to cotton occurs 

 until the time of Pliny, and there is nothing to show that 

 cotton was cultivated before 200 B.C. No definite historical 

 account can be given until the time of Jumel, a French 

 engineer who, in the early years of the last centurv, 

 recognised the possibilities of Egyptian cotton and made 

 plans for extending and improving its cultivation. 

 Importation of Sea Island cotton began in 1822 and w^ent 

 on for many years; Mr. Balls's view is that the present 

 Egyptian cottons are hybrids between the brown-linted tree 

 types associated with Jumel and Sea Island cotton. He 

 further thinks that, for the future, it is necessary to evolve 

 strains which mature early and are therefore not likely 

 to suffer from the boll-worm, and which vield heavily, so 

 as to compensate for the decreased production per acre 

 which is now setting in. 



This falling off in productivity makes a very pretty 

 problem unlike any we know of elsewhere. Fifteen years 

 ago the yields ran about ij-j cantars per feddan ; of late 

 years they are only 4-^. There are, of course, many con- 

 ceivable explanations duly set out in the report of the com- 

 mission in the present volume and meriting further 

 examination, but it is suggested that part of the trouble 

 arises from a rise in the subsoil water following on the 

 rise brought about in the Nile by the barrage schemes. 

 On this question Mr. Lucas has something to sav in the 

 Cairo Scientific Journal. He tabulates the rninimum 

 water-level in certain wells, and shows that in these cases 

 there has been a rise of more than i metre since 1894. 

 Other factors have to be taken into consideration, and 

 many further measurements will be required, but the 

 scientific interest and practical importance of the problem 

 can hardiv be overrated. 



Mr. Hughes gives an account of manurial trials on 

 cotton, and we are pleased to see that he gives full 

 mechanical and chemical analyses of the soils on lines 

 accepted in Great Britain. A considerable amount of 

 trouble is involved, but the results are of much wider 

 value in consequence. Mr. VVillcocks describes the insects 

 injurious to stored grains, seeds, &-c. In the Cairo 

 Scientific Journal Mr. Fletcher describes an experiment in 

 which maize was grown for ten davs in soils heated, re- 

 spectively, to 9^° C. and 170° C. and which he considers 

 inconsistent with the work of Russell and Hutchinson. 

 Mr. Fletcher accepts Whitney's hypothesis that soils con- 

 tain a toxin injurious to plants, but put out of action bv 

 heat, an hypothesis much too controversial to be discussed ' 

 hore. No account appears to have been taken of the 1 

 marked chemical decomposition of soil substances at the 

 high temperature of the experiment. I 



NO. 2128, VOL. 84] 



SCIENCE IN BENGAL. 

 "TTHE Journal and Proceedings (new series) of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal has become a veritable miscellany — 

 a very doubtful improvement upon the old arrangement 

 followed by the Society, of publishing papers on philology 

 and archcEology, natural science, and ethnology, in three 

 distinct and independent " parts," and of relegating matters 

 of domestic and colloquial interest to the Proceedings. 



The latest issues (Nos. 5-1 1 of vol. iv.) include thirty 

 papers, in which Hindu mythology, numismatics, natural 

 history both of the formal and of the discursive kind, 

 archaeology, geography, higher mathematics, lists of 

 Oriental MSS., botany, epigraphy, and Indian history keep 

 the strangest and most bewildering company with frag- 

 ments of chemistry, philology, and geology, and with 

 obituary notices and other domestic records. 



Many of the papers deal with speculations rather than 

 with matters of verifiable fact, and of these one of the 

 most reasonable and most generally interesting is that by 

 Mr. G. R. Kaye, on the use of the abacus in ancient 

 India. The author examines, and expresses himself far 

 from satisfied with, the evidence offered in support of the 

 belief that the abacus was used in India in ancient times ; 

 and he is not at all disposed to accept without question 

 the view that the Arabs borrowed their notation, which 

 forms the basis of the science of arithmetic, from the 

 Hindus. 



The noteworthy papers on natural science are three in 

 number. In one. Dr. N. Annandale describes a recent 

 Himalayan species of a Psychodid fly of the genus Diplo- 

 nema, a genus that " appears to have been known hitherto 

 from three Tertiary species which occur in Baltic amber 

 and from one Quaternary form in fossil copal." Another 

 paper, by Mr. P. Bruhl, on recent plant immigrants into 

 Bengal and Bihar, is a laborious compilation of consider- 

 able value, although, as the author includes cultivated 

 plants as well as weeds, the title is a little disappointing ; 

 234 phanerogams are enumerated and classified according 

 to their systematic position and their land of origin, the 

 result showing that 547 per cent, of them have been 

 derived from America. Of these 234 species, however, 

 only thirty-seven are entirely wild, and so are true, un- 

 assisted (or, at any rate, not deliberately introduced) 

 immigrants; all the others are either cultivated or can 

 be traced to cultivation. A third paper, by Colonel Prain 

 and Mr. Burkill, describes seventeen new species of yams 

 from China and neighbouring countries to the south, the 

 descriptions, which are in Latin, being models of clearness 

 and conciseness. 



The twenty-first instalment of the late Sir George King's 

 " Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula " is 

 happily distinguished by appearing as an independent 

 " extra number " of the old series of the Society's journal. 

 It treats of the Gesneraceas and Verbenaceae. Of the 

 former order, 131 species, distributed in twenty genera, 

 are described by Mr. H. N. Ridley; of the latter order, 

 seventy-two species, belonging to fifteen genera, are dealt 

 with by Mr. J. S. Gamble. 



We have also received Nos. 5-9 of the second volume of 

 the new Memoirs of this society. 



No. 5 of these is a most learned and interesting treatise 

 (which is to be continued) on Mundari poetry, by Father 

 J. Hoffmann. The Mundas are one of the aboriginal 

 tribes of Central India, and a large remnant of them is 

 isolated in the hills of Chota Nagpur. " Their world is 

 a narrow circle of villages hidden away in forest-clad 

 mountains . . . and they are quite content to leave . ._. 

 its wonders to such races as may care for them. Their 

 only desire ... is to be left alone." They are entirely 

 illiterate, and know nothing about any alphabet. If they 

 did, one would suggest that the sixteenth ode of the second 

 Book of Horace might be translated into their language 

 as a good reflection of their views of life ; but their own 

 poetry, which is meant to be sung, does not touch the 

 skirts of divine philosophy : it deals with the simplest of 

 perennial themes, such as first love, friendship, maiden 

 vanity, the pleasures of the chase, and the goodness o( 

 the good old customs, or, on the other hand, blighted 

 affection, the nangs of hunger, and the terrors of the 

 jungle. .According to Father Hoffmann, their simple lyrics 



