Sept. 19, 1872] 



NATURE 



421 



At the sitting of the French Academy of Sciences, on Sept. 

 9, a number of communications on the subject of the ravages 

 of the Phylloxera vastatiix in the vineyards of France were read 

 by M. Dumas, and referred to the ^'Phylloxera committee" of 

 the Academy. It appears that the disease is making fearfully 

 rapid advances in Provence, threatening the speedy entire de- 

 struction of the crop. In the department of Vaucluse it is also 

 rapidly increasing ; while in that of I'llerault it is rather dimin- 

 ishing. All the correspondents agreed that when once a plant is 

 attacked cure is hopeless, and that it is almost impossible to 

 prevent the parasite spreading to neighbouring plants by any 

 other mears than complete submersion under water, though the 

 application to the roots of a soil composed of sand, manure, and 

 some insecticide, will delay it for some years. There is no doubt 

 that the wingless insect migrates above ground from the diseased 

 to the healthy plant, and is carried in great quantities by the 

 wind. M. d'Arniand, of Marseilles, demanded that a prize 01 

 50o,ooofr., or, if necessar)', 1,000,000 fr., be offered by the .State 

 to any one who shall discover a means of arresting the disease. 

 The pest has made great advances also in Portugal, especially in 

 the neighbourhood of Porto, Villa Real, Douro, and Santarem ; 

 and a Royal Commission has been appointed to investigate fully 

 the causes of a disease which threatens the destruction of one ot 

 the most important branches of nalion.il wealth, and the best 

 means of curing it. 



We have received from New York copies of the Tribune, con- 

 taining full reports of the A.A.A. -S. — tlie transatlantic expansion 

 of the British Association — contributed by one of the editors of 

 that journal. There can scarcely be imagined a more striking 

 indication of the root that Science is taking in America than 

 this, for the report has necessitated some 2,400 miles of trave', 

 and the white heat of a political contest is raging ; and yet it 

 appears : in other words, knowing the cleverness of our trans- 

 atlantic cousins — it pays ! 



The present excessive price of coals is stimulating the wits of 

 evci-y'one concerned to endeavour to discover some means of 

 reducing i'. Certainly one of the best means would be to in- 

 crease the supply from beneath the soil of our own country ; how 

 this may probably be accomplished is suggested in a letter to the 

 Liverpool Daily Post of Sept. 16, by Mr. T. M. Reade, C.E. 

 His suggestion is that in all likelihood coal would be found by 

 boring the district immediately around Liverpool. The whole 

 of the rock on which the town stands, and in fact the whole 

 countrj', from a fault passing near and west of Neston, under the 

 estuary of the Dee, to the Croxteth fault, just beyond West 

 Derby, belongs to the Trias, which in this locality consists only 

 of two members, the Bunter and the Keuper, the third, or Muschel- 

 kalk of Germany, being absent. Eastward the Triassic forma- 

 tion extends as far as Manchester, from which it follows an 

 irregular line as far south as Shrewsbury ; but as this portion of 

 the district is deeply covered with the red marls of the Keuper, 

 and as it would take deep sinking to reach the underlying coal 

 (assuming it to be present), Mr. Reade confines his proposi- 

 tion to the district enclosed by lines drawn through Liverpool, 

 Warrington, Chester, and West Kirby, at the mouth of the Dee. 

 The whole of this district has been let down as in a trough, by 

 which the Tiias has, to a large extent, been preserved from 

 denudation, and the underlying coal formation is consequently, 

 in places, at a considerable depth below the surface ; whether 

 at a workable depth is the question which must be con- 

 sidtred. Leaving out of account the red marls, which only 

 occupy a small patch by Upton, in Cheshire, and again by 

 the Weaver opposite Frodsham, the highest rock in the series 

 is the Keuper sandstone, which forms the surface at Oxton, 

 Wallasey, Heswell, and Stourton, in Cheshire, and under a 

 portion of Liverpool, west of what is called the Everton fault 



— a strip of Keuper sandstone running almost due north from 

 Toxteth Park. The remainder of the Triassic formation con- 

 sists entirely of the Bunter sandstone, which is itself divided 

 into Upper soft red sandstone, the pebble bed, and Lower 

 soft red sandstone. Under these again, before we reach the 

 highest members of the carboniferous rocks, it is an open 

 question whether we should or should not have to penetrate 

 Permian strata. The Pcrmiars have been proved in a few 

 places, principally occurring on the northern boundary of the 

 Trias in a narrow strip, and the total depth being but small. 

 At Croxteth, where coal was formerly worked, the New Red 

 sandstone or Trias is said to be directly superposed upon the 

 coal measures ; but a well-boring at Winwick, after penetrat- 

 ing 150 feet of red sandstone, the upper part of which is 

 placed with the pebble beds in the geological survey sheet, 

 was sunk 210 feet through strata consisting of h.ard red rock, 

 stiff red marl, red and white sandstone, with a zone of lime- 

 stone bands at the base, the boring terminating at 360 feet 

 from the surface in hard rock. These beds, Mr. Reade 

 is inclined to think, belong to the Permians rather than to 

 the Upper coal measures ; but it is doubtful if the Permians 

 would be found under the whole area, as they have evidently been 

 subject to denudation before the New Red sandstone was laid down. 

 If coal is to be bored for at Liverpool, it should be at one of 

 the several places where the Lower red sandstone is thrown up to 

 the surface, the probability being, Mr. Reade thinks, that the 

 upper members of the coal-measures would be reached at the 

 depth of 400 or 500 feet, while the workable coal, or com- 

 mencement of the middle coal-me asures, would probably 

 be found at a further depth of 1,200 feet. If the shaft 

 were sunk near a fault, it would soon be seen whether it \\ere 

 worth while to sink deeper. Mr. Reade suggests a patch of 

 Lower sandstone, about half a square mile in extent, at 

 Eastham, and a less one at West Kirby, in addition to that 

 about Croxteth on this side of the river. The depth conjectured 

 by Mr. Reade is very much under some of the depths which have 

 been canvassed in estimates of the increased difficulty and costli- 

 ness of meeting the industrial demand for fuel. 



A GREAT international exhibition of fruit will be held at 

 South Kensington, in connection with the Horticultural Depart- 

 ment of the London International E.xhibition, 1S72, on Wednes- 

 day, Nov. 6, in which all home and foreign growers of fruit are 

 invited to take part, and for which occasion a liberal schedule 

 of prizes has been issued by the Council. 



The discovery of a new planet, No. 124, by M. Prosper 

 Henry, on the night of September 11-12, is announced from 

 Paris. Its position and motion are as follows : — September i f, 

 I5"47''35S Paris M.T.; R.A. 23I' 59"' ss^- ; Decl.-o°55' 57" ; 

 horary motion in R. A. - i""!;), in Decl. — 20". Magnitude about 

 117. 



During the closing hours of the last Congress of the United 

 States an appropriation of 150,000 dols. was made for the pur- 

 pose of introducing salmon, shad, and other valuable food fishes 

 into the rivers and lakes of the United States, and its expendi- 

 ture was placed in the hands of Professor Baird, the United 

 States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. The late pericd at 

 which this appropriation was made rendered it difficult to accom- 

 plish much in reference to shad, as the season for their hatcliing 

 was very nearly over ; but, notwithstanding this, a very satisfac- 

 tory beginning to the enterprise is announced by the com- 

 missioner. 



Dr. Augustus Krantz, of Berlin, the well-known dc.iler in 

 specimens of geology and mineralogy, died on the 6th of April 

 last, in the sixty-second year of his .age. This gentleman was 

 well known throughout Europe and America for the immcnre 



