330 
NATURE 
[May, 20, 1915 

increase in the number of sanctuaries, and we trust 
his appeal will not fall on deaf ears. 
Tue British Museum of Natural History and the 
Zoological Society are both setting a good example in 
their endeavour to arouse in the public a more lively 
sense than hitherto of the dangers which beset us, 
and especially this year, from the flies which invade 
and infect our food and drink. In the central hall of 
the Natural History Museum Dr. W. G. Ridewood 
has displayed a small case containing most realistic 
models of various kinds of food and drink and kitchen 
refuse, all of which are being partaken of by hosts 
of flies. Clearly-worded labels and diagrams enable 
the visitor to assimilate at a glance the nature of 
these scourges and the best way to combat them. 
Prot. Ee Maxwell-Lefroy, at the Zoological Gardens, 
has entered much more fully into the matter, having 
prepared an exhibition of living flies and their larve, 
supplemented by specimens preserved in spirit, with 
samples of various kinds of kitchen refuse which 
serve as a nidus for these pests. Wall diagrams and 
lantern slides arranged as transparencies, showing the 
different kinds of flies and the essential details of 
their anatomy, add materially to the usefulness of 
this part of the exhibition. Having thus demonstrated 
the magnitude of this menace to the community, he 
proceeds to point out various preventive measures by 
means of fly-traps, poisons, and fumigatories. Speci- 
mens of each are ranged around the room, and all 
have the merit of being at once cheap and easily and 
safely used by the careful housewife. 
Tue Journal of the Royal Society of Arts for 
April 23 contains a paper by Mr. Moreton Frewen on 
the State and the fisherman. After dealing with 
instances of successful fish culture by the United 
States Fish Commission, Mr. Frewen proceeds to con- 
sider the marine fisheries of British Columbia. These 
are very prolific. There are extensive feeding and 
spawning grounds for herring, cod, halibut, and many 
other food fishes, while salmon are very abundant in 
the great rivers. During the last year or so fairly 
large quantities of North Pacific halibut have been 
exported to this country. Dealing more particularly 
with the Charlotte Islands, the author contends that 
there is, in that area, a magnificent opportunity for 
fisheries development on a large scale. Railway and 
harbour developments in recent years seem to solve 
the problem of profitable distribution of the fish 
reared, caught, or canned. A large part of the paper 
is devoted to the consideration of the establishment 
of fisher-colonies in Britisan Columbia, formed from 
partially disabled ex-soldiers and ex-sailors, and from 
those more adventurous men who will return to civil 
life on the conclusion of the war. Everything, he 
contends, points to the great commercial development 
of this part of our overseas dominions, provided that 
the State may foster, by scientific investigation and 
well-planned emigration proposals, its great natural 
resources. 
Tue water relationship between the soil and the 
plant has been the subject of numerous investigations, 
NO. 2377, VOL. 95] 

and it has received further attention from Pulling and 
Livingstone in a publication recently issued from the 
Carnegie Institution of Washington (No. 204). One 
of the authors had previously insisted that the power 
of the soil to deliver water to root surfaces is the 
prime external condition determining the moisture 
supply to plants in normal soils. An osmometer was 
therefore constructed to obtain information on the 
phenomena involved, and measurements were taken 
showing the rate at which water passed from the soil 
into the cell. For this purpose the large end of the 
thistle funnel was closed with a collodion membrane 
obtained by evaporation of a solution of Schering’s 
“celloidin’? in a mixture of equal parts of alcohol 
and ether. This membrane, when properly made, was 
found to be practically impermeable to dissolved sub- 
stances, although it readily allowed the passage of 
water. A cane-sugar solution was introduced, and 
the instrument was buried in the soil with proper 
precautions to ensure continuous contact. The rate 
at which water entered was assumed to indicate the 
power of the soil to deliver water to the root. It is 
admitted that the phenomena are complex, but the 
authors urge that in the present stage more good will 
result from a direct study of the property as such than 
from any attempt to analyse it into its component 
factors. Temperature was found to be of great im- 
portance in determining the water-supplying power. 
A critical point was also found which is said to be 
approximately the same as that observed by other 
investigators. 
Ivaty has taken in hand the study of its own 
glaciers, and its Societa per il Progresso delle Scienze 
publishes the first number of a Bolletino del Comitato 
Slaciologico italiano (Rome, 1914, pp. 1-114, with 
illustrations). This, after a prefatory statement, gives 
a bibliography of Italian glaciology from 1895 to 1913, 
and some reports on investigations in 1913. Prof. A. 
Roccati describes some glaciers in the Maritime Alps, 
the largest of which begins at g2r1e ft. and ends at 
8662 ft. This, like other Alpine regions where the 
summits rarely attain to 10,000 {t., should afford 
good illustrations of upland valleys from which glaciers 
have not long disappeared. Prof. F. Porro furnishes 
a preliminary report on the Italian Miage Glacier, 
which has long been noted for the size ot its moraines 
and its marked advances and retreats. Prof. D. 
Sangiorgi describes the glaciers eleven of them con- 
siderable, from the Disgrazia to the Monte di Zocca. 
An easily recognised granite occurs in this mountain ~ 
group, boulders from which are found even to the 
south of Como. In the Monte Rosa group Dr. Monterin 
deals with the Lys Glacier and that of the Val d’Ayas, 
of which the former, like the Gorner Glacier, is 
still retreating; and the Bolletino ends with studies 
of two glaciers on the Weisshorn or Corno Bianco 
(10,893 ft.), a peak on the ridge separating the 
above-named valleys. Altogether a very promising 
| first number, but we hope that the Comitato will keep 
in touch with the Zeitschrift fiir Gletscherkunde, for 
a multiplication of separate periodicals is apt to in- 
crease rather than diminish the difficulties of those 
interested in the history of glaciation. 


