356 

NATURE ~ 
[May 27, 1915 

which is thus added to the few mammalian genera 
that have come down to us unmodified from older 
Cainozoic times. 
A wide interest is attached to the investigation of 
the ‘‘ Paleocene Deposits of the San Juan Basin, New 
Mexico,” by W. J. Sinclair and W. Granger (Bull. 
Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xxiii., 1914, p. 297), since 
these beds contain the oldest known Cainozoic mam- 
mals. The famous Puerco clays rest unconformably 
on a conglomerate with silicified tree-stems, below 
which are shales containing deinosaurs. No deino- 
saurs have been found in the Puerco Beds, and the 
faunal change is even here remarkably abrupt. Fossil 
plants, of no stratigraphical import, have been found 
for the first time (p. 306) in the Puerco Beds. 
Among faunistic papers, we may note that the 
indefatigable C. D. Walcott reviews, with a biblio- 
graphy, the ‘‘Cambrian Faunas of Eastern Asia” 
(Smithson. Miscell. Coll., vol. Ixiv., 1914, p. 1). 
Gis Vales Wo (2 

THE PLACE OF LAVOISIER IN TAB 
HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY. 
SOMEWHAT novel view of “ The Place of Lavoisier 
in the History of Chemistry” is put forward 
in a paper contributed by A. Mieli to the April number 
of Scientia. This question has formed the subject of 
prolonged controversy, and has called forth the most 
diverse and contrary opinions. Some, with Wurtz, 
have boldly acclaimed the fact that ‘‘Chemistry is a 
French science. Its founder is Lavoisier, of immortal 
memory.’ Others have written him down as a mere 
plagiarist, who purloined from Priestley the discovery 
of oxygen, and from Cavendish the discovery of the 
composition of water, and thus built up a great repu- 
tation on the unacknowledged work of his English 
colleagues. The Italian writer asserts that these 
claims and counterclaims are based upon a miscon- 
ception. Lavoisier’s true place is not at the beginning 
of the period to which the atomic and molecular 
theories belong, but at the close of an earlier period in 
which the chief problems were the nature of com- 
bustion, and the composition of air and water. This 
period opens with Jean Rey and Boyle; John Mayow 
had practically reached a true solution of the main 
problems in 1674; but Becher and Stahl intervened, 
and it was only by the work of Black, Priestley, 
Cavendish, and Lavoisier that all difficulties and 
doubts were finally cleared away. Lavoisier’s position 
in the historical sequence enabled him to use all the 
inform&tion and experience that had been gathered 
during the preceding 150 years, and it was right that 
he should do so, though his acknowledgments to 
Priestley and to Cavendish might well have been more 
generous. 
But whilst Lavoisier contributed a brilliant finale 
to the earlier period, his work cannot be regarded as 
forming in any sense an overture to the period which 
followed. The chief topics to be studied in the latér 
period were those which were concerned with atoms, 
molecules, and equivalents. This period began with 
Dalton’s atomic theory and the controversy between 
Proust and Berthoilet on the subject of fixed or vari- 
able proportions ; Avogadro (like Mayow) almost solved 
the problem; but once again a long interval of doubt 
and confusion ensued, until at last the work of Dumas, 
Laurent, and Gerhardt, and, above all, St. Claire 
Deville’s discovery of dissociation, enabled Canniz- 
zaro to put forward the masterly exposition which 
finally dispelled the uncertainty and perplexity which 
had afflicted chemistry for nearly forty years. 
Cannizzaro, like Lavoisier, owed much to others. 
His experimental work was on a much smaller scale 
than Lavoisier’s; but he is universally honoured:as the 
NO. 2378, VOL. 95] 
| 



man who cleared away the obstacles that had hindered 
the progress of knowledge during many weary years. 
Lavoisier’s chief claim to immortality is of a similar 
character. It rests upon the fact that he was able to 
break through the entrenched lines of the *‘ phlogiston ” 
theory, and to make a broad gap through which others 
could enter the open plain beyond. His tragic death 
| prevented him from reaping the full fruits of his 
victory over error, and it was left to others to under- 
take the conquest of the fertile country into which he 
had opened the way. 
The periods suggested by the author are described 
in a paper communicated to the Italian Chemical 
Society (Rendiconti Soc. Chim. Ital., 1914, vol. viii.) 
as follows :— 
(1) The Philosophic Period, 600 to 300 B.c., includ- 
ing the writings of Empedocles, Aristotle; and others. 
(2) The Ancient Alchemistic Period, extending to 
about I000 a.p., and dominated by the writings of 
Geber. (3) The Alchemistic Period of the Middle 
Ages, extending to about 1400 a.p., and including 
such names as Avicenna, Roger Bacon, Raymond 
Lully, Albertus Magnus, and’ the pseudo-Geber. (4) 
The Period of the Renaissance, including the work of 
Agricola (1494-1555), Bernard Palissy, and Paracelsus 
(1493-1541). (5) The Iatro-Chemical Period, originat- 
ing with Paracelsus, and culminating in the work of 
van Helmont (1577-1644). (6) The Pneumatic Period, 
beginning with Boyle, including Stahl, Black, Caven- 
dish, Priestley, and Scheele, and brought to its con- 
clusion by Lavoisier. (7) The Period of the Modern 
Atomic Theory, beginning with Dalton, carried for- 
ward by Gay Lussac, Avogadro, Ampére, Davy, and 
Berzelius, and brought to completion by the exposi- 
tion of Cannizzaro. (8) The Period of Organic Chem- 
istry and of the Periodic Law, including Liebig, 
Wohler, and Dumas, on the one side, Mendeléeff and 
Lothar Meyer on the other. (9) The Period of 
Physical Chemistry, originating with van’t Hoff and 
Arrhenius. (10) The period of Radio-activity. 
Te. Meal 
FISHERY RESEARCH IN INDIA.* 
R. SOUTHWELL deserves the thanks of those 
interested in the better organisation of Imperial 
resources for summarising the history of fisheries 
research in India. That dates bacl: only to 1906, 
for the work of Dr. Francis Day and Colonel Alcock 
was purely systematic. In 1906 economic research 
was initiated. Sir K. Gupta, then about to retire 
from the higher ranks of the Indian Civil Service, 
was ordered to inquire into the fisheries of Bengal. 
This officer tells us himself that he ‘‘knew nothing 
of fish,” and that he ‘“‘had not even done anything 
with the rod and line.’ Nevertheless, he made a 
lengthy tour in Europe and America to see those who 
did know, and on his return to India a Bengal 
Fisheries Department was established, with Mr. A. 
Ahmed as Commissioner. 
The Department then obtained the services, for a 
year or so, of Dr. J. T. Jenkins, and an English 
steam trawler, the Golden Crown, was sent out to 
make a survey of the fishing grounds in the Bay of 
Bengal. While this was going on Mr. Ahmed estab- 
lished a Board which met five times, after which he 
‘“ceased to be Commissioner.” The result of a very 
imperfect survey was the formation of a Fishery 
Department consisting of two directors of agriculture 
“whose knowledge of the fisheries is necessarily of 
an entirely administrative nature”), of Mr. Southwell 
himself (a trained zoologist), as deputy-director, and 
1 Report on Fishery Investigations in Bengal, etc., with Recommendations 
for Future Work. By T. Southwell, Deputy Director of Fisheries for 
Bengal, etc. Bulletin No. 5. Department of Fisheries, Bengal. (Calcutta: 
The Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, rgrs-) Price 6d. 

