July 



r 9i3] 



NATURE 



567 



gonia is rich in heavy oils. The article discusses 

 the geological relations of the oil-fields ; it points out 

 that those in Patagonia are connected with great 

 transcontinental fracture lines. The northern oil- 

 fields are connected with the middle part of the South 

 American Pacific coast, which is dominated by the 

 great subsidence that causes the sudden change in 

 the course of the coast near Arica. The author of 

 the article connects this subsidence to the antipodal 

 disturbance of the western coast of the Pacific on 

 the Gulf of Tongking. 



Though it had long been known that sudden dis- 

 placements take place during strong earthquakes, the 

 first case in which such displacements were established 

 by geodetic measurements was that of the Sumatra 

 earthquake of May 17, 1892. The movements of the 

 crust were then entirely horizontal. Though no trace 

 of any fault is visible at the surface, Prof. H. F. 

 Reid shows (Bulletin of the Seis. Soc. of America, 

 vol. Hi., pp. 72-9) that the measured displacements 

 imply the existence of a fault trending N.N.W. and 

 S.S.E., and that the crust on the west side was 

 shifted towards the north, and that on the east side 

 towards the south. The total relative slip of the two 

 walls of the fault amounted to 3J or 4 metres, or about 

 the same as that of the San Andreas fault during the 

 Californian earthquake of 1906. As in that earth- 

 quake, also, the displacement diminished rapidly as 

 the distance from the fault increased. Judging from 

 the great displacements at the limits of the measured 

 area (about 55 km. apart), Prof. Reid estimates that 

 the ruptured part of the fault may have been from 

 150 to 200 km. in length. 



In Symons's Meteorological Magazine for July Dr. 

 Mill refers to the message recently received from 

 Dr. Mawson at the winter camp of the Australian 

 Antarctic Expedition and to the "interesting and re- 

 markable fact " that daily meteorological reports are 

 being received in Melbourne from Commonwealth Bay 

 and from Macquarie Island. He remarks: — "No 

 more striking advance in the study of world meteoro- 

 logy has ever been made than this inclusion of the 

 Antarctic regions within the system of daily meteoro- 

 logical weather reports ; and meteorologists must pay 

 a tribute of gratitude to Dr. Mawson for his 

 triumphant realisation of what, a very short time ago, 

 would have been held to be a fantastic dream." 



A pamphlet on the " Demonstration du th^oreme de 

 Fermat," by Prof. E. Fabry (Paris : A. Hermann et 

 Fils, price 1.50 francs), does not contain what its title 

 seems to indicate. Assuming that all the details of 

 the analysis are correct, the net conclusion is that if 

 xP + yP + zP = o, with p an odd prime, has an integral 

 solution for which x, y, z, have no common factor, 

 one of these integers must be divisible by p 2 . But 

 although this result is not much in itself, M. Fabry's 

 tract deserves study, and may suggest some new way 

 of attacking this famous problem. Another recent 

 attempt by M. de Bouffall is of no value at all, as the 

 author assumes that two equations are identical, when 

 all that he has proved is that they have a common 

 root. 



NO. 2283, VOL. 91] 



The June number ot the Proceedings of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences contains a 

 contribution from Prof. B. Osgood Peirce, of the 

 Jefferson Physical Laboratory of Harvard, on the 

 maximum value of the magnetisation of iron. The 

 recent measurements of Sir R. Hadfield and Prof. 

 Hopkinson, by what is known as the "isthmus 

 method," gave 1680 as the maximum. By building 

 a large solenoid capable of giving a magnetic field 

 of 5000 units, Prof. Peirce has been able to obviate 

 the uncertainties which attach to the determinations 

 of the magnetising field in the isthmus method, and 

 has arrived at results for twenty-five examples of 

 commercial iron which vary from 1735 for American 

 ingot iron to 1533 for a sample of drill-rod iron. 

 Curves are given for a number of these material-, 

 which all show how closely the reciprocal of the mag- 

 netic susceptibility of any specimen is a linear function 

 of the magnetising field for fields above about 5.1 

 units. 



Part 6 of each of the two sections— Physics and 

 Electrical Engineering— of Science Abstracts has 

 reached us. Each part extends to sixty-three pa^ es, 

 and the average length of an abstract in the Physics 

 Section is one-third, and in the Electrical Engineering 

 Section one-half, of a page. The engineering abstracts 

 are in many cases accompanied by figures which are 

 not invariably so clear as they might be. The greater 

 length of these abstracts seems to be due to the 

 descriptive details of apparatus and machinery on 

 which the interest of the articles abstracted in many 

 cases depends. So far as the dates of the articles 

 abstracted are concerned, a glance through the two 

 sections shows that the great bulk of them are of 

 February, March, and April, so that the periodical is 

 reasonably up to date. The Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers and the Physical Society of London have 

 earned the thanks of all workers in these two fields 

 for their enterprise in maintaining so useful a pub- 

 lication. 



The July number of Science Progress (No. 29) 

 marks the commencement of a new volume, and a 

 change of editorship. Sir Ronald Ross will in future 

 guide the destinies of this well-known journal. The 

 present number contains several articles of a wide 

 general interest, of which the following may be 

 named: — Enzymes as synthetic agents, by Prof. J. II. 

 Priestley; the seats of the soul in history, by Dr. 1). 

 Fraser Harris; and scientific national defence, by 

 Colonel Charles Ross. Drs. M. S. Pembery and 

 O. A. Craggs cross swords on the vexed question of 

 woman's place in nature, and Prof. H. E. Armstrong 

 destructively criticises recent experimental work on 

 the perennially interesting subject of the corrosion 

 or rusting of iron, which, it is maintained, cannot 

 possibly be brought about by the action of pure water 

 and pure oxygen only. 



In The Biochemical Journal (vol. vii., p. 26S1 Mr. 

 E. Ashley Cooper describes the isolation from animal 

 tissues, such as horseflesh, or ox-heart, of a substance 

 which rapidly cures polyneuritis in birds induced by 

 a diet of polished rice ; it can be precipitated from 



