ISO 



NA TURE 



[June 14, 1906 



where he worked at the nitration of clichlorobenzaldehyde 

 and the preparation of chloroindigo. In 1884 he joined the 

 Anilin- und Soda-F'abrik. He founded in 1888 the industry 

 of liquid chlorine, and devoted himself with zeal to the 

 task of modifying the Winkler process of preparing 

 sulphuric anhydride. Knietsch read an important com- 

 munication on the results of this work before the German 

 Chemical Society in 1901. For the solution of the problem 

 of the commercial preparation of synthetic indigo Dr. 

 Knietsch proved himself to be the right man in the right 

 place. In company with a number of earnest colleagues 

 he worked out and developed the present manufacturing 

 processes for the preparation of the materials necessary for 

 the synthesis of indigo and other dyes. ."Mways broad- 

 minded, he was ready at any time to replace existing plant 

 and methods by improvements. In 1904 Knietsch was 

 placed at the head of the firm. The Verein deutscher 

 Chemiker, at the annual general meeting in Mannheim 

 in 1904, awarded the Liebig gold medal to Dr. Knietsch, 

 and at the opening of the new Technological Mechanical 

 Institute of the Dresden Technical High School in 1905 

 the honorary degree of Dr. Ing. was conferred on him. 



The weekly weather report issued by the Meteorological 

 Office for the period ending June 9 shows that the present 

 month has opened with typical summer weather. The 

 major portion of the United Kingdom was entirely rain- 

 less, the only rains reported occurring in parts of Scotland 

 and Ireland, and amounting only to few hundredths of an 

 inch. Bright sunshine was for the most part greatly in 

 e.xcess of the average, 80 per cent, of the possible duration 

 occurring in the Channel Islands and 71 per cent, in the 

 south of England. The temperature averages were 

 generally rather low, and in the south of England the 

 sheltered thermometer at night fell below the freezing 

 point. 



We learn from the Journal of the Society of Arts that 

 what can be done by sanitation to stamp out malaria is 

 shown by Mr. Consul Morgan in his reference (No. 3565, 

 Annual Series) to the work of the Italian Red Cross 

 Society during late years to stamp out malaria in the 

 Roman Campagna. The first attempt was made in 1900, 

 when the returns showed that not less than 31 per cent, 

 of the inhabitants of the " .\gro Romano " had been fever- 

 stricken. In 1901 the figure was returned at 26 per cent., 

 20 per cent, in 1902, 11 per cent, in 1903, 10 per cent, in 

 1904, and 51 per cent, during last year. These results 

 were obtained by strict sanitary measures, use of wire 

 nets so as to prevent access of mosquitoes to cottages, and 

 free distribution of quinine among the peasantry. 



The annual dinner of the London section of the Society 

 of Dyers and Colourists was held on May 23, when a 

 representative company was presided over by Sir Thomas 

 Wardle, president of the society. In proposing the toast 

 of the London section of the society, the president expressed 

 his astonishment at the beautiful work being done in the 

 dyeing industry in Italy, and how much pure chemistry 

 is being made use of in that work. London, he continued, 

 is taking an interest in chemical development, and he sug- 

 gested that the Dyers' Company might associate itself in 

 some way with suT;h a body as the Society of Dyers. Sir 

 Thomas Wardle concluded his address by appealing to the 

 younger men to take advantage of the splendid scientific 

 training now available, and to induce others to do the 

 same, for by such methods many of our lost industries 

 would be won back. Responding to the toast of the 

 "Allied Industries," Dr. J. C. Cain said no doubt to some 

 NO. 191 I, VOL. 74] 



extent our patent laws, the lack of cheap alcohol, and 

 other causes have had a certain amount of influence in 

 the downfall of the English aniline dye industry, but in 

 his opinion the only real cause has been the lack of a man 

 of commanding genius, like Perkin or Nicholson, who 

 could discover a colour, make it, and sell it. Prof. R. 

 Meldola, F.R.S., in proposing "The Visitors," remarked 

 that we have lost tone in our supremacy in this branch 

 of manufacture, but the blame is not on the shoulders of 

 the dyers, who have always been on the qui miie to utilise 

 new discoveries It was the English and Scotch dyers 

 who first took up chemical dyes and encouraged the manu- 

 facturers to proceed. Mr. F. Robinson proposed " The 

 Chairman," and directed attention to the fact that present- 

 day results and modern methods could never have been 

 attained but for the research chemists and their work. 

 At one time dyeing was more an art than a science ; now 

 our chemists have made it practically a science. The old 

 dyestuffs such as indigo and madder are gradually and 

 surely disappearing, and are being supplanted by synthetic 

 products. The English dyeing and colouring industry is 

 moving with the times, and will eventually hold its own 

 against all rivals. 



We have received a copy of No. 12 of the fifteenth volume 

 of the Zeitschrift fiir Oologie und Ornithologie, said to be 

 the only serial in the world specially devoted to the interest 

 of the egg-collector. The present part contains notes on 

 the eggs of two .African birds previously unknown to col- 

 lectors, general observations and suggestions on subjects 

 intimately connected with oology, and descriptions of certain 

 eggs from Turkestan. 



In the report for the year 1905, the committee of the 

 Albany Museum, while referring with satisfaction to the 

 general progress of that institution and the present state of 

 the collections, directs attention to the congested state of 

 the buildings, and the urgent need for more space and for 

 additional funds, if the work is to be carried on in an 

 effective manner. The appointments of Profs. Duerden and 

 Schwarz to the zoological section are stated to have been 

 followed by most satisfactory results. 



It has been stated by those who have investigated the 

 subject in the selachian group that fishes lack lymphatic 

 vessels other than those of the visceral system, the super- 

 ficial and deep-seated vessels of the heart and trunk being 

 regarded as veins, and their sinuses as venous sinuses. 

 However this may be in the case of sharks, Mr. W. F. 

 Allen, in a paper on the lymphatics of the loricate fish 

 Scorpaenichthys, published in the Proceedings of the 

 Washington Academy (vol. viii., pp. 41-90), shows that it 

 is not so in the case of the group to which the latter 

 belongs. On the contrary, Scorpsenichthys has as fully 

 developed a lymphatic system as any vertebrate, so that 

 it may be said that in general wherever connective tissue 

 exists there lymphatics will be found. 



The February and March issues of the Proceedings of 

 the Philadelphia Academy contain a paper by Mr. J. A. G. 

 Rehn on tropical American grasshoppers of the group 

 Acridinse, with descriptions of several new forms, and like- 

 wise the commencement of one by Dr. R. Smith on the 

 phylogeny of the races of a species of gastropod of the 

 Eocene genus Volutilithes. In the case of the genus 

 Fulgar, it has been supposed that certain Miocene forms 

 represented the ancestral stock of the living American 

 species. According to the author this is not so, the fossil 

 forms being decadent senile offshoots from the original line, 

 which appear, however, to be dominant. A very similar 



