July 26, 1906] 



NA TURE 



307 



OI'ENING OF A NEW LAKORATORV AT IIIE 

 ROTHAMSTKD EXPERIMENTAL S/A//1IN. 



/AN July 20 Earl Carrington opened the "James 

 ^^ Mason " laboratory for agricultural bacteriology at 

 the Rothainsted lixperimental Station. Sir John Kvans, 

 chairman of the Lawes Agricultural Trust Committee, pre- 

 sided, and among those also present were Mr. J. F. 

 Mason,- M.P., the donor of the laboratory, Sir T. II. 

 IClliolt, Sir .Michael l-oster, Sir R. T. Cooper, Mr. 

 Laurence llardv, .M.P., Mr. V. .\. Channing, M.P., Mr. 

 Abel Smith, i\i.l'., Mr. Phipson Beale, M.P., Prof. R. 

 Meldola, president of the Chemical Society, Sir Charles 

 Lawes Wittewronge, Dr. Hugo MiiUer, Dr. H. E. .'\rm- 

 strong. Dr. J. A. V'oelcker, and Mr. J. Bovven Jones. 



Sir John Evans, in his introductory remarks, explained 

 that the building they were asking Lord Carrington to 

 declare open was the gift of Mr. J. E. Mason, and was 10 

 be devoted to a class of work that had grown up since 

 the original Rothamsted experiments were started, but 

 which had become of cardinal importance in the study of 

 thi' growth of crops. The dilliculty of the Lawes .Agri- 

 cultural Trust Committee, carrying out as it was by private 

 lienefactions the work which in every other country was 

 regarded as the duty of the State, was to find funds for 

 such new developments, and he trusted that the President 

 of the Board of .\griculture might soon be able to obtain 

 a grant for the proposed council of agricultural rosc.irch, 

 and so furnish some assistance to themselves and other 

 bodies concerned in similar investigations. 



Lord Carrington expressed the pleasure it gave him to 

 find himself at Rothamsted, which had been the pioneer 

 of agricultural research, not only in England, but in the 

 world. .Agriculture was rapidly ceasing to be a rule-of- 

 iliumb business, and as a highly skilled industry was more 

 and more requiring the assistance of such scientific investi- 

 gations as were being carried out at Rothamsted. lie 

 sincerely hoped that some money might be found for Ihe 

 proposed council of agricultural research, but he felt bound 

 to remind them that the income tax still stood at a shilling 

 in the pound ; but both he and the Government of which 

 lie was a member had every sympathy with the work 

 represented by Rothamsted. 



.Sir Michael Foster then expressed the thanks of the 

 Lawes Trust Committee to Mr. Mason for his munificent 

 gift of the laboratory, and explained how the bacteria, the 

 existence of which almost was unsuspected when the 

 Rothamsted laboratory was built, were year by year being 

 found to be of fundamental importance, not only to our- 

 selves directly, but to the crops and to the soil. .Sir 

 Thomas Elliott, the Secretary of the Board of .Agriculture, 

 seconded the expression of thanks, and declared that gifts 

 like Mr. Mason's were the best argument he could have 

 in approaching the Treasury for assistance for the work 

 of I^othamsted. 



Mr. Mason then replied, and explained how he was led 

 to establish this laboratory as the best means of securing 

 I he continuance of the work to which his father had 

 devoted so many years and had so much at heart. Me 

 also trusted that it might be a means of stirring public 

 opinion, both generally and in the House of Commons, lo 

 recognise the necessity of research if agriciilliirc was to 

 maintain its position in this country. 



.After the meeting the company was shown round the 

 laboratories, and afterwards visited the experimental plots, 

 where the wheat and barley in particular were showing 

 very interesting results. 



The new laboratorv takes the form of a wing added on 

 to the Lawes Testimonial Laboratory, which was built in 

 1855 ; it is built of brick from the designs of Mr. V. T. 

 Hodgson. It owes its origin to Mr. James Mason, of 

 F'.vnsham Hall, Oxon, who for many years carried out on 

 liis own estate extensive experiments on such questions as 

 the utilisation of leguminous plants in increasing the 

 ferlilily of the soil, and the unlocking of fertility stored up 

 in ihe subsoil, a summarv of which may be read in the 

 lournal of the Royal .Agricultural Society for 1004. Mr. 

 Mason died in 1002, and in his memory Mr. J. F. Mason, 

 \I.P., presented the trust with 1000/. for the building and 

 ■<'t|uipmenl of a bacteriological laboratory, together with a 



NO. I917, VOL. 74] 



further sum of 50/. a year toward its working expenses. 

 The building contains a main laboratory looking north, 

 i-, feet by 15 feet, filled with teak-lopped working tables 

 and slate slabs lo carry the incubators ; a preparation room, 

 where the working tables are covered with lead ; a dark- 

 room for photography, polariscope work. Sic. ; and a room 

 for the director. The whole is tloored with pilch-pine 

 blocks, and heated by steam from the old laboratory 

 adjoining. 



RECENT RESEARCHES IN REGION AI. 

 GEOLOGY. 



'T'HE Cioological Survey of Great Britain has issued 

 a memoir (price li.) by Mr. A. J. Jukes-Browne, to 

 accompany the colour-printed geological map, Sh-el 282. 

 The country dealt with lies south and east of Devizes, and 

 contains exposures of almost horizontal strata, from the 

 Middle Jurassic to the Lower Flocene. The author refers 

 the superficial " clay with flints " to the weathering of 

 Eocene material, and urges that its presence at any par- 

 ticular point shows that we are " not far below the ancient 

 plane of erosion on which the lowest Eocene deposits were 

 laid down." He has sustained this position more recently 

 in an important paper (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, iqob, 

 p. 159). Notes are given on economic geology, including 

 the general character of the soils. 



.Another memoir of the survey, also issued in 1905, is by 

 Mr. Fox-Strangways and Prof. Watts (price 2S.), on the 

 country between Derby, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and Lough- 

 borough, included in Sheet 141. The description of Charn- 

 wood Forest will probably attract most attention, and 

 it is to be supplemented in a forthcoming memoir. Prof. 

 Watts, from mapping the ground, finds that the famous 

 " porphyroids " of the region are not lava-flows, but are 

 intrusive (p. 9) ; they have, however, shared in the general 

 cleavage and shearing, and thus were in place before the 

 Charnwood mass became a mountainous knot in the 

 Carboniferous sea. We find the term " fjord " hardly a 

 happy one when applied to the inlet of a Triassic lake 

 (p. 11), which has become revealed by latter-day denuda- 

 tion. But Prof. Watts's reconstruction of the Charnwood 

 landscapes of Triassic times has already afforded us pictures 

 for which we should be warmly grateful (see Geographical 

 Journal, 1903). On p. 33, Mr. Fox-Strangways refers to an 

 interesting puzzle as to the origin of certain Foraminifera 

 once stated to be from the Keuper Marl. The suggestion 

 is made that similar forms occur, as derived Liassic 

 material, in the drift, and thence became erroneously re- 

 corded from the Keuper. With so many good geologists 

 in the neighbourhood, this question ought not to be left 

 long in uncertainty. The point suggests itself, moreover, 

 that the local Boulder-clay, like that of the low ground 

 of Lancashire, may possibly contain Foraminifera of its 

 own, imported from some neighbouring sea. On this 

 matter, by the by, a paper has reached us from Mr. Mellard 

 Reade (Proc. Liverpool Geological Society, vol. x., part i., 

 1005), who believes that the abundance of I'oraminifera in 

 the Lancashire Boulder-clay points strongly to the prob- 

 ability of the whole of the low-level deposit having been 

 laid down in marine waters under fairly quiet conditions. 

 Mr. W. Edwards, on the other hand \ibid.), in n paper 

 on the glacial geology of Anglesey, urges that the island 

 was not submerged beneath the sea at the epoch of the 

 formation of the well-known shell-bearing beds at Moel-y- 

 Tryfan in Caernarvonshire. 



.A pleasant addition to the publications of the Geological 

 .Survey of Great Britain is the " Guide to the Geological 

 Model of the Isle of Purbeck," by Mr. A. Strahan, F.R.S. 

 (iqof), price 6d.). The model, on the horizontal scale of 

 six inches to one mile, was made by Mr. J. B. Jordan, and 

 is accessible in the museum of the survey in Jermyn 

 Street, London. Copies have also been acquired by the 

 Government museums in Edinburgh and Dublin. The 

 purpose of the model is educational, and the guide, by 

 marginal notes, points out how It illustrates an " escarp- 

 ment," an "anticline," a "trough-fault," and so forth, 

 so that it serves as a companion lo the ordinary text-book. 

 For those unable to consult one of Ihe copies of Ihe model. 



