io8 



NATURE 



[June i, 1905 



aiir^yed at thatit is not caused by any-special bacterium, 

 but by several different species of commbn occurrence on 

 mulberry leaves. 



Wb have received part ii. of the reports of the com- 

 mission appointed for the investigation of Mediterranean 

 fever, part i. of which has already been noticed in Nature 

 (May 4, p. 17). Dr. R. W. Johnstone deals with the 

 sanitary circumstances and prevalence of the disease id 

 the Maltese Islands, but is unable to give any definite 

 pronouncement on the mode of human infection. The 

 facts do not indir.nte (hat dust, personal contact, or ex- 

 cretal pollution play an important part in the spread of 

 the disease.. Staff-Surgeon Bassctt-Smith, R.N., details 

 experiments on the saprophytic life of the Micrococcus 

 melitcnsis, and Dr. Eyre on the virulence of this organism 

 for the guinea-pig. 



The Bulletins of the Bureau of Government Laboratories, 

 Manila, several of which have from time to time been 

 noticed in these columns, always contain matter of interest. 

 No. 20, in five articles, discusses various diseases occur- 

 ring in the Philippine Islands, and in No. 21 Dr. Strong 

 deals with certain questions relating to the virulence of 

 micro-organisms and their immunising powers. The con- 

 clusion is arrived at that a virulent cholera spirillum 

 possesses a greater number of bacteriolytic and agglutinable 

 haptophore groups, or these groups are endowed with a 

 greater binding power for uniceptors and amboceptors than 

 the avirulent. That is to say, virulent cholera microbes 

 have a greater capacity than avirulent microbes for uniting 

 with living cells and their products. 



An article on roses by Mr. Jekyll in the April number 

 of the Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture, Jamaica, 

 warns growers against attempting to grow hybrid per- 

 petuals in the island. First place is assigned to the tea 

 and noisette sections, which produce good results except 

 in so far as the sun is too strong for some, and a good 

 selection of suitable roses may be made from the list which 

 is given. 



A FLORA of the islands of Margarita and Coche, lying 

 off the coast of Venezuela, is being prepared by Mr. J. R. 

 Johnston, but meantime he has published a list of new 

 plants from these islands in the Proceedings of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences (April). A new 

 genus, Anguriopsis, is formed having affinities with the 

 cucurbitaceous genus Anguria. Among the new species are 

 a Bactris — a palm with handsome foliage — two new orchids, 

 and several trees, including a Capparis, a Cfesalpinia, and 

 a Casearia. The new species are for the most part addi- 

 tions to genera or sections of the genera which are con- 

 fined to tropical America. 



One of the most fruitful lines of recent research in 

 botany has been concerned with the investigation of fossil 

 seeds, of which several species of Lagenostoma are the best 

 known. The evidence in favour of referring these seeds 

 to certain vegetative portions of Carboniferous plants, 

 formerly regarded as fern fronds, formed the subject of 

 Dr. Scott's presidential address to the Royal Microscopical 

 Society, which is published in the April number of the 

 Journal. The cycadofilicinean position assigned to Lygino- 

 dendron Oldhamium, which shows a sphenopteris type 

 of foliage, was confirmed by the evidence which con- 

 nected the same plant with Lagenostoma Lomaxi. Mr. 

 Kidston's discovery of the fructification of Neuroptcris 

 heterophylla fixed the seed, to another typical fern-frond, 

 NO. 1857, VOL. 72] 



and recent research points to the production of winged seeds 

 by a species of .Adiantites. 



In a sketch of the geology of Upper Assam {Records 

 Geol. Surv. India, xxxi., part iv.) Mr. J. Malcolm 

 Maclaren describes the region as a great plain, 320 feet to 

 500 feet above sea-levtl, bounded on the north-west by the 

 eastern Himalayas and on the south-east by the Patkai 

 ranges, while the head of the valley is closed in by the 

 crystalline arid metamorphic rocks of the Miju ranges. 

 Upper Tertiary sandstones occur at a considerable height 

 (maximum 6900 feet) on the Patkai and Himalaya ranges, 

 but have not been observed anywhere on the heights of 

 Miju. Attention is directed to the general uptilting and. 

 teversed faulting of the Tertiary rocks on either side' of 

 the great plain, and to the deflection in the trend of the 

 Patkai range where it abuts against that of Miju. These 

 features are attributed to earth stresses during the form- 

 ation of the mountains. The author concludes that the 

 Patkais and Himalayas, in their later growth at least, are 

 of contemporaneous development, and that both are 

 orographically and geologically distinct from the great 

 meridional mountain system of Upper Burma, Tibet, and 

 western China. In another article Mr. Maclaren deals 

 with the auriferous occurrences of Assam. Gold was there 

 worked in ancient times, and it is distributed in extremely 

 small percentages throughout the alluvial gravels of the 

 Brahmaputra ; but the author is of opinion that only two 

 or three localities are worthy of further prospecting, and 

 that these are likely to yield comparatively small results. 

 He believes that in Assam, as in most other parts of India, 

 the climatic conditions that make for concentration of gold 

 have always been absent. There never has been that even 

 flow of waters confined within well-marked banks, that 

 after a lengthened period results in a separation and local 

 concentration according to specific gravity of the river- 

 borne minerals in " leads " and " runs." On the other 

 hand, there have been annual floods, varying so quickly in 

 height, velocity, and direction that the slight local con- 

 centration of one year has been effaced by succeeding 

 floods. 



We have received vol. ii. of the year-book of the Austro- 

 Hungarian Meteorological Observatory of Agram for the 

 year 1902, a large folio publication containing fifty pages 

 of tables giving detailed and summarised observations and 

 results at a number of stations in Croatia and Slavonia. 

 The size of the work is somewhat unwieldy, but the tables 

 are very legible, and have been carefully prepared on the 

 plan of the international scheme for meteorological publi- 

 cations. Hourly readings, and hourly and daily means, are 

 given for Agram. 



The recently published annual Journal of the Scottish 

 Meteorological Society (third series, Nos. 20 and 21) con- 

 tains an interesting discussion of the rainfall of the Ben 

 Nevis observatories, by Mr. Andrew Watt. The measure- 

 ment of precipitation on the summit was attended with 

 great difliculties ; the high wind velocities, at an altitude 

 of 4400 feet, made the registration of snow (which mostly 

 falls between October and May) and even of rain some- 

 what uncertain. The tables show the falls at the upper 

 and lower stations for the nineteen-year period 1885-1903. 

 The average annual rainfall at the summit was i6o-8 

 inches, and that at the foot 78 6 inches ; in individual years 

 the amounts varied from 49 per cent, above to 33 per cent, 

 below the mean values on the summit, and from 45 per 

 cent, above to 23 per cent, below at the lower, station. 



