June 22, 1905] 



NA TURE 



185 



consistentlv by Nature, that the surest and best way to 

 secure national efficiency is to educate our manufacturers 

 and merchants liberally along scientific lines, and to enlist 

 the cooperation of distinguished men of science in the 

 work of national administration. 



In considering the task that lies before a progressive 

 political party, Mr. Haldane has much of interest to the man 

 of science to say about things the party has to accomplish 

 in the process of winning complete public confidence in its 

 rapacity to direct national business. He points out that 

 the importance of each Department of State depends 

 mainly on the personality of the Minister who presides 

 over it. But apart from personality there are other forces 

 — such as clear conception and resolute purpose — which 

 profoundly affect administration. To bring into play 

 greater brain power in administration is, Mr. Haldane 

 insists, a task of the first magnitude, and he proceeds to 

 show its importance and how it may be accomplished. 



The appointment of the Explosives Committee by Lord 

 Lansdowne in iqoo is the first illustration taken by Mr. 

 Haldane. After the outbreak of the South African war, it 

 came to light that the British military and naval guns 

 were being corroded rapidly by the chemical action at high 

 temperatures of the products of combustion of the nitro- 

 glycerin in the cordite. Lord Lansdowne, who summoned 

 outsiders to advise him, was told that an expert com- 

 mittee on the national explosives required the best scientific 

 brains in the country, and, following the earlier example 

 in France, a committee, presided over by Lord Rayleigh 

 and including .Sir Andrew Noble and Sir William Crookes, 

 was appointed. The committee has solved the problems 

 presented to it, made further discoveries, and is now a 

 permanent body. But the committee is performing its 

 work under groat difliculties, due entirely to our system 

 of administration. As Mr. Haldane says, " the Army 

 gives its rewards to genius on the field, and not to genius 

 in the laboratory." He says later; — "If the British 

 Government is to have adequate command of scientific 

 talent of the highest order, it must make arrangements 

 which will enable it to reward and honour that talent on 

 an adequate scale, without exciting ill-feeling." 



There ought, in fact, Mr. Haldane contends, to be an 

 advisory body with a corps icientifique attached to it, 

 which should include the exceptional talent which the 

 State stands more and more in need of every day. Not 

 only would such a scientific committee provide a new 

 opening for talent, but, more important, prove a source 

 of new strength to the nation. As a further instance of 

 the good results which promptly follow the application of 

 scientific methods to national problems, Mr. Haldane cites 

 the case of the discovery among miners of the disease 

 ankylostomiasis, after the Home Office had obtained the 

 permission of the Treasury to appoint a committee of 

 investigation, and indicates how great would have been 

 the saving of suffering and money had there been a corps 

 scientifiquc to appeal to as a matter of course. 



Referring to the fall in the amount of exports in some 

 branches of industry, Mr. Haldane traces this to the need 

 for more mind in the process of manufacture, that is, for 

 the improvement of higher education in this country, and 

 goes on to remark that comparatively little State aid has 

 been devoted to this important necessity. E.xception is 

 taken, too, to the somewhat mechanical methods of distri- 

 bution of the present grant from the Treasury to university 

 colleges, and it is urged that in this direction also the 

 executive brain ought to be strengthened. 



The Centralstelle of Germany, the function of which 

 is to put at the disposal of inquirers, in the solution of 

 problems arising in manufacture, the best scientific know- 

 ledge available which cannot otherwise be obtained by 

 the private manufacturer, is an example of Germany's 

 appreciation of men of science. Not only are such central 

 research institutions established in Germany, but also in 

 the LInited States and in France. The same principle has 

 been conceded among us, for the State gives a small grant 

 — just about a tenth of what the Germans give to their 

 corresponding institution — to the National Physical Labor- 

 atory, an invaluable institution which is at present being 

 starved. Well may Mr. Haldane say that " it is time for 

 the State to take the lead in this direction also, if we are 

 to hold our own in the international competition which 



NO. i860, VOL. 72] 



is more and more coming to depend on the application of 

 science to industry." 



The essay as a whole is a powerful plea for the intro- 

 duction of the methods of science into every department 

 of national life, and should convince every reader that 

 disregard of scientific method and procedure is of necessity 

 accompanied by a want of national efficiency and well- 

 being. 



CORAL ANATOMY AND DEVELOPMENT.' 



T N writing this account of his observations and researches 

 i on Siderastra:a, Dr. Duerden has added an important 

 contribution to his already extensive publications on the 

 anatomy and development of the Madreporaria. Siderastraea 

 is a common West Indian coral forming colonies of lo cm. 

 to 60 cm. in diameter, which encrust stones and some- 

 times the shells of hermit crabs on the coral flats. It 

 appears to be exceedingly hardy, as it will suffer exposure 

 to the hot sun at low tide and partial burying in the mud 

 without injury, and it is often found living under con- 

 ditions on the reef which very few corals of other species 

 could withstand. This hardiness renders it an admirable 

 type for thorough investigation, as it enables it to live 

 and grow and reproduce itself freely in the unfavourable 

 conditions of an aquarium in the tropics. 



Siderastra;a, although a colonial coral having a general 

 superficial resemblance to the Astrseidas, or star corals, is 

 allied to the Fungida', or mushroom corals. The tissues 

 of the expanded zooids are so transparent that the white 



Fig. I.— Three larvz of Sideraslraia settling down upon a stone, in close 

 proximity, by their narrow aboral poles. 



skeletal structures can be seen through them. Each zooid 

 has, in the adult state, two rows of capitate tentacles, and 

 several of the members of the inner row are bifurcate. 

 This remarkable and, ainong corals, unique condition of 

 the tentacle is brought about by the growth of a common 

 peduncle for a pair of neighbouring tentacles of the 

 entocoelic series which are primarily distinct. 



In all the zooids that were examined anatomically only 

 ova were found; Dr. Duerden, however, gives reasons for 

 believing that the coral is not strictly dicecious, but 

 protogynous, a point of some interest when compared with 

 the case of Flabelliim nibnun, which Mr. Stanley Gardiner 

 has shown to be protandrous. 



The early stages of the development of the coral take 

 place within the cavitv of the parent zooid, and the ciliated 

 top-shaped larva ai^e discharged with four pairs of 

 mesenteries already developed. The larvae can be kept 

 alive in the aquaria for several weeks, but unless they 

 settle down wMthin the first two or three days from liber- 

 ation it seems impossible for them to fix themselves, and 

 they ultimately perish. In general the larvae fix themselves 

 at the same time and in groups. So close do they cluster 

 together that they are often in touch with one another, 

 1 "The Coral SiJerastraia radians and its Prst.Lirval Development," 

 By Dr. J. E. Duerden. Pp. 130+plates. (Washington : Carnegie Institu- 

 tion, December, 1904.) 



