5i6 



NATURE 



[September 21, 1905 



thickness of more recent deposits. Alongside the wall were 

 found a number of stone implements, most of which are 

 of the well known Neolithic adze type, although others 

 are chiefly finished by chipping, and appear in some degree 

 transitional between Palso- and Neo-lithic t}pes. 



In the first article of the August issue of the American 

 Naturalist Prof. D. P. Penhallow discusses the ancestry 

 of the poplars and willows (Salicaceae) as deduced from 

 the woody structure of the fully mature stem. The family 

 appears to be of Old World origin, and while most of its 

 Cretaceous representatives appear to have been suited to 

 a warm climate, the tendency of the later forms appears 

 to have been to adapt themselves to boreal conditions. 

 The other articles include the seventh part of Dr. B. M. 

 Davis's studies on the plant-cell, and a dissertation by 

 Mr. J. A. Cushman on the developmental history of the 

 shelled foraminifera of the group Lagenids. For the 

 initial chamber of these lagenoids the author proposes the 

 name " proloculum," on the analogy of " protoconch " in 

 the case of the gastropod shell. 



The trustees of the British .Museum have caused to be 

 issued (at the price of 3d.) a special guide to an exhibition 

 of old natural history books now placed in the main hall 

 of the Natural History Museum in Cromwell Road. The 

 object of the series is to illustrate the origin and progress of 

 the study of natural history previous to Linnean times. 

 Apart from reproductions of certain prehistoric sketches, 

 which scarcely, it seems to us, come under the designation 

 of " old natural history books," the series commences with 

 Aristotle's natural history, followed by other works collec- 

 tively assigned to the classical period. Arab philosophers, 

 such as Serapion of the eight or ninth century, come next, 

 and following these, after a brief reference to a few 

 mediaeval writers, we are introduced to the works of 

 Leonardo da Vinci and the early "herbalists." With the 

 close of the fifteenth century the legendary period of 

 natural history gave place to an era of first-hand investi- 

 gation, and special reference is made in the guide to 

 Wotton (1492-1555), the first English physician to make 

 a scientific study of the subject, and to whom belongs the 

 credit of restoring zoology to the rank of a science. For 

 the history of later writers and their works we must refer 

 our readers to the exhibition itself, which, if studied by 

 the aid of the excellent little guide before us, cannot fail 

 to prove both interesting and instructive. 



Under the conditions which prevail, it is too much 

 to expect any great expansion of forest areas in the British 

 Isles, but there is some consolation in the statement made 

 by Mr. G. Pinchot, the energetic chief of the Bureau of 

 Forestry in the United .States, that the Canadian and Cape 

 Colonies have established an efficient forest service, and 

 that Australia and New Zealand are making progress in 

 the same direction. Mr. Pinchot reviews the conditions 

 of forestry, in Germany, France, and .Switzerland, also in 

 British India and the United States, in the August number 

 of the National Geographic Magazim. Among the illus- 

 trations are some depicting the employment of elephants 

 in the teak trade of Burma. 



An account of the Erysiphace.-e of Japan in the Anualcs 

 Mycologici, vol. iii.. No. 3, by Mr. E. .S. Salmon, affords 

 some instances of distribution which are not readily ex- 

 plained. Four species were previously only known from 

 America, one each from Australia and China, and five arc 

 endemic. One species, Vncimila geniciilata, was gathered 

 near Tokio on an endemic plant, Styrax Obassia ; as 

 NO. 1873, VOL. 72] 



recorded from America, the only host-plant is Morus rubrii. 

 Mr. Salmon suggests that possibly Morns nibra will be 

 found to exist in Japan, or that the area of distribution 

 of the two host-plants may have overlapped, or that the 

 fungus, having been introduced to Japan, has spread to a 

 new host-plant. 



The sixteenth annual report of the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden contains three papers on fungal diseases observed 

 on cauliflowers by Dr. H. von Schrenck and Mr. G. G. 

 Hedgcock. Following upon the treatment of the cauli- 

 flower leaves with different fungicides, it was noticed that 

 swellings were raised in certain cases ; further experiments 

 proved that these were caused by the application of a 

 solution of copper ammonium carbonate which induced 

 extravagant enlargement of the mesophyll cells. Prof. 

 Sorauer, who has treated the subject of intumescences very 

 fully, has referred their formation to the action of an 

 abnormal elevation of temperature, combined with excessive 

 water supplv. In the experiments here detailed these con- 

 ditions did not obtain, and Dr. Schrenck shows definitely 

 that the swellings are the result of chemical stimulation 

 brought about by the copper ammonium salt when applied 

 in a dilute solution, and he compares it with the well 

 known action of poisonous salts, which in weak solutions 

 induce acceleration of growth. 



The August number of the Fortnightly Rcvievj contains 

 an article bv Mr. W. H. Mallock on the two attacks on 

 science. The two attacks are the clerical and the philo- 

 sophic, and the writer contends that the former of these 

 has failed entirely, because man and the universe, when 

 studied as modern science studies them, neither can have, 

 nor require to have, any other explanation than that which 

 science offers us, the principle, namely, that all pheno- 

 mena result from a single system of interconnected causes. 

 There are no longer gaps in which the divine interference 

 can be seen, for even the gap between the organic and 

 the mental has been bridged over by the discovery that 

 consciousness and mind are by no means co-extensive and 

 identical, i.e. that consciousness is not essential to the 

 existence and operations of mind. As for the philosophic 

 attack, the main problem is that of the origin of ideas, and 

 Mr. Mallock accepts the scientific view that the mind is 

 a highly complex organism, having a long pedigree, and 

 evolved from simpler elements ; that the " connection of 

 things " gradually reproduces itself in the " connection of 

 ideas " ; that the individual is at no point to be regarded 

 as separated from the cosmic whole, but that even conation, 

 which has sometimes been supposed to differentiate mental 

 from other processes, depends on the universal conation of 

 nature. On these lines science extends indefinitely the 

 borders of what we call self, and breaks down the dividing 

 line between ourselves and the universe ; and thus intro- 

 spective philosophy " instead of disintegrating science as 

 a system of childish materialism, merely hardens and 

 sublimates it into a system of universal mentalism." 



We have received an effective relief map of the Dominion 

 of Canada, on a scale of 100 miles to an inch, published by 

 the Department of the Interior. 



A RECENT Bulletin (No. 15) of the Geological Commission 

 of Finland contains a series of chemical analyses of ninety- 

 one igneous rocks from Finland and the Kola peninsula. 

 The analyses are set out and the rocks classified accord- 

 ing to the elaborate new method of the American petro- 

 graphers (Whitman Cross, Iddings, Pirsson, and Washing- 

 ton), in whose work many of these analyses have already 

 appeared. Thirty-eight, however, are new, being mostly 

 the work of Miss N. Sahlbom. 



