JuNE 13, 1912] 
NATURE 
383 
which are suitable for the study of the anatomy of 
plants with the naked eye. Teachers of botany 
know that a good deal of ‘‘histology’’ can be done 
without the aid of the microscope if suitable material 
be selected, as, for instance, the stems of cucumber, 
marrow, balsam, or begonia, in which the cells 
and vessels are readily seen. The author gives 
measurements of the large parenchyma cells in the 
stems of these and other plants, but the largest sizes 
are apparently attained in the leaves of various succu- 
lents, such as Echeveria, Kleinia, Crassula, and Aloe. 
The nucleus can be seen with a lens magnifying ten 
diameters, or even with the naked eye, in the cells 
of the arbutus fruit; the protoplasmic streaming in 
the elongated cells of the stonewort Nitella is 
readily observed in the same way. The leaves of 
various conifers and succulents show the distribution 
of the stomata well without microscopic aid, especi- 
ally after the waxy ‘bloom”’ has been removed. 
Tue last number of the Bollettino of the Italian 
Seismological Society (vol. xv., No. 12) is devoted to 
notices of the earthquakes recorded in Italy towards 
the close of 1908. The interest of these notices 
naturally centres in the Messina earthquake of 
December 28. The present number contains a sum- 
mary of all the instrumental records, the personal 
observations, which are very numerous, being re- | 
served for one of the special Annali to be issued 
shortly by the Meteorological and Gcodynamic 
Office of Rome. As a rule, the instrumentai records 
in all parts of the country are incomplete, seismo- 
graphs having been thrown out of action by the 
violence of the shock, or the writing-pens swung off 
the drums or caught by some other part of the 
apparatus. For so strong an earthquake, the re- 
corded after-shocks are few in number, but this, it is 
suggested, may be due to the fact that they were 
practically confined to the most strongly shaken 
regions, and therefore escaped registration owing to 
the want of observers. 
Tue ‘‘New Method of Weather Forecasting,’’ pub- 
lished by M. G. Guilbert (Paris, 1909), has again 
been brought to the special notice of meteorologists 
by the publication of a critical study of the question 
by Heer P. H. Gallé in the Mededeelingen of the 
Royal Netherlands’ Meteorological Institute (No. 12, 
i912). Guilbert’s rules depend upon three principal 
ideas :—(1) normal wind; (2) region of least resist- 
ance; and (3) convergent (or divergent) winds. Our 
readers will find a very lucid statement of the method 
by one of our leading meteorologists in Nature, 
vol. Ixxxii., p. 271 (1910). It is there explained, 
e.g., that, after a careful scrutiny of the daily 
weather charts, Guilbert found that if the wind force 
is in excess of the normal for the gradient, a surge 
of high pressure in the direction of the gradient may 
be expected, and vice versd, and that any wind which 
has a component directed away from a centre of low 
pressure marks a region of low resistance to its 
advance. Heer Gallé applied these principles to the 
prediction of the chief meteorological elements for 
various districts, and has given the results for each 
case. The general conclusion arrived at is that 
NO. 2224, VOL. 89| 
while the method in question may not be expected to 
revolutionise the meteorological service, it may pro- 
mote the progress of weather prediction and, especi- 
ally, may lead to an improvement of storm warn- 
ings. 
AN important article on ‘Modern Uses of the 
Metal Aluminium,” by Dr. R. Seligman, appears 
in the April issue of Science Progress. The sudden 
demand for the metal in 1005 was due to the re- 
quirements of the motor-car industry; but as addi- 
tional supplies were not forthcoming sufficiently 
quickly, the industry turned to the use of thin steel 
sheets and frames of special steels, which were often 
found actually to be lighter than aluminium parts of 
equal strength. The increase of output from gooo 
tons in 1905 to 34,000 tons in 1910 resulted in a fall 
in price to about one-half, and brought back a certain 
amount of the earlier demand for aluminium in 
motor-car work. But other uses were required to 
consume the enlarged supply, and in this country a 
very important outlet has resulted from the discovery 
| of methods whereby, with the help of a special flux, 
sheets of aluminium may be fused together without 
the use of any extraneous solder. Vessels made in 
this way are of special value for chemical industries, 
and most of all in those involved in the manipulation 
of food materials. The metal is not only entirely 
non-poisonous, but resists corrosion in a way that is 
in many respects remarkable, and has the further 
advantage that it imparts no coloration to the 
materials in contact with it. In the brewing indus- 
try, fermenting tanks up to 30,000 gallons have been 
constructed, and pressure vessels for fermenting up 
to 45 lb. per square inch have been made of 1800 
gallons’ capacity; the metal has here the special 
advantage that it can easily be kept clean from 
bacteria, and is as innocuous to yeast as it is to the 
human stomach. 
In studying the hydrolysis of salicin by emulsin, 
MM. Bourquelot and Bridel have been able to show 
that the action goes on in strong alcoholic solutions, 
but that the hydrolysing action stops when about a 
half of the salicin has been acted upon. It seemed 
possible that this might be a reversible reaction, and 
in the Comptes rendus for May 20 they describe an 
attempt to synthesise salicin from saligenin and 
glucose by the action of emulsin in alcoholic solu- 
tion. The change was followed by measuring the 
changes in the rotatory power of the solution, and 
after twenty-four days the optical properties of the 
liquid were exactly those which would be expected 
for the equilibrium with 55 per cent. of salicin. But 
in spite of this coincidence the glucoside formed was 
found, after extraction and purification, to be 
different from salicin. This shows that conclusions 
previously drawn as to the reversible action of emulsin 
are unsound. 
An exhaust-gas calorimeter for internal-combustion 
engines, in use at Glasgow University, is described 
by Messrs. Nicholson and Morley in Engineering for 
May 31. The principle of the apparatus lies in the 
transfer of heat from the exhaust gases into a water 
