17: 



NA TURE 



[August 5, 1922 



Boundary Commission and as that of the Alichur 

 Pamir was by ]>r. Paulsen during the second Danish 

 Pamir Expedition, the last word on the vegetation of 

 this region as a whole must be left unsaid. The 

 numbers of plants found by Dr. Hedin in all the eastern 

 valleys visited by him falls short of the number which 

 Lt.-Col. Alcock has taught us may be found in a 

 single western one. 



The evidence supplied by Dr. Hedin, imperfect 

 though it be, does, however, sustain the general conclu- 

 sion, based on our acquaintance with the vegetation 

 of the western Pamirs, that while many plants are 

 common to all, some are peculiar to each. 3 Another 

 general conclusion to which the material obtained by 

 Dr. Hedin appears to point is that it may prove more 

 convenient and natural to employ the term " High 

 Asia," restricted by Dr. Hemsley to Tibet, in an 

 extended sense which will include also the " Pamirs." 



Tibet is by far the largest of the three regions visited 

 by Dr. Hedin ; he collected there twice as many plants 

 as he found in the Pamirs, and three times as many 

 as he gathered in East Turkestan. The plants from 

 Tibet which the authors have been compelled to describe 

 as new are five times as numerous as the new species 

 reported from both of the other regions. The authors 

 of this census are therefore fully justified in remarking 

 that its main interest lies in the Tibetan plants therein 

 discussed. These facts notwithstanding, it is more 

 impossible to deduce conclusions regarding the vegeta- 

 tion of Tibet from the evidence here supplied than it is 

 to do so in the case of East Turkestan or of the Pamirs. 

 The phytogeographical indications are sometimes as 

 inconsistent as in the case of East Turkestan and are, 

 if possible, more inexplicable than they are as regards 

 that region. Localities are at times placed in Inner 

 Tibet with no indication of latitude or longitude, and 

 therefore with only imperfect clues as to their precise 

 situation. When more precise indications are supplied, 

 Inner Tibet is now given as synonymous with Northern, 

 anon as synonymous with Eastern Tibet. Certain 

 localities are said in one case to be in North Tibet, in 

 another to be in East Tibet. The list itself forms part 

 of the sixth volume of a work entitled "Southern 

 Tibet," yet it does not include any plant said to have 

 been collected in South Tibet. 



Perhaps the most interesting individual species in the 

 list is one which Prof. Ostenfeld has proposed to treat 

 as the type of a new genus, Hedinia. Though thus 

 characterised, this plant, as it happens, is not a new- 

 discovery. It is one that so long ago as 1852 was 

 referred by Dr. T. Thomson to the Cruciferous genus 

 Hutchinsia, with the characters of which it conforms 

 so indifferently that in i86j it was transferred by Sir 



3 Na 1 ore, vol. 1 vii. p. 70 ( \|.ii! . , 1 



NO. 2753, VOL. I to] 



J. D. Hooker to the genus Capsella as admittedly a 

 very aberrant member. In 1904 Mr. W. Lipsky was 

 so impressed by the unsatisfactory character of both 

 these suggestions that he transferred the plant to the 

 genus Smelowskia. With this particular genus, how- 

 ever, the plant has less natural affinity than it has with 

 either Capsella or Hutchinsia. The treatment now 

 accorded the plant by Prof. Ostenfeld is certainly 

 more convenient than any hitherto proposed. It is to 

 be hoped that it may also prove to be more natural and 

 that it may provide a lasting memorial to the explorer 

 whose name it is intended to perpetuate. 



Alcohol as a Fuel. 



Power Alcohol : Its Production and Utilisation. By 

 G. W. Monier- Williams. Pp. xii + 323. (London: 

 Henry Frowde and Hodder and Stoughton, 1922.) 

 2 1 s. net. 



THE enormous increase in the number of engines 

 using motor spirit throughout the civilised 

 world, and the demand for other products of mineral 

 oil, have forcibly directed attention to the great problem 

 of the world's reserves of oil, and to alternative sources 

 of fuels suitable for engines where a fuel of high vapour 

 pressure is necessary. Dr. Monier-Williams deals in 

 his opening chapter with this big problem — the motor 

 fuel question — in a very comprehensive and clear 

 manner. It is shown that while in 1913 the import 

 of petroleum spirit into the United Kingdom was ior 

 million gallons, by 1920 the imports had reached 200 

 million gallons. In the United States (where it is said 

 that there is one motor car to every eight of the popula- 

 tion) the motor spirit consumption rose from 1200 

 million gallons in 1914 to 2680 million gallons in 1918. 

 It is clear that this modern development of loco- 

 motion, together with the requirements for aviation, 

 will make further and further demands upon Nature's 

 not inexhaustible reserves of suitable fuel. Although 

 much has been accomplished in rendering a greater 

 proportion of the crude oil available as fuel, by widening 

 the distillation range, by " cracking " heavier fractions, 

 and by taking out the more easily condensible portions 

 of natural gas (" casing head gasoline "), the world is 

 undoubtedly faced with the big problem of Nature's 

 reserves of oil and the possibility of alternative supplies 

 of liquids of sufficiently high vapour pressure to supple- 

 ment, or in the long run largely to replace, the motor 

 spirit derived from crude petroleum. Dr. Monier- 

 Williams says " a complete solution of the motor fuel 

 problem can only be found in the opening up of ex- 

 tensive, and as yet unproved, new areas of supply, 

 together with the introduction of fuels derived from 

 other sources than petroleum." 



