443 



NATURE 



[June io, 1909 



riio economic loss to the United States through disease- 

 carrying insects forms the subject of Bulletin No. 78 of 

 llie Entomological Bureau of the U.S. Department of 

 .Agriculture. Dealing first with malaria, the author, Dr. 

 L. O. Howard, points out how large is the number of 

 persons incapacitated, for a time at least, from work by 

 this fell disease, and how easily the plague may be stayed 

 by the destruction of mosquitoes. As examples, are cited 

 the work that has been so effectually done at Ismailia 

 and also at Havana. Still more serious are the results 

 of yellow-fever, which, in addition to the huge death-losses 

 during epidemics, is responsible for checking the develop- 

 ment of cities such as New Orleans, Memphis, Jackson- 

 ville, and Charleston. Their progress has been greatly 

 impeded by this one cause, which has led to a general 

 retardation in the industrial advance of the whole of the 

 southern States. The house-fly, or " typhoid-fly " as Dr. 

 Howard thinks it might well be re-christened, is in some 

 degree an even worse enemy to human progress and 

 development than the yellow-fever mosquito, and the 

 urgent need of a war of extermination against both these 

 pernicious insects is strongly emphasised. Although the 

 influence of these enemies to progress has been ignored 

 by historians, it has, nevertheless, been great in the past, 

 and promises, unless checked, to be still greater in the 

 future. " The world has entered the historical age when 

 national greatness and nation.n! decay will be based on 

 physical rather than moral considerations, and it is vitally 

 incumbent upon nations to use every possible effort and 

 every possible means to check physical deterioration." 



The second annual report of the committee of the South 

 African Central Locust Bureau, drawn up by Mr. C. 

 Fuller, and recently issued by the Government printers at 

 Cape Town, contains a full account of the means taken 

 by the different local administrations for the destruction 

 of locusts during the summer of 1907-8. It is somewhat 

 unfortunate that the Central Bureau has no control over 

 the action of these local bodies, so that its functions are 

 in great measure limited to receiving and transmitting 

 warnings of the approach of locust-swarms. It is, however, 

 satisfactory to learn that German South-west .'\frica and 

 Mozambique are cooperating with the British Government 

 in the work of prevention. For years past, it is stated, 

 the hope has been entertained by the farmers that the 

 locusts would disappear for a time, as has been the case 

 on previous occasions. Such a disappearance cannot be 

 accelerated by the work of the Bureau, but when it does 

 come, the information gained by the recent work of that 

 body cannot fail to be of the highest value to the countrv 

 in the future. The work of extermination in South .Africa 

 is rendered the more onerous on account of the presence 

 in some parts of the country of two species of locust, one 

 of which breeds much earlier than the other. Con- 

 sequently, no sooner is one campaign completed than pre- 

 parations have to be made for a second. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — Prof. M. C. Potter, professor of botany at 

 Durham University, has been approved by the general 

 board of studies for the degree of Doctor in Science. 



The chemical laboratory will be open for the use of 

 students during the ensuing vacation from July 5 to 

 August 21. Dr. Fenton will give a course of fifteen 

 lectures on the outlines of general chemistry. Mr. J. E. 

 Purvis will give a course of lectures and practical instruc- 

 tion in pharmaceutical chemistry. 



Mr. F. G. Smart has offered' to give to the University 

 the sum of 600/. in order to found two prizes to be awarded 

 in each year, one for botany and one for zoology. The 

 council of the Senate recommends that Mr. Smart's offer 

 be gratefully accepted. 



Lord and Ladv Stanley op Alderi.kv have endowed the 

 London School of Tropical Medicine with a capital sum 

 [iroduring n yearly income of 50/. in momorv of their son, 

 Ihe Hon. E. J. Stanley, who dir^d at .Sokoto, in Norlhorn 

 ■Nigeria, on November 14. 1008. 



NO. 2067, VOL. 80] 



Prof. Samijeu Avekv, who has been head of the depart- 

 ment of chemistry in the University of Nebraska since 

 1905, has been elected president of that institution. He 

 was born in 1865, and was educated at Doane College, 

 the University of Nebraska, and the University of Heidel- 

 berg. 



The University of Glasgow has conferred the honorary 

 degree of LL.D. upon .Mr. W. H. Maw, past-president 

 of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and of the 

 Royal Astronomical Society, and Prof. C. S. Sherrington, 

 l-.R.S. 



The Darien Press, Edinburgh, has published for the 

 International Academic Committee of the Students' Repre- 

 sentative Council of Edinburgh University " .A Handbook 

 on Foreign Study," which has been compiled and edited 

 by .Mr. 11. J. Darnton-Fraser, convener of the committee. 

 Copies of the handbook may be obtained, price sixpence 

 net, from the offices of the Students' Representative 

 Council. The object of the handbook is to popularise in 

 British academic circles the idea of studying abroad, and 

 to adord persons who desire to follow this course some 

 general guidance as to the best place to go to with the 

 maximum of pleasure and profit.. The volume is provided 

 with a short introduction by Mr. Haldane, in which he 

 refers to the value of foreign study, and seven articles on 

 study abroad in various subjects are included. Prof. .A. S. 

 I'ringlc-Pattison deals with philosophy. Prof. William 

 Osier, F.R.S., with medicine. Dr. J. Howarth-Pringle 

 with surgery, Mr. J. .A. S. Watson with agriculture, and 

 Dr. T. C. Thomson with science and engineering. Valu- 

 able information of the kind a student must have is given 

 about the various universities of Europe, and useful 

 general information concerning study in the various 

 countries of Europe. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Microscopical Society, May 19. — Mr. V. J. 

 Cheshire, vicc-presidint, in the chair. — The Foraminifera 

 of the shore-sands of Selsey Bill, Sussex, part ii. : E. 

 Heron-Allen and .A. Earland. — .A new illuminator for the 

 microscope: J. W. Cordon, The apparatus provides a 

 simple and effective means by which the intensity of the 

 light can be regulated without disturbing any focal or 

 aperture adjustment. 



L^nnean Society, May 24.— Dr. D. H. Scr.ii, F.R.S., presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — Presidential address, adaptation in 

 fossil plants : Dr. D. H. Scott. 



Geological Society, May 26. — Prof. W. J. .Sollas, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair. — The cauldron subsidence of Glen 

 Coe and the associated igneous phenomena : C. T. ClouKhi 

 H. B. MufT, and IC. B. Bailey. The succession of 

 volcanic rocks in Glen Coe is mainly a series of lava- 

 flows, of which there are three types, augite-andesite, 

 hornblende-aiulesite, and rhyolitc. Agglomerates, tuffs, 

 and sediments form but a small portion of the sequence. 

 The Lower Old Red Sandstone age of the rocks is proved 

 by the occurrence of plnnt-remains in shales at the base. 

 The sequence is divisible into groups, which are not, how- 

 ever, persistent over the whole area. Each group may 

 contain didcrent types of lava, which interdigitate one 

 with the other. It is probable that the district was sup- 

 plied from more than one centre, the foci being in- 

 dependent as regards type of material erupted, although 

 their periods of activity overlapped. ' The volcanic pile 

 with patches of conglomerate and breccia at the base rests 

 upon an uneven floor, evidently a land-surface, of the 

 Highland Schists, and. further, the eruptions appear to 

 have been subaerial. The cauldron subsidence, which let 

 down the volcanic rocks and the underlying schists some 

 thousands of feet, affected an area roughly oval in shape 

 and measuring eight miles by five.— The piK'ig of "'"*- 

 surfaces : C. Carus-Wilson. ' Regular pittings of uniform 

 size arc occasionally scrn on flints which have been ex- 

 posed to the weather. Ii is believed that the pittings are 

 due to mechanical action. Observations and experiments 

 carried out by the author indicate that such markings 

 cannot have been produced by blows, or by any process 

 of desiccation, and that the freezing of the absorbed 



