400 



NA TURE 



[August 27, 1908 



TiiF. failure of Scots pine when planted on farm lands 

 has been so pronounced In many parts of the Continent 

 that the matter was referred to Prof. Albert for investiga- 

 tion. Mr. B. Rippentrop furnishes an account of the work, 

 so far as it has gone, to the Transactions of the Royal 

 Scottish Arboricultural Society (vol. xxi., part ii.). There 

 is no difficulty in connecting the failure with the fungus 

 Polyporus annosus, but the question remains whether the 

 fungus is the primary cause of the disease. On forest 

 lands, although the Polyporus is present, the trees do not 

 suffer, and it appears that the difference lies in the physical 

 condition of the soil. On farm lands it was observed that 

 nearly all the trees showed disease of the roots, and it is 

 inferred that when the trees are thus weakened they fall 

 a prey to the fungus. The interplanting of hard-wood 

 trees, notablv of species of Acacia, leads to an improve- 

 ment of the soil by which the conifers are benefited. 



The Upper Gila and Salt River valleys of Arizona and 

 New Mexico, the antiquities of which are the subject of 

 a monograph by Mr. Walter Hough in the thirty-fifth 

 Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, form part 

 of the States of south-eastern Arizona and south-western 

 New Mexico, close to the southern boundary of the 

 Republic. This region at one time provided a home for 

 numerous hunting and pastoral tribes, some inhabiting the 

 higher forest belt, which now constitutes the greatest 

 virgin forest remaining in the United States, others' 

 cultivating the fertile valleys watered by the streams which 

 descend from the higher ridges. The abundant remains of 

 -rliff dwellings, pueblos, and the cemeteries in which the 

 inhabitants buried their dead, prove that this country was 

 at one time thickly peopled. When and why they dis- 

 appeared is not known ; it was certainly prior to the famous 

 exploratTon by Francisco Vasquez Coronado in 1540. 

 Lai-ge collections of their pottery, clothing, and other 

 manufactures have been made from the numerous cliff 

 dwellings and pueblos which sheltered this now forgotten 

 race. . Everything indicates that they had attained a fairly 

 high culture. They must have been able to combine in the 

 construction of works of national importance, as, for 

 instance, in building the gigantic irrigation dam in the 

 Animas valley, New Mexico, an earthwork ji miles long 

 and from 22 feet to 24 feet high. Of their language we 

 know as little as of their history, the petroglyphs on 

 smooth rock surfaces showing only rude figures of men 

 and animals, with various symbols which have up to the 

 present defied interpretation. Mr. Hough's report is a 

 good example of the careful work performed by the Bureau 

 of Ethnology. 



The latest additions to the useful and compact series of 

 " Manueli Hoepli " are a volume by Lanfranco Mario on 

 frauds in electrical meters (" Le frodi nei misuratori 

 ellettrici "), and one by Prof. Vincenzo Reina, the in- 

 defatigable treasurer of the recent Mathematical Congress, 

 on optical instruments (" Teoria degli Strumenti diottrici ") 

 (Milan : Ulrico Hoepli, 1908, prices 4.50 and 3 lire re- 

 spectively). Dr. Lanfranco deals with the problem of " seal- 

 ing " sources of electrical energy in connection with the 

 Italian Government duty on electric power, and his book 

 treats generally of the question of fraud in the working 

 of electric meters, or in connection with the so-called 

 sealing in question, as well as its means of prevention. 

 Prof. Reina's handbook may be described as an elementary 

 treatise on geometrical optics ; it deals with the laws of 

 refraction, the relations between conjugate foci in a system 

 of coaxial lenses and such instruments as the compound 

 microscope, telescope, and telephotographic lens. The 



NO. 2026, VOL. 78] 



author's treatment of the subject is simple in charactei', 

 and does not include elaborate discussions of aberrational 

 and other errors. 



We have received the " Atti della .Societa italiana per il 

 Progress© delle Scienze," a societv which was recently 

 founded on lines similar to the British Association and 

 other organisations of the same kind, and held its first 

 annual meeting in Parma on September 23-28, 1907. The 

 association includes the following sections : — (i) mathe- 

 matics, astronomy, geodesy ; (2) physics, geophysics, 

 meteorology ; (3) mechanics, engineering, electrotechnics ; 

 (4) chemistry ; (5) botany ; (6) geography ; (7) mineralogy, 

 geology, pateontology ; (8) botany ; (g) zoology and com- 

 parative anatomy; (10) anthropology; (11) anatomy; 

 (12) physiology ; (13) pathology and bacteriology ; 

 (14) economics and statistics. The present volume contains 

 a summary of the proceedings, together with reports 

 in extenso of the inaugural addresses by the Mayor of , 

 Parma, Prof. Vito \'olterra, president of the association, 

 and the Minister of Public Instruction ; the general lectures 

 by Prof. G. Ciamician on organic chemistry in organisms ; 

 by Prof. P. Foa, on the biological significance of tumours ; 

 by Prof. M. Pantaleoni, a kinematographic view of pro- 

 gress in economic science, 1870-1907; and sectional 

 addresses by Profs. V. Cerruti, A. Righi, L. Luiggi, 

 M. Ascoli, E. Patern6, G. Cuboni, G. dalla Vedova, 

 A. Issel, A. Borzi, A. Andres, G. Sergi, G. Fano. The 

 next meeting will take place in Florence in September of 

 this year. 



We have received the report for 1907 of the Liverpool 

 Observatory maintained at Bidston (Birkenhead) in the 

 interest of shipping by the Mersey Docks and Harbour 

 Board. A signal gun is fired daily at ih. p.m., and 

 chronometers, sextants, and other apparatus are tested for 

 shipmasters. The meteorological observations are very 

 coinplete, and include indications from Dines 's. Osier's, and 

 Robinson's anemometers. The daily meteorological results 

 show the extreme and mean values, the amount and dura- 

 tion of rain, and the number of hours that the wind blew 

 from each of eight points of the compass. The absolute 

 maximum temperature of the year was 76°-o, in July, and 

 the minimum 2o°-4, in January : the mean for the year 

 was o°.7 below the average. The rainfall was 26'57 inches, 

 practically 2 inches below the average ; rain was recorded 

 on 209 days. Among other useful work performed we 

 note that reports are supplied daily to the Meteorological 

 Office for the preparation of its weather forecasts. Some 

 details connected with the records of a Milne seismometer 

 are included in the observatory report. 



The University of Illinois Engineering Experiment 

 Station has recently issued Bulletin No. 23, " Voids, Settle- 

 ment and Weight of Crushed Stone," by Mr. Ira O. 

 Baker. This bulletin gives the results of some experiments 

 to determine the proportion of voids in crushed stone 

 loaded by various methods in cars and in waggons, to find 

 the amount of settlement during transportation in waggons 

 and in cars, and also to obtain the relation between the 

 weight of a unit of volume of the solid stone and that of 

 the same volume of crushed stone immediately after being 

 loaded in various ways into cars and waggons, and also 

 after being transported different distances. Copies of this 

 bulletin may be obtained gratis upon application to the 

 director. Engineering Experiment Station, L'rbaiia, Illinois. 



An article on " England's Neglect of Mathematics,"' 

 contributed by Prof. G. H. Bryan, F.R.S., to the August 

 number of the ConihiU Magazine, should do something to 

 awake the British nation to a sense of its duties to science. 



