514 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1453 



be required to prove them so. Laboratory ex- 

 periments are far more reliable. 



E. G. Mahin, 

 PuKDUE University R- H- Caer 



NOTE ON A DAYLIGHT METEORITE 



Thinking that it might be of interest to 

 readers of these columns, the writer calls atten- 

 tion to the following phenomenon obsei^ved by 

 him while traveling by canoe on Lake Kipawa, 

 Quebec, on August 31 last. 



The day was particularly bright and cloud- 

 less, with a southerly wind blowing at about 

 eight miles an hour. The time of the observa- 

 tion was 9 :50 a. m., and the course of the canoe 

 was almost directly south. The meteorite was 

 suddenly seen to shoot across the course of the 

 canoe from east to west, about 50° above the 

 horizon, and, as far as could be judged, be- 

 tween 200 and 300 feet above ithe surface of the 

 lake. Its passage lasted approximately three 

 seconds from the time that it was &st noted 

 a little ito the left of the bow of the canoe. 

 The general impression received was that of a 

 brilliant Roman candle shooting across the sky, 

 of a vivid copper-green color. The size of the 

 incandescent head of the body appeared to be 

 a trifle larger than a golf ball with a bright 

 incandescent streamer of nearly three feet in 

 length behind it and of a like color. In the 

 wake of the body trailed a curling wreath of 

 white vapor of considerable length which be- 

 came quickly dissipated. 



The passage of the meteorite was accom- 

 panied by no detectable noise whatever, so that 

 the other occupant of the canoe, whose gaze 

 was directed elsewhere at the time, failed to 

 see the occurrence. The body suddenly vanish- 

 ed about a hundred yards to ithe west about the 

 original altitude, leaving a small cloud of white 

 vapor behind that dissolved rapidly away. Al- 

 though watch was kept on the surface of the 

 lake beyond, no trace of a body falling into 

 the water was noted. It is possible that either 

 it was completely combusted at that moment, 

 or it passed out of sight rapidly along its 

 westerly course. 



Norman MacL. Harris 



Department op Health of Canada, 

 Ottawa, Ontabio 



HOWARD ON CHEMICAL SPELLING 

 O Leland tell me, tell me true. 

 The explanation's up to you, 

 Why did you break the portals down 

 And jump into the Chemist's town? 

 But wait a minute : Now I see, 

 To solve the riddle 's up to me ; 

 You still are in your own domain 

 Where you without a rival reign. 

 For as the fact appears to me 

 You're trying to catch that spelling bee. 



H. W. Wiley 



QUOTATIONS 



"BAYER 205" 



A CURIOUS illustration of the Grerman desire, 

 not unnatural in itself, to regain the tropical 

 colonies lost by the folly of the rulers of the 

 German Empire, is afforded by a discussion 

 which took place at a meeting of the German 

 Association of Tropical Medicine at Hamburg. 

 We have not seen a full report of the meeting, 

 but the Times correspondent in Hamburg re- 

 ports that one of the speakers said that "Bayer 

 205 is the key to tropical Africa, and conse- 

 quently the key to all the colonies. The G«r- 

 man government must, therefore, be required to 

 safeguard this discovery for Gei-many. Its 

 value is such that any privilege of a share in 

 it granted to other nations must be made con- 

 ditional upon the restoration to Germany of 

 her colonial empire." Some account of the 

 drug manufactured by the Bayerische Farb- 

 werke and provisionally named " "205" was 

 given in our issue of May 20 (p. 807), when we 

 quoted Dr. H. H. Dale's opinion that it was a 

 remarkable curative agent in trypanosome in- 

 fectious. A general account of the probable 

 chemical relationship of "205" is given by Dr. 

 King in the sixth Annual Report of the Society 

 of Chemical Industry (1921). 



In 1904 Ehrlich and Shiga discovered the 

 trypanocidal action of trypan red, a compound 

 formed by combining one molecule of tetra- 

 zotized benzidine-mono-sulfonic acid with two 

 molecules of sodium naphthylamine disul- 

 fonate. In 1906 Mesnil and Nicolle^ investi- 

 gated a series of dyes containing amino-naph- 



i Ann. Instit. Pasteur, 417 aud 51S xx, 1906. 



