404 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 950 



syrups, for example, where there is always 

 a great protecting excess of the sugar pres- 

 ent. In most of the experiments carried 

 out to test the pharmacological action the 

 dosage of the sulphur compound has been 

 so relatively large as to render difficult a 

 conclusion regarding the behavior of small 

 doses, or those which have practical impor- 

 tance. This is especially true of the ex- 

 periments of Kionka frequently qiioted."^ 



In Lehmann's experiments on dogs and 

 cats, with doses running up to 37.5 and 62 

 milligrams of sulphurous oxide (150 to 250 

 milligrams of sulphite) daily, and extend- 

 ing through about 200 days, no definite 

 harmful effects were seen. Lehmann con- 

 sidered these doses relatively large.'* 



I can refer but briefly to the work of 

 two recent French commissions which have 

 studied the behavior of sulphurous acid in 

 wine, with respect to the health of the con- 

 sumer. As a result of these investigations 

 an official announcement was made about a 

 year ago in France, advancing the allow- 

 able content of sulphurous oxide ill wine 

 from 350 to 450 milligrams per liter, of 

 which not over 100 milligrams may be in 

 the free state. I have not heard that this 

 tentative standard has been modified. 



This whole question is now under review 

 by the commission appointed by the Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture of this country, but 

 the lengthy investigations undertaken have 

 not yet been brought to a conclusion, and 

 can not, therefore, be discussed here. 



John H. Long 



THE TBOMAS PENNANT COLLECTION 

 Since the death of Gilbert White's corre- 

 spondent, Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), the 

 author of " British Zoology," " A Tour in 

 Scotland, Wales and Ireland," and other im- 

 portant works, the collections made by him 



'^Arch. Hygiene, 22: 1896. 

 '■'Arch. Hygiene, 66: 303, 1909. 



have remained almost as he left them, at 

 Downing Hall, Holywell, Flintshire. This es- 

 tate, with the collections, was inherited by a 

 former Countess of Denbigh, and the present 

 owner, the Earl of Denbigh, C.V.O., being about 

 to dispose of it, has presented the whole of the 

 Pennant Collection to the trustees of the Brit- 

 ish Museum. Accompanying the Collection 

 are several volumes of a manuscript catalogue 

 in which the specimens were, for the most 

 part, entered and numbered. A fairly large 

 proportion of the specimens still bear numbers 

 corresponding with those in the Catalogue, a 

 very fortunate circumstance, since most of the 

 labels that have been preserved had become 

 dissociated from the specimens to which they 

 referred. The Catalogue is accompanied by 

 letters and lists from several of Pennant's dis- 

 tinguished correspondents. Among the 140 

 birds are the only two known specimens of 

 the extinct British race of capercailzie, as well 

 as the originals of many birds figured in the 

 "British Zoology" (1766). There are also a 

 few mammals, fishes and crustaceans. The 

 recent shells include 16 type-specimens and 70 

 figured specimens, all described in the " Brit- 

 ish Zoology." The fossils run to more than 

 1,000 specimens and include many from for- 

 eign localities presented by the Italian nat- 

 uralist, Allioni, and others. Three of the Brit- 

 ish Silurian corals were described by Pennant 

 in 1757, and a mammoth tooth from Flint- 

 shire was referred to by him in 1771. Of 

 minerals there are about 860 specimens, of 

 which 340 still retain their original labels. 

 Pennant appears to have begun this section of 

 his collection when he visited the Rev. Wil- 

 liam Borlase, author of " The Natural History 

 of Cornwall," and from him he received speci- 

 mens from time to time. Other donors were 

 Bishop E. L. Pontoppiden, author of " The Nat- 

 ural History of Norway," and Emannuel Men- 

 des da Costa, author of " The Natural History 

 of Fossils " (1757) . Among the Welsh minerals 

 the most important are those from Flint- 

 shire which formed the basis for the descrip- 

 tion of Flintshire minerals published in 

 "The Tour in Wales" (1778). Additions to 



