338 
information, but also that resulting from 
hitherto unpublished research work, partly the 
author’s own, and partly that of others con- 
tained in reports to the War Office, which he 
has been permitted to use. Professor Nuttall 
has generously presented a special edition of 
three hundred copies of the paper to the Allied 
Armies; and, in view of the recently estab- 
lished fact that the trench fever is conveyed 
by lice, this should prove a very timely gift. 
The paper comprises 176 pages, with four 
plates and twenty-six figures in the text. 
Most of the pages are devoted to the practical 
onsideration of louse destruction a great deal 
of the experimental evidence being given in 
detail. The results obtained demonstrate that 
nits are killed by dry heat at 65°—70° C. in 
one minute, and at 55°—61° C. in ten minutes, 
the active stages being killed by dry heat at 
65°—70° C. 
five minutes. After allowing for a margin of 
safety in practise, immersion in hot water at 
40° C. for a minute or two is amply sufficient 
to destroy lice, while 55° C. for ten minutes is 
equally effective, a point of great importance 
in relation to the washing of flannel garments. 
Singeing, sun-baking, and the use of hot 
flat-irons are briefly dealt with. The various 
methods devised for disinfection by hot air 
and steam are treated of at length, and illus- 
trated by text figures of disinfestors impro- 
vised for war purposes, together with plates 
depicting the more elaborate forms of disin- 
festors designed for use in peace time. We 
agree with the author that apparatus designed 
with a view to high efficiency against the 
resistive spores of bacteria is not adapted for 
rapid and economical use against lice. It 
should be replaced by more commodious hot- 
air and steam huts, or disinfectors planned on 
the improvised railway vans said to have been 
so successful in the east. Designs of this type 
of chamber should also be adapted for steam 
or motor lorries, as well as trailers, which 
could, if necessary, be horse-drawn. 
Steam gives results superior to hot air if 
the destruction of pathogenic bacteria is an 
‘object, but dry heat possesses many advantages 
SCIENCE 
in one minute and at 55° C. in | 
 [N. S. Von. XLVIII. No. 1240 
over steam if the destruction of body vermin 
is the end in view. The use of sulphur is 
treated of at some length. We endorse the 
author’s remarks as to the failure of sulphur 
vapor to destroy all the nits exposed to it, 
while its relatively high cost, the danger of 
injury to clothing and its slow action are 
further disabilities of the method. 
In the section dealing with insecticides and 
so-called repellents, the results of the great 
mass of experimental work are tabulated in 
detail, an unavoidable course owing to the 
wide diversity of method employed by the 
various workers. In these experiments lice 
and nits were immersed in, brought into con- 
tact with, and submitted to the action of the 
vapor of various substances and preparations. 
THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBLOF ISLANDS 
In the present calendar year to August 10, 
the end of the regular killing season, 33,881 
sealskins were taken at the Pribilof Islands. 
Of these, 7,000 were taken on St. George Is- 
land and 26,881 on St. Paul Island. The De- 
partment had authorized a take of 35,000 
skins, 7,000 on St. George and 28,000 on St. 
Paul. Some few seals will be killed from time 
to time during the remainder of the year for 
the purpose of furnishing fresh meat for the 
natives. 
By the terms of the North Pacific Sealing 
Convention of July 7, 1911, 15 per cent. of 
this year’s take of skins belongs to the Can- 
adian government and a like proportion to 
the Japanese government. There will be no 
actual delivery of these skins, but, under the 
provisions of the convention, the market value 
of the skins will be credited to the respective 
governments as an offset to certain advance 
payments made to them by the United States. 
A census of fur seals on the Pribilof Islands 
was conducted by G. Dallas Hanna, and pre- 
liminary figures, subject to slight modification 
when all the data have been carefully ex- 
amined, have been received. The number of 
pups born was 143,005, and the number of 
breeding cows was the same. The approxi- 
mate total size of the Alaskan herd was 496,- 
