Apeil 9, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



543 



omissions wliieli characterize the text. 

 Against many of the arguments made by the 

 author, other writers had previously raised 

 very serious objections. We look in vain for 

 any answer to many of these objections, or 

 even mention of them. In the chapter on 

 Dalmatian fiords, there is no intimation of 

 the fact that a normally dissected belt of 

 folded mountains, partially submerged (which 

 is the type of topography found in this re- 

 gion) will necessarily have the long, narrow 

 bays, the steep sided, spurless valley walls, 

 and the short cross-valleys which the author 

 erroneously correlates with those features in 

 fiord districts often described in the same 

 terms, but which really present a distinctly 

 different topographic aspect. The fact noted 

 by the author (202) that one of these drowned 

 valleys has been called a " fiord " in Bae- 

 deker's guide book, can not be regarded as 

 very significant. In support of the tectonic 

 theory the author states that the Dalmatian 

 valleys are not arranged like the members of 

 ordinary river systems, as in Dalmatia the 

 branchings and bandings are usually rectan- 

 gular (20Y). He does not recognize that in all 

 folded mountain regions involving rock layers 

 of different resistance, the ordinary river 

 valleys normally have this rectangular or 

 '"' trellised '" pattern. His arguments for the 

 tectonic origin of the submerged Dalmatian 

 valleys would apply with precisely as much 

 force to the valleys of the folded Appala- 

 chians, the Juras and other similar dissected 

 folds. The short cross valleys are not recog- 

 nized as a normal product of river erosion 

 across a narrow ridge of hard rock, but . are 

 interpreted in accordance with that ancient 

 theory, long ago abandoned by most geolo- 

 gists, which explained the cross valleys as 

 short cracks formed by bending brittle mate- 

 rial. The substantial reasons which led geol- 

 ogists to abandon this theory as untenable are 

 not referred to by the author. 



It would be easy to multiply indefinitely 

 examples of the unsound reasoning which 

 seems to the reviewer to deprive the book be- 

 fore us of most of its value. The instances I 

 have cited are not isolated examples which 



might be explained as the result of careless 

 writing, but are typical of the book, as a 

 whole, and must fairly represent the author's 

 mental attitude toward the problem of fiord 

 formation. It seems to the reviewer, there- 

 fore, that Gregory's attempt to rehabilitate a 

 discarded theory of fiord formation must be 

 considered a failure. 



Douglas W. Johnson 



SPECIAL ABTICLES 



THE IMPORTANCE OP A CONSIDERATION OP THE 



FIBER PROTEINS IN THE PROCESS OP 



BLEACHING COTTON 



The nitrogen which is found in the ripe 

 cotton fiber seems to have some bearing upon 

 the yellowing of bleached cotton cloth, as was 

 pointed out by J. C. Hebden in his paper read 

 in Troy before the American Institute of 

 Chemical Engineers.^ He showed that in the 

 process of bleaching cotton cloth after the first 

 caustic boil 91.5 per cent, of the proteins were 

 removed from the fiber, whereas of the fats 

 and waxes only 20.4 per cent, were removed; 

 and after the second caustic boil 91.7 per cent, 

 of the proteins and only 64 per cent, of the 

 fats and waxes were eliminated; the " chemick " 

 and the " sour " together, he showed, removed 

 12.05 per cent, of the remaining protein im- 

 purities and 10.23 per cent, of the remaining 

 fats and waxes. According to his analysis, 

 after all the bleaching ox)erations there were 

 still left on the fiber 30.4 per cent, of the total 

 fatty and waxy impurities, whereas of the 

 total proteins there were left only Y.3 per cent., 

 and as the cloth which he analyzed had under- 

 gone a " good bleach," he felt safe in inferring 

 that it is the failure to remove the protein 

 impurities from the cotton that results in a 

 " bad bleach " or causes the yellowing of cloth 

 in steaming or during storage. 



So far as we know, the investigator above 

 referred to was the first to point out the pos- 

 sibility that the proteins of the fiber played 

 such a part in the bleaching of the cloth. 

 Previous to this it has been believed that the 

 fatty and waxy matters and especially the 



1 Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemis- 

 try, September, 1914, Volume 6, No. 9, page 714. 



