June 15, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



915 



tern slides, and by samples of tea in both the 

 rolled and tablet form. 



Owing to the large and steady demand for 

 tea in the United States, both the government 

 and private parties have from time to time 

 given more or less attention to the propaga- 

 tion of tea with reference to the possibility 

 of bringing up an industry. The most serious 

 attempt in this direction was begun by Dr. 

 Charles U. Shepard, at Summerville, S. C, as 

 a private enterprise some years since. This 

 enterprise has been in part supported by the 

 Department of Agriculture in cooperation 

 with Dr. Shepard. Attention has been given 

 not only to the cultivation of the plant under 

 the conditions of the Carolinas, but also to the 

 introduction where possible of machine meth- 

 ods. This has resulted in the invention of a 

 number of very useful labor-saving devices, 

 which have placed a large part of the work 

 connected with the manufacture of tea on a 

 machine basis, with a considerable consequent 

 reduction of the cost of production. As a 

 general outcome of the experiments during 

 the last season, it may be stated that the crop 

 amounted to about five and a half tons of 

 high-grade tea, which has been satisfactorily 

 disposed of through the usual channels of tea 

 commerce. 



Recently the broken tea-leaf has been most 

 satisfactorily utilized in the form of tablets. 

 The tea powder contains sufiicient oily ma- 

 terial to cement the mass under high pressure 

 into firm tablets, which readily fall apart when 

 treated with hot water. The compact form of 

 the tablets does not interfere with the de- 

 sirable qualities of the tea and makes a prod- 

 uct which is proving very popular where com- 

 pactness is desired. 



The question of the commercial production 

 of tea at this location seems to be in a fair 

 way toward ultimate favorable solution. A 

 number of important problems, however, still 

 remain to be solved. 



The Department of Agriculture has estab- 

 lished another tea farm at Pierce, Texas, 

 where about forty acres are now planted with 

 young tea. Matters have not progressed far 

 enough as yet to warrant any statement re- 



garding the probable outcome of this feature 

 of the experiment, beyond the mere statement 

 that some small samples of tea made from the 

 young bushes form a product of very high 

 quality. 



Laboratory studies at Washington and at 

 Summerville, S. C, in connection with Dr. 

 Shepard's work, have demonstrated some im- 

 portant scientific facts which have a distinct 

 bearing on the tea industry. The process of 

 fermentation, which produces a product char- 

 acterized by the general qualities of so-called 

 black tea, is due to oxidizing enzymes present 

 in the tea leaf operating on other bodies pres- 

 ent in the leaf, resulting in the development 

 of compounds giving the characteristic color, 

 taste and odor of the black tea. In green tea 

 this fermentation process is prevented by the 

 destruction of the oxidizing enzymes by the 

 application of heat to the newly picked leaves. 

 Further investigations, carried on in coopera- 

 tion with Dr. Edward Kremers, of Madison, 

 Wis., indicate that the aromatic qualities of 

 the tea leaf are not due, as is currently be- 

 lieved, to preformed volatile oils found in the 

 leaf, but to aromatic bodies developed in the 

 tea leaf by the factory processes, particularly 

 during the firing process. 



M. C. Marsh, 

 Recording Secretary. 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIKTY OF WASHINGTON. 



At the 181st meeting of the society on 

 May 9, the following papers were read: 



Normal Faulting in Northern China: Mr. 



Bailey Willis. 

 A Type of Vein Structure in the Southern 



Appalachians: Mr. L. C. Graton. 



Two Occurrences of Graphite: Mr. Geo. Otis 



Smith. 



Mr. Smith described two occurrences of 

 graphite in western Maine which had been 

 visited by him in 1905. These illustrate two 

 modes of origin and the genetic relationships 

 have a direct bearing upon the question of 

 economic value of the deposits. 



At Madrid, the graphite occurs locally in 

 schist at the contact with irregular bodies of 

 pegmatite. Some of the schist beds are rela- 



