Mat 15, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



783 



Bacteria and infusoria developed in great 

 numbers and decay began in a few days. 

 Solutions of milk in distilled water of difier- 

 ent proportions were used, from the results of 

 which, it was inferred that the pitcher produced 

 an alkaline substance which reacted with the 

 acid produced in a verj- dilute solution of 

 milk but was not sufficient to neutralize solu- 

 tions of greater strength. There was nothing 

 to indicate that the milk fat or protein was 

 digested. Solutions of grape-sugar and cane- 

 sugar of different proportions were placed in 

 the pitchers and there were no indications of 

 a detrimental effect upon them. With Fehl- 

 ing's solution the contents of the pitcher, after 

 the sugar solution had been allowed to re- 

 main in them several days, gave a reddish 

 precipitate of copper-oxide, indicating the 

 presence of invert sugar. The reduction was 

 most marked in a 10 per cent, solution of 

 cane-sugar. Starch paste was allowed to re- 

 main in the pitchers from three to seven days, 

 when it was removed and tested by boiling 

 with Fehling's solution. The reddish precipi- 

 tate indicated that a reduction had taken 

 place, though it was not so marked as in the 

 case of the cane-sugar. The addition of an 

 antiseptic did not hinder the reduction of the 

 cane-sugar or starch. Olive-oil and ethyl- 

 butyrate were used to test the fat-digesting 

 power of Sarracenia, but the results indicated 

 no digestion. Fibrin was used to determine 

 the digestive power upon protein, but the re- 

 sults were negative. These results as to pro- 

 tein correspond with those obtained by 

 Schimper in 1882 (Boi. Zeit. 40: 225) and 

 by Goebel in 1893 (Pflanz. Biol. Schild. 2: 

 186). Marshall A. Howe, 



Secretary pro tern. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 

 VERT HIGH CUMULUS CLOUDS 



To THE Editor of Science: The conflagra- 

 tion in the city of Chelsea on April 12 caused 

 cumulus clouds to form at a great altitude. 

 At Blue Hill Observatory, situated 14 miles 

 south and 630 feet higher, in the afternoon the 

 temperature was 45° and the relative humidity 

 14 per cent., with a gale from the west-north- 



west. The sky was cloudless, except for a suc- 

 cession of flat, white cumulus which formed 

 at the top of an immense inclined column of 

 smoke that was highest over Boston harbor 

 and about twelve miles from Chelsea. After 

 drifting further to leeward these clouds slowly 

 dissolved as they sank into a warmer stratum, 

 because no longer supported by the rising 

 smoke. Approximate angular measurements 

 made at Blue Hill by Mr. L. A. Wells and 

 in Boston by the writer, when combined with 

 the direction of the smoke, gave the minimum 

 height of these clouds between four and five 

 miles. Their relative velocity as compared 

 with the surface wind also indicated that they 

 were much higher than the ordinary cumulus 

 clouds which float at the level of about a 

 mile. 



Artificial conditions gave rise to these 

 clouds, since the air was too dry for the 

 convectional currents at their normal height 

 to cool to the dew-point, even if they had not 

 been broken up by the strong wind. The air, 

 which was intensely heated by the fire, how- 

 ever, maintained its potential excess of tem- 

 perature over the surrounding air long enough 

 to ascend to so great a height that its small 

 vapor content was condensed into cloud, when 

 it formed not, as is usual, " the visible capital 

 of an invisible coliunn," but the white crown 

 of a brown mountain. 



Mr. S. P. Fergusson described in Science, 

 Vol. X., p. 86, the formation over a fire of 

 similar clouds whose height was also measured 

 from two stations, but in this case the clouds 

 had only half the altitude of those recently 

 observed. In thunder-storms, however, the 

 cumulo-nimbus rise into the cirrus level and 

 their tops have been measured at Blue Hill 

 above eight miles, or nearly twice as high as 

 the cumulus caused by the Chelsea fire. 



A. Lawrence Eotoh 

 Blue Hill Meteobological Obsebvatoet, 

 April 22, 1908 



CLOUDS OVER A FIRE 



The great fire in Chelsea, Mass., on Sunday, 

 April 12, 1908, which burned more than two 

 square miles of city blocks, began under con- 

 ditions of clear sky and high west to north- 



