ON THE LACK OF ANTAGONISM BETWEEN CALCIUM 
VERSUS MAGNESIUM AND ALSO BETWEEN . 
CALCIUM VERSUS SODIUM 
CuHas. B. LIPMAN 
(WITH TWO FIGURES) 
In a former paper, I have shown that many of the facts relating 
to the toxic and antitoxic effects of salt for animals and plants, as 
shown by the work of LoEB and OsTERHOUT in particular, hold ina 
general way with regard to the ammonifying power of Bacillus 
subtilis. In the same paper I also reported the results of experiments 
which showed.that there is in respect to the ammonification by B. 
subtilis no antagonism between calcium and magnesium. As this 
is so striking an exception to the results obtained by LoEw? in his 
well-known experiments on green plants, it was thought advisable to 
emphasize the writer’s results in a separate article, along with another 
new and strikingly exceptional case, namely a lack of antagonism 
between calcium and sodium. The latter case is of great interest, 
inasmuch as KEARNEY and CAMERON,’ BENECKE,* and OsTERHOUTS 
have all found very pronounced antagonism between sodium and 
calcium in green plants. OSTERHOUT has also found this to be the 
case for a mold (Botrytis) .° 
In general, the technic employed in the two sets of experiments 
reported was as follows: Solutions of chemically pure salts, previously 
submitted to the flame test, were made up at a concentration of 0. 35m 
containing 0.75 per cent. Witte’s peptone.’ Inoculations were made 
from a 48-hour peptone culture into solutions made up as described 
in detail below. At the end of the incubation period of 2.5 days at 
t Bor. GAZETTE 48: 105-125. 1909. : 
2 Literature in Lorw, Bull. 18, Div. Veg. Physiol. and Path., U. S. Depart. 
Agric. 1899; also Lorw and Aso, Bull. Coll. Agric. Tokyo 7:395. 1907- 
3 Report 71, U. S. Depart. Agric. 1902. 
4 Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Gesells. 252322. 1907 
5 Bor. GAZETTE 42:127. 1906; 442259. 1907; Jahrb. Wiss. Bot. 46:121. 1908. 
6 Univ. Calif. Publ. Botany 2:317. 1907. 
re a [Botanical Gazette, vol. 49 
