SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE, JUNE 21. 



xxxvii 



excess of copper sulphate as a residue. Dr. Eussell had 

 noticed that the solution on entering the soil would not at first 

 be decomposed, but if lime or other bases, as magnesia, were 

 present, then it would be completely decomposed, and the copper 

 rendered insoluble. Dr. Miiller added the important suggestion 

 that the action of the copper solution might be highly injurious 

 by destroying the nitrifying organisms. The general question, 

 therefore, as to the possible injuriousness of sulphate of copper in 

 the soil, becomes somewhat complicated. It was understood that 

 experiments were about to be undertaken at Chiswick, where the 

 above considerations would be attended to. 



Scientific Committee, July 12, 1892. 



Dr. M. T. Masters in the Chair, and four members present. 



Termes at La Bochdle. — The Secretary read a letter received 

 from Mr. "Warburton, giving further details of the injuries done 

 by Termes lucifugus at La Eochelle. He believes it to have 

 been imported from South America. He says: "It cannot now 

 be got rid of, as it has spread too widely — not only at Eochelle, 

 but at Eochefort, up the river Charente, and at Saintes. I am 

 not certain as to what plants it has attacked, but Pelargoniums 

 and Dahlias are among them. It has destroyed Vines, and any 

 other plants it has come across, such as fruit-trees and most 

 flowers. It lives in wood principally, Consequently it does 

 damage to plants only in or near houses. As the ants can only 

 move underground in subterranean galleries, I do not think they 

 could do much harm in open fields, where the galleries would 

 always be destroyed by tillage operations. The Termes only 

 spreads in two ways, as far as I can ascertain— namely, by the 

 wood in which it exists being carried to other places, and by 

 eating its way from one house to the next. This last process is a 

 very slow one. I do not think that the Termes exists in any other 

 part of France than that part of the Charente Inferieure extend- 

 ing from the entrance of the river Charente to some distance up its 

 course, so far, in fact, as the cargoes of wood from South America 

 used to be carried up in ships in the last century ; and at La 



