possible to exert some degree of control over the form and distribution of the resulting topographical features, and they look forward to the time when, as an outcome of detailed vegetation studies of the kind here presented, the art of moulding the plastic coast line will develop into a recognised craft.

THE rainfall of 1914 is dealt with in Symons's Meteorological Magazine for January, and rather more fully in the Times of January 19, by Dr. H. R. Mill, Director of the British Rainfall Association. The results are given in anticipation of the more copious discussion which will appear some months hence. Of 5500 records some 3500 have been already received, and a representative selection of the stations has been used.

The months of February, March, November, and December were wet, and of these February was the wettest in Ireland, and December in Great Britain. The rainfall of December is said to have been exceptional in all parts of the Kingdom, and especially so in the South of England. From April to October the rainfall was in general well below the average, and it is surmised that the dryness of this period was about as abnormal as was the great rainfall of December. In England and Wales the rainfall for the year was 106 per cent. of the average, in Scotland 102 per cent., in Ireland 106 per cent., and for the whole of the British Islands 105 per cent. The records of 57 years at Camden Square and 41 years at Slough show that no other December has yielded so large a rainfall, and it is suggested that it was not only the wettest December, but probably the wettest month on record for the southern counties. At Camden Square the rainfall for December was 25 per cent. of the annual fall for 1914. The map giving the December rains for the Thames Valley shows extensive areas with the measurement of 10 inches, whilst in the neighbourhood of Hindhead the rainfall for the month was 12 inches.

THE recent increase of the number of 10-candlepower pentane lamps sent to the Bureau of Standards to be tested, has led to a detailed examination of the conditions under which such lamps should be operated in America to give the most accurate results. A memoir on the subject by Messrs. E. C. Crittenden and A. H. Taylor appears in part 3 of vol. x. of the Bulletin of the bureau. It deals with the preparation and testing of the pentane, the ventilation of the photometer room, and the preparation and operation of the lamp, and shows how the candle-power of the lamp is affected by the pressure, temperature, and humidity of the air of the photometer room. general the directions for use of the lamp are in agreement with those issued by the Metropolitan gas referees of London, but in some of the details the two differ owing partly to the greater humidity of the American atmosphere.

In

UNDER the auspices of the University of Tokio the hot and mineral springs of Japan are being tested for radio-activity, and reports by Messrs. S. Ono and H. Ikewti, on the springs of four districts appear in the Proceedings of the Tokio Mathematico-Physical Society for November, 1914. The measurements were

made by the bubbling method, and give for the hot springs in the south of the province Higo values between 1-4 and 0.3 × 10-12 curie of radium emanation per c.c. of water, for the cold springs of the province Etigo the figures are 0-3 to 0-1 at Matunoyama, and 17.3 to 148 at Murasugi, and for those in the northeast of Sinano 0-16 to zero. In comparing these figures with 2 × 10-12 gram of radium which forms the average content of a gram of rock, it is to be noted that the curie is the amount of emanation in equilibrium with a gram of radium, and at normal temperature and pressure occupies 0-60 cubic millimetre.

Ax important paper was read by Mr. E. Kilburn Scott before the Society of Chemical Industry on January 4 on a new electric furnace for the production of nitrates from the atmosphere. The author emphasised the immense importance, in view of the war, of manufacturing nitrates from the air by elec tric power, and described a new three-phase furnace which, it was claimed, has substantial advantages over the existing single-phase furnaces now in use on the Continent. Briefly, the new type of furnace consists of three electrodes, spaced 120° apart, consisting of -in. steel rods, bent at about 30° from the vertical. The top of the furnace, through which air is circulated, is a boiler with vertical copper tubes for the gases to pass through. The advantage of this system is that with a given periodicity of supply thrice as many arcs are formed in a given time as would be the case with single-phase. The three phases give a combined flame of conical shape which is hotter than if the same energy were expended in three separate furnaces, because the latter have only a single flat flame and the losses by radiation are much greater. The efficiency per unit cost of plant is much increased by the arrangement described, and the heat energy can be largely recovered by using the steam produced in the boiler to generate electricity, the combination thus working regeneratively. Owing to the increased temperature the yield of oxides of nitrogen, too, is largely raised under the new system of working. Since the Notodden factory was started the percentage concentration of nitric oxide has been doubled merely by making small modifications in furnace construction and in the rate of supply of air, but it is still under 20 per cent. The fact that it is so much lower than the value theoretically possible indicates that great improvements are still possible in the working details of the process.

ATTENTION was directed by French surgeons some time ago to the unusually high proportion of the French wounded suffering from tetanus, gangrene, and other forms of blood poisoning. In the Comptes rendus of the Paris Academy of Sciences for January II is a paper by M. Victor Henri which throws some light on the cause of this. From the results of the examination of a number of unexploded German shells, M. G. Urbain has been able to prove the presence of phosphorus. Common shell of 77 calibre and shrapnel shell mostly contain a large quantity of a violet-brown powder, smelling strongly of white phosphorus, and 97 per cent. of which consists of

are

various kinds of phosphorus, the red variety predominating. In the common shell the phosphorus is contained in a cylindrical box, diameter 25 millimetres and height 60 millimetres, placed in a cavity behind the explosive. In the shrapnel shell, the bullets are placed in a cylindrical white metal box 65 millimetres diameter, and the space between the bullets is filled with the same violet-brown powder. The whole is rammed tight, SO that the bullets, which roughened, retain a certain quantity of the phosphorus. As a result, pieces of German shells and shrapnel bullets carry more or less phosphorus into a wound. This fact should be specially brought to the notice of surgeons, since phosphorus can produce a mortification of the tissues even with a shrapnel bullet, and micro-organisms, especially the anaerobic organisms, which produce tetanus and gas gangrene, find a favourable medium for their development and the wound may become grave. It is therefore advised that wounds produced by shrapnel and fragments of shell should be deeply incised and cleaned with the greatest care.

MESSRS. LONGMANS, GREEN AND Co. announce that from February 1 the complete list of publications of the Manchester University Press will be published by them throughout the world.

OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. ANNUAL REPOrt of the U.S. NAVAL OBSERVATORY. -The report, for the year 1914, of the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory, is presented as Appendix No. 2 in the Annual Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, 1914. While the report itself only covers twenty pages, the contents are very concentrated, and cover a very large field of activity. The superintendent refers briefly to the distribution of time, the issue of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, the observations of sun, moon, planets, satellites, comets etc. Each of these subjects is more fully described in the subsequent paragraphs under the various sub-headings. Regarding the longitude determination between Washington and Paris by wireless signals, it is stated that the reduction of the observations is well advanced, and this will constitute the first direct determination between the Naval Observatory and Europe. Ten American observatories took advantage of the opportunity of using these signals and made the necessary observations to determine their longitudes.

THE APPLEY BRIDGE AEROLITE.-A description of the Appley Bridge meteorite (see NATURE, November 5, 1914, and January 7) sent to the Royal Astronomical Society by Messrs. W. C. Jenkins (Godlee Observatory) and E. C. Rhead, appears in the Monthly Notices of the Society for December, 1914. Of the recorded falls in Great Britain that of Wold Cottage is the only one of greater weight than the present one. Ultimate analysis showed silica, magnesia, iron, and alumina were the principal constituents; small quantities of sulphur, nickel, and phosphorus were found. Chlorine, sodium, potassium, calcium, strontium, and antimony were detected and lead was suspected. It is stated that a careful-chemical-search for titanium gave negative results. The question arises, was chromium specially looked for?

ANNUAIRE DU BUREAU DES LONGITUDES, 1915.—We have received a copy of this very useful publication,

issued by the Bureau des Longitudes, Paris. The table of contents is, of course, parallel with that of the volume for 1913, that is to say, in addition to minor changes in the first section, the second section is made up of geographical and statistical tables, etc., in place of the chemical and physical data given last year. There is a noteworthy addition in the shape of a description of the constellations from the pen of M. G. Bigourdan, containing a list giving details of more than 400 of the brighter stars in 88 constellations. The usefulness of the list might have been increased by the addition of a column containing type of spectrum. A valuable essay (162 pages) by the same able author on the methods of testing mirrors and objectives forms the final section.

THE THEORY OF A SUNSPOT SWARM OF METEORS.Prof. R. A. Sampson (Monthly Notices, Royal Astronomical Society, December, 1914) discusses some points in the theory that sunspots are produced by a bombardment of the sun by meteors of the Leonid swarm detached by encounter with Saturn. Two objections are advanced: first, that the conditions required by the hypothesis would require an improbable mass for the Leonids, and, secondly, that the orbit of the Leonids does not allow the required encounter of the swarm with Saturn. What is probably the more interesting outcome of Prof. Sampson's investigation is the deduction of a new date for the capture of the Leonids. It is shown that there are three dates, all more recent than Leverrier's (A.D. 126), in which the critical conditions for capture obtained; one of these, A.D. 885, comes a little before the earliest recorded shower (A.D. 902), and accordingly is considered the more probable date.

THE RESTORATION OF AN
ICHTHYOSAUR.

SOME three-quarters of a century ago the late Sir Richard Owen directed attention to the very frequent occurrence in the flattened skeletons of ichthyosaurs from the Lias of Whitby and Lyme Regis of a sudden flexure in the vertebræ of the tail at a distance from the tip of about one-fourth the total length. This flexure, he argued, must have been due to the presence of a terminal tail-fin, placed vertically, like that of a fish, although not fish-like in structure. The truth of this has been made apparent, not only by the impression of the soft parts in some of the ichthyosaurs from the Lias of Holzmaden, but likewise by the skeletons of their successors disinterred by the Messrs. Leeds from the Oxford Clay near Peterborough, all the latter exhibiting a structural modification at the point in question. Of these wonderful Oxfordian skeletons a reconstructed example, of which we are enabled to give a figure, has recently been set up in the fossil reptile gallery in the Natural History branch of the British Museum, and is believed to be the first entire articulated specimen placed on exhibition. It belongs to the big-eyed, broad-paddled, and practically edentulous group constituting the genus Ophthalmosaurus, of which it represents the species known as O. icenicus. As mounted, it measures a little more than 13 ft. in total length, and carries about fifty pairs of ribs, of which the first half-dozen or so are crowded together in order to enable them to underlie the scapulæ.

The work of fitting together and mounting the disjecta membra of this skeleton was one which called into play all the skill of the articulators of the geological department, to whom great credit is due for the accomplishment of such a difficult task.

A point of special interest in connection with these

toothless ichthyosaurs is the nature of their food, which was almost certainly different from that of their strongly toothed Liassic precursors, which appear to have been less well adapted for a pelagic life. It is not that the heavily armoured ganoid fishes of earlier formations had died out, as witness the presence of Lepidotus in the Oxfordian; and it may be that the ichthyosaurs of that epoch fed on belemnites instead of fish. If this be so, the Cretaceous toothless pterodactyles may likewise have made an analogous change in their diet, as compared with that of their well

damage at particular seasons. The observations recorded in this paper are of general interest, as the plant chosen for investigation was wheat, and the following are the chief results obtained.

Grass culms show in general two periods of growth-a preparatory period characterised by short internodes carrying scales or under-sized leaves, and a subsequent period of vigorous growth characterised by long internodes carrying well-developed leaves. In the average primary culm (1) the same number of leaf-bearing internodes is produced in these two

DEVELOPMENT OF THE CULMS OF GRASSES.

ΑΝ N important paper by Mr. R. S. Hole, forming Forest Bulletin No. 25 of the Indian Forest Research Institute, deals with the development of the culms of grasses. The author points out that the generalisation, based upon the study of grasses and cereals of temperate climates, that the culms are annual does not hold good in the case of various economically important species which are dominant in the savannah lands of Indian forests; hence the discovery of a method by means of which the age of the culms of any particular species can be readily determined is a matter of practical importance bearing directly on such questions as the selection of the best rotation to adopt in the case of grasses worked for paper pulp or the liability of certain species to fire

stages, but the period of preparatory growth is approximately three-fourths of that of vigorous growth; (2) the average number of long internodes produced is approximately equal to the number of months in the period of vigorous growth, and this number is practically the same whether calculated from the primary culms alone, from the axillary culms alone, or from a mixture of these as found in the final crop. In the older axillary culms (1) both growth periods, but more especially the preparatory period, are shorter than those of the primary culms, and there is little difference between the two classes of culms as regards the date of ripening grain; (2) the number of leaf-bearing short internodes is approximately half the number of the long internodes, and the preparatory period of growth is approximately half the vigorous growth period. The author thus obtains for both annual and perennial grasses the generalisation that the average number of leaf-bearing long internodes produced in a culm-that is, excluding the apical segment terminating in the inflorescence-is approximately equal to the number of months comprising the period of vigorous growth. F. C.

PARIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.

THE

The Bonaparte Fund.

HE committee appointed to deal with the allocation of the Bonaparte Fund for the year 1914, has made the following proposals, which have been unanimously adopted by the academy :—

(1) 2000 francs to Pierre Breteau, to enable him to pursue his researches on the use of palladium in analysis and in organic chemistry.

(2) 2000 francs to M. Chatton, to give him the means of continuing his researches on the parasitic Peridinians.

(3) 3000 francs to Fr. Croze, to enable him to continue his work on the Zeeman phenomenon in band and line spectra, the amount to be applied to the purchase of a large concave grating and a 16-cm. objective.

(4) 6000 francs to Dr. Hemsalech, for the purchase of a resonance transformer and a battery of condensers for use in his spectroscopic researches.

(5) 2000 francs to P. Laïs, director of the Vatican Observatory, to assist in the publication of the photographic map of the sky.

(6) 2000 francs to M. Pellegrin, to facilitate the pursuit of his researches and the continuation of his publications concerning African fishes.

(7) 2000 francs to Dr. Trousset, to aid him in his studies relating to the theory of the minor planets.

(8) 2000 francs to M. Vigouroux, to assist him in continuing his researches on silicon and its different varieties. These researches, in which it is necessary to make use of hydrofluoric acid, necessitate the use of expensive receivers.

(9) 3000 francs to M. Alluaud, for continuing the publication, undertaken with Dr. R. Jeannel, of the scientific results of three expeditions in eastern and Central Africa.

(10) 9000 francs to be divided equally between MM. Pitard, de Gironcourt, and Lecointre, all members of the scientific expedition to Morocco organised by the Société de Géographie.

(11) 2000 francs to Prof. Vasseur, to assist him in his geological excavations in a fossil-bearing stratum at Lot-et-Garonne.

(12) 3500 francs to Dr. Mauguin, for the continuation of his researches on liquid crystals and the remarkable orientation phenomena presented by these singular bodies when placed in a magnetic field. The grant will be applied to the construction of a powerful electromagnet.

(13) 2000 francs to Dr. Anthony to meet the cost of his researches on the determinism of the morphological characters and the action of primary factors on the course of evolution.

(14) 4000 francs to Prof. Andoyer, a first instalment towards the cost of the calculation of a new table of fifteen figure logarithms.

(15) 4000 francs to M. Bénard, to enable him to continue his researches in experimental hydrodynamics on a large scale.

(16) 2000 francs to Dr. Chauvenet, to enable him to continue his researches on zirconium and its complex combinations.

(17) 2000 francs to Prof. François Franck, for the chronographic study of the development of the embryo, with special examination of the rhythmic function of the heart.

(18) 2000 francs to Prof. Sauvageau, for the pursuit of his studies on the marine algæ.

PROBLEMS OF PRODUCTION IN AGRI

CULTURE.1

HE fact that this address is to be delivered in the

THE fact that in which semi-tropical,

and even tropical, conditions prevail, suggests some consideration of the future of countries in which vegetative development, and therefore the production of food, can attain such a level as is possible here.

At the outset let me remind you of two prime facts in the natural history of man. In the first place all civilisation is based upon food supply; no other industry is creative, and the wealth of a community might almost be measured by the amount of time that remains at its disposal after it has secured, either from its own land, or by exchange, the food it needs to live upon. Secondly, we must look forward at no very distant date, as the life of nations goes, to the exhaustion of those capital stores of energy in the world-coal and oil-on which the current industrial system is based. How long the stores may last is a matter of dispute, but 500 years is a liberal estimate, and we can be pretty sure, in a world in which prophecy is notoriously unsafe, that nothing remains to be discovered which can take the place of those savings from the energy of bygone epochs that are represented by coal and oil. With the passing of industrialism the importance of agriculture will grow, and while the world as a whole will still be able to support the same number of people as are fed by agriculturists of to-day, great readjustments of the population will have to be effected, according to the productive powers of the land in each country. Should population continue to increase, and the spread of organised and stable government ensures that it will grow, there must come a demand for the better utilisation of the land and for a higher production of food than at present prevails; indeed, even in the last few years symptoms of this increasing demand for food have been in evidence. Let us see what the land can be made to do at the present time in the way of supporting population, and for that we must turn to the East, where long experience of the art of intensive agriculture goes hand in hand with an optimum climate and a population of maximum density. Rural Japan is reported to carry a population of 1922 to the square mile, entirely supported by agriculture, but maintaining in addition its quota of officials and industrials. Even this number is exceeded in China, where a farm of two and a half acres will support a family of eight to ten people, and where, in some special cases, as on the island of Chungming, the population living wholly on the land may rise nearly to 4000 per square mile. Compared with these figures the density of population on Western land is trifling. The United States is said to maintain no more than 61 per square mile of its cultivated land, England something above 90, Ireland about 120, and Belgium, perhaps the most intensely cultivated of European countries, not more than 200 per square mile of cultivation. Now, these enormous densities of rural population are accompanied by a very low standard of living; the people, if strong and healthy, exist on the very margin of sustenance. To take a cash standard, an experienced rural labourer in China cannot command more than 6d. a day, on which he will support a family. But for this small pay of 6d. a full day's work will be obtained; indeed, such a day's work as the white man would find it almost impossible to give under the climatic conditions prevailing.

1 Part II. of the presidential address delivered before Section M (Agriculture) of the British Association at Brisbane, by the president of the section, A. D. Hall, F.R.S. Part I. appeared in NATURE of October 8, 1914.

Such a state of continuous toil seems to be the necessary outcome of an individualistic system of farming in countries with no great industrial outlets, where the pressure of an increasing population results in continued subdivision of the land. Of its kind Chinese agriculture is magnificent, so far as one can judge from the accounts; the land is made to do an extraordinary duty, bearing two or three full crops a year; waste is non-existent, and long experience has taught the farmers to anticipate in practice some of the most recent discoveries of science in the way of conserving and recuperating the fertility of the soil. Though no statistics are available, the land seems to have been raised to its highest level of productivity per acre, just as it has attained its maximum population-carrying capacity.

Now the Australian, like other farmers in new countries, is often reproached for the low yields per acre that he obtains 10 to 15 bushels of wheat per acre, as against 32 in England, and rather more in Holland and Belgium. Unfavourable as is this comparison of Australia with Europe, still greater appears the superiority of China and Japan, though it cannot be reduced to statistics. But the Australian quite rightly replies by setting up another standard of comparison; not the production per acre, but the production per man is his criterion, and on this basis the Australian farmer takes a very high position indeed. Against the productivity of the land when labour is unlimited he opposes the ideal of the productivity of the man when aided by machines and unlimited land.

Organised large-scale farming supports far more people than the labourers actually employed on the land; it buys machines and raw materials like fertilisers, it pays rent and makes profits, all of which go to the support of other people, who are at bottom fed and maintained by the production from the land. I have calculated that the most highly cultivated farm with which I am acquainted in Britain, a farm selling merely meat, potatoes, and corn, would actually support people at the rate of more than 1000 per square mile, if they were to live at such a low subsistence level as that of the Oriental small farmers. The standard of living that in fact prevails is, of course, very different, but, nevertheless, when all the exchanges of commodities and services against food are completed, that square mile of highly organised farm land is the ultimate support of a population comparable with that resident on Eastern land even though the number of people actually tilling the soil is small enough.

But even if the number of people maintained by a given area under Western conditions is far greater than would appear from those employed in cultivating the soil, there must come a time when the pressure of an increasing population will necessitate a much higher agricultural efficiency in the way of production of food per acre. Now, if we attempt to meet this pressure by subdivision of the land, attracted by the specious appearance of a large population supported on the soil, the operation of competition will force them down to such a low standard of living as we find in China and Japan. A large number of men on the land does not necessarily make for more food for the community, because in practice we find that the standard of cultivation and production per acre of the small holder is actually below that of the larger farmer in the same class of business. For example, one thousand acres might be cultivated by twenty men, so as to produce as much food as if it were divided up and made to carry 200 men on five acres apiece; the community, considered as a whole, is richer in the former case by the labour of 180 men, labour that can be devoted to the production of other articles which the small holders would have to go without. Clearly, if

twenty men can grow a maximum of food on the thousand acres, it is mere waste to employ 200 men about it, though, at first blush, in the latter case, the land seems to be carrying ten times more men. The only question is whether the intensive cultivation, which is more or less forced upon the two hundred holders of five acres, can be obtained when the area is cultivated, as a whole, by only twenty men. There is no lack of evidence that it can, but the means by which such large-scale farming can in the end beat mere grinding human labour, is by utilising to the full all the resources of science, machinery, and organisation. In fact, when the world becomes fully populated, the application of science to agriculture is the only method by which the community can be saved from falling into the Oriental condition of a community of labourers working incessantly for a bare subsistence.

Now, we may ask ourselves what remains for science to do towards the improvement of agriculture. Practically everything. Agriculture is half as old as man; centuries of experience, of trial and error, of slowly accumulated observations, are bound up in the routine of the commonest cultivation of the soil; the science applied to agriculture is at the outside little more than a century old, and so far has only partially succeeded in explaining and justifying existing practices. It is still in the reign of first approximations to the truth; these specious first approximations which so regularly break down when applied to the real thing on a large scale, where the second or even the third terms really dominate the issue. The farmer is fond of reproaching the scientific men with the discrepancy between theory and practice; there should be none if the theory is complete, but in such complex matters as the growth of plant and animal we are yet very far from being able to bring into account all the factors concerned. A shipbuilder, for instance, having built to a certain speed and measured off his distance on the map, may reckon on making his port on a certain day; he finds himself wrong, because of the existence of a current which takes a knot or more off his speed. His theory was not wrong, only incomplete. Fuller knowledge may map the currents and their velocity, but even the new calculation may be put out by some unexpected weather factor. Now the growth of a plant is determined by an infinitely more numerous and less measurable series of factors than the speed of a ship, small wonder then that the calculations based upon them are apt to be so

erroneous.

Imperfect as is our knowledge, yet we have progressed far enough to see in what directions fruitful work may be done, and may plan our campaign of research. In connection with the soil, for example, the big problem is probably the prevention of the waste that goes on at an increasing rate as the soil becomes more enriched by the accumulation of organic matter. Many soil bacteria, as we know, deal with the compounds of nitrogen in the soil so as to set free nitrogen gas from them, all of which actions are sheer waste of the most valuable constituent of the soil, and to such an extent does this change take place that we cannot, as a rule, expect to recover in the crop more than one-half of the nitrogen contained in farmyard manure applied to the soil. Where the soil is rich, and a high level of production is being arrived at, the percentage of waste may be even greater; for example, on the Rothamsted wheat plot, which has received 14 tons of dung every year, only about one-quarter of the nitrogen applied in the manure has been recovered in the crop, and less than a quarter remains stored in the soil. When a hundred pounds of nitrate of soda per acre is applied, nearly the whole of the nitrogen it contains will be recovered