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looking out and asking the question, "In what way can we utilise new inventions for the benefit of our own industry?" That forms No. 2 of the points of Sir William Ramsay.

The third is that there is another agency always asking the question as to the cheaper production of the material, not in a passive way, but in an active way; in making inquiries and making voyages to other countries, examining what is done there and exploiting the brains of other men, often covering up the source. That is what the Germans call war. Then comes in the question of protection by the Government. There is a point where the Government could actively intervene to foster industry. Another point not less important is the protection of patents. In many cases Germans have gone so far as to steal the patent from other countries and protect themselves by patents from the other country recovering its ideas. Then there is the propaganda of the excellence of their own products, sending men throughout the world, speaking many languages, active missionaries of the active progress and greatness of Germany. I will cite several industries. The German spirit of organisation is so great that in the most unexpected fields it is exhibited. I remember one of the most prominent mathematicians, M. Picard, of the Institute, who said that though perhaps there had been great names in the history of French mathematics equal to those of the Germans, such as M. Poincaré, who I am proud to have called my friend, who recently died; yet the Germans had pushed their organisation so far that even in that field, so abstruse, they had perfected an organisation for that study.

Take the question of aniline dyes, of which we have heard so much, and which has been the subject of consideration in this House. It is always said in this House, and in the public prints and text-books, that the story of aniline dyes is that a British chemist, Dr. Perkin, discovered and invented a new dye, and that was stolen by the Germans. The matter does not rest in such a passive way at all. Perkin was not, I believe, the first man to produce coloured material from the by-products of coal tar. That was done by Runge some years before. In 1856 Perkin produced his first aniline dye, mauve, and that was considered a great achievement in this country. Already the Germans were beginning that extraordinary organisation of which they are the masters. They seized hold of this, saw its possibilities, and set to work in all the laboratories of that great kingdom, particularly Prussia, and soon produced a whole succession of aniline dyes. They opened up new possibilities, and in this way founded their industry in a perfectly legitimate manner. So that the lack in this country was first a want of appreciation of the value of that discovery, and then the want of active organisation to make use of the discovery when found.

Or take, again, the case of glass, also raised by the President of the Board of Education. The manufacture of glass, of course, has gone on from time immemorial. As a matter of fact, one of the oldest glass manufactories in the world was in what at that time was a Roman colony, Cologne. The most interesting development of the glass industry, however, was, perhaps, the manufacture of optical glass. It arose in this way: A German physicist of great ability, Abbe, noticed that a great deal of the finest microscopical work was robbed of its value by the difficulty of obtaining good optical glass, and so he turned directly away from his own study, sacrificed himself in a certain measure-that is to say, sacrificed his scientific ambitions-upon the altar of the industry of the Fatherland, and devoted his great talents to the study of glass in itself. Being a man of scientific

endowment, he speedily discovered what those who had been engaged in the industry before without scientific knowledge might not have discovered in a hundred years in reference to the manufacture of glass. Then came another point which has been raised earlier in the debate. After having reached a certain point, he found that it would be difficult for him to proceed without being sustained financially. He then appealed to the State. The German State was intelligent enough to foster his researches in every possible way, to pay him not merely for his chemical research, but for his endeavour to build up a great industry. So there you have a striking example of the alliance of science with industry, and of State aid supporting both, one which we might very well take to heart. The result was the building up of an industry which imposed itself upon the whole world, and is one of the legitimate glories of Germany to-day. Every medical student who wishes to do his work well is forced to buy a German microscope.

Compare that with the condition of things in this country. I have come down to this House myself in those days when I was more hopeful and I had a real respect for the Government, and I have pleaded for 10,000l. for great research work, research work which would have enabled one of the very few men in this country who stand out in the eyes of the whole world as a great figure in modern science, to do most useful work, and I was received with a certain polite indifference and shunted off. I say that, so far from asking 10,000l. for research work, I should have been entitled to ask for 10,000,000l.-that is to say, if I could ask with sufficient authority—to stimulate in every possible direction the great industries of this country. I go so far as to say that eventually the whole civilisation of this world, and not merely of England itself, must turn on the axis of science, and as we advance we must give proportionately greater and greater importance to this great development of scientific life. When I was a student some years ago of some of these questions, of which I have only given one or two examples out of hundreds which I could expound to the House, I made this extraordinary discovery, that in tracing out the development of science I was really in my own mind proceeding with the development of Humboldt's cosmos. That is to say, that science is the roof of civilisation, and our civilisation is superior to that of the Greeks only in one particular, and that one particular is the advance in positive science. As a result of the advance of positive science our modern civilisation has reached that great expansion which we now recognise.

Then the President spoke about the number of chemists in this country, and said that the number of research students in chemistry is only 350, and yet this country is competing in the commercial world with Germany! I have looked into the organisation in Germany, and I find this astonishing fact: That, in the great chemical works in Germany, for every fifteen men employed in any category whatever there is one highly trained specialist and chemist, and that this industry is so important that there is one highly trained specialist in chemistry for every forty-five employés in any category, right throughout the whole range of industry. When we reach facts like these, are we astonished at the pacific invasion of Germany in every country in the world which, had they been sage enough, would in fifty years have given them a mastery of the world without the cruel and brutal and abominable war which has caused such suffering? But knowing the enormous disparity between one trained chemist for every forty-five employés in all industries, and a total of 350 research students in this country, how are these defects to be remedied? Partly

by giving encouragement to students of science. That is important, but it is not all. I asked a question in this House about the pay of students of chemistry. I find that the War Office itself, which is advertising for students of chemistry, some of them men with degrees, all of them required to do analytical work of a really very difficult kind, such as, after a man obtains his degree in chemistry, would require some special training for at least six months to do the work with the requisite degree of fineness, offered to these men a salary of-1000l.? There would be nothing preposterous in that. Some of these men are quite qualified to become professors in the great capitals in the Dominions. Was it 500l.? It was 100l. With what conditions attached? Those men technically were placed on the same footing as ordinary workmen, and they could have been required, had the regulation been enforced, to join in a queue every Saturday to take their 2l. at the pay office.

To-day an advance has been notified by the UnderSecretary for War. They are paid 150l. Even that is scarcely enough to stimulate men to follow in the path of scientific research. I do not believe that any man who has the true scientific spirit-I appeal to my hon. friend to back me up there is ever attracted by the mere sake of gain. There is something of the scientific spirit which is almost incompatible with making money. When I read the lives of the great workers of the past I feel indignation even now. Take, for instance, the record of Faraday. The great man, who stands out among the few whose names will be remembered for a thousand years, even after the records of our own Parliament have passed away, as one of the great pioneers of human civilisation; toiled all his life at the stipend of the valet of a peer, and that, remember, in a country where a man's social status and his work, as he calls it, is judged very largely from the amount of salary that he earns. There will be a revolution when the war is over; a peaceful revolution, if you will, which will be felt right throughout the world, enlarging our education particularly in regard to our technical schools. We do not want the history of the world in text-books given to children at their most susceptible age, which divide history into reigns of kings and queens, most of them utterly worthless, as if the whole philosophy of the world turned on the sanguinary and wretched and often unintelligible accounts of wars and battles. I hope the time will come when we shall have a clearer and saner view of the whole scope and importance of education. It will be more important for the child to know the date at which Oersted discovered the reaction between electricity and magnetism than even to know the date of the battle of Waterloo. There is in science a real spiritual influence that it to say, the most alluring and fascinating of all the problems which can attract the mind in the gradual unfolding of the meaning of this world itself in which we live. I would like the President of the Board of Education to take his courage in his hands as did Wilhelm von Humboldt in other days; and if he feels himself not strong enough to do this work solus, let him call in the aid of those enthusiastic in the development of science, and the help of those committees of which he has spoken, to carry out their recommendations, not in the half-hearted way in which matters have sometimes been presented in this House, but with something like the missionary zeal of a new evangel. I am certain that when this war is over if the education of this country remains in the condition in which it now is, you may bolster up your military power, you may build Dreadnought after Dreadnought, but this country will sink. But if this country is to save itself, to regenerate itself, and to

proceed on a new path of high development, then the most vital of all problems is that of education.

MR. KING: On this Vote we have had a chorus of approval in favour of greatly increased expenditure on scientific education. I wish to join in that chorus. You cannot have a nation able to benefit by the scientific research and technical instruction and the various facilities for scientific advance which have been foreshadowed to-night unless you have a good foundation in elementary education. If you begin on the same night to cut and curtail elementary education, you are doing an evil turn to advanced research in scientific education. I wish very heartily to congratulate the representatives of the Board of Education upon having shown what is to my mind the first evidence we have had that statesmanlike foresight exists on the Treasury Bench at the present time. We have had plenty of energetic pushing on of the war, but in grasping the issues of what are to come after, and to prepare for the inevitable changes and difficulties and problems which will immediately arise at the end of the war, this is the first inkling we have had that those considerations are present to the mind of the Government. I congratulate the President of the Board of Education and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education on the scheme they have put forward. I from time to time directed attention, by means of questions and in other ways, to our great deficiency in scientific and technical education, especially with regard to research. Anybody who knows anything about Germany knows the enormous amount of money and the great numbers of men of the highest ability and training and standing engaged in purely scientific research and inquiry.

Everybody who thinks of it and who studies the question must know that Germany's position in the world to-day is due not to the real genius of the people so much as to organisation combined with education, and especially scientific education. I am very pleased that at this time there is an opportunity for an educational advance. I congratulate the members on the Treasury Bench upon their courage and persistence, for I believe it must have needed something of that kind to get this scheme through the Cabinet. I congratulate them on the prospect of having an early Supplementary Estimate. It is true it is only 25,000l. I think it ought to be ten times as much, but I have no doubt it is an estimate that will grow. I should like to recall to the members of the Committee the historical references, to my mind of great significance, which we had from the hon. member for West Clare (Mr. Lynch). It was in the year 1809, only two years after the Peace of Tilsit, that Prussia started the University of Berlin. Prussia had been robbed of half its territory by the Peace of Tilsit, which also imposed upon it an enormous indemnity. It had also to support a huge French army of occupation until the indemnity was paid. Yet in that very time Stein and Wilhelm von Humboldt founded the University of Berlin, which has become for its equipment and influence in scientific matters by far the greatest University in the world. They also established at the same time, when the taxes were simply overwhelmingly crushing, the elementary-school system of Prussia, which remains to the present day. I say that a nation that could so appreciate in its hour of ruin the value of education is a lesson to us which we ought to take to heart.

MR. RAWLINSON: I was very glad to hear the President's announcement of the creation of an Advisory Council to deal with this matter, and I need scarcely say that though I have not been able to consult them upon the point, the University of Cambridge, I am sure, will give most unstinted support

to the scheme, such as it is. Whether it will be a success or not will depend upon matters which we cannot discuss to-night. It will depend largely upon the men and upon the methods by which the work is carried out. No one doubts that there is a need for it at the present time. The Right Hon. gentleman has enumerated some of the things in connection with which we have discovered the need, and he could have made a much longer list-things which are vitally important for the carrying on of the war. This country has had brought home to it the recklessness of any island country being dependent for its supplies to a large extent upon places outside its bounds. That is one of the lessons we shall learn from the war. It must be remembered that scientific men have been connected with agriculture and industry in this country before. They were connected with it in the best possible way; they were present while the work was being done. But in one case after the other the Germans bought up those firms and practically carried the industries away to Germany. We must not have that occur again. It is not merely a question of scientific research; it is much more a question of policy. So far as the scientific side is concerned, I think that even the President of the Board of Education was scarcely sufficiently optimistic when speaking of the enormous supply of men in the universities who are perfectly qualified and ready to take part in the industrial side of science. A large number are already doing so, and a very much larger number are perfectly ready and willing to take part and assist in the science of industries of any kind.

DR. ADDISON: There are many things which we must attend to without any delay, and it is for this reason that the Committee for Research will be set up quite soon. A great deal has been done by private effort in respect of research, and notwithstanding all that my hon. friend the Member for West Člare (Mr. Lynch) has pointed out, quite properly, in this connection, I think that the research which has been associated with British men of science has often been the most original of any in the whole world. We have not organised and developed it as we ought to have, but the British researcher is often freer in his outlook and greater in his conceptions, I think, than almost any other. At all events, he certainly stands far above the average German researcher, who tends more to apply the ideas which have been suggested by others, but from all that my hon. friend pointed out we have got to recognise that we cannot afford nowadays to leave all this to private effort. A great deal can be done by careful organisation and by seeing that the men turned out from our universities and technological institutions are equipped with that training which will make them acceptable in industry, and make them more likely to find a good market and a good career for themselves. Going around our institutions you will find certain departments where the professors will tell you that they cannot supply the men quickly enough to the manufacturers, while in other departments it is quite the reverse. The Royal Society has lately, very patriotically, been assisting chemical research in respect of drugs. This was one of the matters in which we felt ourselves behindhand at the beginning of the war. However, I think that my Right Hon. friend may be satisfied with the full assent of the House in all quarters in getting ahead with this great scheme, which, while we hear so much of the mobilisation of our industries with respect to the production of munitions of war, will quickly, for the first time in this country, show that we are going to some extent, at all events, to create a machine which will enable us to mobilise brains and science in the service of industry and national progress.

NOTES.

THE annual visitation of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich will be held on Saturday, June 5.

SIR WILLIAM CROOKES and Prof. R. Meldola have been elected honorary members of the Society of Public Analysts.

WE learn with regret of the death, on May 8, of Dr. P. Zeeman, since 1902 professor of geometry and theoretical mechanics in the University of Leyden.

PROFS. MAURICE CAULLERY (Paris), Charles Henri Marie Flahault (Montpellier), and Jacques Loeb (Chicago) have been elected foreign members of the Linnean Society.

THE London County Council has decided to commemorate the residence of Lord Lister in London by placing a memorial tablet on the house, 12 Park Crescent, Marylebone Road.

We regret to announce the death on May 13, in his eighty-ninth year, of Dr. M. W. Crofton, F.R.S., formerly professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Galway, and also, later, professor of mathematics and mechanics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.

SIR DAVID BRUCE will this year deliver the Croonian lectures at the Royal College of Physicians of London on June 17, 22, 24, and 29. His subject will be "Trypanosomes causing Disease in Man and Domestic Animals in Central Africa."

Ar the annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute last week, the Bessemer gold medal of the institute for 1915 was, in the unavoidable absence of the French Ambassador, handed to M. de Fleuriau, councillor of the French Embassy, for transmission to M. Pierre Martin, for his invention of the open-hearth system of steel manufacture.

THE regents of the American College of Surgeons announce the appointment of Dr. J. G. Bowman as director of the college. The college was founded in 1913, and is an organisation of the surgeons of the United States and of Canada, having for its purpose the advancement of the art and science of surgery. The address of the executive offices is 30 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago.

THE trustees of Columbia University, in the city of New York, have awarded the Barnard gold medal to Prof. W. H. Bragg, Cavendish professor of physics in the University of Leeds, and his son, Mr. W. L. Bragg, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and at member of the college staff, at present holding a commission in the Leicestershire R.H.A. (T.F.), for their work on X-rays and crystals. The medal is awarded every five years for meritorious service to science," on the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. The previous recipients have been Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay, Prof. von Röntgen, Prof. Henri Becquerel, and Sir Ernest Rutherford.

A PARTIALLY restored skeleton of a small ancestral camel, Stenomylus hitchcocki, from the Lower Miocene of Nebraska, U.S.A., has just been added to the

exhibited collection in the geological department of the British Museum (Natural History). The specimen was obtained from Prof. F. B. Loomis, of Amherst College, Mass., who discovered the remains of a herd of these small animals which had been suddenly destroyed and buried by some local accident. As a camel, Stenomylus is remarkable for its extremely slender build, which would render it as agile as a gazelle. It also has molar teeth with unusually deep crowns, so that it would be able to feed on hard and dry grasses. It was therefore more completely adapted for life on open plains and uplands than the other camels which abounded in North America in Oligocene and Miocene times.

THE death is announced in Science of Mr. E. W. Morse, formerly instructor in natural history at the Bussey Institution of Harvard University, whose name is associated with his contributions to the history of domesticated animals. Mr. Morse more recently acted as a specialist in animal husbandry in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In addition to his official duties as an associate editor of the Experiment Station Record, and later as an expert in the U.S. Dairy Division, Mr. Morse was instrumental in putting the foundations of animal breeding and feeding on firmer bases. He was an active member of the Biological Society of Washington, the American Society of Animal Nutrition, and the Boston Society of Natural History, and a regular contributor to several standard year-books and encyclopædias.

THE issue of Science for May 7 announces the completion of the rebuilding of the Gray Herbarium in connection with Harvard University. The work of enlargement and rebuilding was begun in 1909, and has been carried out a section at a time as the generosity of many benefactors made extension possible. The herbarium dates from 1864, when the late Mr. Nathaniel Thayer gave a building to house the botanical collections which Asa Gray had presented to the University. The primary ideals followed in rebuilding have been those of safety, permanence, and convenience of arrangement, but the elevation of the new structure gives the impression of dignified simplicity and great solidity. During the whole period of reconstruction the herbarium and its library have been open as usual for consultation.

ENGINEERS in many parts of the world will notice with regret that the name of Dr. Fred Stark Pearson appears in the list of those lost in the Lusitania. We are indebted to the Engineer for May 14 for the following particulars of Dr. Pearson's career. He was widely known on account of the construction of many notable reservoirs for water supply in sub-tropical countries, his first great work of the kind being undertaken in the Republic of Mexico. He became a director of the Puebla Tramway, Light and Power Company, owning five different properties in the Republic of Mexico, and from his long and intimate association with these enterprises he became acquainted with other industrial openings in Latin-America. Gradually he took up interests in concessions, and lent his great talents to the development of many similar enterprises in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Texas.

Perhaps Dr. Pearson's most notable enterprise was in connection with the design for, and the construction of, the great hydro-electric station at Necaxa, Mexico, and the construction of a transmission line to a distributing station erected at the city of Mexico, situated some ninety-five miles distant. The success achieved by Dr. Pearson in connection with these Mexican enterprises led to his association with similar projects in different parts of the world, and to his becoming what he at first never intended to be-a company promoter and professional director. In addition to his membership of the American institutions, he was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

By the death of Lieutenant Thomas Wright, who was killed while reconnoitring at night on Sunday, May 2, the staff of the faculty of science at King's College, London, has lost one of its most promising younger men. Mr. Wright studied chemistry under Prof. J. M. Thomson and Prof. Herbert Jackson from 1908 to 1912, completing his course with the associateship of the Institute of Chemistry and first-class honours at the B.Sc. examination. Soon after graduation he was appointed demonstrator in chemistry, and during his short tenure of this post he displayed the greatest energy in teaching science students of all faculties and many races. He came of yeoman stock, and his practical and intimate knowledge of agriculture added to the value of his chemical studies, and although he was not spared to complete any original research, he had already given proofs of an ability, power of observation, and keen insight which would have been of great value at the present time, when the nation so sorely needs numbers of such young men of science. In 1914 Mr. Wright gained an AngloGerman scholarship on the Cassel Foundation, the only one awarded outside Oxford or Cambridge. He was to have proceeded to Germany for further study and research, but the outbreak of war found him under arms as a trooper in King Edward's Horse. He received a commission in the Berkshire Regiment in December, 1914, and was sent out to France in the early spring. As an officer he displayed the same ability, zeal, and initiative which had characterised his all too brief career at King's College. His death means a serious actual loss to his college and potentially to science also, while all who knew him mourn that such a promising life should have passed into silence.

IN Man for May, Mr. K. A. C. Cresswell supplements from another field the very interesting paper by Prof. J. L. Myres on the causes of rise and fall in the population of the ancient world (Eugenics Review, vol. vii., p. 15), which was practically confined to one field, the Mediterranean. He now extends the survey to Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia. He dwells on the importance of irrigation in the agriculture of these regions, and on the fact that there is historical evidence to show that ages of warfare caused the decay of the canal and karez systems of water supply. He is therefore led to the conclusion that the chief cause of the great fluctuations of the population in these regions has been the collapse of the irrigation system, and that but for this neither war nor mis

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government would have sufficed to bring it about, although Ellsworth Huntington has shown that general desiccation has been a factor. Increase of conserved rainfall follows extension of irrigation, and it is suggested that, the chlorophyll reaction being endothermic, there must be a perceptible lowering of the temperature over large tracts of cultivation. If this is the case, it may possibly have an appreciable effect on condensation.

MESSRS. C. G. SELIGMANN and F. G. Parsons describe, in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute for July-December, 1914, a skeleton found in 1903 at Gough's Cave, Cheddar. It is that of a young adult male whose stature was about 5 ft. 4 in. It was found in association with implements of the late Paleolithic or Magdalenian period. The cranium shows a fairly close resemblance to that of the River Bed type from whom, in the present state of knowledge, the writers believe the Neolithic people to be descended. There are marked contrasts between the Cheddar skull and two of the Aurignacian age with which the writers are familiar, and though the face and the cranium, except that the latter is long, differ rather markedly from those of the Saxons, the cranium alone could not be distinguished from that of a medieval Englishman. The face and orbits are, however, very different. The conclusion arrived at is that the similarity of the Cheddar and English medieval skulls is not so much a sign of racial affinity, as an indication that among the latter a cranium closely resembling that of the River Bed type had been produced incidentally by numerous crosses.

THE Royal Zoological Society of Dublin is to be congratulated, inasmuch as it possesses the only living gorilla in Europe. But, according to the Irish Naturalist for May, their captive has been suffering from a tumour on the right side of the neck and face. A microscopic examination of the pus obtained therefrom showed that the growth was due to actinomycosis. This much having been discovered, it became possible to determine on a suitable course of treatment, which we are glad to note gives promise of success.

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Two very interesting articles bearing on the problems of sexual selection will be found in the May number of Wild Life. The first, which is all too short, is by Mr. H. B. Macpherson, who describes the tournament" of the blackcock, illustrating his remarks by some admirable photographs. The second is from the pen of Mr. Edmund Selous, and describes the early breeding habits of the shag. Anything Mr. Selous writes about the courtship of birds is sure to be interesting, and this account of the shag is no exception to the rule. His notes seem to show that, as with the Phalaropes, and some other species, the sexual rôle is reversed in the matter of courtship, the advances being made by the female. This being so, the assurance that polyandry prevails with this species is not surprising, though the evidence produced to favour this view is by no means convincing.

THE characteristics of molybdenite are discussed in a short but interesting article in the Scientific Australian for March. Since the outbreak of the war the price of this mineral has advanced from 60l. to 7251. per ton. Happily for us, more than half of the molybdenite ore of the world is obtained in Australia. Though principally used for hardening steel-armour plate containing about 20 per cent. of molybdenite-it is also used for the preservation of certain explosives and as a substitute for tungsten, while the salts of molybdenum furnish a blue pigment used in colouring porcelain and in the dyeing of silk and woollen goods. The normal method of washing the ore proving very wasteful, the experiment of oil flotation is being tried, and promises to effect a great saving. Experiments by the United States Bureau of Mines in smelting molybdenite ores electrically are also being made, and these have shown that ferro-molybdenum, low in carbon, can be made directly from molybdenite in the electric furnace, with excess of lime as a desulphurising agent, and that the sulphur can be readily slagged off as calcium sulphide.

tralian for March. Having regard to the rarity of gorillas in captivity, and the importance of the results of a study of their habits, it is devoutly to be hoped that a complete cure will be effected.

EXPERIMENTS in acclimatisation should never be undertaken save when they promise to yield some definite and worthy end. But what appears to be a quite harmless venture has been made on Lambay Island, Co. Dublin, where, according to the Irish Naturalist for May, more than two thousand reptiles and amphibians have been turned out. For economic reasons Dr. Scharff, the director of the Dublin Museum, now suggests an addition to this number in the diamond-backed terrapin (Malacoclemmys terrapin). This species he considers might do well in the harbour, since it lives in North America in salt marshes, feeding on molluscs and crabs. In this event a lucrative "fishery" might in course of time be established, since in America terrapin stew-and champagne sauce-is held in high regard.

THE appalling rate at which the extermination of the native fauna of Australia is proceeding is tersely told by Mr. W. H. Le Souef in the Scientific AusThe ravages of foxes and feral cats, introduced by settlers, is answerable for much of the mischief that has been done. The fox, he remarks, "will in course of time overrun the whole of Australia-it is half over already-and in consequence all ground game . . . will suffer severely." The loss to Australia cannot well be computed in cash, as, besides native game, the fox destroys young lambs, turkeys, geese, ducks, and other domestic poultry. The introduction of the rabbit has proved no less disastrous. The realisation that these agents of destruction need never have been introduced makes the consequences the more deplorable. The inevitable removal of timber and scrub, the drainage of swamps, and the erection of miles of wire fences have proved even more speedy and complete factors of elimination. Wire fences alone have accounted for the deaths of thousands of emus and kangaroos, which are now prevented from making their customary migrations in search of water, and consequently die maddened with thirst. Mr. Le Souef pleads for an

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