the present demand for the material. It has also to be remembered that the actual cost of producing raw rubber, which is at present about one shilling per pound, will probably be reduced, and the market price of rubber may eventually be so considerably lowered that, as with quinine, the synthetic production could not be profitably carried on. That is a question which involves many factors at present unknown, and only time can decide. Chemists may, however, confidently predict that before the British Association again meets at York the synthetic production of rubber will be a fully accomplished fact.

As I have said, our science is concerned with nearly every problem connected with the great rubber industry, and in concluding these few remarks I may allude to the production of vulcanised rubber depending on the formation of additive compounds of the hydrocarbon with sulphur. In this connection I should mention the recent experiments of Mr. Bamber in Ceylon, which appear to show that vulcanisation may be accomplished by acting on the uncoagulated latex with chloride of sulphur. If this proves to be practicable, it may mean the transference to the tropics of the subsidiary industry of vulcanisation, which is at present carried on in Europe.

Owing to the importance and interest which attach to the chemistry of rubber, it is to form an important feature in the work of this Section at the York Meeting. Papers will be contributed by some of the best known workers in this field, by Prof. Tilden, and by Prof. Harries, of Kiel, who will give an account of his recent work; whilst Mr. Pickles, of the Imperial Institute, will present a report summarising the whole of our chemical knowledge of the subject.

The chemical investigation of raw materials often raises, unexpectedly, problems of great scientific interest. The examination at the Imperial Institute of the seeds of the Para rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) has shown that they contain what proves to be a valuable drying oil, and in the course of the investigation it was ascertained that there is also present in the seeds an enzyme closely allied to, if not identical with, lipase, which is capable of splitting the oil by hydrolysis into glycerin and the free fatty acid. Subsequently, during the examination of other oil seeds similar enzymes have been detected, and it would appear probable that most oil seeds may prove to contain an enzyme capable of decomposing the fatty constituent.

Another subject of great chemical interest and botanical importance which has come into prominence in connection with the Indian and Colonial work of the Imperial Institute is to be included in a joint discussion which has been arranged with the Section of Botany. I refer to the production of prussic acid by plants, which, as I have elsewhere suggested, it is convenient to refer to as cyanogenesis. In this discussion we shall have the advantage of the cooperation of Prof. Van Romburgh and Dr. Greshoff, whose work with Dr. Treub of Java on this subject is known to chemists and botanists alike. The history of the origin of the several investigations in which Dr. Henry has been associated with me is not without interest in connection with the principal subject of this Address. During the first British expedition to the Sudan against the Mahdi a number of transport animals were poisoned through eating a small vetch which springs up in the Nile Valley during the fall of the river. The plant (Lotus arabicus) is well known to the Arabs, by whom it is cut when fully grown, and used as fodder for animals.

The results of the investigation of this matter which were communicated to the Royal Society proved that the young plant generated prussic acid when crushed with water. It was found to contain a new glucoside, lotusin, together with an enzyme capable of decomposing it into prussic acid, dextrose, and a yellow colouring matter, lotoflavin.

The glucoside is of special chemical interest, as being the only one known which contains the cyanogen group attached in the molecule to the sugar residue. Further investigation has shown that other fodder plants which are occasionally poisonous owe this character to the existence of other cyanogenetic glucosides. In a series of papers communicated to the Royal Society, Dr. Henry and I have described the properties and constitution of dhurrin

from Sorghum vulgare, and of phaseolunatin, which we have shown to be responsible for the production of prussic acid by Phaseolus lunatus (Lima beans), Manihot utilissima (cassava or tapioca), and by linseed (the fax plant). Phaseolunatin is remarkable in furnishing acetone as one of its products of hydrolysis. The investigation, besides fulfilling the primary purpose for which it was carried out, has raised a host of problems;-as to the constitution of glucosides, the nature of the enzymes which accompany them in the plants, and also in relation to the fundamental question of plant metabolism.

Another subject of Imperial as well as National importance is to be the subject of a joint discussion with the Section of Physiology. I refer to the problem of diet. As chemists we are interested in this subject chiefly from the point of view of the composition of foods, and of the molecular structure which is associated with dietetic value. The first attempt to deal with the matter from the scientific side was made by a great chemist, Liebig. We are now in a position to investigate the problem more minutely, and the work of American physiologists has already led to important results. We have still to learn how materials such as rice and potatoes, which are nearly free from proteids, continue nevertheless to serve as the main diet of large numbers of people. It would seem that the best plan of operations will be for physiologists to settle by the accurate methods now available the precise value of typical foodstuffs, and for the chemist to deal with these in relation to their composition, and finally with reference to the constitution of their constituents. The time has come when an advance must be made from the chemical side in the analytical methods employed for gauging the value of food materials.

I feel that I have said much, but that I have left still more unsaid on many topics. I must leave almost untouched the entire subject of mineral chemistry, which is not only important in connection with the determination of the resources of India and the Colonies, but is also a subject somewhat neglected on its chemical side, which has been recently brought into prominence through the discovery of radio-activity.

The new radio-active mineral thorianite, from Ceylon, of which Mr. Blake and I have given an account to the Royal Society, brings me at once to a subject which raises the most fundamental of chemical questions, the nature of the elements and of the atom. The recent discussions of this subject have become so purely speculative that, whilst chemistry is bound to follow the lead of physics in this matter, chemists are inclined to consider that more well-ascertained facts are needed for any further discussion to be profitable from the chemical side.

In this Address I have ventured to urge the fuller recognition by Government of the scientific method as a powerful instrument in promoting the commercial development of the Colonies, and I have drawn attention to the important part the science of chemistry can play in the Imperial work of developing the resources of our Possessions.

No apology is needed in this place for directing attention to a subject which involves a most important practical application of our science, since one of the principal functions of the British Association is to bring science into close touch with the problems of our national life, and to interest the general public in the application of science to their solution.

I have, however, also shown that many problems of the highest scientific interest arise in connection with the investigation of these economic problems.

NOTES.

A DEPARTMENTAL committee has been appointed by the Home Secretary to inquire and report what diseases and injuries, other than injuries by accident, are due to in dustrial occupations, are distinguishable as such, and can properly be added to the diseases enumerated in the third schedule of the Workmen's Compensation Bill, 1906, so as to entitle to compensation persons who may be affected

thereby. The chairman of the committee is Mr. Herbert Samuel, M.P., and the members are Prof. Clifford Allbutt, F.R.S., Mr. H. H. Cunynghame, C.B., and Dr. T. M. Legge.

THE Paris correspondent of the Times states that a mission to investigate the subject of sleeping sickness is to leave Paris in October next for Brazzaville. The leader of the mission is to be Major Martin, of the French Medical Corps, who has worked at Saigon and at Lille in the Pasteur Institutes, and already had an opportunity in Guinea of studying sleeping sickness. He is to be assisted by Dr. Lebeuf, M. Roubaud, and M. Weiss. After establishing a permanent central laboratory the mission will begin the direct study of the malady up country. Special attention will be paid to the Upper Ubangi region. The mission also intends to combat the small-pox which is decimating French African possessions, but the main object is to fight the tsetse fly by every means that the resources of science can suggest.

In a letter to the Times of Tuesday last, Dr. Hamilton Wright, chairman of the late Port Swettenham Sanitary Commission, directs attention to the successful measures taken to stamp out malaria at Port Swettenham. The port was designed by the Government of the Federated Malay States to replace that of Klang, on the upper tidal reach of the river of the same name. It was jungle-covered, flooded daily by tides, and incident to an average of about 100 inches of rainfall a year. The railway station and bungalows for officials and coolies were on made ground. On the formal opening of the port, Klang was abandoned, and the river closed to sea-going vessels. Severe malaria immediately broke out amongst the officials and coolies employed on the railway and shipping. A commission was at once appointed, composed of medical men, railway and works officials, and instructed to devise measures for the suppression of malaria and otherwise to sanitise the port. The recommendations of the commission involved an outlay of from 10,000l. to 12,000l. The Government, without any hesitation, accepted the recommendations made by the commission; the new port was dyked, drained, levelled, and cleared, the result being that since these sanitary measures were initiated there has been scarcely a case of malaria at the port, and from being an unhealthy, shunned swamp, the port is now sought by officials as a desirable billet.

INFORMATION has reached the British Medical Journal that Dr. W. J. Goodhue, medical superintendent of the Molokai Leper Settlement, has, after several years of research, succeeded in demonstrating the bacillus of leprosy in the mosquito (Culex pungens) and the common bed-bug (Cimex lectularius). Dr. Goodhue expresses the opinion that the bed-bug is more of a factor in the spread of leprosy among the natives than the gnat, for the following reasons, that the bed-bug's invasion is noiseless and occurs during deep sleep of the victim, and secondly, the beds and bedding which have belonged to a leper are after his death or segregation used by his family without adequate disinfection.

We regret to have to announce the death of Sir Alexander Moncrieff, K.C.B., F.R.S. (the inventor of the "disappearing" gun which bears his name), which took place on Friday last at the age of seventy-seven years.

THE Athenaeum announces the death, in his sixtyseventh year, of Prof. G. A. P. Rayet, director of the observatory at Floirac, Bordeaux.

A MONUMENT is to be erected at Brünn to the memory of Mendel, and an international committee has been formed at Vienna to further the object.

Mr. W. Eagle CLARKE has been appointed by the Secretary for Scotland keeper of the natural history collections of the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh, in succession to Dr. R. H. Traquair, F.R.S., who is about to retire.

MR. HENRY REW has been appointed an assistantsecretary to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in succession to Major P. G. Craigie, C.B., who has just retired.

PROF. A. BERGT has been appointed acting director of the Leipzig Museum of Ethnology in place of the late Prof. Obst.

THE following telegram, dated August 2, respecting Dr. Sven Hedin's journey, has been received at Stockholm from the explorer at Leh (Kashmir):-" All well; our journey is most promising; our large, well-equipped caravan of 120 carriers is capital and our men are trustworthy."

ACCORDING to the Museums Journal, the portrait of Dr. A. J. Evans, F.R.S., is to be painted by Sir W. B. Richmond, R.A., and deposited in the Ashmolean Museum, in commemoration of the services rendered to archæology by Dr. Evans. A general committee, representative not only of this country, but of Europe and the United States of America, has been formed to carry out the project.

THE Moxon medal of the Royal College of Physicians of London, which is given every third year, has been awarded to Dr. Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.S.

Ar the concluding meeting of the International Conference on Hybridisation and Plant Breeding on Thursday last, Veitch gold memorial medals were presented to Mr. W. Bateson, F.R.S., the president of the conference, Prof. Johannsen, Prof. Wittmack, and Prof. Maurice de Vilmorin, and silver-gilt Banksian medals to Miss E. R. Saunders, lecturer on botany at Newnham College, and Mr. R. H. Biffen, for eminent services rendered to scientific and practical horticulture. Prof. de Vilmorin, as the representative of the Horticultural Society and the Botanical Society of France, invited the society to hold its next conference at Paris.

THE Bradshaw lecture will be delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on November 6 by Dr. Sharkey, who will take as his subject "Rectal Alimentation "; the FitzPatrick lectures will be given by Dr. Norman Moore on November 8 and 13, and will deal with the " History of the Study of Clinical Medicine in the British Islands"; and the Horace Dobell lecture by Dr. F. W. Andrews, on November 15, will treat of the Evolution of the Streptococci."

THE following courses of lectures have been arranged for by the Royal Sanitary Institute :-one on "Hygiene in its bearing on School Life," beginning on September 17, and a special course on "Food and Meat Inspection," commencing on November 12.

THE International Anti-Tuberculosis Conference will be held at the Hague from September 6-8 next, when the following questions will probably be discussed :-Ways of infection; specific therapeutics; compulsory notification; cost of sanatoria; dispensaries; tuberculosis in children; and education.

THE annual meeting of the American Röntgen Ray Society will take place at Niagara Falls, New York, on August 29, 30, and 31.

AN electrical manufacturers' exhibition is to be held at Bristol in November and December next. The object of the exhibition will be to afford to manufacturers an opportunity of bringing the latest improvements in their various specialities before the notice of electrical contractors and the public generally, and to demonstrate clearly the advantages of electricity for lighting, heating, and motor power purposes.

A DISASTROUS fire broke out in the buildings of the Milan Exhibition on Friday last, causing the destruction of the Italian and Hungarian decorative art sections and of a pavilion of the Italian architecture section. The damage is estimated at 160,000l.

In recent

THE recently issued annual Blue-book respecting the British Museum records a large falling off in the number of visits paid to the Bloomsbury Museum in 1905. years the numbers have been steadily increasing, and in 1904 they reached the large total of 954,441. There has now been a reaction, with a loss of upwards of 140,000, the number for the year being 813,659. The visits paid to the Natural History Museum show, on the other hand, a considerable improvement; thus the total number of visitors last year was 566,313, an increase of 95,756 over the total in 1904 and of nearly 80,000 over that of any previous year. The number of visits recorded as having been made on Sunday afternoons was 70,084, as against 60,909 in 1904. The average daily attendance for all open days during the year was 1560.09; for weekdays only, 1600-73; and for Sunday afternoons, 1322-34. The total number of visits paid during the year to the department of zoology by students and other persons requiring assistance and information amounted to 11,811, as compared with 11,824 in 1904 and 11,627 in 1903.

As a result of the passage of the Bill allowing the production and utilisation of alcohol in America for industrial purposes, without the internal revenue tax, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided to publish a bulletin, from January 1 next, when this law is to take effect, placing before the public a collection of the best obtainable data on the use of alcohol in small engines. For this purpose Prof. Charles E. Lucke has been retained by the department as expert to conduct a protracted series of investigations in the laboratories of Columbia University. The bulletin, says the Scientific American, will contain all available information of the work done on the subject both at home and abroad. It is hoped that all those interested in this question will forward to Prof. Lucke at Columbia University any information of which they may be in possession, or inform him of the location of existing data. Possessors of patents covering inventions bearing upon the subject are invited to provide Prof. Lucke with copies of the same, and if possible to submit their apparatus intended for the utilisation of alcohol, such as vaporisers, carburetters, or complete engines. These will be tested in the most thorough manner, and the experiments will be conducted without any expense whatever to the public, save those entailed for the transportation of the apparatus. The reports of the tests will be published in the bulletin.

instal or make use of any apparatus for wireless telegraphy, or transmit or receive messages by means of any such apparatus within the Sudan except the Department of Telegraphs or a duly authorised officer or official of the Sudan Government, unless such person is in possession of a special licence in writing from the Governor-General.

AT the meeting of the Harvard College Chapter at Cambridge (Mass.) on June 28, the oration was delivered by Prof. E. C. Pickering, director of the college observatory. From the Boston Evening Transcript we learn that Prof. Pickering took as his subject The Aims of an Astronomer," and dealt with it in vigorous style, pleading eloquently for the internationalisation of funds and aims. After describing the evolution of the individual astronomer from the time when his main object is to earn a living to the period when he arrives at the truer and broader aim of increasing the world's store of knowledge, Prof. Pickering outlined his international plan whereby the present overlapping of work and interests would be eliminated and the science of astronomy infinitely benefited. For instance, he suggests that rich men wishing to subsidise astronomical research should exercise as much discretion as they do in the businesses from which they derive their riches in order to place their gifts where the greatest need and the greatest facilities exist. This would entail an international advisory board to administer properly the accumulated fun! without regard to nationality or personal interest. By such proceedings the young and ardent astronomer, the suitably situated observatory, and the men with ideas could be granted the financial help which they now so often lack, and with the assistance of which the progress of astro nomical research could be greatly promoted.

THE acoustical properties of buildings form the subject of two papers, one by Mr. Wallace C. Sabine in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, xlii., 2 (June), and the other by M. Marage in the Comptes rendus bearing the date April 9. Mr. Sabine states that the absorbing power of a room, its furniture and cushions, and of the clothing of the audience, are all capable of numerical determination, and that the time of reverberation of a given sound is also a calculable quantity. An important feature of the paper consisted in a series of experiments undertaken to determine the reverberation best suited to piano music. M. Marage's paper deals with the corresponding conditions with regani to speech. There appears to be a unanimous consensus of musical opinion that a reverberation of about 1-1 seconds is calculated to secure the best effect with a piano, while for speech M. Marage fixes the coefficient at from 05 second to I second for all parts of the room and all vowels A second part of Mr. Sabine's paper-which, by the way, is a sequel to a previous one published in 1900-deals with the effect of pitch on reverberation. It is to be wished that attention were more commonly given to the study acoustical effect; then we might get rid of the boxed-in piano, covered with highly absorbing draperies and jangling ornaments, of the conventional drawing-room. The sounc which this instrument is able to emit under the violent treatment commonly applied to its keyboard are a met travesty of music.

THE difficult problems in statistical mechanics associated with the kinetic theory of gases form the subject of paper of thirty-five pages in the Journal de Physique for June, by Prof. H. Poincaré. The paper is largely a discussion of points suggested by the late Prof. Will Gibbs. For simplification the author considers the case

of a one-dimensional as well as that of a three-dimensional gas, and he is led to the distinction of two kinds of entropy, which he calls coarse and fine entropy (entropie grossière, entropie fine). Account is taken of rapid disturbances in which the gas has not time to assume a state of statistical equilibrium at every instant of the transformation. An allied subject is treated by Dr. W. Peddie in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xxvi., 3. in a paper on vibrating systems which are not subject to the Boltzmann-Maxwell law. Here again systems in one-dimension are considered, a kind of generalised Hooke's law of force being assumed in the test-case under discussion. The inference is drawn that equipartition of energy is not a general property of dynamical systems. It would not be unreasonable to infer that the BoltzmannMaxwell distribution is characteristic of certain definable systems, and therefore is applicable to the explanation of definite phenomena only.

THE meteorological reporter to the Government of India has issued a memorandum (dated June 9) on the abnormal features of the weather of the past half-year, with a forecast of the probable character of the south-west monsoon rains of 1906. Similar forecasts were first made by H. F. Blanford, and were based on the limited information of snowfall reports and the general character of the weather in India immediately preceding the rains. Sir J. Eliot realised that Indian conditions alone were insufficient, and 'n 1894 introduced information from other sources. This work is another instance of the useful application of statistics in attempting to trace the meteorological relations of widely distant regions to which we recently referred. Dr. Walker remarks that "it is certain that the influence of abnormal features over any large region spreads in every direction, and will after some months affect the conditions at very great distances "; he also instances the discovery by Sir Norman and Dr. Lockyer that the oscillations of annual pressure in South America are closely related to those of the Indian Ocean, but inverse in ⚫haracter. Dr. Walker has added considerably to the data employed, and gives very full particulars of the considerations upon which his forecast is framed, the most important features being the heavy and late snowfall, associated with excessive rain both at Zanzibar and Seychelles. On the whole, he thinks that there is reason to expect that the total rainfall will not be appreciably smaller in amount than that of last year, which Considerably below the normal value.

was

CAPTAIN W. S. PATTON, I.M.S., records the occurrence of a parasite in the white corpuscles of the blood of Indian palm squirrels (Funambulus pennantii) (Sc. Mem. Gov. of India, No. 24, 1906). The parasite, which in all probability belongs to the Hæmogregarinidæ, occurs as a long vermiform body, measuring 10 μ in length, lying in the substance of the large mononuclear leucocytes. The majority exhibit slow vermicular movements altering their position in the cells, sometimes lying close to the nucleus, sometimes at right-angles to the nucleus. The nucleus may be compressed or split by the parasite. In some cases free vermicules were seen in the plasma. The parasites were found in the peripheral blood, spleen, and liver. In the louse (an undescribed species of Hæmatopinus) infesting the animals vermicules were met with.

IN the last number of the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology (vol. xl., part iv.) Dr. Gaskell gives a final paper on his views of the origin of vertebrates, which he believes are derived from arthropods. In the present paper, a study of ammocœtes, the origin of the notochord is discussed, and the suggestion is made that it has originated as an accessory digestive tube. The remaining articles are mostly anatomical in character.

ACCORDING to the July issue of its Journal, the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom is extending the investigations which have already been instituted with regard to the distribution of the Channel fauna in the neighbourhood of Plymouth to deeper waters, and it is hoped during the present year to enlarge still further the area of survey. Special attention has been directed to improving the methods of rearing organisms in the laboratory, in regard to which a report is shortly promised. An investigation has also been commenced with regard to the nature of the food of mackerel and pilchard and other migratory fishes frequenting the mouth of the Channel in relation to seasonal changes.

In his report for 1905, Dr. Benham, the curator, states that the Otago University Museum has been enriched by a valuable collection of eggs of New Zealand birds presented by Dr. Fulton, and also by the gift of a large series of ethnological objects from Mr. and Mrs. James Mills. The latter, which are chiefly weapons, are mostly Polynesian, and were collected some five-and-twenty years ago. “THE_Living and Fossil Species of Comptonia " is the title of one of the two articles in the July number of the American Naturalist. According to the author, Mr. E. W. Berry, the genus is represented at the present day only by a single species, which is a low shrub ranging from Nova Scotia to Manitoba, and southwards to Carolina and Tennessee, but the number of extinct forms which have been described is upwards of three score, with an almost cosmopolitan Tertiary distribution. In the second article Mr. C. S. Meads discusses the adaptive modifications of the occipital condyles in mammalian skulls. The basal connection between the two condyles in spiny anteaters is regarded as a direct reptilian inheritance. It is pointed out that there is a very marked difference between the carnivorous and ungulate type of condyles, the latter being much elongated inferiorly, so as to admit of great angulation of the head in relation to the vertebral column, and

subject of an article by Dr. H. Marcus, while Dr. F. Samuely brings to a close his account of recent researches into the chemistry of albumen and their bearing on physiology.

front to the foe.

THE Tertiary lake-basin of Florissant, Colorado, receives a large share of attention in the third number of vol. iii. of the University of Colorado Studies, Mr. J. Hender

370

son dealing with the basin itself, while Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell discusses the fossil fauna and flora of the Florissant shales. A paper on the existing flora of the district, by Dr. F. Ramaley, may be regarded as supplemental to the other two. The Florissant shales, which contain a very rich series of fossils, are apparently later than the well-known Green Rover shales, and may probably be assigned to the Miocene period. "The plants and insects are wonderfully preserved in fine volcanic sand or ash, deposited in layers which readily split apart, revealing the specimens, just as they fell, in prodigious numbers. Green leaves and even branchlets were torn from the trees, and insects perished wholesale in a catastrophe that must have equalled that of Martinique."

a

common

Two new memoirs of the Geological Survey of England and Wales have been received, "The Geology of the Country near Sidmouth and Lyme Regis," by H. B. Woodward and W. A. E. Ussher, and "The Water Supply of Suffolk from Underground Sources, by W. Whitaker, with contributions by Dr. H. F. Parsons, Dr. H. R. Mill, and Dr. J. C. Thresh. The former memoir is explanatory of sheets 326 and 340 of the new series, colour printed, geological maps (1 inch to the mile). It embraces a district that is famous no less for the eminent pioneer geologists who have worked in it than for its intrinsic geological interest. The cliff sections, so well exposed along the coast, are represented by numerous diagrams; there are also some small black-and-white maps and few time-honoured representations of fossils; the frontispiece is a reproduction of one of Sir A. Geikie's vigorous sketches, depicting the Axmouth or Bindon landslip. A short chapter on the local economic geology is done with more care than is usual in these "sheet explanations," and is quite adequate for the purpose. No striking advance appears to have been made with the difficult problem of the correlation of the lower New Red Sandstone series. The Water Supply of Suffolk " is the fourth of the series of county memoirs dealing with this subject. It comprises a brief introduction to the geology, with remarks on the more notable borings, as that at Stutton, and others which record a remarkable thickness of Glacial drift. There is a sketch of the county rainfall with a coloured rainfall map by Dr. H. R. Mill, a series of detailed records of wells and borings, and a number of analyses of Suffolk waters. These water-supply memoirs should be of the greatest value to engineers, builders, and others. We note, for the first time, the free use of the American "geologic " in an English survey memoir; it is to be hoped that in future numbers of the series the practice of inserting maps showing the depth of water-bearing strata may be imported from the same quarter-this would be a much more useful innovation.

66

THE application of artificial manures to forest land has received some attention in Belgium and Germany, the results being sufficiently encouraging to induce Dr. Borthwick to bring the matter to the notice of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society. Besides showing an increase of growth, it has been found that trees on manured soil are stronger and less liable to disease. Dr. Borthwick's address is printed in the Transactions of the Society (vol. xix., part ii.), wherein there appear several papers by Dr. Nisbet, Mr. W. M. Stewart, and Mr. R. Galloway on the advisability and cost of establishing plantations in Great Britain, either as a cooperative undertaking or otherwise. A system is described of combating larch disease by

thinning out the pure larch woods after sixteen or twenty years and planting up with other conifers or beech.

THE Department of Agriculture in the Federated Malay States was initiated in June, 1905, so that the report of the director, Mr. J. B. Carruthers, refers to half a year's work. Mr. Carruthers is continuing his experimental trials, previously started in Ceylon, of protective jungle belts to prevent the spread of fungal and insect pests. Reference is made to the more important products of the States, e.g. rubber, cocoanuts, sugar, and rice. At present the acreage of land planted with cocoanut palms is three times as great as that planted in rubber, but the value of the latter is already greater. On swampy lands it is suggested that nipah and sago palms will yield profitable results.

SIR DIETRICH BRANDIS contributes an account, with illustrations, of some bamboos collected in Martaban to the April and May numbers of the Indian Forester. Allusion is made to the transverse veins and the longitudinal bands of silica cells on bamboo leaves that are both well marked in Pseudostachyum polymorphum. The genera Oxytenanthera and Gigantochloa are characterised by the connate arrangement of the anthers, forming a transparent membranous tube. The rhizomes of a Phyllostachys and Thyrostachys siamensis are converted into walking-sticks and umbrella handles.

A NEW photographic paper has recently been put on the market by the Falla-Gray Photo Paper Co., Ltd., and The special samples have been submitted to us for trial. feature of the paper is that by some preparation of the emulsion it has been found possible to give a film which can be satisfactorily fixed by an immersion of only one minute in the hypo bath, and as satisfactorily washed in five minutes after fixing. It is claimed that this great saving of time is not obtained at any expense of the peris manency of the prints. In actual working the paper similar to the general type of gaslight paper, the image appearing quickly and rapidly acquiring full density. With the developer recommended, a rather strong combination of metol and hydroquinone, excellent toned greys and blacks appear to be easily obtained, while the semi-glossy surface is well adapted to give all the detail that may be required for reproduction purposes. The paper should prove useful for Press purposes, where fine gradation and speed of production are specially necessary, while to the ordinary worker it will be recommended by its full range of tones and adaptability to most kinds of negatives by variations of exposure.

1904-5.

THE eleventh "Annual of the British School at Athens has been issued by Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Ltd; it describes the work accomplished during the session Dr. A. J. Evans, F.R.S., contributes a provisional report on the excavations during the year at the palace of Knossos and its dependencies; there are five articles on Laconia concerned respectively with the excavations near Angelona, the excavations, sculptures and inscriptions of Geraki, the excavations and inscriptions of Thalamae, a note on the 'puai on the north-east frontier, and the Frankish sculptures at Parori and Geraki. The assistant-director of the school, Mr. M. N. Tod, describes inscriptions from Eumeneia, and there are in addition nearly a dozen other well-illustrated contributions, making up with the sixteen plates an admirable and interesting volume.

AN interesting pamphlet on the development of the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery has been written by Mr W. R. Barker, chairman of the Museum and Art Gallery