摘要:

ClHE nineteenth century was known as the T' steel ' age. Attempts to find a word to describe the present age have not succeeded. 'Chemical,' ' wireless,' and ' flying' are adjectives which prejudge the issue of the fierce rivalry between chemists, physicists, biologists, psychologists, engineers to leave an impress on their day and generation. Pending a decision, it is safe to suggest that the present age is an age of 'surprises.' The War itself was a surprise-its outbreak to Great Britain, its result to our enemies; and many of the surprises which have followed that event with bewildering profusion are attributable to the War. We shall find a good example in the history of the ' trustification' of industry. Had anybody predicted before the War that the present year of grace would see the promotion of a great chemical combine-the Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd.-with a nominal capital of £65,000,000, he would have been advised to consult a mental specialist. In the years preceding the War, the United States, under special legislation, was ruthlessly suppressing its powerful trusts as inimical to the public welfare. Is it possible that the stone which the American builder rejected should become the corner-stone of the British economic temple? There were a few trusts in Great Britain before the War, together with their by-product in the form of millionaires-a few only, and these, unable to establish a monopoly, provoked no strong public opposition. To tell the truth, these trusts showed no disposition to grind unduly the faces of the poor. An occasional newspaper war regarding the price of soap or sewing-cotton served its immediate purpose of increasing the circulation of the newspaper, and may incidentally have reminded the manufacturer that there is a limit to the exploitation of the consumer. But the public at large showed no great interest in such questions, or indeed in kindred questions vitally affecting the public safety. As to the chemical industries, how many foresaw the importance these industries would assume in the prosecution of the War ? It was known that the 'heavy chemical' industries were prosperous, but the dye industry, based on the discovery of an English chemist, had virtually acknowledged defeat. Some eighty per cent. of the dyes used in Great Britain before the War were imported from abroad, mainly from Germany."Trusts," says a well-known encyclopaedia in the opening words of its article on this subject, " are large business organisations which aim at restricting or eliminating competition." In relation to the conditions, national and international, obtaining to-day, this definition is obviously partial and strabismal. Possibly it is the work of one of those economists whose predictions, as a speaker said at the British Association meeting last year, are generally falsified by events. We are asked to imagine an idyllic scene in which two competing manufacturers producing the same article, one to sell at 2d. per lb. and the other at 21d. per lb., decide to 'combine' and sell their total product at 2Id. per lb. The position which the coal industry, the chemical industry, and other great British industries are facing to-day is more complex. " Amalgamations," says Sir Alfred Mond, the evangelist of the new economic gospel, " mean progress, economy, strength, prosperity." They are the bulwarks of defence for which the whole community has been patiently waiting, " offensive weapons against those enemies at home and abroad who are attacking insistently and insidiously the fortress of the national fortunes." In cold truth we are entering on an economic war which will lead to the extinction of the less strong and efficient nations. This war will be fought out by large-scale and highly organised units; and the form of organisation ensuring the maximum of financial strength and stability, the minimum of duplication of plant and service, the concentration of the best brains available on the real problems of industry, the most effective methods of promoting scientific research and the application of scientific discoveries, will win the day. Already the amateur company director is beginning to spell out the writing on the wall, and scientific workers are at long last seeing their value appreciated by the industrialist. The question whether, in making our plans for this economic war, we are pursuing the best policy, tactical and strategical, is of direct and vital interest to every citizen.This question has innumerable aspects, and some of these cannot appropriately be discussed in detail in a scientific journal. Political influences are obviously of the highest importance-not in the narrow sense of the form of government, Tory or Labour, which may happen to be in power at any particular moment. Direct and indirect government aid to scientific research, diplomatic and consular services, factory and patent legislation, monetary system, trade union regulation, health and unemployment insurance, and a hundred other influences are at work, promoting or hindering the progress of industry. Our educational organisation is a powerful influence both in raising the general average of intelligence and in selecting and training those 'captains of industry' whose silent moves on the chequer boards of manufacture and commerce may lead to disaster or victory. Industrial psychology is a new and important science, and 'the human factor' in industry will have to receive increasing attention. But labour difficulties have not caused serious trouble in the scientific industries -a good sign and omen. The loss of the dye industry before the War, to which reference has been made, affords a good illustration of the working of some of these influences. It is a twice-told tale reflecting no great credit on our Victorian forbears. Dr. Herbert Levinstein says:" If after the Franco-Prussian war laissez-faire had not been the policy of the State, a very different position would have resulted in this country. If the State had provided duty-free spirit on terms comparable to those enjoyed abroad; protection for inventions, and prohibition of import of dyes manufactured abroad; information concerning foreign products, and, above all, an assurance of a benevolent interest in the industry; do you think that Perkin and Nicholson would have left ? " The official apology of the British Dyestuffs Corporation harps on the same string and strikes a new note in pointing to the lack of systematic research and of facilities for training organic chemists. Our ancient universities, content in producing educated men of a particular type, adopted an attitude of indifference, or even of scorn, to the public demand for scientific education. The Governmient, dimly recognising the public need, did a useful service in establishing the Royal College of Science. But Hofmann, one of the most distinguished professors of that college, inspirer of those researches of Perkin which laid the foundation of the dye industry, was attracted back to Berlin, after the death of the Prince Consort; his companions followed him, and took with them much of the expert knowledge of aniline dyes. Ambassador Walter Page, in one of those illuminating letters written during the War to President Woodrow Wilson, which have raised our respect and affection for the United States, referred to some things which the Allies would do in "the war after the War." The Germans, he wroue, had used commercial and financial methods in England, and in Russia in particular, which were unmoral if not immoral--methods which might have been taken out of the book of a decade or so about the Standard Oil Company." They 'dumped,' and killed competition by starving out competitors. They conducted systems of commercial espionage, etc. etc. etc. The English were slow to detect these things, and sluggish to move against them. 'They will be neither slow to see nor sluggish to act for some time after the War. They will try, too, to prevent dependence on Germany for dvestuffs and other monopolised articles."This prediction has been verified. Forming part of a great combine of the chemical industries, the British dye industry, a key indstry as the War has shown, will be able to play a worthy part in "the war after the War." Adequate finance is not, however, the only advantage which the new trust will offer to the dye industry. Of special interest, fully recognised by the promoters of the trust, is the question whether it will be possible to improve methods and results in scientific research. The record of the constituent companies in this respect is creditable enough, and the work they accomplished during the War earned the gratitude of the nation. But combination must tend towards greater economy and greater efficiency. Industrial research, as Dr. Levinstein has pointed out, can only be successfully conducted by great organisations. The expense of a scientific staff is too great to be borne by the average manufacturing concern of moderate size." There is nothing so unprofitable," he says, "as employing a number of chemists who either have not the knack of discovering things for you, or who discover things for you that you have not got sufficient technical ability to work on a large scale, or for which vou have not sufficient discernment to find a market." The inventive chemist is generally a pure research chemist without knowledge of or interest in large-scale production. Are we not disposed to overlook the high and difficult character of the scientific, technical, and engineering work which transmutes the laboratory product into an article of commerce ? For example, the combination of nitrogen and hydrogen under high pressure in the presence of a catalyst to produce ammonia was a reaction of academic interest until Haber pointed out to the Badische Company that the cost aspect would be altered if the ammonia could be separated from the compressed gases without the pressure being released. Even so, the working out of the process was a colossal undertaking, so complicated that Dr. Levinstein suggests that no firm in Great Britain could at the time have adopted the idea. We have good reason to know and to remember how the process enabled Germany to prolong the War by rendering that country independent of supplies of Chile saltpetre; and we have good reason also to be grateful for the enterprise of Messrs. Brunner, Mond and Co., who have overcome the technical difficulties and established at Billingham the synthetic nitrogen industry-an industry which will literally change the face of the earth, making the desert places smile and rejoice. The modern chemist can call spirits from the vasty deep."Why, so can I; or so can any man: But will they come, when you do call for them ?" What is the chemist's reply to this searching Shakespearian question ? He selects a very inert element in the air and turns it into manna to feed the multitude. In some instances, science is able to supersede natural processes. The synthesis of indigo by the Germans, one of the greatest triumphs of industrial chemistry, the result of prolonged and expensive scientific research, has thrown thousands of acres out of cultivation. Artificial silk has caused the silkworm 'to go out of business.' The men of science who work these miracles derive no stimulus from the lash of competition. By pooling our resources, spiritual and material, we may hope to obtain the best results and to compete on even terms with other highly organised nations. We come, finally, to an aspect of the question on which Sir Alfred Mond rightly lays stress-the question of national psychology. We are suffering, he says, from the people who are always sitting round with the 'No' complex; people who dedicate their intellects to the congenial task of creating difficulties and objections to every proposed development; people who themselves achieve nothing except to hold up the march of progress of nations and industries. The only real advantage which America has over us, he suggests, is that the Americans welcome new ideas and are always ready to give them a trial. " You want more people with the 'Yes' complex," he says. "There is no room for the 'No' people: they must get out of the way or it will be a serious thing for this country." We have the men, the money, the material. " I am not in the least impressed," Sir Alfred Mond says, " with the technical superiority of any other people in the world." There are no abler chemists or engineers to be found; and our working men are " extraordinarily adaptable, highly skilled, and well trained." No miracle is required, no new dispensation from Heaven, to keep Great Britain in the forefront of industrial nations-only common sense, energy, and the spirit of research.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119149a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

THE preface to the first edition of Sir Thomas TI-Heath's translation of Euclid's " Elements " begins with the following quotation from De Morgan: "There never has been, and until we see it we never shall believe that there can be, a system of geometry worthy of the name, which has any material departures (we do not speak of corrections or extensions or developments) from the plan laid down by Euclid." In 1908, when that edition appeared, the movement in favour of a textbook for schools that discarded Ethclid's order and proofs was in full vigour, and, in reference to that movement, Sir Thomas Heath contented himself with saying: " It is, perhaps, too early yet to prophesy what will be the ultimate outcome of the new order of things; but it would at least seem possible that history will repeat itself and that, when chaos has again come into geometrical teaching, there will be a return to Euclid more or less complete for the purpose of standardising it once more." The possibility suggested in 1908 may be asserted in 1927 as a probability, if not indeed a certainty. Among the many text-books that have appeared in recent years-and some of these have many excellent features-there is none that could possibly have induced De Morgan to change one word of the sentence quoted above. The revolt inaugurated by Ramus in the sixteenth century against the Euclidean system and in favour of the admission of many theorems as ' obvious ' has its counterpart in recent times, and there are many signs that the inadequacy of the new system is being felt as decidedly now as in the earlier period. But whether there is to be a return to Euclid, more or less complete, or a continuance of the wider liberty prevailing at present, it is very desirable, indeed essential, that all who have charge of the teaching of geometry should make a real study of the development of the science, especially in its early stages, and its reduction to an ordered system in the writings of Euclid. Probably few, if any, desire a return to Euclid simpliciter, but, whatever be the attitude to Euclid's " Elements " as a text-book, it is quite impossible to form an adequate appreciation of the influence of mathematics on modern thought without a careful study of the Greek geometry; for such a study there is no better basis than these volumes of Sir Thomas Heath.It is a tribute to the excellence of the first edition that, while numerous changes have been made in the second, chiefly due to the new knowledge gained in recent researches, these changes are comparatively small; but the revision has been very thorough, and many passages have been rewritten. The paging, however, has been preserved, so that the page-reference to any proposition is the same for both editions. Two new excursuses are appended to the first volume. The first of these is on " Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans," and discusses at greater length certain views that had been dealt with in the notes to Euclid I. 47; the second bears the title " Popular Names for Euclidean Propositions," the names being: Pons Asinorum, Elefuga, The Theorem of the Bride, The Bride's Chair, Dulcarnon, Francisci Tunica, Goose's Foot (Pes anseris), and Peacock-'s Tail (Cauda pavonis). Those to whom any of these names is unknown may be amused by trying to find a proposition that fits it. Euclid was not the first to write a treatise on geometry, and doubtless many theorems were known and applied before any proof of them was systematically attempted. Unfortunately, the character of the early proofs is to a very considerable extent a matter of guess-work. The very excellence of Euclid's " Elements " swept away such earlier treatises as existed, and such inforrmation as we have of them must be extracted from later commentators; even these are chiefly known through Proclus, whose commentary on the first book of Euclid is thus of fundamental importance in the history of mathematics. If the text of. Proclus is trustworthy, it is hard to believe that he was an able geometer, but he was a well-trained philosopher, and, we may assume, was familiar with the philosophical principles that lay at the basis of theoretical geometry. Be that as it may, it is on Proclus more than any other single writer that we are dependent for our knowledge of the conditions under which Euclid worked.In the introductory chapters of vol. 1, Sir Thomas Heath gives a most illuminating discussion of the bearing on Euclid's system of the philosophical conceptions of the period antecedent to the composition of the treatise. Accurate scholarship, wide knowledge, and, of equal importance, calm and restrained judgment, mark the treatment of a subject that has been too often the occasion for rash assertions. A study of these chapters throws a strong light on the difficulties that are involved in the passage from ' practical geometry' to geometry as a science, and proves the practical sagacity as well as the mathematical ability of the writer of the " Elements." Euclid was no mere redactor; it may be, and probably is, the case that now and again he had not the courage to discard older statements, but it demanded genius of a high order to reduce the loose and vague generalities of earlier treatises to a system that is at once comprehensive and logically compact. It is impossible to discuss these volumes in detail, but it may be said that to almost every proposition interesting notes are appended that, in their totality, form an excellent introduction to the history of geometry; the numerous references, if followed up, would form a fascinating study and do much to make the geometry lessons more interesting to pupil and teacher alike. The inelusion of Euclid's arithmetical books is specially welcome, and one may express the hope that the tenth and thirteenth books may now become something more than names to all who are interested in geometry; nowhere is Euclid's genius better seen than in these books. But the most ardent adherent of Euclid would scarcely object to the simplification that is introduced by modern symbolism in an elementary treatment of the constructions in Book XIII.It is almost impossible to praise too highly the selection from the overwhelming material with which Sir Thomas Heath had to deal or the luminous exposition of many difficult topics; his mastery of English is nowhere better shown than in the translation of the text, where the flavour of the original is never lost, and yet due respect is paid. to the English idiom. The only caveat I would make is that, at times, there is a tendency to read too much into the Greek texts. For example, I find it impossible to assent to the statement (vol. 1, p. 220) that Playfair's postulate " is distinctly stated in Proclus' note to Euci. I. 31." It is one thing to prove that, with Euclid's postulate, there is only one parallel through a given point to a given straight line (and this seems to me to be at most what Proclus does); it is quite a different thing to reverse the process, and this is the essence of Playfair's procedure. Playfair, of course, does not claim the credit of the axiom; he says that the axiom " has been assumed by others, particularly by Ludlam." Who are the others i I do not know, but Playfair's discussion seems to show that he at least did not see it in Proclus. There are other cases in which I think too much is read into the older treatises, but, after all, these considerations are largely matter of opinion, and the debt which mathematicians owe to Sir Thomas Heath is too great to justify more than a passing reference.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119152a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

N December 19, 1925, Carl Schroter, still t0 " Professor der Botanik an der Eidgenbssischen Technischen Hochschule in Zurich," celebrated his seventieth birthday. A Festschrift of 811 pages, containing an account of Schroter's life and work by Ribel, a former student and present colleague, and forty-nine original articles by botanists of some thirteen nationalities, was published in honour of the occasion. The influence of Carl Schr6ter has been great, not only on the institution in which he was first a student and afterwards professor for forty-two years, but also on the development of Swiss botany in general. Since 1882 his chief interest has been ecological plant geography, a study to which he was attracted by a perusal of Christ's " Pflanzenleben der Schweiz," and Kerner's " Pflanzenleben." His influence on the subject to which he has devoted his life can be compared with that of Schimper and Warming. He has been an indefatigable investigator, a mere list of his publications occupying some thirteen pages of the Festschrift. His published researches, independent or in collaboration, include many important studies on the vegetation of Swiss grasslands, moorlands, and lakes, while his extensive knowledge of alpine plants is summed up in his well-known " Pflanzenleben der Alpen," now in its second edition.Schr6ter's influence, however, has been due even more to his personality as a man and a teacher than to his writings. Above all, he is intensely human. Tansley, in his article in the Festschrift, refers to " the distinguished and beloved founder of the Zurich school, who has contributed so much by example and personality to international understanding and co-operation." The secret of his success in this respect may be summed up in the words of Riibel, " Fur ihn liegt der Zweck des Lebens im Geben." In the lecture room, laboratory, and not least in the field, Schrdter always gave of his best to his students, and in return received from them unswerving loyalty and devotion. Thanks to Schrbter's inspiring leadership, the Zurich school of plant geography (or that branch of it known as plant sociology) is now one of the most active centres in the world for the study of natural vegetation. Schrtter's keen love of Nature led him to take a most active part in the Nature Reserve movement. He was one of the founders of the magnificent Swiss National Park, on which he contributed an article to NATURE (vol. 112, p. 478, 1923), and he selected it in April of last year as the subject of his Hooker lecture to the Linnean Society of London. His reverence for Nature was brought home to me some years ago as he and I stood together near the Kleine Scheidegg. Glancing from the Jungfrau and the Mbnch, bathed in sunshine, to the modern hotels in the foreground, Schrdter exclaimed with intense feeling, " It is a desecration."In the pursuit of his ecological studies Scbrbter has travelled widely. From the first he made field excursions a special feature of his botanical teaching. Zurich students are fortunate in having the Alps, " The Playground of Europe," at their very doors. But sometimes more distant excursions, for example, to Corsica or Algeria, are organised. In this respect British botanical schools have hitherto been less enterprising than the Swiss and some American schools. Schrdter himself has visited many parts of Europe, the Sahara, the Canary Islands, the United States, and in 1898-99 travelled round the world. Even now, in his seventy-first year, he is absent on a year's journey to South Africa, India, and the Far East. It is impossible within the limits of a review to do more than indicate something of the scope of a few of the articles contributed to the Festschrift by botanists of many lands. The articles are grouped into eight sections according to subjects.In the first section are fifteen papers dealing with Alpine and Arctic vegetation. Rflbel (Zurich) shows that many of the plants of high Alpine meadows hibernate under deep snow in a green condition. Evergreen meadows are not confined to the lowlands. Du Rietz' (Upsala) work on the altitudinal ranges of plants of northern Lapland appears to suggest that edaphically indifferent common species may be important as indicators of climate. Rikli (Zfirich) resolves the Alpine-Arctic flora into elements derived from various distributional centres, and discusses probable routes of migration. Flahault (Montpellier) gives a general account of wind and snow as ecological factors. He instances cases of young conifers buried under winter snow being killed, not by cold, but by asphyxiation brought about by overlying layers of snow and ice. The second section (nine papers) is devoted to extra-Alpine vegetation. Tanfiljef (Odessa) describes the natural alluvial meadows (Auen) of Russia. Much of the grassland of western Europe is at best only semi-natural, but true natural meadows occur in river valleys in east Europe and Siberia. The treelessness of the valley meadows of northern Russia is attributed to the prolonged waterlogging of the soil, and to the velocity of the ice-covered rivers, when the melting snow floods the valleys in springtime. Morton (Vienna) discusses the flora of caves from the physiological viewpoint. Blue-green and green algae in particular are extremely tolerant of shade, some retaining their chlorophyll after years of cultivation in darkness. " The Structure of Woodlands " by Salisbury (London) deals with the stratification of woodland vegetation in relation to gradients of atmospheric and soil conditions. Four types of undergrowth species are distinguished, according to the time of development and duration of the assimilating organs. MacDougal (Arizona) describes the rapid changes in vegetation of an area adjacent to the Gulf of California, consequent on draining and increasing salinity. Podpera (Briunn), in a paper on the origin of present-day European forests, groups Eurasian forests into Tertiary forests, Relict forests, the Eurasian Taiga and the dwarf forests of high mountains and Tundra. Miocene aridity and Pleistocene glaciation have profoundly modified the original Tertiary forests. Tansley (Cambridge) analyses the vegetation of the English Chalk. He emphasises the important point, ignored in the early days of ecology, that vegetation cannot be understood unless it is investigated from the developmental point of view as well as from that of habitat factors.The third section of the book contains four papers by Pavillard (Montpellier), Chodat (Geneva), and others, on phyto-plankton. The fourth part has five papers on phytopalaeontology and historical plant geography. Neuweiler (Zurich), from evidence afforded by fossil woods, concludes that from Palkeolithic to Roman times the Swiss forests north of the Alps contained 82-3 per cent. of deciduous trees, and only 17-7 per cent. of conifers. He criticises, quite justly, statistics based on the modern pollen analyses of peat. Herzog (Munich) finds, in a study of the geographical relations of the mosses of south Brazil, strong support for the hypothesis of Wegener and others, that the continents of Africa and South America were formerly continuous. Section 5, on systematic botany and genetics, contains one short paper by de Vries (Holland) on the quest for the origin of species, and five other papers.Under the heading " Soziologische Begriffe " (Section 6) are four papers, two of which deal with the struggle for existence amongst plants. Cajander (Helsingfors) adduces convincing evidence that the limits of natural distributional ranges of species. The sharpness of the boundaries of particular plant communities, as well as the definite structure of these communities, are largely determined, in the last resort, not by climate or soil, but by the mutual struggle for -existence. Yapp (Birmingham) analyses the probable inter-relationships of plants in vegetation, and introduces the new concept of ' priority ' as distinct from competition. Priority amongst plants is the passive interception of supplies of a necessity by an organism which is more favourably situated than another. Section 7 on anatomy and physiology contains one paper by Jaccard (Zurich) on the weeping ash, and the final part (Section 8), five papers on economic botany.From this brief resume it will be seen that most of the papers have a direct or indirect bearing on the comprehensive subject of plant geography. Many reach a high level of importance, and not a few are concerned more with general principles than with details. The volume distinctly enriches the literature of plant geography. It has been well edited by Brockmann-Jerosch on behalf of the Schroter-Jubilium-Komitee, and is well printed and illustrated. The Festschrift forms a sincere and fitting tribute to a singularly winning personality.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119153a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

IT is difficult for a wireless worker of to-day, 1 who has been trained along modern lines, to realise how much precision has been introduced into his subject by the development of the thermionic valve. Important radio measurements were made in pre-War days, but in every case strong signals had to be used. The difficulties were largely due to the relative insensitivity of the instruments available for the measurement of high-frequency currents and potentials. But this, of course, did not prevent the pioneers of those days from making the very best use of the instruments at their disposal, and more than twenty years ago Duddell and Taylor, in a classical series of experiments, laid the foundations of the subject of signal measurement by studying the falling-off of signal intensity with increase of distance from a radio transmitter. In these experiments the high-frequency currents produced in a receiving antenna were measured directly with a Duddell thermogalvanometer. Although audible signals were detectable at much greater distances, quantitative observations were possible only up to a distance of 80 miles. In signal strength measurements over long distances, subjective methods involving audibility comparisons had to be used which were not very trustworthy. The development of the thermionic valve has changed all this. It has supplied us with transmitters of elctric waves which are remarkably constant in amplitude and frequency. It has made possible the building of stable amplifiers by means of which small oscillatory currents and potentials may be magnified to suffcient volume to affect our alternating current measuring instruments. Finally, in the tube itself we have a high-frequency volmeter of precision.The absence of a comprehensive account of the methods and devices now at the disposal of the wireless engineer and research worker has been felt for some years, and we are grateful to Mr. Moullin for undertaking the task of writing one. His work cannot have been easy. The setting-up of a wireless set, to receive signals, is easy, as every schoolboy knows, but once the word 'measurement' is introduced in connexion with high-frequency phenomena, difficulties begin to appear. None of these difficulties has been shirked by Mr. Moullin. Throughout his volume the physical principles are clearly interpreted, and every page bears witness to his wide experience in dealing with students' difficulties. As an example of this we may quote the practical details and advice he gives concerning the use of low-power valve generators for laboratory experiments. The instructions he gives for designing, setting-up, and adjusting for maximum output a valve generator to meet given requirements could scarcely have been improved. The older books on wireless telegraphy have dealt with measurements of high-frequency resistance, capacity, and inductance, but Mr. Moullin has much to say that is new. In the sections on the measurement of frequency and of signal intensity all the newer methods are given, including an account of Mr. Dye's very important work on the multi-vibrateur. In view of the importance of the use of quartz crystals as frequency controllers in a wireless spectrum already crowded, it is unfortunate that the work of the same author on this subject was published too late to be included.There is no doubt that Mr. Moullin's book will be widely read by wireless engineers, but we must very reluctantly point out that the price of the volume is too high for it to be used as a text-book in university classes and thus assist in missionary work among the younger generation of physicists.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119155a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

THE subject matter of this little volume is indicated by its title and does not follow any very novel path. The work referred to is mainly transAtlantic and its presentation suffers somewhat from the fact that more than a year has elapsed between the delivery of the lectures and their publication. About one-third of the book is devoted to the subject of oxidation, in which the author develops the theory that oxidation is a loss of one or more electrons, and reduction, correspondingly, their gain, by atoms or ions of the molecules taking part in the reaction; in this connexion reference is made to glutathione. Among other applications of chemical or physicochemical principles to medical problems to which reference is made, are the conditions necessary for the deposition of calcium phosphate in bone and the study of blood as a physico-chemical system. In the earlier part of the book the author reviews the progress made in preparing synthetic drugs for therapeutic purposes and in isolating the active principles of the internal secretory glands of the body. Among the substances mentioned were noticed ethylene as an aniesthetic, certain of the arsenical derivatives and dyes used clinically, the secretions of the pancreas, pituitary gland, and ovary, and the isolation of purified principles from antibacterial sera.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119156b0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

DR. CHREE'S letter in NATURE of Jan. 15 alludes to the names which might be associated with that upper portion of the atmosphere the aid of which is so often invoked to account for many of the facts of wireless telegraphy. May I explain why I happened to choose the name “Heaviside layer” some sixteen years ago?In the spring of 1902 I was writing from time to time on wireless telegraphy in the pages of the Electrician, and one day Mr. Tremlett Carter, the editor, showed me a letter from Mr. Oliver Heaviside which, while discussing other things, asked if the recent success of Mr. Marconi in telegraphing from Cornwall to Newfoundland might not be due to the presence of a permanently conducting upper layer in the atmosphere. I believe this letter was shown to various friends of the editor, but I think it was not published. The substance of the suggestion was repeated by Heaviside in his article in the new edition of the " Encyclopoedia Britannica " which appeared in America and in England in 1902. The suggestion was gradually approved during the years that followed; and about 1910 1 used the convenient name ' Heaviside layer' in a paper, to indicate the portion of the atmosphere that functions so usefully for the purposes of wireless telegraphy. The existence of a conducting stratum in the atmosphere, and the probable connexion of the stratum with the aurora, must have been surmised by every observer of electric discharge in rarefied gases even before the date of Cavendish; and as Dr. Chree points out, Balfour Stewart suggested that a conducting layer might have to do with certain variations of the magnetic elements. Schuster, I believe, first gave definiteness and substance to this suggestion. Later, G. F. Fitzgerald calculated the period of electric oscillation of the earth supposed surrounded by a sharply defined conducting layer in the upper atmosphere, thus for the first time introducing the conception of a relationship between electric waves and an upper layer. But, so far as I know, there is as yet no evidence that the auroral layer is the same as the Balfour Stewart or Schuster layer, or that this is the same as the Fitzgerald layer, or that any of them are the same as the physically present layer called for convenience the Heaviside layer. Therefore it seems to me that to call the wireless layer by the name of Cavendish or Balfour Stewart or Schuster, or even Fitzgerald, would assume too much. Why not let well alone until there is proof that the Heaviside layer is the same thing as one or other of the hypothetical layers ?May I take this opportunity of referring to another matter. I wish to urge that full advantage should be taken of the solar eclipse next June for learning more about the Heaviside layer. The map given in Dr. Lockyer's excellent article in NATURE of Jan. 15, leads one to suggest that a wireless transmitting station near London and another in the north of Scotland should be devoted to transmitting signals continually throughout the eclipse period, so that receiving stations scattered about Great Britain might observe the intensity of signals which have crossed the path of the moon's shadow. Galvanometric measurements of a continuous stream of waves from the transmitters would be the ideal type of observation; but aural observations of the intensity of a code signal, if the time of each observation were accurately registered, would also be valuable. In the latter case the method devised by the British Association Committee for use in 1914 may be recalled. Each transmitting station-one in Russia, one in France, and one in Ireland-was assigned a sequence of Morse letters for continuous transmission, the sequence of letters being such that no succession was ever repeated. A chronographic record of the transmitted sequence was to be made at each transmitting station, and observers had no other task than to write down the letters heard, heavily when the signals were strong, lightly when they were weak.It was hoped that analysis and comparison of the records would show the effect of the shadow cone on waves passing through it; but the War came, and the organisation which had been built up for making observations throughout Europe immediately collapsed. Would it be possible, on the occasion now approaching, to arrange similar wide-spread European observations of signals proceeding from a special station in the north of Scotland ? Indeed, if short waves were used, observations at a number of selected distant points of the globe would probably yield highly interesting resu

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119157a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

PROF. ELLIOT SMITH has done good service in publishing Prof. Netolitzky's letter in NATURE of Jan. 15, for many must have been puzzled by the discrepancy between the statements made in 1911, and have not had the advantage of the private information with which Elliot Smith very kindly provided me. Frau Hedwig Gherasim's paper has definitely established that barley, and not wheat, was the food eaten at their last meals by the pre-dynastic people of Naga-ed-Dêr, the contents of whose stomachs had been sent to her for examination. To say, however, that this discovery “definitely establishes the fact that the pre-dynastic people did not eat wheat,” is more than the facts available warrant.That barley was used, and presumably cultivated, by the pre-dynastic folk of Naga-ed-Der at an early period is quite clear, though precisely how early must remain undetermined until there appears the full report of the excavation of Cemetery 7000, with details of the grave contents. As this was explored in 1901 this publication is long overdue. It has generally been thought that wild barley, Hordeum spontaneum, did not grow in Egypt, and no actual occurrence of this plant has been reported. I: am indebted, however, to my friend Dr. 0. Stapf for the information that during the closing decade of the nineteenth century it was reported from two sites in Tripoli. It is probable, therefore, that at an earlier date it grew also in the north of Egypt. I should be glad, however, to learn the evidence on which Elliot Smith bases his statement that barley is found wild in the regions to the south and east of Egypt. We can well believe, therefore, that wild barley was brought under cultivation by people living oh the banks of the Nile or at the edge of the Delta. Whether they were the only people thus to cultivate wild barley, still more the first to do so, must remain for the present a matter of uncertainty.Evidence of the occurrence of wheat before the time of King Sahure has been accumulating of late years. In the tomb of Zer, the third king of the first dynasty, Petrie found a carving in wood of an ear, which was at the time described as of 'bearded barley.' It is now accepted by all grain experts as being an excellent representation of an ear of Emmer (T. dicoccum). But wheat was known, too, in pre-dynastic times. It is true that the grain found by Legrain and Lampre with a contracted burial between Kawamil and Silsileh, and claimed by them to be Emmer, has been declared by Schultz to be barley, but in the winter of 1912-13 Prof. Peet found at Abydos a range of large pots which had been used for drying grain, and he pronounced them to be undoubtedly of pre-dynastic date. In these were small caked masses of carbonised grain. Some of these grains were examined by Prof. Harvey Gibson, who found them to be wheat (T. vulgare). Near by a similar series of pots were found, but containing no grain; these, however, held sherds of decorated pottery belonging to the Middle Pre-dynastic Period. One may, perhaps, question the identification of this grain as T. vulgare. All the grains from Dynastic Egypt so far found have been Emmer, or members of the dicoccum group. So far as we know, T. vdlgare first made its appearance in Egypt in Roman times. It is by no means easy for one who is not a grain specialist to distinguish between 1'. vulgare and fT. dicoccum in the carbonised state, but Prof. Harvey Gibson is too good a botanist to have mistaken barley for wheat. It is very desirable, however, that this carbonised sample should be submitted to grain experts for determination.It would appear, then, that during the Middle Predynastic Period, wheat of some kind, almost certainly 1'. dicoccum, was cultivated at Abydos. Yet no one has claimed wheat as native to Egypt. The distribution of wild Emmer, T. dicoccoides, is fairly well established; it ranges from Mount Hermon in Syria to the mountains of Moab. A single plant was found by Strauss in the Zagros mountains between Bagdad and Kermanshah. It would seem, therefore, that wheat and the practice of cultivating it must have been introduced from Asia. May not the cultivation of barley have been similarly introduced, for wild barley has a wider distribution in Asia than in Africa ? I have not yet seen Prof. Breasted's new book, but the passage quoted by Elliot Smith is rather surprising. The tablets he refers to are evidently the Nippur tablets and the Weld-Blundell prism. When publishing the latter, Langdon deduced from it that the date of the first dynasty of Ur was about 4000 B.C., though at the last moment in the preface he reduced this by fifty-six years. If from the same source Prof. Breasted deduces that the date of this dynasty is about 2900 B.C., it is clear that these tablets do not determine the maximum age of the earliest written documents with precision. The difference of more than a thousand years is not negligible.It is quite likely that the second layer at Susa is contemporary with the first dynasty of Ur. The lowest layer, which contained the painted pottery, was succeeded by another layer containing a different type of ware, and this again by a sterile layer, 1 to 2 metres in thickness, before the layer known as Susa II. was deposited. How long it would take for such a thickness of soil to accumulate on an unoccupied hillock it is impossible to compute, but it is clear that the people of Susa I., who were cultivators of grain, lived very long before the first dynasty of Ur. One sentence in Elliot Smith's letter has somewhat surprised me: " We know that people lived in Egypt at this time, many centuries before the metal copper was known." It is usually conceded that copper objects occur, rarely it is true, in the very earliest predynastic graves; moreover, Brunton has told us that in graves of the Badarian culture, which are earlier still, he found beads made of narrow copper ribbon and a stout copper pin or borer.I should like to explain that the reason why the facts adduced by Elliot Smith relating to the early use of barley were not mentioned in recent discussions at meetings of the British Association and at the Royal Anthropological Institute was not that they were unknown to many of those present, but that both discussions were confined to the early cultivation of wheat in Egypt, and the question of barley did not arise. I trust, however, that these few lines, giving items of information apparently not very well known, may help to remove some of the widespread misunderstanding of which Elliot Smith quite rightly complains. I hope to deal with the question more fully at the Royal Anthropological Institute next

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119158a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

ON returning from a holiday, my attention has been directed to an attack upon my book “The Physiology of the Continuity of Life,” which appeared in NATURE on Dec. 25.Fortunately an author is not expected to defend himself from criticism, just or unjust, but there is one point in the article which requires attention. The reviewer quotes the statement, "The F2 shows all gradations from bar eye to normal eye," and calls upon me to withdraw it. The words occurred as one of the following sentences: " There are many examples of failure to show the clear-cut differentiation expected in the F2 generation. Morgan cites the case of the cross between the normal and bar-eyed Drosophila. The F. generation is intermediate. The F2 generation shows all gradations from bar-eye to normal eye. Here the segregation does not seem to be complete."Morgan's words in his " Physical Basis of Heredity," page 31, are: "A mutant eye shape of Drosophila, called 'bar' (Fig. 7, a), has an intermediate hybrid type (Fig. 7, b). The F2 group may be represented (Fig. 8) in the following scheme: "Fig. 8.-Relation of bar-eye to normal eye, as shown by the F2 classes. In this case the hybrid, intermediate type overlaps the bar type, so that in F2 these two latter types give a nearly continuous class. At the other end of the F2 series the round eyed normal (or wild) type can be distinguished without difficulty from either of the other classes."I think that my interpretation is justif

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119159a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

IN NATURE of Dec. 25, there appears a long review of Prof. Noël Paton's book, “The Physiology of the Continuity of Life,” by Prof. Julian Huxley, who criticises the book severely because its author attacks from the point of view of the physiologist the whole edifice of the theory of genes or factors in heredity.I do not propose to intervene in order to support Prof. Paton, who is perfectly capable of defending himself, but Prof. Huxley has seen fit to attack the work of Tornier and to blame the author, and incidentally myself, for holding that it has any bearing on the question of heredity. It was I who gave to Prof. Huxley the references to Tornier's work, and I hold that this work is the most important, and indeed the only work on the causes of mutations which has yet appeared, and that it is worth all the factorial analyses put together. As this work is little known to readers of NATURE, may I briefly summarise its principal features ? Tornier investigated the conditions under which 'fancy races' of goldfish were bred in China, which is the original home of the species. He found that there was nothing recondite in the methods of these breeders; the fish were exposed to insanitary conditions and deposited spawn in these circumstances. The greater part of the eggs died. What survived gave rise to fish of varying degrees of abnormality, and when these fish were bred these abnormalities were transmitted in some degree to their offspring By selection, a reasonably 'pure' 'fancy' could be produced in a few generations.Tornier analysed the physiological causes of the development of these abnormalities, and showed that they could be reduced to a weakening of the developmental energy of the germ at a critical period of development, and that this weakening was transmitted to posterity and produced in each generation the same results. He imitated as nearly as possible the Chinese breeders' methods with the eggs of Amphibia and got similar abnormalities. He does not give details of experiments on breeding, but he expressly states that all these abnormalities are inherited. Anyone who asserts that Tornier's experiments have no bearing on the inheritability of mutations is, in my opinion, wilfully blind. As to the inheritance of acquired characters, which is the other great factor in inheritance, Prof. Huxley refers to Dr. Noble's communication to NATURE of Aug. 7 on the subject oSf Kammerer's Alytes as if that closed the controversy. He does not refer to my answer to Dr. Noble. Since I wrote this, however, new light has been shed on this painful matter. The American journal Science has published verbatim the last pathetic letter which Kammerer wrote. In this letter, addressed to the University of Moscow, he explains the reason for his intended suicide. He gave full permission to Dr. Noble to examine his specimen of Alytes, believing that it would prove conclusive. He was greatly shocked at Dr. Noble's conclusion that it had been ' doctored' with Indian ink. He examined it himself and confirmed Dr. Noble's finding, and sadly acknowledged that the evidential value of this particular specimen had been destroyed. But he found also that many others of his specimens on which Dr. Noble had not reported had been similarly treated, and that all the fruit of his pre-War work, which would require twenty years to repeat, was gone. He did not feel the energy to begin all over again and so ended his life.Dr. Przibram and the colleagues who knew Kammerer best, continue to have full confidence in him and are getting up a fund to perpetuate his memory. Perhaps Dr. Noble could throw light on the source from which he obtained the information that he would find the specimen of Alytes treated with Indian ink, as that might help us to discover the miscreant who, to damage Kammerer's credit, destroyed his life-work behind his back. In conclusion, I should like to say to Prof. Huxley that the game of the mutationist opposition to Lamarckism is up. Evidence in favour of Lamarckism is pouring in from all quarters. I direct his attention to the recent work of Metalnikoff in the Institut Pasteur, who, experimenting with the caterpillars of the genus Galleria, showed the inheritability of acquired immunity. This work was continued for nine generations under standardised conditions with adequate cont

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119160a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

DURING the past twenty years I have made several contributions to the evidence in favour of the chromosome theory of heredity, the last in 1926. I am not nearly so sure as I was of the universal validity of that theory, and I hope that even in my callow youth I was never so dogmatic about it as is Prof. J. S. Huxley in his review of Prof. Noël Paton's book (NATURE, Dec. 25, p. 902). I feel that some protest should be made lest the constant repetition of certain dogmatic statements by Prof. Huxley and others of the same school should lead to a general belief that these statements represent proven facts accepted by all biologists who are familiar with this particular branch of knowledge.When the mode of distribution of the chromosomes to the daughter cells during the production of the gametes is compared with the manner in which the Mendelian characters appear in breeding experiments, the coincidence seems at first sight to be overwhelmingly in favour of the chromosome theory, so much so that it appears to have blotted out every other point of view to many people. To rie, however, it appears to give us no more than the right to assume that the appearance of certain characters or groups of characters may possibly be determined by certain chromosomes. Prof. Huxley has stated before, and states again in his review, that the " hereditary constitution of at least all higher organisms consists of a number of units (factors or genes), each of which may exist in a number of forms (allelomorphs); these genes exist in definite proportions, and are arranged in a definite order; the whole gene-complex is divided up amongst the separate chromosomes." He states these as proven facts which are thoroughly established, and not questioned except by those who are unaware of these claims, amongst whom he apparently places Prof. Paton. Anyone who has dissected a chimpanzee must have been struck by the extraordinary similarity between its characters and those of man, similarities that extend to small branches of particular blood vessels and nerves and to folds in the skin. If we believe in evolution of any kind we must believe that the bulk of our characters have come to us from remote prehuman ancestors through countless generations, all the individuals of which developed these characters in turn, and that the appearance of these characters depended upon their " hereditary constitution." I must point out, at the risk of being platitudinous, that it is only the capacity for developing a character under certain very limited conditions, and not the character, that is inherited.Now to me it is difficult to imagine how all the characters in a complicated organism such as man can be conveyed by units or genes which are contained in individual chromosomes. The very mechanism that makes the theory fit so well with the appearance and disappearance of certain characters in successive generations in Mendelian experiments, is an obstacle when the fact is kept in mind that most characters are common to all individuals of the race. In the one case a given character appears in a certain proportion of the offspring and does not in the rest; in the other the character appears in all. It may be claimed that what I describe as characters are not characters in the sense intended by Prof. Huxley. In what, then, are they different except in degree ? To me it appears that the presence of a head, of ten fingers, extra digits, the colour of the eyes, the shape of the section of the hair, the colour of the skin, and such diseases as hemophilia in man are all of them due to the hereditary constitution of the fertilised ovum and the action upon it of the environment. But it also appears to me that we cannot place all these characters in the same category as regards their mode of inheritance. Some might be due to units carried by individual chromosomes, others would of necessity appear to be conveyed by a potentiality in the cell elsewhere than in the chromosomes, when we consider how these are distributed during the production of the gametes.My own belief is that the Mendelian mode of inheritance is confined to comparatively recent variations, and this belief is the more acceptable to me in that it provides for the ready elimination of the useless variations, as important a factor in evolution as the preservation of the useful. I see that Prof. Huxley in his review limits himself to " at least all higher organisms " as regards his view of the chromosome theory, a limit I have not noticed that he has made previously. I quite appreciate why he has done this, but I think that it would have been wise to have pointed out that there is a number of organisms in which the distribution of the chromosomes is such that they could not possibly convey a Mendelian character (Dobell, La Cellule, t. 35, 1 fase. 1924, and others.) This being the case, the function of the chromosomes in these organisms must be something entirely different from what it is in the higher organisms, to me an entirely unwarrantable assumption

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/119161a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature