摘要:

AMONG the many developments of recent disJEI turbed conditions in China, there is one which has passed almost unnoticed, but nevertheless is of such moment .to the world movement in science as to merit than a cursory reference. This s t e which has been adopted b a o educated chinese towards the prosec on coa hra€™c1i)of scientific research within th( of Ch4na by non- Chinese workers. on has been taken to the exploitation, as it is regarded, of the relics of China€™s past by expeditions coming from Europe and America. In the spring of this year an article was circulated to the Chinese press by Kuo Wen, in which a joint statement was made on behalf of several Chinese scientific organisations in Peking, announcing the formation of a United Association to fight the efforts of various scientific expeditions to search for the remains of ancient man and other evidence of a palontological and archmological character in various parts of China. This manifesto had special reference to Dr. Sven Hedin€™s journey into the desert region of western China; but it was also undoubtedly aimed at the expedition of the American Museum of Natural History to Central Asia. It at. any rate moved Mr. Roy Chapman Andrews, the leader of the American expedition, to a vigorous and lengthy reply in the North China Daily News in July last, in which he stressed the indebtedness of China itself as well as the world of science at large to this and similar expeditions for scientific research. Since then it has been decreed that no specimens of birds may be exported from China, and only three scientific specimens of any other species of animal or plant life. In view of the lack of museums or reference facilities in China, this decree will obviously greatly hamper identification and research. The later barring of Mongolia to the American expedition is ostensibly attributed to military and political reasons.That the extent of China€™s indebtedness to western science is great is a matter which is beyond question. Nor would it be denied by many of the Chinese themselves. In the present instance the protest which is raised on an issue in relation to certain specific material, even though the motives underlying it are undoubtedly mixed, may be taken at its face value as representing genuine opinion of a certain section, at least, of educated Chinese, and not solely as a reactionary reflex of a conservatism which abhors all foreign intervention of any kind whatsoever. It is rather the manifestation of an exaggerated, and perhaps it might be thought perverted, nationalism. This attitude is by no means confined to China; it can be paralleled at the present day in other countries, and it has given rise to problems of considerable magnitude in the prosecution of scientific research in countries rich in remains of the past, in which a strong movement towards nationalism has led the more ardent spirits to desire the exclusion of foreigners from such studies, although the natives themselves are not always fully competent to undertake them. In Egypt this feeling was given emphatic expression at the time of the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamen, and it is the essence of the spirit in which concessions, much more strictly limited than in the past, are now granted to foreigners. In India the difference in conditions has for the moment obscured the result, though the problem affects a wider scientific field; but the substitution of Indians for Europeans in official posts of organisation and research cannot but affect such studies until parity of intellectual qualifications has been attained. In both cases a political theory is adversely affecting the vigorous and effective prosecution of research. Granting for the moment that nationalism were a possible or even desirable ideal in the prosecution of research, it must be abundantly clear that in countries which are only just beginning to advance along western lines of development, undue restriction of exploration and excavation defeats the very object in view. It closes the best avenue to scientific training open to the native student.In both Egypt and India, interest in historical and archaologieal matters is no recent growth; yet it is the application of methods of research developed in Europe by European scholars which has been so fruitful in results. China is an even more striking example of the advance iii knowledge of the past which has been effected by foreigners. The interests of the Chinese themselves being turned in other directions, they had neither the inclination nor the technical training to look for and appreciate the importance of the evidence which lay under their feet until attention had been directed to it by the work of alien investigators. Of purely geographical exploration it is scarcely necessary to speak in this connexion, while the borderland researches of A, von le Coq, of Dr. Sven Hedin in Tibet, of Sir Aurel Stein in Chinese Turkestan, and of Koslov in Mongolia, are too well known to need more than passing mention. All alike have played an important part in opening up China and the adjacent lands to the knowledge of the western world, have revealed their great stores of archological riches, and have helped to attract the attention of scientific workers to Central and Eastern Asia as a fruitful and profitable field of research. Nor is it necessary to do more than refer to the recent work of Shirokogoroff on the physical anthropology and culture of China. But China has now assumed a position of significance in paheontological and anthropological studies in a broader sense; and granted the continuation of exploration, may contribute evidence of the greatest importance for the problem of the origin of man and the development and distribution of his early culture. The sensational discovery of the eggs of the dinosaur by the expedition of the American Museum of Natural History has overshadowed the less striking but perhaps no less valuable archaological data collected by that expedition which related to early man in the stone age and the early ages of metal in this area. Equally valuable and stimulating have been the researches of P. Licent and P. Teilhard du Chardin, whose investigations have brought to light stone implements of types analogous to those of the Pakeolithic age in western Europe in conditions which apparently place it beyond question that the geological evidence assures their quaternary date.The discovery of evidence for quaternary man in China is of first-rate importance, but its interest has since been greatly enhanced by the discovery of teeth, claimed to be human or sub-human, at Chou Kou Tien, and estimated to be contemporary with Piltdown man. This in turn would lend support to the human origin attributed to fossil teeth of primitive type bought in Peking some years ago. Coming to a later period, a discovery of the greatest interest arose from the excavation of sites of neolithic culture in Tionan and Fengtien, on which there occurred painted pottery similar in technique and decoration to that which has been found in the early archeologica1 strata of Western Asia, Mesopotamia, Anau, Susa, and other sites Although the question of dating still remains open, this discovery links up with a series of sporadic finds stretching across Asia and appears to bring China into some sort of relationship, still to be defined, with the west at an early date, These results have been achieved through the labours of non-Chinese men of science, and without the active co-operation of the Chinese themselves, although those who have been responsible for the results acknowledge that iii most part they have received full and courteous consideration at their hands. But many difficulties have been en-countered. This must be taken neither as a criticism nor an attribution of blame. The difficulties were in part financial, in part due to a failure to appreciate the opportunities for research in this field, even when pointed out. That China now assumes a place of importance in the study of early prehistory is due almost entirely to Dr. J. C.Andersson, the Swedish investigator, who acts as mining adviser to the Chinese Go. By his own work, in directing and inspiring the work of others, and by raising funds for publication, he has made prehistoric China known to the world. There is an interesting parallel in the occasion for the protests which have been raised both in Egypt and in China. In the former case the Egyptians viewed with apprehension the opening up by foreigners of the richest tomb ever found, of whichpart of the contents at least were to leave the country; the Chinese were aroused by the almost fabulous but entirely fortuitous monetary value attributed to the dinosaur€™s eggs. In these two instances the circumstances were exceptional, but there is a principle involved which is the crux of international participation in research in which the results are, to a very considerable degree, both material and limited in extent. No country which has become scientifically self-conscious can view with equanimity the danger that it may be despoiled of its scientific treasures by foreigners, and there is grave danger, unless some equitable arrangement is devised, that this may extend from the collection and exportation of specimens and objects of scientific interest to all prosecution of research in the field by others than natives. Something of this feeling is to be discerned in India and Egypt; it appears to be a danger in China. It may, perhaps in present conditions inevitably will, crop up in countries in which archaological research is now being conducted under the auspices of a protecting or mandatory power, such as in Mesopotamia and Palestine. That day may still be distant. Even countries intellectually advanced are not entirely free from this spirit, and we have on more than one occasion raised a protest against the grant of exclusive concessions for archaological excavation to a single nationality, as for example in Albania and Afghanistan. Again, where the problem of international co-operation has in part been solved by the establishment of archeological schools as in Greece, the number of excavations which may be undertaken by any single school tends to become more strictly limited.It is impossible not to sympathise with the attitude of those who feel that scientific material, and particularly the evidences of the past history of their country, should not be reft from them by outsiders, especially by mere collectors. A historical site when once turned over by the excavator can never be restored, be he competent or the reverse. Archaological material taken from the country will never be returned. It is to the interest of science itself that a government should claim the right of control through permits and concessions, if only as a safeguard against the incompetent investigator; but much more may be demanded, and it is difficult to see where to draw the line. Scientific research in these fields is worldwide in its bearing, and restriction in any one area hampers progress in the whole in the study of the broad problems of origin, development, and distribution. Investigation should therefore be undertaken by the best man available at the moment, irrespective of nationality. The results should be made accessible to all by the exhibition of series characteristic of the objects found in museums, readily accessible to the great intellectual centres of the world, and by early and detailed publication of the descriptive matter relating to the site or find. How best to reconcile the conflicting interests is a problem for which a solution will have to be found, possibly as a result of some international agreement through machinery such as the League of Nations may affor

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120793a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

THE Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries is one /fYrie newer departments of the State; though it 6nly obtained its designation as a Ministry in 1919, it was founded in 1889 as the Board of Agriculture, and took over certain functions which had previously been administered by the Privy Council. Later Acts have extended its interests and powers, but it remains unique among departments of State in Great Britain in that it deals with a special section of the community rather than a particular function of government. The Ministry is concerned with legal and land questions, with statistics, education, research, and labour, but only as they affect farmers and farming, and independently of other departments like the Board of Education which deal generally with one of these matters. As the author of this book says at the outset, €˜€˜ Agriculture and Fisheries are the only industries which have a Cabinet Minister of their own to represent them in the Government.€ If on one hand this gives a singular unity of purpose to the department, on the other it is the source of constant trials, both to its ministers and officials. The industry of agriculture is not unnaturally disposed to regard the Ministry as its own special servant and the minister as its advocate. No other office is so permeated by a public seeking assistance or redress: no other minister is so subjected to advice and admonition. The Minister of Agriculture is indeed allowed but little respite from criticism, and he must not expect any compensation in the way of support from the farmers he represents. This may in part explain the fact that from 1914 onwards there have been eleven ministers of agriculture.The book before us is the work of the recently translated Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Sir Francis Floud, a man who writes with authority, not only because of his familiarity with every detail of its work but also because of the singular trust and affection that his administration has inspired. The book sets out lucidly and with precision the services rendered by each division of the Ministry, the powers with which it is endowed, and the regulations it is called upon to enforce. These functions are many and various. On the legal side the Ministry used to determine the tithe rent charge, and is still responsible for redemptions; it is the guardian of common lands, their regulation and possible enclosure; and it is the custodian of the corporate estates of the universities and colleges of Oxford, Caiibridge, and Durham, and of Winchester and Eton. It controls the acquisition of land for small-holdings and allotments; it has other controls to administer, such as those concerned with certain diseases of animals and plants, with rats and mice and weeds, and with the sale of seeds, fertilisers, and feeding - stuffs. The Ministry is further responsible for the expenditure on agricultural education and research in England and Wales. The Fisheries Division is a separate department in petlo with its own local authorities to deal with the fishery boards its own functions of control over fishing and fishermen, its own research to foster and its own statistics to collect. Kew Gardens and the Ordnance Survey are other self-contained organisations for which the Ministry is ultimately responsible.As regards many of these functions, however, and those the more important, the Ministry is less the actual executive than the administrative body which lays down conditions and defrays, wholly or in part, expenditure incurred by other authorities charged with the execution of the work. For example, the maintenance of educational agencies like the agricultural colleges and the farm institutes depends chiefly upon funds supplied by the Ministry, but the management of these institutions rests with the universities and kindred bodies, or the local authorities. Again, the research institutes, which are largely founded and supported by the Ministry, are under the control of a university or independent governing body, and their officers, even though their rates of pay are determined by the Ministry, are in no sense civil servants. In research, as regards fisheries alone is this principle of delegation departed from, for the Ministry€™s veterinary laboratory and its phyto-pathological laboratory are concerned only with such investigations as may affect the administration of the department. It will be seen that the work of the Ministry is largely of a technical character, and, as Sir Francis Floud states, €œthe work of the Ministry could not be carried out without the employment of a large number of specialist officers, whose work, though different in character, is just as important as that of the administrative or clerical staff.€ Sir Francis admits the equal importance of the technical officer, and has always acted on that view, but none the less the system of the office permits of no scientific specialist rising to the rank or pay of an assistant secretary, except the chief veterinary officer. In his view the executive should €œenlist men who have received a good general education in the schools and universities and give them a thorough training in the routine of a Government Department.€€œ It is far better that the ordinary staff of the Department should make no pretensions to be experts. The important thing is that they should have open and adaptable minds, and the capacity to exercise a sound judgment on the advice or proposals, often divergent and contradictory, which come before them from the experts and the practical men of the industry. There is a distinct technique of administration which must be learnt, and it must be combined with a sense of proportion and a recognition of political, financial, and practical limitations with which the specialist is often impatient.€The case for the subordination of the scientific officer could not be better put, and it emphasises the fact that in the higher ranks, whether it be of a government office or a business, it is the administrative faculty that is the essential, besides which nothing else counts. But the advocates of this traditionally English view have never explained why administrative ability is incompatible with technical knowledge. Men have to be judged as men, and if the irresponsible specialist is apt to be too absolute in his dicta, Government departments are not unfamiliar with the pseudo-administrator whose art is to put a smooth face on things and to anticipate the jumping of the cat. Though the made €˜expert €˜can rarely be brought in to take over the complex routine of governmental administration, it should be open to the young scientific officer who enters the service as a specialist to pass over to the executive and be placed later in the running for the higher offices, but only as he shows himself capable of that type of work. The ideal administrator will possess a critical background of technical knowledge. Its absence matters little while departments are mainly regulatory, but as they become increasingly constructive, and the Ministry of Agriculture has had to move in that direction, the need for combining both types of mind will become insistent. Yet the prospects of scientific men in government service are not improving. The Ministry of Agriculture has enjoyed since the War a scientific staff in which the industry has confidence, and a feature of Sir Francis Floud€™s administration was the sympathetic understanding with which he used it. But it may be doubted whether such a staff can be repeated, so limited are the opportunities likely to be under the alien Civil Service tradition and the pressure on promotion boards of Whitley Councils in which the c

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120795a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

AS its amplified title indicates, this work does not set out to be a systematic descriptive scientific treatise on Ornithorhynchus anatinus. It is true that it necessarily includes incidentally a good deal in the way of the morphology and physiology of the animal, but it is entirely in accord with the scheme of the author that detail appropriate to a more academic and systematic treatment of structure and function should be either omitted or subordinated to his main purpose. The book is pre-eminently the product of a genuine field naturalista type unfortunately less common than it used to bean amateur, in the proper and literal sense of a devoted lover of the animals he knows so well. His book, as Mr. Burrell informs us, €œ is the result of nearly twenty years€™ personal observation of the Platypus in its haunts while collecting specimens for the University of Sydney and the Common- wealth National Museum.€ Without any disparagement of earlier contributions to the natural history of the monotremes from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards, and including those resulting from the special expeditions of Caldwell and Semon, it may safely be said that no such complete story of the life history, habits, and behaviour of Ornithorhynchus has ever been presented as that we have now before us in Mr. Burrell€™s admirably illustrated pages.The author speaks regretfully of the hindrances to his work occasioned by administrative regulations. Surely some easy mean might be discovered between the former extreme of total neglect of the problem of protection of fauna of such singular interest and scientific importance, and the more recent extreme of a well-nigh indiscriminating prohibition of collecting even for disinterested scientific purposes. Is it too much to hope that the recently organised Commonwealth Bureau of Scientific and Industrial Research may be empowered to exercise a wisely advisory function in the regulation of local scientific activities of this nature, whether conducted by Australian or extr Australian agencies? Meanwhile, one can only admire the tenacity with which Mr. Burrell has pursued his task in spite of all obstacles, and gratefully welcome the very substantial contribution he has been able to make to the natural history of the archaic mammal the intimate life of which he has so successfully investigated. Only those, perhaps, who, like the present writer, have themselves essayed the pursuit of the same difficult quest, both personally and by proxy, can adequately realise what that tenacity and that success really mean.The earlier chapters of the work before us, dealing with the discovery and early descriptions and with the former controversies on the zoological position and the oviparous character of the animal, are of slighter importance to the present-day zoologist. Yet they do, no doubt, provide a useful r©sum© for the non-scientific reader, especially in Australia, of the growth of knowledge concerning an animal the unique features of which have all along presented a problem of unusual interest. Chapters v.-vii., on general characteristics, on nervous organisation and sensory perceptions, and on the spur and crural gland, contain a good deal of useful information, much of which is from first- hand observation: the last of these sections, how- ever, seems unnecessarily diffuse.. It is the latter half of the book, from Chap. viii. onwards, which will more especially engross the interest of the student of natural history. Chap. viii. treats at considerable length of the elaborate nesting burrow and its construction. On this subject the author can speak with the knowledge and authority derived from long, laborious, and fruitful investigation. The value of his account is also greatly enhanced by an admirable series of photographic illustrations. Chapters ix. and x. are concerned with the general habits, food, and domestic economy of the animal. Chap. xi. will perhaps most of all attract the attention of the zoologist. In it are set forth Mr. Burrell€™s original observations on mating, egg- laying, hatching, and the growth of the young to adolescence. How well qualified the author is to contribute to our knowledge of these matters may be inferred from his record of personal observation of no fewer than seventy tenanted nests. Here again his statements are supported by a number of excellent photographic illustrations, amongst which those showing twin and triplet riestlirigs in their nests are specially noteworthy.The final chapters deal with the subjects of €˜preservation and economics,€™ and with that of the Platypus in captivity. It is no small achievement to have succeeded in keeping alive under observation and in good condition for months at, a time, specimens of an animal so delicately adapted to its own natural conditions as Ornithorhynchus. In the way of actual criticism, it may perhaps be said that when Mr. Burrell does descend to the discussion of morphological or physiological details, he is on less sure ground. Thus, for example, it cannot be admitted that (p. 67) the olfactory nerves are €œrelatively large€ in a mammal that has by some authorities been classified (albeit with insufficient justification) as actually €˜microsmatic,€™ In this connexion, too, one might have expected some reference to be made to that still enigmatical olfactory dependency, the vomero-nasal organ of Jacobson, which in Ornithorhynchus is of such imposing and well-nigh reptilian proportions and is almost, if not quite, the largest amongst mammals. To the nerves connected with this quasi-olfactory apparatus the apparent €˜olfactory€™ nerve owes a fair share of its own quite modest proportions It is scarcely too much to say that the discussion of the organs of sensory perception as a whole is weak and sketchy. The reference on p. 70 to the lateral line organs of fishes betrays a misconception of their real function. It is to be hoped that in any subsequent isue the reference, in Plate 3, to the openings of the naso - palatine canals as the €˜ nostrils €˜ will be corrected, as well as the mis- leading legend €˜ jawbones €˜ in Plate 4., The bibliography at the end of the book is clearly in no sense a bibliography of Ornithorhynchus. Presumably it is meant to refer only to the topics dealt €˜with in the book itself. But even in this sense it is far from complete. Although in Chap. vi. a slight attempt is made to deal with brain characters, no references are given even to the most important literature on this branch of the subject, including the work of Turner, Elliot Smith, and Ziehen. Again, whilst the characters of the snout or muzzle are correctly insisted on in the chapter on general characteristics, rio reference is given to controversy on this subject in 1894 (cf. Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S€™.W., vol. 9, Ser. 2, p. 688). Any minor faults of omission and commission which the book may show are amply atoned for by its conspicuous merits in the direction of the author€™s authentic interest. Judged by its own proper criteria, Mr. Burrell€™s book must be pronounced to be a contribution of considerable value to the literature of the natural history of the Mammalia, a testimony tothe industry and enthusiasm of its author, and a credit als

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120797a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

THE Tigris and Euphrates join north-west of Basrah and thence flow to the Persian Gulf as the broad, silt-filled stream known as the Shattel-Arab. For some hundred miles the combined rivers wind their way between low banks of alluvium, on which, except for the small areas cultivated around the Arab villages, nothing of value grows save the date palm. The scene and the surrounding country have probably been much the same for the past two thousand years, although evidences of Roman irrigation works indicate that, at one time, vast areas of the country must have been under effective cultivation and ,iave remained so until the system, lapsing into disrepair, enabled the highly charged waters of the two rivers again to impreg nate the soil with mineral salts so as to render it productive of little but the camel thorn. If conditions are favourable, a traveller on the mail-boat from Bombay usually passes the bar at the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab during the evening, and for the next few hours steam s up the river between dark and inhospitable banks. Suddenly in the far distant sky a blaze of light is reflected and the ship passes a veritable township brilliantly illuminated and teeming with industrial life. There- after, until Basrah is reached, there is again nothing but the blackness of the uninhabited desert. The contrast is so great that the traveller finds it difficult to believe that twenty years ago this town ship was also part of the desert and that it was here that the first pioneers, many of whom are still active in the Company€™s service, started to build the piers and jetties from which at the present time a large proportion of the oil is transported to thehome refineries at Llandarcy and Grangemouth. For it was here, at Abadan, that the Anglo-Persian Oil Company decided to build its refinery and loading station at the head of the pipe lines which carry the crude oil from the €˜Fields€™ some 150 miles distant northward across the desert.The book under review contains a description of the country developed by the Company, and is the outcome of a visit paid by the author during the cold weather of 1926. It is divided into two sections Part I. €œThe Science,€ and Part II. €œThe Human ities €œand constitutes a striking record of British initiation and achievement which is good to readS Although the author disclaims any intention of producing a technical book, yet it is evident that his wide knowledge of general science has enabled him to impart to Part I. of his book a breadth of view and of sympathetic treatment which throws the policy of the Company in regard to the development of the scientific side of its activities into strong relief. The scientific problems of the Persian oil field are unique, and can be solved only by systematic research in which the chemist and physicist must combine to help the geologist and engineer. Much has been achieved, but much remains still to be done. It is evident from the author€™s record that great and successful efforts are being made to meet the inherent difficulties of the situation. For one who has had an opportunity of visiting the places he describes, it is of particular interest to note the able manner in which the author takes the reader by the hand and leads him through the various phases of oil production, beguiling him with pleasant but instructive conversation by the way, yet refraining from satiating him by the glib talk of millions; for statistics, however veracious, are apt to produce a state of repletion from which the ordinary reader usually emerges in a condition of static disbelief.Part II., dealing with €œ The Humanities,€ records a system which any industrial organisation might follow with advantage to itself and its workers. It describes the means adopted by the Company to render the lot of its European staff pleasant and congenial. An account is also given of the housing and care of the native worker, and of the means taken to educate his children. Above all, attention should be directed to the description of the admirable medical service, which, under the care of the medical directorate, has reached a degree of efficiency probably without parallel. The illustrations, of which there are a large number, are excellent and aie very clearly reproduced. Without question, the author is to be congratulated on having produced a thoroughly readable volume which places on record, in a manner understandable by all, an epic of achievement of which all Br

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120798a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

IT is not often that a reissue of the collected papers of an outstanding scientific man has been called for. Some of the papers cannot fail to have historical value because of the part which their original publication played in the development of science; but that value alone would not be sufficient to secure the demand. The work involved must be of present-day importance. Therefore its consequences must still be in process of development; and it follows that if, as in the present case, the republication follows the first publication after an interval of half a century, the main papers involved must have been of very epoch-making type. The condition of present value is a sufficient test; but the most essential condition is that of permanent value. Present value persisting after the lapse of fifty years suggests permanence, and at least points to some enduring qualitythe direct impress of the distinctive personality of the man. How much might be attainable in that way was made clear at the threshold of Maxwell€™s scientific life when it was said€™ of him by his Cambridge tutor that it seemed to be impossible for him to think wrongly on a physical subject. How much had been attained in its brief duration was perhaps most impressively made evident by the incident of the entry into a railway carriage at a Dumfriesshire station of a countryman who took his seat with the single remark, €œ Maxwell is dead.€It may be sufficient to refer, in illustration merely, to the three main lines of investigation which are dealt with in the papers. In the subject of colour vision, the work of the man who, simultaneously with and independently of Helmholtz, introduced for the first time methods of precision into a previously vague field of inquiry, is still of value to a multitude of workers; for he dealt with the best methods which could be used. Iii the subject of the electromagnetic field and its properties, the results of his epoch-making inclusion of optical phenomena are of fundamental importance in the now pressing investigation of the state of ionisation of the upper atmosphere. Experience has verified the soundness of his judgment regarding the form of the equations of the field; and new discovery regarding electrons has led to the natural extension of the equations, on his own lines, by the recognition of electric currents of convection. In the subject of molecular theory, his work has recently been finding its verification alike in the field of things smaller than atoms, whereof knowledge had not reached him, and in the field of a stellar universe wherein the atoms are suns. This is an interesting astronomical reversion if his molecular investigations arose in connexion with his work on the rings of Saturn. The student who desires to follow Schrodinger in his endeavour continuously to bridge the gaps indicated by the modern atomic and quantum postulates and to restore to the physicist the Maxwellian ether, of which some relativists thought they had deprived him, could not do better than read as a preliminary the papers in which Maxwell applies the Hamiltonian characteristic function to the solution of some optical problems. In the perusal of any of the papers the student will learn something of the mode of working of the mind of one who was a master amongst masters. It is not possible for a student to make too much use, in that way, of the works of the great thinkers. Thereby he may at least train himself to heighten the value of whatever work he does.To the Cambridge University Press and to the firm of J. Hermann are due the thanks of physicists for the completion of a greatly needed reissue. The quality of the photographic work, and of the general technique,

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120799a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

WITH the increasing popularity of the metal aluminium, increasing interest is being taken in its principal ore, bauxite, and Dr. Fox has opportunely provided a trustworthy and comprehensive treatise on the occurrence and uses of this substance. lie distinguishes two principal modes of origin, the terra rosa (sic) type representing the insoluble residue of great masses of soluble limestone or dolomite, and the lateritic type resulting from the decomposition in situ of original aluminous rock. The former occurs mainly in the Mediterranean region of Europe, and the latter in the tropical monsoon lands of Asia, Africa, and America. The largest known reserves of ore are of the lateritic type, and the author€™s descriptions of typical occurrences are of great interest and value. There will be general agreement with his conclusion that lateritic bauxite and lateritic ironstone stand at opposite ends of a series of tropical decomposition products, of which true laterite with, theoretic- ally, equal quantities of hydrated ferric oxide and trihydrate of alumina. occupies the middle. Dr. Fox gives a useful summary of current opinion upon the nature of the process of lateritic weathering in the tropics, and suggests a number of conditions which seem to him necessary for the formation of laterite. The economic aspects of the bauxite and aluminium industries are discussed in considerable detail and supported by statistical information. The book is well printed and well illustrated, and the author is to be congratulated on producing a work which meets a pressing need of the da

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120800a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

THE first edition of this important memoir was published in 1900, and the need for a new edition has been made the occasion of certain additions and corrections, none of which can, however, be said to be of any serious importance. A good deal of pakeontological work has been done, especially perhaps in the Millstone Grit. Naturally, the active development of the collieries during the last quarter of a century has thrown valuable light upon the structure of the coalfield. The Carboniferous Lime- stone has been exhaustively studied and the question of its dolomitisation has been examined in detail. The fact that a quarter of a century of active work has necessitated so little change in any of the fundamental portions of the memoir is evidence of the care and thoroughness with which the work was originally done.

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120801b0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

IN a letter to NATURE of June 18, Mr. Reid and I described the rings formed when a beam of cathode rays was sent at normal incidence through a thin film of celluloid and struck a photograph plate placed some distance behind the film. These were attributed to a diffraction of the cathode rays by the film, the cathode rays behaving as waves of wave-lengthh/mvaccording to do Broglie's theory of wave mechanics, and regularities in the structure of the film, or in the size of the molecules, making it behave as a kind of diffraction grating. In a paper now awaiting publication by the Royal Society, this work has been confirmed and extended to films of gold, aluminium, and of an unknown (probably organic) substance. In particular, the relation that the size of the rings is in all cases inversely as the momentum of the cathode rays is fully confirmed, and the number and size of the rings correspond remarkably with what is to be expected from the known crystalline structure of gold and aluminium, using de Broglie's expression for the wave- length of the cathode rays.The present letter describes an extension of these results to the case of platinum. The difficulty was to get a film of platinum sufficiently thin to permit of the passage of the cathode rays without o much scattering to mask the rings. One method was to obtain a thin film of platinum by cathodic spluttering on glass and removing the deposit by hydrochloric acid. This gives films thin enough to be transparent and several millimetres each way, but when they were mounted on frames, they always broke during the course of drying. To avoid this, I tried mounting them on the thin cellubid films used in the earlier experiments. This, of course, has the disadvantage that one would expect get the rings due to both celluloid and platinum superposed. However, the most marked celluloid ring about half the size to be expected for the smallest platinum ring, the other celluloid rings being very faint, under the conditions of experiment. It was found that when a photograph taken with platinum on celluloid was oiiipared with one for celluloid alone, several new rings appeared. The photograph (Fig. 1) shows the innermost and strongest of these, the celluloid ring inside being visible only as a disc owing to over-exposure. In addition there were two new outer rings too faint to reproduce. Photographs were taken these rings with various speeds of rays, and the size varied inversely as the momentum within the errors experiment. Since platinum is a face - centred cube of side 391>10, the distances d between successive crystal planes are given by where h, k, i + k2 +12are the indices of the plane, to be so chosen that they are all even or all odd. The smallest values of the denominator are €˜v€™3, i/4, /s, /i 1, -/12. Each of these spacings gives a ring in the Debye-Scherrer method of X-ray analysis, and if the view that all particles behave like waves is correct, should do so with cathode rays also, assuming that small crystals orientated at all possible angles to the beam are present in the film. It is believed that the ring illustrated is a compound of the /3 and i/4 ring unresolved (in the case of gold, which gives better films, the corresponding rings have actually been resolved), the two outer rings being -/8 and an unresolved compound of i/12 and -s/i 1 . Taking the diameter of the inner ring as the meanof -/3 and€™/4, the diameters of the outer rings are €œ/S2 and /iii as a mean from four plates. The absolute size of the rings is given by the Bragg law nX 2d sin 0. Taking the inner ring and using the above formula for X, I find for the side of unit cube 375 x 10 (mean of 6 plates) against 391 x 10 8 as found by X-rays. This is 4 per cent. low, and would be about 6 per cent. low if the relativity correction were put in The values found for gold and aluminium were also low by about the same amount. This may be due to a systematic cx p e r i mental error, or may have a theoreti. cal reason (for example, be an- alogous to the Compton effect). These results have been confirmed by some experiments with a thin piece of platinum further reduced in aqua regia. Though this was still too thick as a whole, it must have had thin patches, as photographs showed, besides spots due to holes and the direct beam, other €˜ diffracted €˜ spots arranged in circles round the centre. These are explained by supposing that in this film, which had probably been originally made by rolling, the crystals were not situated in all possible directions, and so did not give complete DebyeScherrer rings, but only spots on them, more like a Laue pattern. It was possible to distinguish between the spots corresponding to the two inner rings, and the ratios of their distances from the centre were: (mean of two plates).The energy of the rays used in these experiments varied from 30,000 to 00,000 volts, and the distance from film to plate was 325 cm. . Note added in pro9fUsing a very thin piece of platinum leaf, I have now been able to obtain rings similar to those described above, without the use of celluloid backing. The inner ring is resolved into two as in the c

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120802a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

IN 1919, Abel and Kubota isolated from the pituitary gland a ‘single principle’ which they identified as (a) histamine, (b) the ‘plain muscle-stimulating and depressor constituent.’ This conclusion, which they upheld in 1920 and withdrew in 1921, implied that the pressor constituent was not the plain muscle- stimulating (oxytocic) or the depressor substance. In 1923, Abel, Rouiller, and Geiling prepared a tartrate from pituitary extracts 1250 times as active on the uterus as histamine acid phosphate. This tartrate, they asserted, contains a ‘single principle’ responsible for the pressor, oxytocic, diuretic, and depressor activities. About the same time Hogben and Schlapp, studying the inversion effect, that is, the depression following a second injection of cormmercial extracts in the cat, found that with alcoholic extraction the depressor activity of their own preparations gave a diminishing depressor response, so that, with a powder made from glands put in ice- cold acetone immediately after killing, extraction for forty-eight hours resulted in a preparation which, with undiminished pressor activity, elicited no depressor action when administered in quantities equivalent to one hundred times the threshold for the pressor effect.This was fully consonant with observations previously made by Schafer and Vincent, and with the properties of highly concentrated pressor fractions prepared by Dudley (1923), who in collaboration with Dale (1921) had advanced evidence indicative of the separate identity of the oxytocic and pressor sub- stances. The work of the latter was confirmed independently first by Dneyer and Clark (1923) and later Fenn (1924). Using a method of pressor assay designed by Hogben, Schlapp, and Macdonald to give accuracy as great as that obtained with Dale€™s procedure for standardisation of the oxytocic pninciple, Schlapp (1925) conclusively proved the possibility of separating the two constituents by Dale and Dudley€™s method, that of Dreyer and Clark, and by new procedure of his own. At the end of last year there appeared in Physiological Reviews a r©sum© of recent work on the pituitary gland from Abel€™s laboratory. In it Geiling maintained the validity of the claims of Abel and his co-workers to have concentrated a €˜single principle€™ to which the manifold pharmacodynamic properties of pituitary extracts can attributed. Beyond the bare statement that Abel and his colleagues were not able to subscribe to Dale and Dudley€™s contention, no attempt was made to explain why several groups of workers had been successful in concentrating the pressor and oxytocic activities in separate fractions. With reference to inversion effect, however, Geiling made the following pronouncement: €œUnpublished experiments o the writer show clearly that even after a defatted pituitary powder has been extracted forty-eight hours in a Soxhlet with absolute aleGhol, as described by Hogben and Schlapp, it will still produce, when injected into etherised cats, either with intact or with cut vagi, and in the same doses as used by Hogben and Schlapp, a lessened response with the second injection, and later injections will effect the inversion. . Hogben and Schlapp are in error, when they assert that the fall in pressure is due only to the depressor substance. and is not an intrinsic property of the infundibular extract.€ (Italics inserted.)Owing to departure from the American continent, the present writer wa prevented from replying at the time to this ex parte and undocumented statement in what one presumed to be an impartial survey of existing literature. Two subsequent publications, however, one by Vincent and Curtis (Endocrin 10), and one by Draper (Am. Jour. Physiol., 80), together with the text of GeiJing€™s experiments (Geiling and Campbell, Jour. Pharm. Exper. Ther., 29), now call for comment on the claims of Abel and his collaborators to have concentrated a €˜ single principle.€™ As regards Geiling and Campbell€™s experiments, it is to be noted that they admit having used a commercial preparation, and frankly state that €œ the out- standing feature of their experiments was the van- ability in the development of a depressor response.€ Their tracings show no saline controls, and, where an undoubted depressor effect is indicated, the dosage was much greaten (five times) than that used by }{ogben and Schlapp: they made no quantitative comparison of depressor activity during the progress of extraction, an essential point in the thesis of Hogben and Schlapp; and, finally, they seem to have obtained their very transient depressor effects by rapid injection of cold extract. It now appears from Vincent and Curtis€™s paper, which upholds the view that the depressor action of pituitary extracts is due to a separate substance, that rapid injection of cold saline can of itself produce the type of depression which Campbell and Geiling obtained.Whatever be the truth with regard to this issue, there is now little room for doubt about the separate identity of the oxytocic and pressor substances. Draper (1927) has repeated Schlapp€™s work, using the improved method of pressor assay, and a method of diuretic standardisation devised by himself for the purpose. His observations, like Schlapp€™s, Fenn€™s, and those of Dreyer and Clark, confirm the view of Dale and. Dudley. In addition, Draper directs attention to a point which, in view of the aggressive tone of Geiling€™s review, is worthy of quotation: €œ A study of these data [i.e. those of Abel, Rouiller, and Geiling] reveals the fact that the three activities were not preserved in their original proportions. On the con- trary a great loss of the pressor and diuretic activities seems to have taken place, . . . O2 mg. of a tartrate having an oxytocic titer of 500 times histamine acid phosphate is shown to cause a slight rise of blood pressure in an amesthetised cat, and 005 mg. is shown to produce a submaximal diuretic effect in an anasthetised rabbit. These doses had the oxytocic activity of 100 mg. and 25 mg. of histamine acid phosphate respectively, and were the oxytocic equivalent of 100 c.c. and 25 cc. of the liquor hypophysis U.S.]?. ix. Since one tenth to one hundredth of a c.c. of liquor hypophysis is sufficient to raise the blood pressure of a cat and to promote diuresis in a rabbit, it is evident that these activities had been almost completely destroyed or eliminated in the process of purification.€ In short, if Abel and his associates have evidence, as yet unpublished, to support Geiling€™s statement that €œall the physiological properties of our active substance increase in intensity and in the same ratio pan passu,€ it is unfortunate that such data have been withheld from other groups of workers. The data they have placed at the disposal of other investi gators prove the very opposite. Tf, on the other hand, no such data are available, one may hope that Abel will relinquish his claims to have concentrated a €˜ single principle €˜ with the same candour as he displayed in withdrawing his previous view that the oxytocic and depressor substa

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120803a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature

摘要:

IN a recent paper dealing inpart with the structure of the lithosphere (Geological Magazine, June 1927) I assumed the substratum of the floor of the Pacific to be mainly eclogite, and I hinted at the possibility that the great bordering deeps of that ocean might mark the sites of great intrusions of peridotite, This speculation, however, fails to accord with the requirements of isostasy and is therefore unsatisfactory. An analysis made by Hiller (Genlands Beiträge, 1927, p. 279) of the velocities of tong waves which had followed widely different paths around the upper layers of the lithosphere iseems, moreover, to rule out the identification of the Pacific sima with eclogite. For waves having a period of 18 to 20 seconds, Hiller finds velocities of 3.7 km. per sec. in the material of the Pacific floor, and 2.9 in that of Europe, Asia, and America. He adds that these are the respective velocities to be expected jn sirna and sial. Cormparison of the ratio Of these velocities (1.27) with that of the corresponding P- or S-wave velocities in gabbro and granite (1.23), indicates that the floor of the Pacific down to a depth of the same order as that of the sial of the continents behaves as gabbro would do.If this identification be adopted, a reasonable explanation can be offered to account for some of the more puzzling features of the oceanic deeps. The effect of intense compression on a thick floor of gabbro would be, not to produce mountains or submarine swells, but to transform the gabbro into its high- pressure facies, eclogite. The change of density from to 3835, and the simultaneous actionof isostasy, would therefore lead to marked subsidence, and a deep would result. On this €˜hypothesis we should expect to find deeps along belts where the ocean floor borders the compressed mountainous edges of the sial; precisely, in fact, where they do occur. Deeps, moreover, should not occur everywhere around such borders, for in many places a thin covering of sial over the original gabbro would effectively prevent their development. Thus, the two kinds of material, sial and sirna, adopted by Wegener to explain the two dominant levels of the earth€™s solid surface, continental and oceanic respectively, serve equally well to explain the upward and downward departures from those levels. Compression and over-thrusting of the sial increase its thickness without seriously altering its density, and so lead to the uplift of plateaux and mountain ranges. Compression of the siiua along adjacent belts (if the sima be normally of gabbroid composition and free from even a thin covering of sial) results in a marked increase of density, and so leads to the formation of the greatest tracts of subsidencethe oceanic deeps.If now we assume the following approximate data: Sial: mean density, 27 (ranging downwards in composition from granite to diorite, apart from its superficial veneer of sediments);Sima: mean density, 3€™O, where composed of gabbroid material, and 34 where this is in the eclogite facies, or where the sima is composed of peridotite; we can balance a sial column through, say, Tibet, with an average altitude of 5 km., against an eclogite column through an oceanic deep covered with, say, 8 km. of se water. If x be the depth of the level of equal pressure below sea-level, then approximately 27(x+ 5)=8+ 34(x 8); giving x=467 km.Applying this method to the average floor of the Pacific, we easily deduce a thickness of 25 km. of gabbro underlain by 34 material (eclogite or pen- dotite); and finally, for the sial thickness correspond- ing to continental regions of average elevation we arrive at about 31 km., also underlain by 34 material. In support of this figure the latest estimate made by Dr. Jeifreys may be cited. His investigations of the records of the Jersey and Hereford earthquakes of 1926 indicated in each case a granite layer of about 10 km., underlain by an intermediate layer approximately twice as thick (M.N.R,A.S., Geophys. Suppi., I., 1927, p. 483). If I am right in interpreting the composition of the intermediate layer as quartz- dionite to diorite, then the sial of the neighbourhood of Great Britain, the North Sea, the English Channel, and the adjoining parts of Europea nearly average region, though slightly lowshould be about 30 km. thick. Dr. Lawson and I have previously shown that radioactivity appeared to set a limit of 15 or 20 km. to the average thickness of the sial (Phil. Mug., Dec. 1926, p. 1218). If, then, this thickness be really 30 km., it becomes certain that the radioactivity of the sial must fall off very rapidly in depth. Probably the most remarkable evidence supporting this hitherto little explored possibility is to be found in the atomic weight and isotopic constitution of common lead.These show quite conclusively that no appreciable part of the latter has been derived from the disintegration of uranium and thorium during known terrestrial history. Otherwise the atomic weight of ordinary lead would range between 2069 or less, and 2072 or more. That there is a real distinction between ordinary lead and radioactively generated lead has now been finally demonstrated by Dr. Aston€™s recent success in obtaining the mass spec- trum of lead (NATURE, Aug. 13, 1927). It follows from these results that, until the time of its dispersal through and concentration from magmas, the lead of common ores must have lain in an en- vironment where it was not appreciably affected by admixture with generated lead. In other words, I suggest that the dioritic base of the sial through which ordinary lead may originally have been dispersed, is extremely poor in the radioactive elements uranium and thorium, relative both to the higher levels of the sial and to the underlying levels of the sima. Thus we see that an estimate of 30 km. (or a little over) for the mean thickness of the sial is in accordance with such widely different phenomena as the great depths of the oceanic deeps and the practical invariability of the atomic weight of ordinary ore- lead. Smaller estimates of thickness appear to leave both quite une

ISSN:0028-0836    

DOI:10.1038/120804a0

出版商:Nature Publishing Group    

年代:1927

数据来源: Nature