Young gives, in the Nineteenth Century, to the results of the studies
of soil bacteriology prosecuted by Mr. John Hunter and Professor
McAlpine on Lord Roseberry’s estate of Dalmeny, and “manuring with
brains” to the application of them. Attention has been called to
the value of the bacteria in the soil as nitrifying and fertilizing
elements by the experiments of Sir John Bennet Lawes and Sir Joseph
Henry Gilbert at Rothamsted, and more forcibly by experiments coming
after them but suggested by them. It had also been found that caustic
lime used upon the soil is liable to destroy the nitrifying and other
advantageous organisms, while carbonate of lime is surely useful, and
a due proportion of lime compounds is essential to the best discharge
of their functions. The discovery that the bacteria of the root
nodules of leguminous plants possess the power of absorbing the free
nitrogen of the atmosphere and rendering it available for the use of
the plant was made by Messrs. Hunter and McAlpine, according to Mr.
Young, and was taught by them to their students several years before
Hellriegel, to whom it is usually ascribed, fell upon it. They found
that several well-defined sets of bacteria were concerned in the work
of nitrification, and isolated and cultivated the nitrous germ, but
could accomplish nothing with the nitric germ till they used old mortar
or some lime dressing with it. They also found that lime compounds
in the surface soil served a further important use by preventing the
soluble silicates from being taken up by the roots of the plant, the
lime taking up those salts and forming insoluble silicates which
were retained in the soil and did not diffuse into the plant. So a
non-silicated stem, or a cellulose stem, was formed, which would bend
before the wind without breaking, while the non-silicated straw was
much superior in value to the silicated straw. Messrs. Hunter and
McAlpine denied that silica in the plant gave strength and solidity
to the stem, and pointed out that it rather, like glass, made the
straw brittle. They found out, further, that large quantities of
carbonic acid were produced in the soil through the operation of the
ferments, and found an outlet through the subsoil drains. They made
other discoveries which threatened to render it necessary to revise
the whole fabric of agricultural science, and were called to account
by the institutions in which they were teachers for their heresies.
They maintained their position till the opportunity came to them to
make tests of their theories on Lord Rosebery’s Dalmeny farm. Among the
results of the Dalmeny experiments are proof of the value of a dressing
of ground lime in proportions not large enough to kill the bacteria,
emphasis of the value of potash for every crop, and the discovery of a
remedial treatment for the finger-and-toe pest in turnips. “When these
experiments were commenced, ground lime for agricultural purposes had
never been heard of, whereas now there are at least six lime works
where extensive grinding plants are kept hard at work to supply the
ever-increasing demand for that substance. Since the principles for the
new soil science have been put in successful practice at Dalmeny the
scientific authorities, who at first had branded these principles as
absurd heresies, have changed their tune,” and now the chemical adviser
of the Highland Society has declared that he accepts the new doctrines.
* * * * *
=Plague Antitoxin.=--In justifying his belief in the efficacy of the
inoculation treatment against the plague, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of
India, said, in a recent address at Poonah: “If I find, as I do find,
out of one hundred plague seizures among uninoculated persons, the
average number who die is somewhere about seventy to eighty per cent,
while, in a corresponding number of seizures among inoculated persons,
the proportions are entirely reversed and seventy to eighty per cent,
if not more, are saved--and these calculations have been furnished from
more than one responsible quarter--I say figures of that kind can not
fail to carry conviction; and I altogether fail to see how, in the face
of them, it is possible for any one to argue that inoculation is not
a wise and necessary precaution.” He had been personally visiting the
plague hospitals and camps about the city, and had already supported
his advocacy of this treatment by having himself and his party
inoculated at Simla with the plague antitoxin.
* * * * *
=Cultivation of India Rubber.=--An article in the Bulletin of the
Bureau of American Republics represents that there are lands in
Mexico and Central America equally adapted to the cultivation of the
India-rubber tree with the Brazilian plantations, and having, in
addition, a salubrious climate. Formerly dependence for the supply of
India rubber was placed in the product of wild trees, but with the
increase in the uses for it, and the consequent rise in prices, capital
is being invested in this industry, and its profitable cultivation is
being largely engaged in. The trees do not flourish at an elevation
exceeding five hundred feet above sea level, and low land, moist but
not swampy, is the best. Land suitable for planting could be bought
for twenty-five cents an acre in large tracts, but it now brings from
two dollars to five dollars Mexican. These lands can be used for other
crops while the trees are growing up, and thus made partly to repay
the cost of starting the plantation. So the expense of clearing the
land preparatory to planting it is largely met, if facilities for
transplantation are at hand, by the sale of the dyewoods, sandalwood,
satinwood, ebony, and mahogany that are cut off. The land should be
chosen along the banks of streams, where the soil is rich, deep, and
loamy, and the presence of wild rubber trees is a sure indication of
its suitability. These wild trees should be left standing, and young
seedlings should be kept and transplanted into their proper places. The
densest plantation compatible with good results is fifteen feet apart,
giving about one hundred and ninety-three trees to the acre. Once in
the ground, the tree needs no attention or cultivation beyond keeping
down the undergrowth, which can be effected by the aid of a side crop.
The tree propagates itself by the seeds or nuts, which drop in May and
June. By the sixth or seventh year the grove will be in bearing, and
thereafter should yield from three to five pounds of India rubber per
tree.
* * * * *
=The New York Botanical Garden’s Museum.=--The museum building of the
New York Botanical Garden is substantially completed, and most of
the works are in an advanced state of forwardness. The museum cases
(for public inspection) and the herbarium cases (for students) are in
position, and the herbarium cases are filled. Among the recent gifts
of value to the institution are the miscellaneous collection of John
J. Crooke, made about thirty years ago and containing about twenty
thousand specimens, among which are a set of the plants obtained by
the United States Pacific Exploring Expedition of about 1850; the
collection of between twenty and thirty thousand specimens made by Dr.
F. M. Hexamer in Switzerland and the United States; a collection of
seven or eight thousand numbers, made by Mr. and Mrs. A. A. Heller,
representing between twelve and thirteen hundred species, some of which
are new to science; and specimens of crude drugs, for the Economic
Museum, presented by Parke, Davis & Co. A permanent microscopic
exhibition is to be established by Mr. William E. Dodge, at his own
expense. It will be furnished with at least twenty-five microscopes,
and with specimens carefully prepared and inclosed, to secure them
from injury. A set of more than two hundred volumes on botany and
horticulture, which formed a part of the library of Dr. David Hosack,
founder of the first botanical garden in New York, has been presented
by the New York Academy of Medicine, which received it from the New
York Hospital.
* * * * *
=Action of Sea Water on Cements.=--As the result of examinations of
many masonry structures immersed in sea water, Dr. Wilhelm Michaelis
has found that Portland cement does not resist the chemical action of
such water so well as do Roman cement and the hydraulic cements. The
soluble sulphates in the sea water appear to enter into a substitution
combination with the lime which exists in the cement in a free state
or is liberated in the hardening, and it is converted into a sulphate,
while disintegration ensues. In Roman cement the lime exists in
combination, and there is no inclination toward the formation of
a sulphate, and hydraulic limes resemble Roman cement in physical
qualities. Dr. Michaelis suggests that hydraulic cementing materials
containing more lime than is required for the formation of stable
hydro-silicate and aluminate may be made suitable for submarine work by
an admixture of trass or puzzolana, whereby the cementing strength of
the mass will be greatly increased, and it will be enabled to withstand
the disintegrating action of the sea water.
* * * * *
=Stories of Amazonian Pygmies.=--Dr. D. G. Brinton subjected the
stories of the existence of pygmy tribes on the upper tributaries of
the Amazon to a careful examination, and came to the conclusion that
the facts did not show anything more than that there are undersized
tribes in that part of South America, with occasional individual
examples of dwarfs, such as occur in all communities. It is still a
question, he observed, “whether the rumor of a pygmy people somewhere
in the tropical forests is not to be classed with the stories which
threw a strange glamour about those inaccessible regions in the early
days of the discovery. There were many of these, for I am speaking of
the part of the map where was located the El Dorado, the golden city of
Manoa, the home of the warlike Amazons; where dwelt the men with tails
and the mysterious _Oyacoulets_, warriors with white skin, blue eyes,
and long, blond beards. All have vanished from history but the pygmies,
and their turn will probably soon come.”
* * * * *
=Relief and Pension Funds of Railroad Men.=--In instituting a pension
fund for the men in its employ the Pennsylvania Railroad established,
in addition and supplementary to the relief fund of which they
enjoy the privilege, a special fund for those who are retired or
superannuated, which is adjusted according to their length of service
and the pay they have been receiving. The relief fund affords every
man employed an opportunity to provide for himself in case of sickness
or disability. It is co-operative, and is supported jointly by the
employed men, its members, and the company, the expenses of operation
and the deficiencies in it being met by the company. The additional
pension is the company’s own undertaking. Besides the manifestly
humane purpose of this arrangement--to care for the present and future
interests of its men--it promises to work to increase and improve the
effectiveness of the company’s service. Its tendency will be to give
the men greater heart in their work, and to cause them to identify
themselves more fully with it. Decent provision being made for the
retirement of old hands, the service can be kept manned by a younger
and more robust class. The new fund will effect the entire force on the
lines of the Pennsylvania system east of Pittsburg and Erie, extending
over a trackage of more than forty-one hundred miles.
* * * * *
=The Broom as a Spreader of Disease.=--Dust being now generally
recognized as one of the most efficient vehicles of the germs of
disease, Dr. Max Girsdansky finds the broom to be one of the most
active agents in sending them into air, where it is diffused by
whatever breezes may be blowing there. The housewife digs the dust
out of her carpets and stirs it out of the quiet corners where it has
accumulated, wearing an old dress and covering her head while she
leaves her lungs exposed, then shakes her rugs in the yard, and the
street sweeper transfers the dust he has charge of from the pavement
to the atmosphere, where we can breathe our fill of consumption from
day to day. Therefore, the author holds, the broom, “far from serving
any hygienic purpose, is the cause of the maintenance of organic dust
in the atmosphere of the large cities of the world, and as such is the
most important cause of the existence and spread of tuberculosis.”
Further, the carpet is pronounced “an unhygienic article, serving
as a fine breeding ground for vegetable parasites, necessitating
the use of the broom and the duster, and thereby becoming a reason
for the existence of organic dust.” As the only proper and safe way
of procuring the cleanliness of the floors and streets of our large
cities, Dr. Girsdansky advises the free use of water in the shape
of showers, or with sprinkling wagons, hoes, mops, etc., and that
all floors and floor coverings of the house and the street be so
constructed as to facilitate the free use of water in these ways.
* * * * *
=Alkali Soils in Montana.=--Mr. F. W. Traphagen, of the Montana
Agricultural Experiment Station, ascribes the origin of the alkali
soil in the arid regions to the failure of the elements to remove
the soda salts set free on the disintegration of the rocks, which in
humid regions are taken up and washed away by the rains. The soluble
salts are dissolved by the water that falls on the surface, and are
carried down when it soaks through the ground, to form an element in
the ground water. They return thence to the soil when water is brought
up by capillary action to supply the place of that lost by surface
evaporation, and accumulate there. Then, as the water evaporates
they are left on the surface, forming, when in sufficient quantity,
the white crusts seen in badly alkalied places. The most effective
remedy for alkali might probably be found in underdrainage, which
would prevent the ground water rising to the top, and would carry
off the salts. This being at present impracticable on the large scale
that would be required, such expedients as surface flooding and such
cultivation of crops as would tend to check evaporation are suggested.
The pernicious effects of “black alkali” or sodium carbonate are
seen when it forms as much as about one tenth of one per cent of the
soil, in the corrosion and solution of vegetable matter--the stems of
plants--exposed to it. It also dissolves the humus or vegetable mold,
forming dark-colored solutions and depositing a black residue upon
the evaporation of the water--whence its name--and it destroys the
tillability of many soils. The “white alkali” or sodium sulphate can
be borne in much larger proportions in the soil, and promotes the best
crops just before it completely destroys them. The author remarks that
the foundations of a number of buildings in Billings, Montana, are
gradually becoming insecure because of the disintegration of the rock,
due to the absorption of alkali salts, followed by the evaporation of
the water and the deposit of salts within the pores of the rock. As the
process continues, the rock particles are forced apart.
* * * * *
=Future of the New York Canals.=--The Committee on Canals of New York
State recommend decidedly in their report to the Governor that those
highways should not be abandoned but maintained, and the principal ones
enlarged, while the others should be kept up as navigable feeders. Of
two projects for enlarging the Erie Canal, that undertaken in 1895,
with modifications to be executed at a cost of $21,161,645, and a
larger one to cost $58,894,668, the committee prefer the larger one,
because it will permanently secure the commercial supremacy of New
York, while the other is “at best only a temporary makeshift.” An
important principle emphasized in the report is that the efficiency of
the canals depends upon their management as well as upon their physical
size. Therefore a policy should be followed that will encourage
transportation companies to seek the use of them; mechanical means of
traction should be employed, and mechanical power should be substituted
for hand power in certain operations; the force engaged upon them
should be organized on a more permanent basis of fitness, so as to
furnish an attractive career to graduates of scientific institutions;
and efficient guards should be thrown over the expenditure of money “so
as to make impossible a repetition of the unfortunate results of the
$9,000,000 appropriation.”
* * * * *
=Floating Stones.=--While engaged in scientific research in southwest
Patagonia, Mr. Erland Nordenskiold observed a considerable number of
small fragments of slate floating upon the surface, packed together
in larger or smaller clusters. The surface of the stones was dry, and
they sank immediately when it became wet. Their specific gravity was
2.71, that of the water being 1.0049. The fragments contained no air
cavities perceptible to the naked eye, but small, gaseous bubbles could
be seen attached to their under surfaces, and stones on the very fringe
of the beach which were just beginning to float were observed to be
lightened by gaseous bubbles. The author was not able to investigate
the phenomenon more closely, but believes that besides the visible
bubbles they were surrounded by an envelope of gas, supported by an
insignificant coating of algæ, by which they are enveloped. The greasy
surface of the mineral also prevented the water from adhering to
them, and caused them to be surrounded with a concave meniscus, which
contributed much to their floating.
* * * * *
=The “Periodicity of War.”=--The doctrine of “the periodicity of
war” was presented at the Lake Mohonk Conference on International
Arbitration in May-June, 1899, by General Alfred C. Barnes, with the
introductory remark that “no one deprecates war more than the soldier
who serves from a sense of duty.” The speaker said that “with all
our privileges, and in spite of the elevated spirit that undeniably
prevails among us, the original savage lurks in the hearts of men here
as elsewhere.” In two hundred and twenty-five years we have had ten
principal wars--five during the colonial period and five since our
independence was undertaken. The average interval between wars has
been about twenty years--“an extremely interesting periodicity, as it
brings into the arena a new race of fighting young men. So it seems
that for each fresh generation of our youth the temple gates of Janus
have to be opened, that the furies there confined may rush forth and
devastate the earth. It looks almost like the operation of a natural
law.” General Barnes’s theory of the origin of the war that the United
States is still engaged in is the simple one that we were “spoiling for
a fight.”
* * * * *
=Expert Opinions respecting Food Preservatives.=--At a recent hearing
before an English Official Committee on Preservatives and Coloring
Matters in Food, the representative of an eminent firm of preservers
said that preservatives were not very generally used with fruits and
jams. His firm regarded them as quite unnecessary, but he would not
say they ought to be prohibited if used in moderate quantity. Besides
coloring matter in vegetables, the only article used by his firm for
coloring was an extract of cochineal. Mr. John Tubb Thomas, a medical
officer, told of children who were injured by milk containing boracic
acid, and said that in his experiments upon himself about fifteen
grains of that substance a day had upset his digestive organs and
produced sickness, with diarrhœa and headache. The use of the acid,
he said, should certainly be prohibited in new milk, which was so
largely the food of invalids and infants. Dr. W. H. Corfield said he
had found salicylic acid in the lighter wines and beers. It was a
slightly acrid, irritating substance, which was used externally for the
removal of corns and warts, and was a most undesirable article to put
in food. Mr. Walter Collingwood Williams, a public analyst, had found
salicylic acid in a number of temperance, non-alcoholic drinks. Dr.
Kaye, a medical officer of health, showed that the number of infant
deaths was increasing, while the general death rate was decreasing, and
attributed the fact, partly at least, to the growing and excessive use
of preservatives.
* * * * *
=Pawnshops in Germany.=--Between half a dozen and a dozen of the
state pawnshops which were common in Germany in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries still exist. The United States vice-consul at
Cologne has given a considerable list of municipal pawnshops in the
more important cities of all parts of Germany. On the whole, the
number of these institutions is larger in Germany than in France, but
smaller than in Belgium, Holland, and Italy. The business of pawnshops
appears, at least more recently, to depend less upon general economic
than on special, local causes. The German law has usually required
private persons doing a pawnbroking business to take out special
licenses, and has exercised a more or less strict supervision over
them. The supervision practically lacked efficiency, and more stringent
regulations were imposed by a statute enacted in 1879, which is now the
basis of the existing law of the German Empire. Under this law license
is refused to persons who are unfitted for the business, and is not
issued at any rate unless a necessity is shown for the institution.
The imperial law is supplemented by special laws of the various German
states.
* * * * *
=Animals of the Ocean Depths.=--While plant life in the ocean is
limited to shallow waters, Sir John Murray says fishes and members
of all the invertebrate groups are distributed over the floor of the
ocean at all depths. The majority of these deep-sea animals live by
eating the mud, clay, or ooze, or by catching the minute particles of
organic matter which fall from the surface. It is probably not far from
the truth to say that three fourths of the deposits now covering the
floor of the ocean have passed through the alimentary canals of marine
animals. These mud-eating species, many of which are of gigantic size
when compared with their allies living in the shallow coastal waters,
become in turn the prey of numerous rapacious animals armed with
peculiar prehensile and tactile organs. Many deep-sea animals present
archaic characters; still, the deep sea can not be said to contain more
remnants of fauna which flourished in remote geological periods than
the shallow and fresh waters of the continents.
* * * * *
=The Site of Ophir.=--Dr. Carl Peters, an African explorer recently
returned to London, believes that he has found the Ophir whence King
Solomon’s gold was brought, in the country between the Zambesi and
the Pungwa Rivers, in Portuguese Africa and eastern Mashonaland. Many
rivers, some quite extensive, of undetermined origin, and traces of
ancient mining enterprises, are found in the region, and gold is still
washed there. One site is Fura, on the Muira River, about fifteen miles
south of the Zambesi. The name Fura is said to be a native corruption
of the word Afur, by which the Arabs of the sixteenth century called
the district, and that to be the Saharan or south Arabian form of the
Hebrew Ophir. The natives are unlike the ordinary Africans, and have a
distinctly Jewish type of face. A chief informed Dr. Peters concerning
the position of some ancient workings, and, following his directions,
the explorer found ruins “of an undoubtedly Semitic type.” Dr. Peters’s
hypotheses and evidences must be accepted for what they are worth.
Other explorers have found Ophir at various points in Africa and
Arabia, and even in India and elsewhere, and have been as satisfied and
as sure as he with their identifications.
MINOR PARAGRAPHS.