Principal Fault Research Articles

A Contribution to Our Knowledge of the Relation of Certain Species of Grass-Green Algae to Elementary Nitrogen

A general survey of the literature pertaining to the relation of algae to free atmospheric nitrogen reveals the fact that comparatively few forms have been experimented with under conditions which render the conclusions reached free from objection. The principal fault which may be found with most of the work done is that the experiments were carried out with impure cultures. Representatives from not more than four or five genera of green alga have thus far been studied in pure culture, and while the general conclusion reached is that these forms are unable to fix free atmospheric nitrogen either in the presence or in the absence of combined nitrogen and energyfurnishing materials, it is by no means certain that forms do not exist which, under one or all of these conditions, are able to utilize elementary nitrogen. This thought is especially justified when the small number of free-nitrogen-fixing species among the bacteria is considered. In the present investigation, therefore, an attempt has been made to extend the observations over a greater variety of forms in pure culture, -understanding by the latter a single species of alga free from all other organisms.

Are there Causes for Criticism in the Sanitary Management of the Late War?

Tecumseh, Mich., Dec. 12, 1898. To the Editor: —That there are good grounds for criticising the sanitary management of military camps there is every reason to believe, but when one reads the editorial article in last week'sJournal(Dec. 10, 1888, p. 1425) comparing the sickness of the British Soudan forces with our own, he certainly finds the field of comparison a narrow one, because the elements for comparison scarcely exist. The principal fault found has not been so much from mismanagement of field-hospitals, either before a battle or immediately after, but from the gross mismanagement of the sanitary conditions of the soldiers in camp. Camp Thomas, Chickamauga was a veritable pesthole. Soldiers returning home on furlough bore the appearance of those who were so happy as to make their escape from Old Libby or Andersonville prisons of thirty-five years ago. The fault was not with Surgeon-General Sternberg, nor the

On Overthrusts of Tertiary Date in Dorset

I. I ntroduction The intensity of the earth-movements which have thrown on end and inverted the Secondary rocks of Dorset, and the magnificent dissection of the structures in the sea-cliffs, have attracted attention for many years past. The first to give an accurate account, and to speculate on the causes of the position of the strata, was Webster in 1816; though admirable in his description and in his pictorial representation of the facts, he failed in his endeavour to explain them, and was in this respect improved upon by Conybeare and Phillips in 1822, and by W. B. Clarke in 1837. In 1830 Buckland and De la Beche read their paper on the Geology of Weymouth, etc., and gave an account of the principal faults, but did not correctly distinguish those that were formed before the deposition of the Gault from others that were produced at a later date. In 1848 a cutting made for the Dorchester and Weymouth railway revealed unsuspected complications in the great Ridgeway disturbance, which were described with great accuracy by Weston in 1848 and 1852, while additional light was thrown upon the subject by the publication in 1850 of the Geological Survey map, Sheet 17, in the preparation of which Bristow received great assistance from the Rev. O. Fisher. Further speculations on the age of some of the disturbances were made by Prof. Prestwich in 1875, and the existence of two distinct sets of movements was pointed out by Mr. Hudleston in 1881 and 1889. In

XXXIII.—On the Geology of Coalbrook Dale.

Illustrations.—Pl. XXXV. to XLI. Introduction. In the following pages two memoirs are embodied. One of them, read before the Society in February 1834, gave a short account of some of the principal faults and disturbances of the Coalbrook Dale coal-field; the other, read April 1836, described the several formations comprised in that district, as well as certain phænomena exhibited by the coal-measures, and not noticed in the former communication. Before I proceed, it is necessary to observe, that prior to the researches of Mr. Murchison into the formations between the carboniferous rocks and the slates of Wales, the examination, of the Coalbrook Dale district was attended with very considerable difficulties. A few of the rocks, which crop out against the flanks of the Wrekin, had been ascertained to be counterparts of others; but their order of superposition and relative antiquity had not been determined. Mr. Murchison’s labours, however, have removed these difficulties, by showing, that the thin zones of gray and liver-coloured sandstones, shales, and limestones, which overlie the limestone at Wenlock, and underlie the coal-measures at Madeley, Broseley, &c., are referable to the Ludlow rocks, the first formation beneath the old red sandstone, and constituting, with the Wenlock limestone and shale, the upper Silurian group; and that the shelly sandstone at Morrell’s Wood, as well as the quartzose grit, and dark-coloured flags at the base of the Wrekin, belong to the Caradoc sandstone, or lower Silurian rocks. The deposits just noticed form, in this district, the terminating points