White Specks Research Articles

Ainigmaptilon haswelli, n. g. et sp.: a New Alcyonarian Type.

SUMMARY. Description of Ainigmaptilon haswelli, n. g. et sp., obtained on the 21st December, 1913, from a depth of 283–300 fathoms at Station 2 on the Mawson Antarctic Expedition. It is a unique type of Alcyonarian, probably referable to the order of Pennatulids. From a narrow main stem, without an axis numerous short side-branches are given off which subdivide irregularly into twigs bearing many small autozooids. There is no satisfactory evidence of the presence of siphonozooids; small white specks on the main stem appear to be merely groups of small spicules projecting on the surface. On one portion of the stem is a group of small rudimentary autozooids. The spicules of the colony are strikingly like the Primnoid type (Axifera). The syetematic position is doubtful. The most striking Pennatulid feature of the colony is the presence of four longitudinal septa in the main stem. In addition, the side-branches are most nearly comparable to, though not identical in structure with, the pinnae of the Pennatulids Virgularia gustaviana and V. halisceptrum. Pennrtulid features that are missing are (1) siphonozooids; (2) a definite axial canal; (3) an axis. It is possible, however, that the axis was separated from the colony in the dredging, and, although this is rather a remote possibility, it is borne out by the torn condition of the septa. The holo-type will be returned to the University Museum, Sydney.

The Life-History of Penicillium

ABSTRACT Among moulds Penicillium glaucum is the one of most frequent occurrence. With unparalleled obtrusiveness the little plant forces its troublesome and unwelcome acquaintance alike on the learned and unlearned. Its pre-eminence among moulds depends less upon its size than upon its abundance, commonness, and highly characteristic pale blue colour. The fungus exists everywhere, and it is not possible by any observations to fix the limits of its geographical distribution. Its occurrence is dependent on no accident; it is the natural and necessary consequence of the ubiquitousness of its excessively minute conidia (asexually developed spores), which reproduce it with the greatest ease. The spores are scattered through the atmosphere, settling down when the air is still as a constituent of the dust ; and they are then carried to the ground by rain, &c., from whence, on becoming dry, they are again lifted and carried by the faintest atmospheric current, if the place where they were first deposited was unsuitable for their germination. Thus the fungus obtains access everywhere ; it is as unavoidable as the air by which it is carried. Out of doors it is to be found on all organic substances in a state of decomposition, more especially on the larger fungi. In our dwellings it is a real plague. Raw and prepared articles of food are exposed to its destructive influences. It moulds the cheese, the bread, fresh and preserved fruits, and many ways have been tried to destroy it or keep it under. It alone is the cause of many of our domestic arrangements, and much care must be taken during expeditions to prevent bread, flour, and other substances becoming mouldy. It is often content with the poorest food, which would be too bad for higher fungi. It lives in the human ear ; it does not shun cast-off clothes, damp boots, or dried-up ink. Sometimes it contents itself with a solution of sugar with very little inorganic matter, at other times it appears as if it preferred the purest solution of a salt with only a trace of organic matter. It will even tolerate the hurtful influence of poisonous solutions of sulphate of copper and arsenious acid. No wonder that, as this fungus is so well fitted to be everywhere victorious in the “struggle for existence,” it soon overcomes all other forms that come in its way. In the natural course of a spontaneous or artificial cultivation of mould the same tragedy is surely repeated. At first appear the statelier kinds of mould, the long-stemmed Mucorini and their allies, which fruit only on account of their more rapid growth. Among them Penicillium appears in three or four days ; at first harmless and modest, in the form of delicate white specks of mycelium. These grow with fabulous rapidity in all directions, and form large patches spreading out and covering the whole substratum. But even before this takes place there are, as a rule, noticeable in the middle of each tuft, not higher than half a line from the substratum, small, alabaster-white, thick tufts, which are the conidia-bearing aerial hyphæ of Penicillium. From the centre of the cluster, and therefore from the centre of the whole group, begins a change from white into blue, which indicates the ripening of the spores. The blue colour spreads centrifugally over the whole patch, leaving only a white edge. At length even the edges becomes blue, and in from seven to ten days the whole substratum is covered with a blue coating, which, on the slightest agitation, gives off clouds of spores. When the whole substratum is exhausted the culture of the Penicillium ends. Other fungi have no chance of growing during the period of vegetation of the Penicillium, and any subsequent development in the exhausted nutrient substance is impossible. Penicillium is the plebeian despot among the moulds—mould par excellence, and the form meant when we use the word mould.

On Beds of supposed Rothliegende Age, near Knaresborough

By permission of the Director-General of the Geological Survey I am enabled to lay before the Society a brief outline of some observations made during the past summer in the course of my professional duties. In the neighbourhood of Knaresborough occur certain very well-marked and distinctive grits of a red or purplish-red colour; for the most part these rocks are coarse, frequently quite conglomeratic; oftentimes, however, they are mere sandstones, while in some places they pass into sandy shales. In some localities, as near Plumpton, the proportion of red felspar in the grit is very great, while in others white specks of decomposed mineral matter are scattered profusely through the mass. The quartz-pebbles are very often as large as pigeons' eggs, and form well-marked layers, generally at the base of the separate beds of grit. The grit in the neighbourhood of Plumpton, near Knaresborough, forms most picturesque weathered masses. Between Spofforth and Plumpton, on the slope immediately below the magnesian-limestone escarpment, stand numerous detached pillars and masses of rock, some rising 15 feet above the level of the surrounding ground, others but barely protruding, their surfaces presenting all those curiosities of atmospheric action, in the shape of perforations, basin-holes, honeycombing along the planes of bedding, &c., which, although in many cases difficult to explain fully, yet seem still to be in process of forming. The soil of the fields in which these detached and picturesque rocks rise consists, as one would expect, of the decomposed grit, and seems of a

On the effects produced upon the air cells of the lungs when the pulmonary circulation is too much increased

In examining the air cells of the lungs of a hare that had been coursed, the author found the superficial large cells filled with colourless coagulable lymph, forming white specks, and the smaller, more interior ones filled with coagula of red blood. No such appearance was seen in the lungs of hares, snared or shot. A run of fifteen minutes with greyhounds so exhausts the hare, that it is frequently known to die from over exertion before the dogs are able to reach it. To examine the state of the lungs, in which the white specks were seen, they were injected with mercury through the bronchiæ, and then immersed in rectified spirits to prevent them from collapsing, and in this state examined microscopically and drawn by Mr. Bauer. The drawings accompany the paper. The white specks appear to be portions of coagulable lymph, separated from the circulating blood in consequence of its disturbed state, and the author considers them as giving great insight into the nature of that destructive disease called tubercles in the lungs; and in support of this idea quotes Dr. Baillie’s description, and refers to his plates of them in his Morbid Anatomy.