ALBERT

Description: From a study of the data of two season's work the following observations may be made:Frequency of grazing with a view to the successful operation of the scheme will depend on a number of factors, chief among which is the character of the herbage and its growth. Recovery and vigour of growth are primarily dependent on rainfall and secondarily on the fertility of the soil, which may be increased by fertiliser applications. Rainfall, its amount and distribution, has in this investigation shown itself the most potent of all influences in the recovery of the plots. The results in general of 1928 indicate that the application of fertilisers, in which nitrogen predominates, greatly assisted in the maintenance of vigorous growth.The protein content of the herbage increases with the shortening of the period between cuttings, due in the first season solely to the fact that the protein content of the grass falls off with age, but in the second and subsequent seasons, in a very large measure, to the incursion of white Dutch clover.A consideration of protein yields per acre in relation to frequency of cutting reveals that in the first season, when the herbage is essentially grass, the shortening of the period between cuttings tends to reduce the protein yield; in the second season, when clover replaces grass, roughly in proportion to the shortening of the growing period, the higher protein content of the legume tends to counteract the depressing effect on yield of frequent cutting.

Description: Copper has been detected in a large number of plants, and is probably present in very minute amounts in all vegetation. Estimations of copper content of a number of plants have been made, notably by Fleurent and Levi(1), Maquenne and Demoussy(2) and McHargue(3).

Description: There are three by-products obtained from the preparation of legume seeds for human consumption which are marketed as supplemental animal foods, namely, the seed-coats (testa) which are removed from beans, peas and lentils. They are known commercially by various names, “skins,” “shells,” “husks,” “hulls” and as “offals.” They are used extensively in the East for the nutrition of cattle, where dehusked legumes enter so largely into the dietary of humans. Bean, pea and lentil husks are all used for stock feeding in Britain, and it was the frequency with which pea husks were found in commercial sheep-feeding mixtures sent for examination, and the knowledge that considerable consignments of bean shells are from time to time imported, that led to this enquiry into their nutritive value. Previous to the adoption of the Foodstuffs and Fertilisers Act, 1926, bean husks were imported into Britain in larger quantities than is at present the case, some of them being ground and added to bean meal, a practice which one has reason to believe has now ceased. Bean husks are seldom fed as such to cattle in Britain, but in France they are given to dairy cows and horses. For cows they are mixed with beet pulp, oil cakes and bran with, it is stated, good results. For horses they are mixed with oats, and an informant, a farmer from Cambrai, mixes them in equal proportions with oats for his working horses, giving to each 30 litres per day. It is claimed that the addition of the husks causes a more complete mastication of the oats and that horses do well on the mixture.

Description: The object of this paper is to define exactly the variations in the price of meat carcases due to variations in weight and to variations in quality, as shown by differences in the conformation according to breed, etc.; that is, to get facts on which a scientific system of grading meat carcases could be based.

Description: The growing output of polar books shows that Arctic and Antarctic regions still exercise a fascination, both to the explorer, and to the reading public; and the disappearance of the two-volume book is a welcome result both of financial stringency, and of a less verbose age. The conquest of the poles has allowed exploration to be diverted into more useful directions than the mere attainment of a high latitude. At the same time there is no denying that it has robbed polar work of a popular zest, and will not make it easy to raise funds for a large-scale expedition in the future. A two years' effort in the Antarctic will have to be done on scantier means than several of the expeditions for pre-war days, for the popular appeal will be restricted. And again, more is now expected, because more is possible with modern methods and technique, and knowledge of past mistakes. Byrd's marvellous flight to the South Pole and back stirred imagination comparatively little, while Greenland can now be crossed without the public taking the slightest interest. Contrast such successful ventures with the world-wide interest in Andrée's abortive attempt to fly in 1897, or the sensation caused by Nansen's crossing of Greenland in 1888.

Description: SummaryThe salt of Jebel Usdum is not a product of the Pleistocene Dead Sea, nor of the lake which preceded it (in ? Pliocene time), the waters of which were fresh for a long period and deposited sediments, with a maximum thickness of 1,000 feet or more, which are younger than the salt.

Description: An average analysis is made of an altered intrusive greenstone occurring in the zone of the Kiruna greenstones with the special object of proving whether any local change of chemical composition is occasioned during the alteration processes by the uneven distribution of epidote, as was earlier supposed by the writer. The analysis confirms this, but it also shows that chemical inhomogenities must originally have occurred in the rock-mass. The relations found thus do not indicate great local changes of the chemical composition during the mineral alteration processes still less a change of the bulk composition of the rocks.A comparison of a number of analyses of spilites and related An-richer rocks affords the following facts: among them there occurs a small group of An-rich members, which are designated here as diabases. Most of the analyses refer to rocks richer in albite, which are here called spilites in the proper sense. In the felspar diagram the projection points of the calculated felspar mixtures of spacing the rocks form a narrow zone close to the plagioclase line extending from 7 per cent An to 58 per cent An. As the dividing point between the diabases and the spilitic members a mixture with about 40 per cent An is accepted. When adding to the diagram the keratophyric rocks associated with the spilites, the whole distance from about 60 per cent of An to the immediate vicinity of the Ab-corner would be filled up.Between the spilites and other rocks of equal femic composition and of about equal SiO2 content there exists in the felspar diagram an area in which very few rocks are represented. Petrographically the spilites are thus distinguished as a special rock-type. The boundary towards the ordinary basalts and diabases at the An-rich end of the series on account of the relations of the felspars alone is more dubious, as the individual basalts or diabases may be very poor in potash, but a difference seems to exist here also.Other chemical qualities characteristic of the spilites are deficiency in alumina and high content of ferrous iron and of TiO2. The low percentage of Al2O3 is the main cause of the soda-rich composition of the felspar, as the CaO-content of the rocks is not low. The An-poor composition of the felspar in the rocks, furthermore, is accentuated by the entrance of An-molecules into the pyroxene during the crystallization of the magma, the generation of olivine being thereby prevented. This mineral, or pseudomorphs of it, is seldom recorded from the spilites. The high content of FeO is distinctive, not only for the spilites proper but also for the diabase members truly belonging to the series.The importance of the high content of FeO for the course of crystallization in the An-poor members of the spilites is discussed. The consequence is found to be a change of the eutectic ratio of pyroxene and plagioclase contained in the concentration-diagram of plagioclase and pure MgO-pyroxene. The eutectic line for pyroxene and plagioclase during the crystallization of the magma will thus be reached earlier than shown by the diagram. In this way the textural relations of the rocks are explained without the hypothesis of autometamorphic changes and of an earlier An-rich plagioclase. In the appearance and mineral composition of the rock there is nothing compelling an assumption of this kind, unless the alteration of the minerals to compounds richer in water and carbon dioxide is referred to the period of consolidation. This would imply the fixing in the consolidated rock of these elements, but not a change of the other oxides. As to the time of the generation of the secondary minerals we do not know anything with certainty. The fact that the spilite group includes members which are poor in water and carbon dioxide, or are not decomposed at all, shows that a high content of these compounds is not necessarily inherent in the spilitic magma.