NOVEMBER 12, 1932] NATURE 741

Fixation of Mitochondria this last liberation. In half an hour's THE importance of always omitting lipide solvents beating of the bushes resulted in the finding of 15 from fixatives for mitochondria has, I think, been live specimens of A pion, so that a considerable number I find that mitochondria are readily must have survived the winter. In August 1932another demonstrable in the liver of the newt and the kidney search was made and although only one dead Apion of the mouse even after fixation with Carnoy's alcohol• was beaten off the bushes, there were well developed chloroform-acetic, which should certainly remove Apion larvre in four pods out of 300 examined, the all lipides. Bouin's fluid preserves the mitochondria total number of pods present being probably in the liver of the newt as well as the standard mito• 1-200,000. Thus there is evidence that both winters chondrial fixatives. When in Dalmatia in the must have been survived by many of the weevils summer I put the testes of some Hemiptera (Syro• and that normal breeding had taken place this year masteB marginatus) into Bouin's fluid and left them and probably last year also. in it until my return to England. On sectioning them It may be, then, that the limited distribution of I found the filamentous mitochondria of the primary Apion ulici8 is attributable to inadequate dispersal, spermatocytes well preserved. but observations over a longer period are necessary Although mitochondria are in certain cases pre• before it can be definitely attributed to this cause served by these methods, they are not thereby mor• rather than to the occurrence of occasional devas• danted for subsequent staining. It is best to bring tating conditions, such as long-continued low tem• the sections to water and then leave them overnight peratures during the breeding season. in three per cent potassium dichromate in a paraffin Dept. of Botany, E. H. CHATER. oven. Next morning they are washed in running University College of Wales, water for five minutes, and then stained by Altmann's Aberystwyth. technique or one of its modifications. Champy• mentioned in 1911 that mitochondria are sometimes preserved by Bouin's fluid, and Undeciphered Scripts Romeis• in 1913 saw them, somewhat distorted, REFERRING to the note in NATURE of October 1, after Carnoy's fluid without chloroform. It seems p. 502, on the similarity of ancient scripts found in that when there is a large protein component in the Indus Valley and in Easter Island, it may be mitochondria, there is no necessity to omit acetic acid mentioned that Prof. Herman Wirth, of Marburg, and lipide solvents from fixatives used to show them. has also directed attention to a number of similar I wish to retract my recently published remarks1 symbols that have been found in North and South on the fixative action of quinone. I placed tissues in America, Sweden, Southern Andalusia, Mesopotamia, quinone solutions and then transferred them to Africa and Oceania. He explains some of these signs Carnoy's fluid. Mitochondria were not dissolved. on the usual lines of literal interpretation ; but the In view of the current opinion regarding the action fact that so many ideographs, "even [!] the of Carnoy's fluid on mitochondria, I concluded that Svastica" as Sir Denison Ross observes, are found quinone was a powerful fixative for them. It is now in diverse parts of the world suggests that a certain clear that the evidence for this conclusion was class of archaic symbol cannot be interpreted as insufficient. JOHN R. BAKER. mere pictographs of material objects and local University Museum, Oxford. events. They obviously constitute the elements of Oct. 8. a universal 'language' the symbols of which represent functions of Nature. The practical scientific know• 1 Baker. J . R ., NATURE 130, 134, . ' Cnamp)·, C., Arch. d' Anal. >nil!r. , 13, p. 55; lVll. ledge of prehistoric civilisations implies some familiar• • Romeis, B., .Arch. mikr. .Anal., 81, p. 129; 1913. ity with the operations of the dual, positive and negative principle in Nature. Factors Determining the Distribution of A pion ulicis The knowledge of the physicist and biologist, IN connexion with the noxious weed control hitherto neglected in palreographical research, may investigations at Farnham Royal Laboratory on be required for the interpretation of some of these behalf of the New Zealand Government, an experi• undeciphered 'scripts'. The geometrical and alge• ment has been carried out in order to thrDw light braical 'functions' of stresses, strains, and trans• upon the nature of the factors limiting the distribu• formations of 'lines of force', do not vary from age tion of Apion ulici8; for this weevil is not found to age ; and, although the symbols for these in one throughout the areas occupied by its host plant, Ulex era may seem abitrary to the savants of another europams. Its abundance on the Moray coast, for age, the man of science is much more likely to find example, and its absence from the Aberdeen district the 'key' than the man of letters. w. w. L. suggest the possibility that climatic factors in the north may only be suitable in the warmer districts. The experiment consisted of the introduction of Photochemical Synthesis of Vitamin B 25,500 mature insects, beaten off bushes, to an island 1 (BY CABLE) in the River Don near its mouth at Bridge of Don, Aberdeen. This island is several acres in extent and ADENINE SULPHATE has been activated into has many large clumps of gorse upon it. Careful vitamin B 1 by irradiation with ultra-violet light. search was made previously to ascertain that no Guanine chloride could not be activated similarlv. Apion ulici8 was there. In , 500 Tests were carried out on rats according to the A pions, collected from Nairn, were liberated ; in technique previously described. Details will appear January 1930, 5,000 from Buckinghamshire were elsewhere. B. C. GUHA, liberated, and in Dr. Guy Morrison P. N. CHAKRAVORTY. liberated 20,000 from Buckinghamshire after making Biochemical Laboratory, another search on the island for Apion and finding Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works, Ltd., none. The gorse was in full bloom at the time of Calcutta, Nov. 7. No. 3289, VoL. 130] © 1932 Nature Publishing Group