Jocelyn Thorpe

In a Persian Oil Field: a Study in Scientific and Industrial Development

THE Tigris and Euphrates join north-west of Basrah and thence flow to the Persian Gulf as the broad, silt-filled stream known as the Shattel-Arab. For some hundred miles the combined rivers wind their way between low banks of alluvium, on which, except for the small areas cultivated around the Arab villages, nothing of value grows save the date palm. The scene and the surrounding country have probably been much the same for the past two thousand years, although evidences of Roman irrigation works indicate that, at one time, vast areas of the country must have been under effective cultivation and,iave remained so until the system, lapsing into disrepair, enabled the highly charged waters of the two rivers again to impreg nate the soil with mineral salts so as to render it productive of little but the camel thorn.In a Persian Oil Field: a Study in Scientific and Industrial Development.By J. W. Williamson. Pp. 189 + 24 plates. (London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1927.) 7s. 6d. net.

The Taxation of Research

WE have received notification that the Inland Revenue authorities are about to challenge the right of the Chemical Society as a charitable institution to recover the income tax deducted at the source from the interest on its invested capital. For eighty years the Society has published freely new knowledge in chemistry, and has carried a financial burden which could not have been borne had not Governments in the past provided rent-free accommodation and relieved the Society from taxation.

The Indian Chemical Service

IT would, perhaps, have been better if the writer of the leading article entitled “The Organisation of Scientific Work in India,” published in NATURE of February 19, had held his hand until he had obtained further information concerning the proposed organisation. The report of the Indian Industrial Commission dealt only with the general question, and left the elaboration of any scheme, if such were considered desirable, to special committees which were to be appointed at a later date. The special committees were to be given a free hand, and were left to approach the problem from an unbiassed point of view.