Southern African science in the year 1909 - 100n

News & Views South African Journal of Science 105, January/February 2009 Southern African science in the year 1909 – 100n Cornelis Plug The year 1909 was the last full year during which the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal Colony existed as independent states. Relatively few important scientific events took place in southern Africa during this year, or the ninth year of earlier centuries. 1609 Captain William Keeling, returning to Britain from a trading mission for the English East India Company, is credited with measuring the magnetic declination at Cape Agulhas this year—only the third such measurement known to have been made on land in South Africa and the first at that particular location. He found the declination to be 0.2°W. Earlier measurements on board Portuguese sailing vessels around the year 1500 had found the declination to be about zero. Subsequent measurements indicated that the declination increased steadily to a maximum value of some 30°W during the latter half of the nineteenth century, as a result of the gradual movement of the earth’s magnetic poles. 1809 Wilhelm L. von Buchenroder (1782– 1846), German-born soldier, farmer, builder and intellectual, who had arrived at the Cape in 1803, wrote ‘An account of the earthquake which occurred at the Cape of Good Hope during the month of December 1809’. The paper does not appear to have been published at the time, but years later it appeared in the first issue of the South African Quarterly Journal (1829) and in the Philosophical Magazine (1831). He described the effects of the shocks in and around Cape Town in detail, including some damage to buildings, and cracks in the ground near Blouberg. 1909 Magnetic surveys Three hundred years after Captain Keeling measured the magnetic declination at Cape Agulhas, J. Carruthers Beattie (1866–1946), professor of physics at the South African College, published his Report of a Magnetic Survey of South Africa (London, 1909). The survey, the first of its kind in southern Africa, involved measurements of magnetic declination, inclination and field strength at hundreds of stations throughout the subcontinent. Many of the measurements were repeated after a few years to determine secular variations in the magnetic elements. The project, carried out with the help of John T. Morrison (1863–1944), professor of physics at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, was started in 1898, but most of the work was done during vacations and a year’s leave in 1903. Beattie’s report presented a detailed description of the instruments and methods, and a thorough analysis of the results. In 1909 the two investigators were on leave again and decided to extend their magnetic survey. Beattie made measurements between Ceres and Windhoek (November 1908–March 1909) and from Kabwe, Zambia, through central Africa to the Nile (May–September 1909). Morrison meanwhile covered other parts of central Africa. Altogether more than 200 stations were occupied. The results were included in Land Magnetic Observations, 1905–1910, published by the Carnegie Institution in 1912, and were discussed by Beattie in several papers. The fight against stock diseases The Department of Agriculture of the Transvaal Colony convened a Pan African Veterinary Conference this year, chaired by Charles E. Gray (1864–1937), Principal Veterinary Surgeon of the Transvaal. In addition to veterinarians from the southern African territories the conference was attended by delegates from Madagascar and the Belgian Congo (now the DRC). Its main object was to consider means to combat East Coast Fever. At this time Herbert Watkins-Pitchford (1865–1950), Principal Veterinary Officer of Natal, began a classic study of dipping methods to combat the disease. He showed that dipping every three days with a solution containing sodium arsenite greatly reduced the number of brown ticks on animals and hence was a powerful weapon against the disease. His findings were reported in the Natal Agricultural Journal (1909, 1910) and the Agricultural Journal of the Union of South Africa (1910) and had a great influence on dipping practices in South Africa. Arnold Theiler (1867–1936), Director of 11 the Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Laboratory, identified a new parasite in the red blood cells of cattle and named it Anaplasma marginale. He also provided the first description of the disease caused by the parasite, naming it anaplasmosis. It is characterised by severe anaemia. The work was published in the Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist of the Transvaal for 1908/9 and subsequently in the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa (1910) and the Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics (1910). In June 1909 Theiler travelled to Uganda to visit Dr David Bruce (1855–1931), who had established the cause of nagana (sleeping sickness) while stationed in Zululand in 1895. Until August they collaborated on identifying a local cattle disease as East Coast Fever, after which Theiler continued his journey to Europe. He attended a conference in the Netherlands, gave a series of lectures there and in England, and visited various institutions in search of suitable additional staff for Onderstepoort. He returned to South Africa late in November. Botanical expeditions Henry H.W. Pearson (1870–1916), professor of botany at the South African College and honorary keeper of the herbarium at the South African Museum, undertook two extended and successful collecting expeditions with financial support from the Percy Sladen Memorial Trust. His first journey, during November 1908 to June 1909, took him to Namaqualand and through southern Namibia to Lüderitz, from where he travelled by sea to spend the months March to June in southern Angola. He was particularly keen to collect material of the genus Gnetum in Angola. His study of this genus showed that its embryology is very similar to that of Welwitschia and laid the foundation for a classification of the order of the Gymnosperms to which these two genera belong. On his second expedition, from November 1909 to January 1910, he spent most of his time in the Richtersveld and Kamiesberg. Upon returning to Cape Town he published ‘Travels of a botanist in South West Africa’ in the Geographical Journal (1910). The plants he collected were described by various specialists during the next five years and included many new species. New telescopes at the Transvaal Observatory The Transvaal Observatory in Johannesburg received a valuable gift in the form of a 250 mm photographic telescope. The donor was Mr John Franklin-Adams (1843–1912), a wealthy British amateur astronomer who had conducted a photo- 12 South African Journal of Science 105, January/February 2009 graphic survey of the southern sky at the Cape in 1903. He planned to return to South Africa in 1909 to re-photograph the southern sky, but his health prevented him from so doing. Instead he presented his telescope (...truncated)