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v, and so on. When the pump has made a few strokes in this manner, a lever T is let down, so as to rest on the ledge น. The wheel F provided with six pegs is now turned a tooth farther each time the weight C slides from the left to the right, and the ledgepeg f, which when the lever was raised caught each time into a notch of the peg-wheel, rests for the length of five strokes of the pump against the circumference of the wheel, and does not catch into the notch until the sixth stroke. As the rising of the quicksilver in the pump is in the inverse proportion of the momentum of the counter-weight in its left final position, if the ledges and peg fare rightly placed, it will when ascending be driven five times into the little hollow space r, and only at the sixth into the ball n. In consequence of this the little air-bubbles are accumulated in the highly evacuated space r, in which they ascend owing to the slight counterpressure, and forming larger bubbles, and having easily overcome the somewhat greater counter-pressure of the mercury column s, they rise into the ball P.

All these manipulations are performed entirely automatically by the apparatus. At the same time that the toothed wheel has commenced working (ie. when the volume of air pumped out by the pump has sufficiently diminished) the vessel P is entirely cut off from the hydrostatic air-pump by the cock t1, thus ceasing to act. The mercury of the pump is entirely shut off on both sides from the exterior air, and only in contact with perfectly dry air. After stopping the pump, concentrated sulphuric acid may be sucked up into P, which dries up entirely. The mercury is shut off from M by a caoutchouc bag, I.

The following experiments were made at the Physical Institute of the University of Berlin :

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400 c.cm. (cubic centimetres) were evacuated to 1/1000 m.m. in ten minutes; 4000 c.cm. 4 litres, in an hour. The highest rarefaction hitherto obtained has been about from 1,6000,00 1/800,000 m.m. = to about 480000000 600000000 atmospheres. The pump is supplied by Messrs. E. Leybolds Nachfolger, Cologne (Germany). AUGUST RAPS.

CRYSTALLISED CARBON.

IN the course of some researches on the properties and modes of formation of the various forms of carbon, M. Henri Moissan has succeeded in reproducing the variety of diamond known as carbonado, or black diamond, and has even obtained some minute crystals of the colourless gem. An account of his results in the Comptes Rendus of February 6 is followed by an article on the reproduction of the diamond, by M. Friedel, and some congratulatory remarks by M. Berthelot.

As long ago as 1880 Mr. Hannay'1 indicated the formation of diamond-like crystals on heating under high pressure, in a tube of iron, a mixture of lithium, lampblack, essence of paraffin, and bone oil. It was then supposed that the nitrogenous compounds of the last substance played the most important part. In M. Moissan's new process carbon obtained from sugar is dissolved in a mass of iron, and allowed to crystallise out under high pressure. To produce this pressure the expansion of iron during condensation is utilised. The carbon is strongly compressed in an iron cylinder closed with a screw-stopper of the same metal. A quantity of soft iron, weighing about 150 or 200 gr., is melted in the electric furnace in a few minutes, and the cylinder is plunged into the molten mass. The crucible is at once taken out of the furnace and splashed over with water. When the external crust is at a red heat the whole is allowed to cool slowly in air.

The metallic mass thus obtained is attacked by boiling 1 Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. xxx. p. 183.

hydrochloric acid until all the iron is removed remain three forms of carbon: graphite quantity; a chestnut-coloured carbon in ver needles, such as has been found in the Cam meteorite; and a small quantity of denser caric has to be further isolated. For this purpose the n is treated alternately with boiling sulphuric an fluoric acids, and the residue decanted in sulph.r of density 18. It then contains only very little gr and various forms of carbon. After six or e ments with potassium chlorate and fuming tha residue is boiled in hydrofluoric acid and den boiling sulphuric acid to destroy the fluorides. I: washed and dried, and bromoform is employed tɔ mi out some very small fragments denser than the which scratch the ruby, and, when heated in 1000°, disappear.

Some of these fragments are black, others tran The former have a rough surface, and a grept tint identical with that of certain carbonados scratch the ruby, and their density ranges fr Some pieces have a smooth surface, a darker the curved edges. The transparent fragments, which broken up into small pieces, have a fatty lustre, are refractive, and exhibit a certain number of parale and triangular impressions.

During combustion in a current of oxygen at some of the fragments left cinders of an ochrea... usually preserving the original form of the small r just as in the combustion of impure diamonds

As indicated already by Mr. Sidney Marsdec heated to 1500° in presence of sugar carbon 5* contain on cooling some black crystals with curved. M. Moissan has found that high pressure is induterHe heated silver till it boiled briskly in contact «** bon, and found that a certain quantity of the Le dissolved. By suddenly cooling in water, a par liquid silver, cooling inside a solid crust, was sute a very high pressure. No diamonds were forge rather a large crop of carbonadoes of densites from 25 to 3'5, thus forming a series connecti with diamond. Bromoform separated a carbonać scratched the ruby and burned in oxygen at 12. quantitative determination of this reaction shave 0'006 parts of this substance gave 0023 of carber M. C. Friedel describes an experiment obtained a black powder capable of scratching er by the action of sulphur on molten iron conta cent. of carbon. But the question of the prod diamond powder by this means is as yet an oper M. Moissan is continuing his researches on bility of carbon in iron, silver, and their alloys be hoped that he will soon be able to exhibit =” true diamonds of a more imposing size.

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are usually mere points. When seen with a lens, en at a distance from the eye suited to distinct vision does not appear to be any regular structure or gement of the bright points. But if the surface is eld as to be a little beyond the place of distinct vision, at the same time, turned around in such a way as to t always a strong light to the eye, either skylight or light, there appear lines of points across the polished ce of the stone, which suggest very strongly the manstaetten figures on metallic meteorites. At times, e stone is turned, no lines can be detected. Again set of parallel lines or two sets crossing each other me visible. Some of the sets are very sharply manid, and some are so faint as to leave one in doubt her the lines are real or only fancied. There are on urface in question six or eight of these sets of lines. second surface was ground nearly parallel to the at about one centimetre distant from it, and like appeared on this parallel surface. Some of the but not all of them, corresponded in direction in wo surfaces. Four more surfaces approximately at angles to the first surface, and corresponding to the of a right prism, were then ground, and upon these ices the like sets of lines appear with more or less

nctness.

slab of a Pultusk stone 6 x 7 centimetres shows its entire surface like markings. Something like a ature of the lines appears in one instance, but in ral the lines run straight from side to side of the The slab is six millimeters in thickness, and most e sets of lines have the same directions upon the two

Hessle stone, a small slice from the Wold Cottage 2. one from Sierra di Chaco, one from a Sienna , a fragment from the Rockwood stone, and a slice the Rensselaer Co. stone, all show with more ss clearness the like markings. Of three microscope s of the Fayette Co. meteorite one shows them ly, a second shows traces of them, the third not

L

considerable number of the ground surfaces of oric stones in the Peabody Museum also show these ings. For example, a triangular surface of a Weston , 8 or 10 centimetres to each side, exhibits them well.

nese markings are such as we might expect if the es which determine the crystallisation of the nickelof the iron meteorites also dominated the structure e rock-like formations of the stony meteorites and istribution therein of the iron particles. The relaof quartz crystals to the structure of graphic granite urally suggested by these meteorite markings.

H. A. NEWTON.

THE LATE THOMAS DAVIES, F.G.S. R. THOMAS DAVIES, who died on December 21 last, was born on December 29, 1837, in the neigh-❘ ood of London, and was the son of Mr. William es, F.G.S., of the Geological Department of the h Museum. His early education was of a very entary character, and the period of his school-life brief: finding town-life irksome, and yearning for orn and adventure, he took to the sea at the age of en, and during the next four years led a roving life, og China, India, and various parts of South America. as then prevailed upon by his father to adopt a settled mode of existence, and on the separation of epartment of Mineralogy from that of Geology was nted in 1858 a third-class attendant at the British um under Prof. Maskelyne, to whom the care of the als had been assigned; in the following year he to his responsibilities by marriage.

when Dr. Viktor von Lang was an assistant in the Department, Mr. Davies was the sole helper of Mr. Maskelyne in the arrangement and examination of the mineral collections; during this time Mr. Maskelyne effected a thorough change in the classification and arrangement of the minerals, and in labelling with localities the large number of specimens that were without any descriptions except what could be traced out in old catalogues. In this work, and in the cleaning and arranging some tons of specimens, of which many were entirely valueless, the patient and intelligent aid of "young Davies" alone rendered it possible to carry out the preliminary operations. As the collection grew into orderly arrangement, the registration and labelling of specimens was entrusted to him by Mr. Maskelyne. It was thus that he gradually acquired an eye-knowledge of minerals which has rarely, if ever, been surpassed. His perception of the peculiarities of a specimen was remarkably quick, while his remembrance of individual specimens was almost marvellous. It was particularly in the habit, the locality, the associations and modes of occurrence of mineral species that he concentrated his interest; and to his knowledge in this direction his earlier training, under the eye of Mr. Maskelyne, in the labelling of the minerals, accumulated in the cases and drawers of the collection, very largely contributed.

In the early years of Mr. Davies's museum life Mr. Maskelyne was further engaged in the study of thin sections of meteorites, and initiated Mr. Davies into a knowledge of the microscopic characters of rock-forming minerals, a mode of investigation then almost unknown. In this direction his quickness of perception and excellence of memory had full scope for play, and Mr. Davies soon became extremely skilful in the microscopic determination of minerals in rock-sections, and in the recognition of peculiarities of rock-structure. Few practical petrologists approached him in this faculty.

Nor did he neglect to improve his general education. With this end in view he attended the evening classes at the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street, and in the course of time acquired a knowledge of both French and German. He was also familiar with plants and fossils, a knowledge largely derived from his father.

His remarkable qualifications attracted the early attention of Mr. Maskelyne, and in 1862 were officially recognised in his promotion by the trustees from the grade of attendant to that of transcriber or junior assistant. In 1880 he was promoted to the grade of first-class assistant. By a remarkable coincidence his father, Mr. William Davies, who had long been renowned for his large practical knowledge of important branches of palæontology, and especially of fossil fishes, and had likewise begun museum life as an attendant, obtained the same promotion on the same day. In the same year Mr. Davies was awarded the balance of the proceeds of the Wollaston Fund by the Council of the Geological Society as a testimony of the value of his researches in mineralogy and lithology. Still later, in 1889, the name of Daviesite was given to a new mineral "in honour of Mr. Thomas Davies, who has now been associated during upwards of thirty years with the British Museum Mineral Collection, and whose mineralogical experience and Breithauptian eye have ever been willingly placed at the service, not only of his colleagues, but of every one who has been brought into relationship with him."

He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1870, and was an early member of the Mineralogical Society of France.

His published work was not voluminous; it relates almost exclusively to the microscopic characters of the pre-Cambrian rocks. He contributed, however, the bulk of the articles on mineralogy and petrology for "Cassell's Encyclopædic Dictionary," and for some years edited the

ring the next nine years, save for a short interval | Mineralogical Magazine.

Mr. Maskelyne, for whom he was right-hand man, and almost sole working helper during upwards of twenty years, looks back with fond regret on the uninterrupted happiness of their association. According to my own experience of the last fifteen years, he was an excellent colleague, always cheerful, good-tempered, and kindhearted, ever ready to help in any direction, however much it might interfere with the particular work he had immediately in hand. At home he was an enthusiastic gardener; wet or fine, absolutely reckless of weather, he was at work from early sunrise, and could boast the possession of one of the best managed gardens in the neighbourhood. His love of fresh air and the bustling east wind never left him; even after recovery from the long illness which two years ago had taken him to the verge of the grave, he did not hesitate to show the greatest contempt for the protection of an umbrella, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of his friends, might still be occasionally seen enjoying the beating of the wind and rain on his unprotected face.

He was an Original Member of the Mineralogical Society, and Foreign Secretary for several years preceding his death.

Mr. Davies leaves a widow and nine children to mourn his loss. L. FLETCHER.

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NOTES.

66

AT the last meeting of the Council of the Mineralogical Society, it was resolved to initiate a Davies Thomas Memorial Fund on behalf of the widow and children of the late Mr. Thomas Davies, F. G. S., of the British Museum. The following gentlemen have consented to act as an Executive Committee :-Prof. N. S. Maskelyne, F. R. S. (chairman), Dr. Hugo Müller, F. R. S. (treasurer), Mr. H. A. Miers, F.G. S. (secretary), Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S., Mr. L. Fletcher, F.R.S., Dr. Henry Hicks, F. R. S., W. H. Hudleston, F.R.S., Prof. J. W. Judd, F. R. S., Mr. F. W. Rudler, F. G. S., Mr. F. Rutley, F.G.S., Rev. Prof. T. Wiltshire, F.G. S., Dr. Henry Woodward, F. R.S. Subscriptions for the fund should be sent to Dr. Hugo Müller, 13 Park Square East,, Regent's Park, London, N. W.

AN extra meeting of the Chemical Society will be held on February 20, at 8 p.m., the anniversary of the death of Herman Kopp, when a lecture will be delivered by Prof. T. E. Thorpe, F.R.S. Lord Playfair will be in the chair.

AN International Botanical Congress is to be held during the Columbian Exposition at Chicago. Prof. C. E. Bessey will receive communications on the subject.

M. P. DUCHARTIE has been elected president, and M. L. Guignard first vice-president, of the Botanical Society of France for the year 1893.

The chair

THE annual public meeting of the University College Chemical and Physical Society will be held at University College, Gower Street, on Friday, February 24. will be taken at eight o'clock by Prof. F. T. Roberts, and Prof. Watson-Smith will deliver an address on diseases incident to work-people in chemical and other industries.

MR. THOMAS BRYANT, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, delivered the Hunterian oration on Tuesday afternoon in the theatre of the college, in the presence of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York and a large and distinguished company. Mr. Bryant began by thanking their Royal Highnesses for their presence on the special occasion of the centenary of the death of John Hunter, the great founder of scientific surgery. In the course of his oration Mr. Bryant said that the whole world of vegetable and animal life was Hunter's subject, but that

his main objects were the improvement of surgery by the dation of pathology; the examination of the causes whic termine any departure from the normal type, whether of fi function; and the study of the means which nature adış the healing of wounds and the repair of injuries. It was a his special merits that he raised surgery out of the positi a poor art, based on empirical knowledge and practised to as a trade, to establish it firmly as a high and elevating s at the same time raising its practitioners in the social scie doing as much for medicine as for surgery, for he only them inseparable. He made the profession scientific 5 b. it upon the widest knowledge of the structure and forcin all living things, and educed therefrom laws and princi the guidance of future generations in their study and teof disease in any of its forms. This alone should rende worthy of the thanks of civilised mankind.

MR. GEORGE MATHEWS WHIPPLE, whose death werrecorded last week, had done much solid and valuable w various departments of physical science. Among the sh in which he was especially interested were wind force and velocities, and throughout the greater part of his life, Times has said in a brief sketch of his career, he was cocarrying on experiments with a view to determine wind and to find out what were the best instruments for a accurate results. He improved the Kew pattern m struments; he designed, among other instruments, the gr for testing the dark shades of sextants; and at various he was associated with Captain Heaviside, Major He and General Walker, in carrying on pendulum exper the determination of the force of gravity. The mag of the report of the committee appointed by the Roy' S to investigate the Krakatoa eruption and the sabe, phenomena was prepared by Mr. Whipple, and valuate were from time to time submitted by him to the Roy and the Royal Meteorological Society. He was y age at the time of his death. He entered the Kew tory in 1858, became magnetic assistant in 19 was appointed superintendent in 1876. This office b great and growing importance, and we trust that 1 successor may be found. The Kew Observatory is th standardising station of the Meteorological Office, and magnetical observatories in other countries are sinir nected with it. New instruments are tested th experiments are made, and it has now grown into an where the verification of scientific instruments of many

including thermometers, sextants, telescopes, watche recently photographic lenses, is carried on on a large described in the annual report of the Kew commite Royal Society.

THE Rev. F. O. Morris died at Nunburnholme, in Ya on Friday last, at the age of eighty-two. He was we foster interest in some branches of natural history, as a popular writer on science, and did much to ornithology. Among his many books were "A H British Birds," issued in six volumes from 1851 to S his "Natural History of the Nests and Eggs of British published in three volumes in 1853. In 1854 he was to the rectory of Nunburnholme, which he contire. until his death.

A DESTRUCTIVE earthquake has taken place in the Samothrace. All the buildings are said to have been Renewed shocks, accompanied by loud subterranea have also occurred at Zante.

ON Sunday a shock of earthquake was experience. Zealand. It caused little damage, but was felt in both **

South Islands, being most severe at Wellington and at

ion.

BE weather of the past week has been very stormy and p in most parts of these islands; scarcely a day has passed out gales being reported. On Friday, the 10th, the wind was especially strong, on the north-east coast of Scotland in the English Channel, and on Tuesday another deep desion had reached our northern coasts from off the Atlantic, mpanied by strong gales. The United Kingdom was situabetween two areas of high barometer readings, one of which over Scandinavia and the other over France and Spain. this distribution of pressure, the conditions were favourto the passage of cyclonic disturbances within our area, and bugh the storms were not of exceptional violence in the hern districts, they were so relatively, as the winds have i peculiarly quiet during the last twelve months. Temperahas been a little above the mean for the season, the daily ima often exceeding 50°, but on Sunday the highest day ings were below 40° over the north-east of England, while arp frost occurred in the north of Scotland, the minimum perature registering 20°. On the continent the temperature been much lower than in this country; at Haparanda, at the h of the Gulf of Bothnia, which lies in the area of the high metric pressure over Scandinavia, a temperature of minus was recorded on Friday and Saturday. Rainfall has been of 7 occurrence at most stations, although the amounts measured generally been light, while hail and sleet have occurred in y places. With Tuesday's storm, however, the rainfall exed an inch on the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland. By Weekly Weather Report of the 11th instant it appears that ainfall for that week was greatly in excess of the mean in north and west of Scotland, and to a less extent in the east

cotland, the north of Ireland, and the western parts of land. Bright sunshine exceeded the mean in all districts, the lest amounts, 32 to 38 per cent., being recorded in most s of England.

HE recent numbers of Ciel et Terre (Nos 21-23) contain resting articles on ozone. The observation of this element meteorologists has been almost given up in most countries, og chiefly to the difficulty of obtaining comparable results by methods at present in use, although its importance for inis and others as a purifier of the atmosphere is generally owledged. And at a recent meeting of the Royal Meteorocal Society, regret was expressed at the discontinuance of e observations. D. A. Van Bastelaer, in conjunction with Royal Observatory of Brussels, maintained a system of e observations at 150 of the stations belonging to the Society blic Medicine in Belgium during the years 1886-91, which obably the most complete investigation into the subject h has been made. The values found for the various stations iven in a tabular form, and M. Van Bastelaer found that are continual and sudden variations in the records from hour ur, between morning and evening, and from one day to er, but that the mean values for any locality remain nearly Isolated values are of no use; a long series of obserms is necessary for any results of importance to be arrived The air at stations near the sea coast contained, as is y supposed, the greatest amount of ozone.

ant.

E Indiana Academy of Science lately held at Indianopolis ghth annual meeting, the president being Prof. J. L. Campof Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Ind. There was a attendance, and no fewer than ninety-two papers had been red, most of which were read. The first volume of the emy's Proceedings was distributed at the meeting.

THE Kew Bulletin continues, in the January number, its series of articles on the food grains of India, one of the subjects being Kangra Buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum, Gærtn., var. himalaica, Batalin). The typical plant is cultivated throughout the higher Himalayas, but more especially on the western extremity, and at altitudes from 8000 to 14,000 feet. The yield in India cannot yet be estimated, but the Bulletin says there can be little doubt that the seeds are singularly rich in nutrient constituents. This is confirmed by the conclusions of Prof. Church with regard to a sample he has examined.

THE January number of the Kew Bulletin contains also the fourth decade of new orchids, the fourth of "Decades Kewenses,' papers on fruit growing at the Cape and the clove industry of Zanzibar, and miscellaneous notes.

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PROF. R. SHIMEK is now investigating the flora and the geology of Nicaragua, along the route of the canal, under commission from the State University of Iowa. Dr. Terracciano, of Rome, is about to renew his investigation of the flora of Erythrea, the Italian colony on the Red Sea. Dr. K. N. Denkenbach is commissioned by the Natural History Society of St. Petersburg to investigate the flora of the Black Sea.

establishment of a new order of Schizomycetes, the MyxobacMR. R. THAXTER proposes in the Botanical Gazette the teriacea, somewhat intermediate in its characters between the typical Schizomycetes and the Myxomycetes. It comprises the genus Chondromyces, placed by Berkeley, in his "Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany," under the Stilbacei, and two new genera, Myxobacter and Myxococcus. The order consists of mobile rod-like organisms, multiplying by fission, secreting a gelatinous base, and forming pseudo-plasmode-like aggregations before passing into a more or less highly-developed cystproducing resting state, in which the rods may become encysted in groups without modification, or may be converted into spore

masses.

AT the meeting of the Royal Botanic Society on Saturday, one of the branches of the flowering stalk of Fourcroya selloa was shown from the Society's conservatory. This is a Mexican plant allied to the aloes, and like them it flowers only once during its life. The plant, which has been in the conservatory for upwards of twenty years, late last autumn threw up a flower spike which in a very short time grew to a height of 30 feet, and, passing through the glass roof, rose for some feet into the open air. It could not, of course, resist the frosts and fogs of winter. The flower-buds dropped unopened, when immediately from each node a number of young plants appeared. This mode of reproduction is found in only a few varieties of plants, and is especially valuable in relation to the cultivation of Fourcroyas as a source of commercial vegetable fibre.

THE Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society will have no very pleasant associations with the memory of its hundredth anniversary, which was celebrated on Tuesday of last week. During the following night the society's premises caught fire and were greatly damaged. Much injury was done to the library, where many most valuable books were destroyed.

THE fifth and sixth parts of the fifth volume of the Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie have been issued together in a single number. It includes the second part of Dr. W. Svoboda's interesting study (in German) of the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands; a paper (in French) by Désiré Pector on the volume by Dr. Hyades and Dr. Deniker (noticed some time ago in NATURE) on the ethnography of a part of Tierra del Fuego; a suggestive essay (in German) by Dr. T. Achelis, on the psychological importance of ethnology; and the second part of Dr. Schmeltz's careful contributions (in German) to the

ethnography of Borneo. The first and last of these papers are admirably illustrated. A valuable paper on the Ainos, by David MacRitchie, of Edinburgh, has been published as a supplement to the fourth volume of the Archiv. This paper is accompanied by, and contains full descriptions of, a series of coloured reproductions of most interesting pictures of Aino life by Japanese artists, who have naturally a keener perception of the characteristics of their savage neighbours than can be attained by Western visitors. Mr. MacRitchie seeks to show that the Ainos display "unmistakable traces of a near descent, by at least one line of their ancestry, from the most crude form of humanity."

MESSRS. SAMSON AND WALLIN, Stockholm, are about to issue what promises to be an important and interesting work, by F. R. Martin, on the Siberian Antiquities of the Bronze Age, preserved in the museum of Minousinsk. Nearly 900 objects in copper and bronze will be represented in the plates, which, according to the prospectus, are being prepared with the greatest care. The antiquities of which these objects are selected specimens were collected in 1874 by M. Nicolai Martianow from mounds in the steppes of the Upper Yenisei. They are the finest provincial collection in the Russian Empire, and M. Martin found much to interest him in classifying and photo graphing them. The present volume will be the first of a series of works on the ethnography and archæology of Western Siberia by the same writer.

THE third volume of "A Journal of American Ethnology and Archæology," edited by J. Walter Fewkes, has been issued. It contains an interesting "outline of the documentary history of the Zuni tribe," by A. F. Bandelier, and "somatological observations on Indians of the south-west," by Dr. H. F. C. Ten Kate. It is worth while to note that in Dr. Ten Kate's opinion the study of physical anthropology among the North American Indians does not tend to demonstrate that their types are exclusively American. It rather shows, he thinks, that they present only the characteristics of "the Mongolian or so-called yellow races." "I do not mean," he says, "that the American aborigines are Mongolians in the strict sense of the word, or that America has been populated from Asia. Where the Indians came from I do not know, but my position is as follows:-The American race is, somatologically speaking, not a type, but has characteristics which can only be called Mongoloid."

PROBABLY no living sportsman has shot more big game in South Africa than Mr. F. C. Selous, who for years was more at home in a waggon or a tent somewhere in the far countries of Africanderland than in the towns and settlements of the Cape Colony or the Transvaal. He has nearly completed an account of eleven years' sport and travel, which will be shortly published by Messrs. Rowland, Ward and Co., of Piccadilly. fully illustrated, and will include a variety of general information on subjects of interest in connection with the latest developments of South African exploration.

It will be

MR. ELLIOT STOCK has published the third volume of "The Field Club," a magazine of general natural history for scientific and unscientific readers, edited by the Rev. Theodore Wood. The volume contains many articles which are well fitted to awaken interest in various aspects of natural science.

WE referred lately to Dr. D. G. Brinton's opinion as to the relation between nervous diseases and civilisation. As his view has been called in question by Dr. Rockwell, he returns to the subject in Science, supporting his own conclusions by a reference to a paper contributed by Dr. I. C. Rosse, professor of nervous diseases at the Georgia Medical College, to the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease for July, 1891. In this paper Dr Rosse cites many authorities to prove that there is as much nervous disease at low as at higher stages of civilisation, and

perhaps more. In the district of Columbia, for examp decedents among the coloured people from nervous de often exceed those of the white population by thirty-thre cent. Dr. Rosse is inclined to believe that a sudden char the social habits and condition of any race, at any stage vancement, will result in a prompt development of te disease. A high civilisation, which is stable, excites such a dition less than instability in lower grades.

AT the meeting of the Field Naturalists' Club of Ver November a paper presenting a list of species of Va butterflies was communicated. It had been prepar Messrs. F. Spry and Ernest Anderson, and embote results of work carried on during many years. The "^ Naturalist says the paper was "received with great satist and will prove of extreme value to the Victorian lepidop

MR. H. L. CLARK records in Science what he calls "**** satisfactory evidence" as to the rate of speed in the *** certain birds. He thinks that this is often greatly ex He was travelling lately on the Baltimore and Ohio Rais the valley of the Potomac, when he saw a great many wi which are admitted to be among the strongest flyers in An It so happened that, on rounding a sharp curve, the tr a pair of buffle-heads, which started up stream at full spee watching them he found that, instead of their leaving te behind, the train was actually beating them, and be is that their rate of speed was not equal to that of the tran kept alongside of them," he says, "for nearly a minus they turned back down-stream. Careful calculation sheet the train was running at about thirty-seven miles per he that the rate of speed for those wild ducks would it thirty-six. I hope that others may have some evidens question of speed in flight which will throw more Ligh subject."

AN interesting illustration of the tendency of inorg. 5 to simulate the forms seen in organic is afforded by su mens of hæmatite from a mine in Lake Superior district described in the American Geologist as a fire hæmatite, compact and tough-looking, and the radia ments or fibres towards their summits are seen to sprea some frondescent vegetable growths. It would seer 'process of increase these fibres, starting from dife slightly distant points, and having a tendency to expart began to interfere with one another. The line of which became a plane as growth continued, is marat more or less distinct plane of separation. This fre hæmatite, in addition, is pierced by a number of pecolu nels which seem to date from the time of developme crystals. It is noticed that these run, in general, perpen to the fibrous structure, and lie in or across the planes of of two oppositely spreading frondescent growths. Thes to mark in the first instance the vacancies left by the tacts of overarching growths from opposite directions. branches then interfered with the free circulation cfa interrupted and permanently stopped the developme fibres beneath the overspreading canopy.

It was shown by Ferraris some time ago (and the fargreat practical importance) that by means of two simp nating currents acting in fixed spirals, a rotating magne › could be produced, which by inductive action set in copper cylinder or other conducting body brought into the Also an iron cyclinder, cut through so that the Foucas tion currents could not be formed, was rotated by vint called magnetic hysteresis. Further studies in this have been made by Signor Arno, using electric magnetic forces, and a dielectric body instead of a

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