Page images
PDF
EPUB

by a gas (so-called) radiator with window open and the conditions for comfortable mental work at top a few inches, and three doors, beneath

[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

FIG. 2.-Diagram of the Caleometer. I., II., III. and IV. are the arms of a Wheatstone Bridge. When the caleometer coil IV. becomes warmer than 40° C. the index of the galvanometer VI. (used as a relay) goes upwards in the diagram and completes the circuit which includes the upper half of the electro-magnetic coil VII., the soft iron plunger moves then upwards and increases the resistance in VIII., less current then passes and the coil IV. cools. When the caleometer coil IV. cools below 40° C. the index of the relay VI. moves downwards and completes the circuit which includes the lower half of the coil VII. and this pulls down the slider and lessens the resistance in VIII. V indicates the watts or calories required to keep IV. at 40° C.

[blocks in formation]

FIG. 3.-The Caleometer. A, caleometer coil. B, watt meter. C, travelling slider. D, magnetic coils surrounding soft iron plunger which moves in oil-bath. A string passes from the plunger over a pulley wheel on the slider to a counter-balancing weight and actuates the slider. E, the galvanometer acting as relay.

which the draught entered, the feet felt very cold and the head felt stuffy, the nose was congested,

On

at a desk were bad. The katathermometer showed that the rate of cooling at foot level was 40 per cent. greater than at head level. heating the same room by a properly flued gas fire, and securing warm feet by exposing them to its radiant heat, comfort was at once secured. The katathermometer showed that the rate of cooling at the level where the feet were was 30 per cent. slower than at head level.1

The caleometer, by its automatic action, indicates the amount of heat energy required to keep a small coil of wire at body temperature. The oscillations of the indicator show the cooling effect of moving air and the variations of air currents. If the atmosphere is still and monotonous, the oscillations of the indicator will be small and few in number.

Records of any number (up to eight) of caleometer coils, placed in different parts of, say, a factory, can be taken by using a self-recording watt-meter.2 The instrument is seen in Fig. 3. LEONARD HILL.

(1)

AIDS TO NATURE-STUDY.3

THE

HE entomologist's walk in life is in many respects an enviable one, for it is his particular business to study creatures which often exhibit great beauty, amazing variety, and a strange subtlety of behaviour. The current of research as regards molluscs or mammals, let us say, has a strong, quiet flow, but that in entomology recalls a mountain stream with novelties and surprises at every turn. We feel this more than ever as we read Mr. Step's fascinating

Marvels of Insect Life." With the aid of beautiful photographs, many of them from his own camera, he gives us a lively sense of the wonderful intricacy of insect-behaviour, which often seems like a caricature of that of higher animals. But no one knows what its most accurate psychological interpretation may be.

[graphic]

He

The author writes with clearness and accuracy, and there is no fussiness in his enthusiasm. is to be congratulated on having secured Mr. Theo. Carreras as a draughtsman, for the fullpage plates are exceptionally clever, and most of those in colour are as successful as they are daring. In its whole get-up the book is certainly at high-water mark. Two minor features may be mentioned which show that there has been careful consideration of what an intelligent reader reasonably expects and rarely gets. One is that the technical names of the insects dealt with are

1 Volunteers who will undertake daily readings with the katathermometer are asked to communicate with the writer (London Hosp tal Med cal College, E.). He is seeking to secure during the next six months records of open-air conditions in representative parts of Britain, and of those conditions which obtain in houses, schools, and factories.

2 The instrument is made by Mr. Robert W. Paul, Newton Avenue Works, New Southgate, London, N.

3

(1)

"Marvels of Insect Life. A Popular Account of Structure and Habit." Edited by E. Step. Pp. viii+486. (London: Hutchinson and Co., n.d.) Price 10s. 6d. ne'.

(2) "Nature Notes for Ocean Voyagers." By Capt. A. Carpenter and Capt. D. Wilson-Barker. Pp. xvi+181. (London: C. Griffin and Co., Ltd. 1915.) Price 5s. net.

(3) "The Drama of the Year." By Mary Ritchie. Pp. x+118 (London T. C. and E. C. Jack, 1915.) Price 25.

always given (at the foot of the page in this case); the other is that the illustrations are furnished

Photo.]

in which the larvæ of the pear-tree hover-fly deal with aphides, of the giant water-bug of Trinidad which

FIG. 1.-"Cuckoo-spit." From "Marvels of Insect Life."

with adequately detailed descriptions in small but
clear type. We have but one fault to find, that
we can discover no order in the marvels.
They form a delightful volume, but not a
unified book. Or are we overlooking some
arrangement which is subtle as insect be-
haviour itself? Perhaps we are ultra-sensi-
tive, but we like to be orderly, even in our
pleasures. It is interesting to find that Mr.
Step vouches for the mother-earwig's hen-
like care of her offspring, as to the reality
of which Mr. Brindley's careful observations
recently raised some doubts. We may also
note that the author's account of cuckoo-spit
(Fig. 1) is not quite up-to-date.

These are small points, however, and what
we particularly wish to say is that we can
think of no introduction to entomology which
surpasses the volume before us in its capa-
city of gripping the beginner and prompting
observation. Would one know of the mouse-
catching locust from the Congo, of the Kan-
chong Mantis which is so like a flower that
butterflies visit it, of nightmare insects that
look like jokes in morphogenesis, of the big
blue wasps of Texas which are able to over-
come the huge bird-spiders, of the growth
of the caterpillar of the privet hawk-moth
which increases its weight nearly ten thous-
and times in thirty-two days, of the long-
necked ant-lion of the pyramids which has its
prothorax pulled out into an instrument for
reaching down into crevices, of the whimsical
leaf-legged bug of South America (Fig. 2),
of the maternal bug of the birch-tree which
covers her offspring as a hen her chicks, of the
peculiar aquatic larvæ of the fly whose bite is
said to cause the strange skin disease called
pellagra, of the stalk-eyed fly that has its
eyes and minute antennæ borne on relatively long
lateral extensions of the head, of the quaint way

[H. Bastin.

some

times kills
frogs of
these and a
hundred other
marvels, is it
not written in
the captivat-
ing book of
Mr. Step?
(2) Cap-
tains Carpen-
ter and Wil-
son - Barker
address

⚫ themselves to
the voyager
who wishes
to know
some thing,
but not too
much, about
what is to be

[graphic]

seen from a ship's deck-the ocean itself and all that in it is. They deal in an interesting way,

[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

FIG. 2.-Leaf-legged insect from South America. The very long and slender hind-legs spread out at the top of the shank into prettily-coloured leaf-like growths which must tend to disguise the insect's true nature when seen upon foliage. From Marvels of Insect Life.'

without going very deeply into things, with the physical features of the sea, with the whales

and seals, the petrel and the albatross, the fishes and cephalopods, the Portuguese Man of War and the coral reef, with the seaweeds, the microscopic plankton, and the phenomena of phosphorescence, with the winds and the clouds, with the waves and their measurement. They have also something to say regarding old sea monsters and old sea customs and chanteys.

Captain Carpenter was a lieutenant on the Challenger, and has had other opportunities of deep-sea work; his collaborator, Captain WilsonBarker, served afloat for twenty years, in part in connection with deep-sea telegraph cable work; so the joint authors have been for a long time in intimate association with the life about which they write. There is a pleasant directness in the book, and a not less pleasant smell of the sea. There are numerous excellent illustrations, many of them

Africa, which will take teachers and pupils in that interesting country further into the heart of things than a more informative primer is likely to do. While it is thoroughly objective, dealing mainly with the succession of flowers in a country with a fascinating flora, it touches things imaginatively as well as scientifically, and aims at the culture of appreciation and delight as much as at the diffusion of knowledge. There is a very interesting foreword by Prof. Patrick Geddes, and Mr. Allerston has supplied a fine set of illustrative photographs of characteristic South African plants. We wish the book good speed.

THREE NATURALIST-TRAVELLERS.1

THE chief feature common to these three books is that they deal with the researches of British naturalists in the belt of country which, from the Arctic Ocean to Equatorial Africa, lies along the boundary between Eurafrica and Asia.

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

(1) Mr. Bury's "Arabia Infelix" describes the eastern wall of the Great Rift Valley in southwestern Arabia. The land lies low for about thirty miles from the Red Sea at Hodeida; it then rises by bold precipices to the height of from eight to ten thousand feet, whence the plateau sinks gradually eastward to the Great Red Desert of Arabia, at the level of from three to four thousand feet. The road inland to Sanaa begins its steep ascent through "The Gate of the Mountains,' where a huge rock has fallen across the ravine and made a natural arch. By scaling cliffs of appalling steepness, up which the Turks have had the temerity to plan a railway, it rises to the height of 9000 ft. It passes through various zones of vegetation. The spurs and ravines are terraced for coffee or clad in thick jungle. The ravines are so steep and narrow "that one may almost touch the tree-tops which grow out of them, and so overgrown that only a green twilight penetrates to their recesses, where the lurid blooms of the snake-onion flame among the fern and the giant cobra drowses in the hush of noon." So steep are the precipices that "it gives one a crick in the neck to count the coffee-gardens up those outrageous steeps, while wondering if they are garnered with a derrick."

FIG. 3.-Black-backed gull. From "Nature Notes for Ocean Voyagers."

old friends, others delightfully fresh (Fig. 3). We believe that many amateurs will enjoy this book very much and profit by it in proportion. ought to be in all ship libraries.

It

We must note, however, that the authors would have been well advised if they had availed themselves of the services of some competent naturalist to remove numerous inaccuracies which are as flies in the ointment. Thus it is a blemish to speak of the parrot's beak of the sea-egg, of the air cells beneath the gannet's skin being the main factors in the bird's powerful flight, of the parrotlike beaks of the puffin, of the Ctenophora progressing by small hairs (cilia) which outline their bodies, or of Noctiluca as a small jelly. The figure of the octopus (on page 81) with irregularly branched arms requires some explanation.

(3) Miss Ritchie has written a delightful informal introduction to nature study in South

Mr. Bury writes with a unique knowledge of this part of Arabia, and his short book is packed with information. Unfortunately there scarcely any references to the former literature,

are

1 (1) "Arabia Infelix; or, The Turks in Yamen." By G. W. Bury. Pp x+213. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1915.) Price 7s. 6d. net. (2) Alone in the Sleeping-Sickness Country." By Dr. F. Oswald. Pp. xii+219. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., Ltd., 1915.) Price 8s. 6d. net.

(3) "A Summer on the Yenesei (1914)." By M. D. Haviland. Pp. xii+ 328. (London: Edward Arnold, 1915.) Price 10s. 6d. net.

and no account of the structural geography, which is perhaps its most interesting feature. Mr. Bury is an ornithologist, and the natural history notes of most value are those dealing with the birds, the agriculture, and the climate. The book is enlivened with many flashes of humour, partly his own and partly quoted from the Arabs, such as the letters found on the bodies of those who fell in the war of 1871. "To my brother Gabriel. - son of , is coming to you; admit him to Heaven. (Signed) Mohamed Eyad, Emir of the Faithful."

Mr. Bury begins with a synopsis of the history of Yamen, and ends with a forecast of its political future. He hopes, in the interests of both Turks and Arabs, that the present war will lead

work on the geology of Armenia, visited the eastern shore of the Victoria Nyanza to search thoroughly some Miocene deposits which have yielded fragments of Dinotherium hobleyi, the most important palæontological discovery yet made in British East Africa. Dr. Oswald ransacked the beds, and traced them further inland, and obtained fragmentary remains of a fossil tortoise, an extinct elephant, the first baboons found fossil in equatorial Africa, and the first fossil Protopterus. He also found evidence of the once larger size of the Victoria Nyanza, as its beaches occur three hundred feet above the present lake level. He contributes a very interesting account of his experiences. He unintentionally interviewed a leopard, and was discovered by the ticks that

[graphic][merged small]

to its independence, though he is obviously very doubtful whether the natives can manage the country by themselves. He appears to think that the best hope for Yamen is its annexation to the Aden Protectorate. He recognises the sterling merit of the individual Turk, and refers to Turkey's disastrous plunge into war with sympathetic commiseration; he attributes it largely to national anger at our retention of the two new battleships, for they had been built by public subscription, to which the Turks contributed their utmost as a religious duty. As he remarks, we should not like our subscriptions for a new cathedral to be arbitrarily diverted for the building of a mosque.

(2) Dr. Oswald, who is well known from his

carry relapsing fever, by tsetse fly, and other disease-spreading insects. He writes about the country with a naturalist's sympathy and insight. Even the white ants impressed him more as useful soil-makers than as destructive pests. He is too fond of animals to help the reduction of the diminishing herds of antelopes, and he strongly condemns the uselessness of killing the game to prevent the spread of sleeping sickness, since other animals and even insects can harbour the infection. The author has proved that the Miocene beds which he went to examine are disappointingly barren; but he has contributed a very useful addition to the geology of this part of British East Africa.

(3) Miss Haviland is a well known ornitholo

of city life and the impossibility of European settlement in the Tropics.

gist, who visited the northern Yenisei to continue the researches of Seebohn and Popham on the nesting habits of the birds which breed there. She tells the story of her expedition in a brightlywritten volume, illustrated by excellent photographs, but lacking a map. The party consisted of four, of whom two, Miss Czaplicka and Mr. Hall, are wintering in the country of the Ostiaks, and may thus throw further light upon the affinities of these people. The declaration early in the book that "the journey across Asia by the TransSiberian Railway can never be anything but unspeakably tedious" is not an encouraging start; for though the author only saw the line in its most uniform section, the statement shakes faith in her geographical insight. But as soon as she reaches the Tundra she shows a truer appreciation of the country, and in many a graphic sentence expresses the charm of the northern nights, BORN at Laneast, Cornwall, on February 16,

"when darkness was never deeper than a soft twilight glow, and the mysterious shining spears

Miss Haviland spent most of her time photographing the nesting birds around Golchika on the estuary of the Yenisei; her chief prize was a curlew-sand-piper's nest, which was first taken by Popham in 1897. From that district she returned on the timber ships by which Mr. Jonas Lied is endeavouring to maintain annual communication between the Yenisei and western Europe, an enterprise on which depends the future of several Siberian industries. Her account of the Kara Sea in September will be a useful supplement to Nansen's account of his outward voyage with Mr. Lied at the beginning of the J. W. G. PROF. W. GRYLLS ADAMS, F.R.S.

season.

1836, William Grylls Adams, Emeritus Professor of Natural Philosophy in King's College,

FIG. 2.-Manga escarpment, seen from the south-west. Note the numerous huts of the fertile district of Kitutu at the foot of the cliffs. From "Alone in the Sleeping-sickness Country."

was

of the Aurora Borealis mingled with the glamour of a night-long dawn." She is very sympathetic to the people, though she gives a lurid picture of the prevalent drunkenness, for her visit before the famous Ukaz of the Tsar which stopped the sale of spirits. She aptly summarises some of the most striking features in Russian conditions and culture. Russia she describes as "a country of enormous possibilities, of the crudest paradoxes. With the most autocratic government, hers is the most democratic society in the world; with a Church whose function has dwindled into the effete repetition of ritual, religion is the very fibre of her people."

In illustration of the severity of the climate Miss Haviland repeats the widespread saying that the population would die out at the third generation if not renewed by immigration; the statement is probably as trustworthy for Siberia. as it is when asserted to prove the unhealthiness

London, died at Broadstone, Dorset, on April 10, 1915, aged seventy-nine years. He was educated in a private school in Birkenhead, and entered St. John's College, Cambridge, of which afterwards he became a fellow. In 1865 he was elected professor of natural philosophy and astronomy at King's College, London, in succession to Clerk Maxwell, who had been appointed to the Cavendish professorship at Cambridge. In the same year he contributed to the Philosophical Magazine an article on the application of the principle of the screw to the floats of paddle-wheels, his sole contribution to applied mechanics. He took part in the eclipse expedition of 1871 to Sicily. In that year he investigated the action of a bundle of parallel glass plates on the polarisation of light, the results being published in vol. xli. of the Philosophical Magazine.

The next few years of Adams's life were very active. In 1872 his scientific merits were recognised by his election to the fellowship of the Royal Society. In 1875 he delivered the Bakerian lecture, on the forms of equipotential curves and surfaces, and lines of flow. The lecture was an exposition of an almost entirely experimental investigation of the curves which result when electric currents are passed through sheets of tinfoil between electrodes placed at different points; but some attempt was made to realise also some cases of three-dimensional flow. This paper has proved to be one of classical interest. In the same year he communicated to the Proceedings of the Royal Society a paper on the change of resistance produced by magnetisation in iron and steel. He observed a difference between the effects of longitudinal and transverse magnetisation. When the magnetisation was longitudinal, the electric resistance of hard steel was dimin

[graphic]
« PreviousContinue »