an offer by a French syndicate to build a bridge of 800 metres in length and 70 metres high between Roumeli and Anatoli Hissar. The bridge would consist of one span, and this would exceed in length by one-half the longest span of the Forth Bridge. The Anatolian railway, it is thought, will make the construction of such a bridge a necessary and feasible undertaking before

many years.

Two papers on The Cradle of the Semites," read before the

Doctor of Medicine at a Swiss University, has been authorized by a special imperial decree to conduct a hospital for eye diseases at Salzburg. The Vienna Correspondent of the Times says this is the first case of a lady physician being admitted to medical practice in Austria.

THE new number of the Kew Bulletin begins with a section on canaigre, the root of which seems likely to take an important place as a tanning material. This is followed by sections on pistachio cultivation in Cyprus, Indian sugar, and mites on sugar-cane. The section on Indian sugar consists chiefly of a selection from a file of documents sent to Kew from the India Office, containing much valuable information as to the production of cane sugar in India.

Ar the meeting of the Scientific Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society on April 8, Mr. Wilson exhibited a plant of a primrose, a seedling from Scott Wilson, showing a greater advance to a deep blue colour thanh as yet been made. A series of intermediate forms were also shown.

THE Prefect of Savoy has recently prohibited the gathering of the Cyclamen in the woods of his department. Notwithstanding its abundance in the locality, this beautiful plant had been threatened with total extinction, from the enormous numbers gathered each year for sale in the markets of Chambéry and Aix-les-Bains.

A SINGULAR fact is related by M. Lagatu in the Feuille des Jeunes Naturalistes. In the year 1884 a large number of cattle died after having browsed in a particular pasture in the department of l'Oise. M. E. Prillieux found the cause of death to be poisoning by ergotized Lolium; and he attributes it to the fact that the cattle were sent to the pasture about 10 days later than usual. M. Prillieux frequently found ergot on tufts of grass refused by the cattle, which marked the spots where dejecta had been left without being scattered.

DR. G. B. DE TONI has retired from the editorship of the Italian bi-monthly journal Notarisia, devoted to cryptogamic botany, which will in future be conducted by Dr. David Levi

Morenos.

AT the last meeting of the Natural History Society of Kiel, Major Reinhold read a paper on the botanical condition of the German Ocean. According to researches recently made, the eastern part is almost wholly bare of vegetation. This is believed to be owing to the strong tidal currents, which so disturb the sea bottom as to prevent the germs and spores of marine plants from settling.

A ZOOLOGICAL floating station is now in working order at Isefiord on the Danish coast, under the direction of Dr. Petersen.

Among

THE Proceedings of the International Congress of Zoology, held last August in Paris, were issued a few days ago, the contributors are Messrs. Bogdanow, Bowdler Sharpe, D'Arcy Thompson, E. P. Wright, C. V. Riley, V. Wagner, Kay Lankester, A. S. Packard, Trimen, Rütimeyer, Retzius, Hubrecht, de Selys-Longchamps, Agassiz, Blanford, L. Netto, W. A. Conklin, A. Fritsch, and McLachlan. This list of names suffices to show that the meeting was really of an international character.

A SHOCK of earthquake was felt in Maine, U.S.A., April 11.

on

is by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, who contends that the Semitic stock came originally from "those picturesque valleys of the Atlas which look forth toward the Great Ocean and the setting sun." Prof. Jastrow, the author of the second paper, agrees generally as to the probability of a Semitic migration from Africa into Asia, but thinks that Dr. Brinton goes farther than the evidence warrants when he tries to indicate the particular region of Africa from which the migration started.

DURING the summer and autumn of 1888, and the following winter, Mr. Albert Koebele carried on researches in Australia for the purpose of determining whether it would not be possible to introduce into California the most efficient of the Australian natural enemies of the fluted scale (Icerya purchasi, Maskell). A report on his investigations has just been issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and from this it seems that the results achieved by him are highly satisfactory. Prof. Riley, who contributes an introduction to the report, says that one of the insects imported, the Cardinal Vedalia (Vedalia cardinalis, Mulsant), has multiplied and increased to such an extent as to rid many of the orange-groves of Icerya, and to promise immunity in the near future for the entire State of California.

SOME interesting notes on the archæology and ethnology of Easter Island, by Mr. Walter Hough, appear in the new number of the American Naturalist. One of the last acts of the late Prof. Spencer F. Baird was to induce the American Navy Department to send a vessel to explore the island and bring back representative specimens. The U.S.S. Mohican, then at Tahiti, was detailed, and the fruits of the successful twelve days' exploration are now to be seen in the north and west halls of the American National Museum. They consist of several stone images, carved stones, painted slabs, and a fine collection of smaller objects obtained by Paymaster W. J. Thomson, U.S.N. In his article Mr. Hough makes good use of the materials thus brought together, and of information placed at the disposal of the National Museum by Mr. Thomson, and by Surgeon G. H、 Cooke, U.S.N.

Two interesting papers on primitive architecture, by Mr. Barr Ferree, have been reprinted together, one from theAmerican Naturalist, the other from the American Anthropologist. In the first article the author deals with sociological influences, in the second with climatic influences.

FROM the reports, for the past official year, of the Directors of Public Instruction and their subordinates in various Indian districts, on vernacular literature, it appears that, on the whole, but very little scientific work of an original character is being performed by natives of India, and that the taste for scientific literature, original or translated, can scarcely be said to exist. In Bengal, the Director says that, "while physiology keeps in old grooves, medicine seems to be trying to return to them." In Madras scientific works appear to have been confined to the translation of an old Sanskrit work on medicine, unless indeed a collection of a thousand stanzas in Tamil verse, treating of the Yoga philosophy, can be called scientific." In the North-West Provinces eleven works on medicine were registered during the year, some of them being translations, while others are described as original works of some merit. The great mass of Indian literature appears to be composed of fiction, poetry, and the

drama, and, in Bengal especially, is described as for the most part worthless and immoral.

IT is well known that a connection has been observed (in Munich and other towns) between ground-water and typhus; the disease gaining force as the water goes down, and declining as the water rises. (It is thought that certain decompositions are favoured by air taking the place of water in the ground.) While in former years Hamburg has exemplified this effect, the last typhus epidemic there, according to Prof. Brückner, was quite in discordance with the variations of ground-water. From 1838, it is stated, the typhus mortality in Hamburg steadily fell from 19 to 2 or 3 per 1000; but from 1885 it rose again to 9; and whereas before 1885 the epidemic was a summer one, with its maximum in August, it now became a winter one, with maximum in December. The curve of ground-water continued to have the same course as before. Prof. Brückner points out that this epidemic of 1884-87 corresponded in time with certain harbour works being carried out at Hamburg, and he attributes it to the upturning of enormous masses of earth, the abode of numberless bacteria, whose diffusion among the inhabitants was thus facilitated.

THE volume of Results of the Magnetical and Meteorological Observations made at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in the year 1887, contains an appendix of considerable importance to meteorologists, viz. the hourly reduction of the photographic records of the barometer for 1874-76, and of the dry and wet bulb thermometers for 1869-76. This appendix, which is also published separately, continues the results for the twenty years published in 1878. The tables now given complete the reduction of the photographic records nearly to the present time, commencing with the year 1854 for the barometer, and with the year 1849 for the thermometers. The means for the two periods are given separately, but their value would be further enhanced if the results for the whole period were also given in a combined form.

WITH the month of January, the Monthly Weather Review of the United States Signal Service entered upon its eighteenth year of publication. The Review is based upon reports from 1934 observers, a large majority of whom belong to the State Weather Services. This number is exclusive of the reports which are usually supplied by the Central Pacific Railway Company, but which could not be forwarded for January, owing to snow blockades and floods. One hundred and twenty miles of the railroad crossing the Sierra Nevada range of mountains was blockaded by snow, being the heaviest blockade ever known there, and it s estimated that fully 50 per cent. of the live stock was lost from exposure and starvation. The paths of twelve depressions that appeared over the North Atlantic Ocean are plotted on a chart. Of the nine depressions that moved eastwards from the American continent, four were traced to the British Isles. Three storms first appeared over the ocean, and two of these were als traced to the British Isles. Among the "Notes and Extracts" is an article on the recent comparison of anemometers, by Prof. Marvin. The results obtained show that of the anemometers exposed to the same wind, those with short arms gave a lower velocity than those with long arms. No experiments were made beyond 32 miles per hour, and although various formula were given for the reduction of wind velocities, Prof. Marvin states that they cannot be depended on for velocities beyond the experimental values, so that much more information has yet to be gained, as to the action of anemometers with high velocities, from careful experiments with whirling machines. We take this opportunity of pointing out that a general subject-index to the Monthly Weather Reviews and the Annual Reports of the Chief Signal Officer, to 1887, has been published, and affords easy reference to the valuable information contained in these publications.

A RECENT writer in the North China Herald of Shanghai says that the climate of Asia is becoming colder than it formerly was, and its tropical animals and plants are retreating southwards at a slow rate. This is true of China, and it is also the case in Western Asia.

The elephant in a wild state was hunted in the eighth century B.C. by Tiglath Pileser, the King of Assyria, near Carchemish, which lay near the Euphrates in Syria. Fou or five centuries before this Thothmes III., King of Egypt, hunted the same animal near Aleppo. In high antiquity the elephant and rhinoceros were known to the Chinese, they had names for them, and their tusks and horns were valued. South China has a very warm climate which melts insensibly into that of Cochin-China, so that the animals of the Indo-Chinese peninsula would, if there were a secular cooling of climate. retreat gradually to the south. This is just what seems to have taken place. In the time of Confucius elephants were in use for the army on the Yangtze River. A hundred and fifty years after this, Mencius speaks of the tiger, the leopard, the rhinoceros, and the elephant, as having been, in many parts of the empire, driven away from the neighbourhood of the Chinese inhabitants by the founders of the Chou dynasty. Tigers and leopards are not yet by any means extinct in China. The elephant and rhinoceros are again spoken of in the first century of our era. If to these particulars regarding elephants be added the retreat from the rivers of South China of the ferocious alligators that formerly infested them, the change in the fauna of China certainly seems to show that the climate is much less favourable for tropical animals than it formerly was. In fact it appears to have become drier and colder. The water buffalo still lives, and is an extremely useful domestic animal, all along the Yangtze and south o, but is not seen north of the old Yellow River in the province of Kiangsu. The Chinese alligator is still found in the Yangtze, but so rare is its appearance that foreign residents in China knew nothing about it till it was described by M. Fauvel. The flora is also affected by the increasing coldness of the climate in China The bamboo is still grown in Peking with the aid of good shelter, moisture, and favourable soil, but it is not found naturally growing into forest in North China, as was its habit two thousand years ago. It grows now in that part of the empire as a sort of garden plant only. It is in Szechuan province that the southern flora reaches farthest to the northward.

SOME interesting experiments on the physiology of sponges have been recently made by Dr. Lendenfeld, of Innsbruck (Humboldt). He operated with eighteen different species, putting carmine, starch, or milk, in the water of the aquarium, and also trying the effect of various poisons-morphine, strychnine, &c. The following are some of his results: Absorption of food does not take place at the outer surface, but in the interior; only foreign substances used for building up the skeleton enter the sponge without passing into the canal-system. Grains of carmine and other matters often adhere to the fat cells of the canals, but true absorption only takes place in the ciliated cylindrical cells of the ciliated chamber. These get quite filled with carmine grains or milk spherules, but starch grains prove too large for them. Remaining in these cells a few days, the carmine cells are then ejected; while milk particles are partly digested, and then passel on to the migratory cells of the intermediate layer. Any carmine particles found in these larter cells have entered accidentally through external lesions. The sponge contracts its pores when poisons are put in the water; and the action is very like that of poisons on muscles of the higher animals. Especially remarkable is the cramp of sponges under strychnine; and the lethargy (to other stimuli) of sponges treated with cocain. As these poisons, in the higher animals, act in directly on the muscles through the nerves, it seems not without warrant to suppose that sponges also have nerve-cells which cause muscular contraction.

THE additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the past week include a Black-eared Marmoset (Hapale penicillata) from South-east Brazil, presented by Mr. J. A. Watson, F.Z.S; a Lesser White-nosed Monkey (Cercopithecus petaurista?) from West Africa, presented by Mr. E. B. Parfitt; a Macaque Monkey (Macacus cynomolgus ) from India, presented by Mrs. H. F. Batt; a Sambur Deer (Cervus aristotelis ¿) from India, presented by Capt. George James; a Common Badger (Meles taxus, white variety), British, presented by the Hon. Morton North; a Jackdaw (Corvus monedula), British, presented by Mrs. Bowden; a Blessbok (Alcelaphus albifrons 8) from South Africa, four Undulated Grass Parrakeets (Melopsittacus undulatus 2 8 29) from Australia, deposited; an Australian Crane (Grus australasiana), two Chestnut-eared Finches (Amadina castanotis) from Australia, three European Flamingoes (Phænicopterus antiquorum), four Great Bustards (Otis tarda), European, purchased.

bright lines in the spectrum of a variable of Group II. near maximum. Vogel states that the spectrum is a fine one of Group II., but we have as yet no detailed description of the bands present. The period of the variable is about 207 days, and it ranges in magnitude from 77-81 at maximum to 122-128 at minimum. The maximum will occur on April 21, but as Mr. Espin has noticed that the bright lines sometimes do not appear until after the maximum, it will be desirable to continue the observations for some days after. The variations of the bright carbon flutings should also receive attention. A. FOWLER.

COMET BROOKS (a 1890).-The following elements have been computed by Dr. Bidschof, of the Imperial Observatory, Vienna, from observations at Cambridge, U.S., March 21; Vienna, March 4 and 28 (Astr. Nach., No. 2962):

OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN.
OBJECTS FOR THE SPECTROSCOPE.

Sidereal Time at Greenwich at 10 p.m. on April 17 = 11h. 43m. 55s.

h. m. s.

April 16...21 9 21... +19 210 April 26...21 4 5...+26 15'1

R.A.

h. m. s.

(2) 137 Schj

Yellowish-red. Yellowish-white.

10 54 5

24...

- 15 52

White.

11 43 30

12 52 6

+15 11 +66 35

Brightness, that at discovery being unity

Remarks.

26

= 2.18. 32

(1 This large white nebula is situated in the constellation of Ursa Major, and is thus described in the General Catalogue Very bright, very large, suddenly brighter in the middle to a nucleus." According to Smyth, it is oval in shape, the lateral edges being better defined than the ends. Lord Rosse's telescope showed it to be much mottled. In 1866 Dr. Huggins described its spectrum as continuous, with "a suspicion of unusual brightness about the middle part." No observations of the spectrum appear to have been made since then, but it is important that it should be re-examined. The spectra of the white nebulæ are usually almost entirely wanting in red light, and it is therefore quite possible that the brightening in the middle is nothing more than the green carbon fluting near A517. Direct comparisons with the spectrum of a spirit lamp flame would soon decide this point. In any case, if there be one or more brightenings, some attempt should be made to determine their positions.

(2) The spectrum of this star has not yet been completely described. Secchi stated that it was of the type of a Orionis, and Duner states that it is most probably a s'ar of Group II., but very feebly developed. As I have previously pointed out, it is these feebly developed" stars of Group II. which require further examination rather than those which are described as "fully developed," as they are probably transition stages between Groups I. and II., or Groups II. and III.

(3) According to Konkoly, this star has a well-developed spectrum of the solar type. Differential observations as to whether the star belongs to Group III. or to Group V. are required. (For criteria so far determined, see p. 20.)

(4) The spectrum of this star is a very fine one of Group IV. The usual observations are required.

(5) D'Arrest and Duner both describe the spectrum of this star as a magnificent one of Group VI. According to Dunér, the principal bands are very dark, and the subsidiary bands 4 and 5 are well visible, while the bands 1, 2, 3 are very weak. He als states that the spectrum is rendered unique by the fact that the least refrangible part of the sub-zone in the yellow is considerably weaker than the other. Further observations, as previously suggested for similar stars, should be made.

(6, This star affords another opportunity of searching for

NEW VARIABLE IN CELUM.-Prof. Pickering, in a communication to Astr. Nach., No. 2962, notes that an examination of a plate taken by Mr. S. J. Bailey at the Closica station in Peru, shows that the G and h lines of hydrogen are bright in the spectrum of a star whose position for 1875 is R. A. 4h. 36 2m., Decl. - 38° 29'. An inspection of photographic chart plates indicates that the star is variable, and its spectrum seems to place it in the same class as o Ceti, R Hydrae, R Leonis, and other long-period variables. The date on which the plate was taken is not given, but it is observed that the spectrum is as bright photographically as that of Cordoba Catalogue No. 1077, which is of the magnitude 74, and since the former is a red star, it was probably much brighter visually. Eye observations at Cambridge, U.S., on February 20 and 21 of this year show that the star was then about magnitude 105. It seems, therefore, that the bright lines of hydrogen were photographed in the spectrum of this object when it was near a maximum.

GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

THE Council of the Royal Geographical Society met on Monday, and finally decided upon the awards of the honours for the year. One of the Royal Medals has been awarded to Emin Pasha, in recognition of the services rendered by him to geography and the allied sciences by his explorations and researches in the countries east, west, and south of the Upper Nile during his administration of the Equatorial Province of Egypt. The other Royal Medal has been awarded to Lieut. F. E. Younghusband, for his journey across Central Asia in 188687, from Manchuria and Pekin via Hami and Kashgar, and over the Mushtagh to Cashmere and India, a distance of 7000 miles. The Cuthbert Peek grant has been awarded to Mr. E. C. Hare for his observations on the physical geography of Tanganyika made during his many years' residence on that lake. The Murchison grant has been awarded to Signor Vittoria Sella, in consideration of his recent journey in the Caucasus, and the advance made in our knowledge of the physical characteristics and the topography of the chain by means of his series of panoramic photographs taken above the snow level. The Gill

memorial has been given to Mr. C. M. Woodford, for his three expeditions to the Solomon Islands, and the additions made by him to our topographical knowledge and the natural history of the islands. The new honorary corresponding members are Prof. Davidson, of San Francisco; Dr. Junker, the friend of Emin Pasha, and Central African explorer; and Senhor Santa Anna Nery, of Rio Janeiro.

AT the evening meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on Monday, Sir M. E. Grant Duff in the chair, Dr. Hans Meyer read a paper on his journey to the summit of Kilima-Njaro. After giving a short account of his expedition in 1887, and the discouragements to which he had been subjected on two subsequent efforts to carry out his programine, Dr. Meyer proceeded to say that, while the main portion of the caravan encamped in Marangu, he ascended with Herr Purtscheller and eight picked men through the primeval forest to a stream beyond, where he had encamped in the year 1887, at an altitude of 9200 feet. There their large tent was pitched, straw huts were built for the men, and firewood collected. Accompanied by four men they travelled for two more days up the broad, grassy, southern slopes of Kilima-Njaro to the fields of rapilli on the plateau between Kibo and Mawenzi, and found there to the south-east of Kibo, under the protection fforded by some blocks of lava, a spot, at an altitude of 14,270 feet, well suited for the erection of their small tent. As soon as the instruments and apparatus had been placed under cover, three of the men returned to the camp on the edge of the forest, and only one, a Pangani negro, Mwini Amani by name, remained to share, uncomplainingly, their sixteen days' sojourn on the cold and barren heights. With regard to their maintenance, it had been arranged that every third day four men should come up with provisions from the lower camp in Marangu to the central station on the edge of the forest, and that two of the men stationed there should thence convey the necessary food to them in the upper camp, returning immediately afterwards to their respective starting-places. And this accordingly was done. Firewood was supplied by the roots of the low bushes still growing there in a few localities, and their negro fetched a daily supply of water from a spring rising below the camp. In that manner they were enabled, as if from an Alpine Club hut, to carry out a settled programme in the ascent and surveying of the upper heights of Kilima-Njaro. The ice-crowned Kibo towered up steeply another 5000 feet to the west of their camp, itself at an altitude of 14,300 feet. On October 3 they undertook their first ascent. The previous day they had resolved to make the first attempt, not in the direction chosen by him in 1887, but up a large rib of lava which jutted out to the south-east, and formed the southern boundary of the deepest of the eroded ravines on that side of the mountain. Their simple plan of operations, which they succeeded in carrying out, was to climb up this lava-ridge to the snow-line, to begin from its uppermost tongue the scramble over the mantle of ice, and endeavour to reach by the shortest way the peak to the south of the mountain, which appeared to be the highest point. It was not till halfpast 7 o'clock that they reached the crown of that rib of lava which had been their goal from the very first, and, panting for breath, they began to pick their way over the boulders and debris covering the steep incline of the ridge. Every ten minutes they had to pause for a few moments to give their lungs and beating hearts a short breathing space, for they had now for some time been above the height of Mont Blanc, and the increasing rarefaction of the atmosphere was making itself gradually felt. At an altitude of 17,220 feet they rested for half an hour; appar ently they had attained an elevation superior to the highest point of Mawenzi, which the rays of the morning sun were painting a ruddy brown. Below them, like so many moleheaps, lay the hillocks rising from the middle of the saddle. few roseate cumulus clouds floated far over the plain, reflecting the reddish-brown laterite soil of the steppe; the lowlands, however, were but dimly visible through the haze of rising vapour. The ice-cap of Kibo was gleaming above their heads, appearing to be almost within reach. Shortly before 10 o'clock they stood at its base, at an elevation of 18,270 feet above sealevel. At that point the face of the ice did not ascend, but almost immediately afterwards it rose at an angle of 35°, so that, without ice-axes, it would have been absolutely impracticable. The toilsome work of cutting steps in the ice began about halfpast 10; slowly they progressed by the aid of the Alpine rope, the brittle and slippery ice necessitating every precaution. They made their way across the crevices of one of the glaciers

A

that projected downwards into the valley which they had traversed in the early morning, and took a rest under the shadow of an extremely steep protuberance of the ice-wall at an altitude of 19.000 feet. On recommencing the ascent the difficulty of breathing became so pronounced that every fifty paces they had to halt for a few seconds, bending their bodies forward and gasping for breath. The oxygen of the air amounted there, at an elevation of 19,000 feet, to only 40 per cent., and the humidity to 15 per cent. of what it was at sea level. No wonder that their lungs had such hard work to do. The surface of the ice became increasingly corroded; more and more it took the form which Güssfeldt, speaking of Aconcagua, in Chili, called nieve penitente. Honeycombed to a depth of over 6 feet, in the form of rills, teeth, fissures, and pinnacles, the ice-field presented the foot of the mountaineer with difficulties akin to that of a

"Karrenfeld." They frequently broke through as far as their breasts, causing their strength to diminish with alarming rapidity. And still the highest ridge of ice appeared to be as distant as ever. At last, about 2 o'clock, after eleven hours' climb, they drew near the summit of the ridge. A few more hasty steps in the most eager anticipation, and then the secret of Kibo lay un veiled before them. Taking in the whole of Upper Kibo, te precipitous walls of a gigantic crater yawned beneath them. The first glance told that the most lofty elevation of Kibo lay to their left, on the southern brim of the crater, and consisted of three pinnacles of rock rising a few feet above the southern slopes of the mantle of ice. They first reached the summit on October 6, after passing the night below the limits of the ice, in a spot sheltered by overhanging rocks, at an altitude of 15,160 feet, ar elevation corresponding to that of the summit of Monte Rosa Wrapped up in their skin bags, they sustained with tolerable comfort even the minimum temperature of 12° F., experience! during the night, and were enabled, about 3 o'clock in the morning of October 6, to start with fresh energy on their difficult enterprise of climbing the summit; and this time Njaro, the spirit of the ice-crowned mountain, was gracious to them-they reached their goal. At a quarter to 9 they were already standing on the upper edge of the crater, at the spot from which they had retraced their steps on October 3. Their further progress, from this point to the southern brim of the crater, although not easy, did not present any extraordinary difficulty. An hour and a half's further ascent brought them to the foot of the three highest pinnacles, which they calmly and systematically climbed one after another. Although the state of the atmosphere and the physical strain of exertion remained the same as on the previous ascent, yet this time they felt far less exhausted, because their condition morally was so much more favourable. The central pinnacle reached a height of about 19,700 feet, overtopping the others by 50 to 60 feet. He was the first to tread, at halfpast 10 in the morning, the culminating peak. He planted a small German flag, which he had brought with him in his knapsack, upon the rugged lava summit, and christened that-the loftiest spot in Africa-Kaiser Wilhelm's Peak. After having completed the necessary measurements, they were free to devote their attention to the crater of Kibo, of which an especially fine view was obtainable from Kaiser Wilhelm's Peak. The diameter of the crater measured about 6500 feet, and it sank down some 600 feet in depth. In the southern portion the walls of lava were either of an ash-grey or reddish-brown colour, and were entirely free from ice, descending almost perpendicularly to the base of the crater; and in its northern half the ice sloped downwards from the upper brim of the crater in terraces, forming blue and white galleries of varying steepness. A rounded cone of eruption, composed of brown ashes and lava, rose in the northern portion of the crater to a height of about 500 feet, which was partly covered by the more than usually thick sheet of ice extending from the northern brim of the crater. The large crater opened westwards in a wide cleft, through which the melting water ran off, and the ice lying upon the western part of the crater and the inner walls issued in the form of a glacier. What a wonderful contrast between this icy stream and the former fiery incandescence of its bed! And above all this there reigned the absolute silence of inanimate nature, forming in its majestic simplicity a scene of the most impressive grandeur. An indelible impression was created in the mind of the traveller to whom it had once been granted to gaze upon a scene like that, and all the more when no human eye had previously beheld it. And certainly as they sat that evening in their little tent, which they finally reached at nightfall, after a most arduous return march through the driving mist, and carried their thoughts back to the expeditions of 1887

and 1888, they would indeed have changed places with no one. After giving further details of the expedition, the lecturer said that on October 30 they sorrowfully bade farewell to KilimaNjaro, the most beautiful and interesting, as well as the grandest, region in the dark continent. At the conclusion of the paper a series of photographs illustrative of some features of the expedition was exhibited by lime-light, and explained by Mr. Ravenstein. A vote of thanks to Dr. Meyer was proposed by Mr. Joseph Thomson, seconded by Mr. Douglas Freshfield, and heartily accorded.

THE seeds of the Trichosanthes palmata are inclosed in a rounded scarlet fruit and embedded in a green bitter pulp. The bitter principle has been shown by Mr. D. Hooper to be a glucoside differing from colocynthin, and he has named it trichosanthin. The green colouring matter, when freed from the trichosanthin and fatty matter, yields a solution closely resembling a solution of cholorophyll. It is green in thin and red in thick layers, and has a red fluorescence. The spectrum, however, is very different. Taking the thickness and strength yielding the most characteristic spectrum, it may be described thus-The first band begins (penumbra) at W.L. 654 and ends about W.L. 615; from this there is a small amount of absorption till the second band begins at W. L. 593'4, and continues to W. L. 566 8, with the maximum absorption near the less refrangible end; from this there is no perceptible absorption till the third band, which extends from W.L. 548 4 to 5348; there is a fourth band, very faint, with its centre about W.L. 5106, and a fifth extending from about W.L. 485 to W.L. 473'4 Comparing this with the chlorophyll spectrum, it will be seen that the first band has its centre almost midway between the two chief chlorophyll bands, but that bands III., IV., and V. are probably coincident with chlorophyll bands. When the trichosanthes colouring matter is treated with ammonia sulphide the spectrum is completely changed. The first and most prominent band slowly decreases in strength and finally disappears, two new bands appear in the space between bands I. and II. of the original spectrum; band II. is apparently displaced towards the violet end and intensified ; and band IV. is greatly widened. Chlorophyll under the same treatment behaves in a totally different manner, and the two spectra become almost comple. mentary. When, however, the trichosanthes colouring matter and chlorophyll are both treated with hydrochloric acid the result is very different, for the two spectra have now three bands in common. The first band in the trichosanthes spectrum has disappeared, and the spectrum is practically reduced to one of three bands corresponding in position with bands II., III., and IV. of the altered chlorophyll spectrum. Band I. of the chlorophyll spectrum has no representative in the trichosanthes spectrum. The conclusions to be derived from a study of these spectra seem to be that we have in the trichosanthes colouring matter a substance in which the "blue chlorophyll" of Sorby or the "green chlorophyll" of Stokes is replaced by some other substance easily decomposed by reducing agents and acids. Farther, if we assume with Schunck that the product obtained by acting on chlorophyll with hydrochloric acid is the same as Fremy's phyllocyanin, this, too, must be a mixture, one constituent of which is obtained by acting on the trichosanthes colouring matter with acid, while the other is, apparently, the unaltered substance yielding band I. in the chlorophyll

spectrum.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES
LONDON.

Royal Society, March 13.-"On the Organization of the Fossil Plants of the Coal-measures. Part XVII." By William Crawford Williamson, LL.D., F.R.S., Professor of Botany in the Owens College, Manchester.

In 1873 the author described in the Phil. Trans. an interesting stem of a plant from the Lower Carboniferous beds of Abstracted from a paper by C. Michie Smith, "On the Absorption Spectra of Certain Vegetable Colouring Matters," read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, March 17, 1890, and communicated by permission of the Council.

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Lancashire, under the name of Lyginodendron Oldhamium. He also called attention to some petioles of ferns, more fully described in 1874, under the name of Rachiopteris aspera. The former of these plants possessed a highly organized, exogenously developed xylem zone, whilst the Rachiopteris was only supplied with what looked like closed bundles. Since the dates referred to, a large amount of additional information has been obtained respecting both these plants. Structures, either not seen, or at least ill-preserved, have now been discovered, throwing fresh light on their affinities; but most important of all is the proof that the Rachiopteris aspera is now completely identified as the foliar rachis or petiole of the Lyginodendron: hence there is no longer room for doubting that, notwithstanding its indisputable possession of an exogenous vascular zone, the bundles of which exhibit both xylem and phloem elements along with medullary and phloem rays, it has been a true Fern. Though such exogenous developments have now been long known to exist amongst the Calamitean and Lycopodiaceous stems, as well as in other plants of the Carboniferous strata, we have had no evidence until now that the same mode of growth ever occurred amongst the Ferns. Now, however, this Cryptogamic family is shown to be no longer an exceptional one in this respect. the three great divisions of the Vascular Cryptogams-the Equisetacea, the Lycopodiacea, and the Homosporous Filices of the primæval world-exhibited the mode of growth which is confined, at the present day, to the Angiospermous plants. A further interesting feature of the life of this Lyginodendron is seen in the history of the development of its conspicuous medulla. In several of his previous memoirs, notably in his Part IV., the author has demonstrated a peculiarity in the origin of the medulla of the Sigillarian and Lepidodendroid plants. Instead of being a conspicuous structure in the youngest state of the stems and branches of these plants, as it is in the recent Ferns, and as in most of the living Angiosperms, few or no traces of it are observable in these fossil Lycopodiacea. In them it develops itself in the interior of an apparently solid bundle of trachea (within which doubtless some obscure cellular germs must be hidden), but ultimately it becomes a large and conspicuous organ. author has now ascertained that a similar medulla is developed, in precisely the same way, within a large vascular bundle occupying the centre of the very young twigs of the Lyginodendron. But in this latter plant other phenomena associated with this development make its history even yet more clear and indisputable than in the case of the Lycopods. The entire history of these anomalous developments adds a new chapter to our records of the physiology of the vegetable kingdom.

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Further light is also thrown upon the structure of the Heterangium Grievii, originally described in the author's memoir, Part IV. This plant presents many features in its structure suggesting that it too will ultimately prove to be a Fern. The specimens described in the above memoir, published in 1873, all possessed a more or less developed exogenous xylem zone. But the author has now obtained other, apparently younger examples in which no such zone exists.

He has discovered the stem of a genus of plants (Bowmanites), hitherto known only by some fruits, the detailed organization of which was originally described by him in the Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, in 1871. The structure of this new stem corresponds closely with what is seen in Sphenophyllum and in some forms of Asterophyllites (Memoir V., Phil. Trans., 1874, p. 41, et seq.). This discovery makes an addition to our knowledge of the great Calamarian family, to which the plant obviously belongs.

trating some features in the history of the true Calamites.

Further demonstrations are also given by the author, illus

Attention is called to the fact that, whilst the large, longitudinally-grooved and furrowed inorganic casts of the central medullary cavities of these plants are extremely common, we never find similar casts of the smaller branches. The cause of this is demonstrated in the memoir. In these young twigs the centre of the branch is at first occupied by a parenchymatous medulla. The centre of this medulla becomes absorbed at a very early age, leaving the beginnings of a small fistular cavity in its place; but, if any plastic mud or sand entered this cavity when the plant was submerged, the surface of such a cast would exhibit no longitudinal groovings, because there would be nothing in the remaining medullary cells surrounding the cast to produce such an effect. It was only when the further growth of the branch was accompanied by a more complete absorption of the remaining medullary cells, causing the cavity thus produced te