University of Aberdeen, but in 1841 he was unanimously elected to the Chandos chair in St. Andrew's. In the same year he published his important paper, "On the Relation between Muscular Contraction and the Nervous System," whereby he made a contribution to a controversy then already quite a century old-as to whether the irritability of muscle was or was not "inherent." The great Haller had taught it was inherent (the "vis insita "). Robert Whytt, professor of medicine at Edinburgh just a hundred years before Reid's time, had been a strenuous opponent of the doctrine of inherent irritability. FollowBoerhaave, the leader of the Batavian school, who had trained so many of the professors of Edinburgh, Whytt considered that his experiments confuted the opinions of Haller. When Reid took up the subject in 1834, it was still a controversy. : Reid, using frogs, demonstrated :(1) That the muscle of a nerve-muscle preparation, fatigued by stimulation through its nerve, could still contract when it was stimulated directly. (2) That a muscle, the nerve of which had been cut, would not waste away, provided it was "daily exercised by galvanism." He even then pointed out the now obvious therapeutic application of this latter fact. His position was: irritability is indeed inherent, but the muscle must be constantly in use in order not to suffer from "dis-use atrophy. Amongst his collected papers we find one “On Sensational and Emotional Reflex Actions," from which we may conclude that Reid had grasped the essence of the conception of reflex action in such a way as to see that the presence of consciousness need not make the action any the less truly reflex." After going to St. Andrews, Prof. Reid published two long papers on the epidemic of fever in Edinburgh in 1836. He began to study the marine biology of the bay, and papers on polyps, molluscs, and medusæ were, between 1844 and 1847, communicated to the "Philosophical Society of St. Andrews," a society still existing. In 1844 John Reid was married to Miss Ann Blyth, of Edinburgh. Their two sons died in infancy; their two daughters died before their twenty-fifth year; his widow, who was married to a Mr. Foster, survived him more than forty years. Prof. Wilson, his biographer, describes Reid's appearance in these words :-" Tall, with a strong figure, diminished in height by a stoop acquired by so much bending over books, dissections, and microscopes, his complexion fresh and even ruddy, his forehead expansive, his eyes small, but of a bright black; his hair, which matched his eyes, was worn long." By August, 1848, it had become evident that Reid was suffering from cancer of the tongue and throat. On August 31, at Prof. Simpson's, 52 Queen Street, Edinburgh, John Reid underwent an operation at the hands of his friend, Mr. (later Sir) William Fergusson; Goodsir, James Duncan, and Hughes Bennett (his old pupil) assisting. On November 29 a second operation was considered necessary; this was carried out at Prof. Goodsir's, 55 George Square, by Duncan, Spence, and Goodsir. For a third time (January 1, 1849) did poor Reid submit to the knife; he warned them about admitting air into the veins of the neck; they could not have forgotten that he had written on "Death by Admission of Air into the Venous System." Doomed at forty, Prof. Reid, after visiting Keswick and Innerleithen, returned for the last time to his house in North Bell Street, St. Andrews (now re-named Greyfriars Garden). On his death-bed he collected all his published papers in a large octavo of 659 pages. He had the courage to In the Life of John Reid" (Edinburgh, 1857) Prof. Wilson tells us that he attended the funeral on a singularly bright and beautiful day." 64 We who know the old city have seen such days, rare indeed, but memorable in their rare beauty when they come. We can so well picture the sad, slow procession from the Town Kirk to its goal within the ruins of the noblest of Scottish cathedrals; there, amongst green graves, they laid John Reid to rest where the murmur of the everlasting sea makes moaning music through the roofless fanes. Scotland has produced greater anatomists, pathologists, zoologists, and physicians than was John Reid, but I question whether, having regard to the limitations of his scientific environment and to the imperfections of the methods and of the technique with which he worked, anyone would undertake to deny his right to be considered one of the most original and prescient physiologists of purely Scottish birth and training. I venture to believe that in this year of centenary commemorations no man of science will grudge John Reid his own. D. FRASER HARRIS. NOTES. THE collection of fossil Brachiopoda formed by the late Mr. J. F. Walker, of York, has been presented to the British Museum (Natural History) by his executors, Mrs. Walker and Mr. Gelson Walker. It consists of several thousand specimens arranged in groups to illustrate the variations of species and the gradation of several socalled species into each other. It therefore supplements the Davidson collection, which was bequeathed to the museum in 1885. It is especially rich in material from the English Jurassic and Cretaceous formations, to which Mr. Walker devoted much attention; but it also contains important series of specimens from other English strata, besides several small collections for comparison from the European continent. The greater part of the collection will be kept for reference in the original cabinets, but more than a hundred important specimens, described and figured in Davidson's " Monograph of the British Fossil Brachiopoda, will be placed in the exhibition cases of the public gallery. MR. W. R. BOELTER writes to urge the institution of a people's "Arbour Day" in October for the purpose of planting fruit trees along roadsides as they are in some parts of Germany. From a report issued by the Minister of Agriculture of Saxony it appears that the department in charge of these trees made a profit of 12,000l. during 1908 from a countryside corresponding to Our Black Country. As, however, the system of road maintenance in Germany differs completely from that followed in England, similar success can scarcely be anticipated here, where the roads are controlled by numerous district and county authorities. Farmers object to trees on the roadside near arable land, and road surveyors in general dislike trees, because the highway does not dry up well under them after rain. Even when permission has been obtained to plant fruit trees along roadside waste in some districts, it will be necessary to appoint officers whose duty it is to protect the trees and promote their satisfactory growth. We are afraid that few local authorities are likely to add to their responsibilities by undertaking the care of young trees along the roadside, much as we are in sympathy with Mr. Boelter's suggestion. THE British Medical Journal announces the death of 'Prof. A. Fraser, occupant of the chair of anatomy in the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin. FROM an obituary notice by Herr von Konkoly, appearing in the Astronomische Nachrichten, we learn with regret of the death of Herr Eugen von Gothard, known throughout the astronomical world for his brilliant researches on the spectra of comets, nebulæ, novæ, and other celestial objects at his private observatory at Herény, Steinamanger, Hungary. In 1892 von Gothard photographed the spectrum of Swift's comet on the same plate as the spectrum of the base of a Bunsen flame, and thereby showed the two spectra to be identical so far as the fourth band. He also obtained illuminating spectra of Nova Persei in 1901, and did a great deal of experimental work on the construction of various astronomical instruments. At the time of his death, May 29, von Gothard was only fifty-two years of age, a fact which makes the loss of a devoted worker, possessing exceptional abilities, more keenly felt by all those interested in the progress of astrophysical science. PROF. F. H. SEARES has resigned the directorship of the Laws Observatory, of the University of Missouri, to become superintendent of the computing division at the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. This post he assumed on August 1, and asks that all correspondence, pamphlets, &c., shall be addressed to him at the Solar Observatory, Pasadena, California. THE Baly medal, awarded by the Royal College of Physicians of London every alternate year to the person who shall be deemed to have most distinguished himself in the science of physiology, has been awarded to Dr. Emil Fischer, professor of chemistry in the University of Berlin; and the Moxon medal, awarded every third year to the person who shall be deemed to have most distinguished himself by observation and research in clinical medicine, has been awarded to Sir W. R. Gowers, F.R.S. THE recorder of the Engineering Section of the British Association has sent us a copy of the provisional programme of the proceedings at Winnipeg, in which the following papers appear in addition to those mentioned in the article on July 15-the National Transcontinental Railway, Duncan MacPherson; improvements in the navigation of the St. Lawrence, Lieut.-Colonel William P. Anderson; great engineering works the Canadian Pacific Railway, J. E. Schwitzer; losses from high-tension overhead lines due to brush discharge, E. A. Watson; on the calculation of the charging currents in three-core cables and overhead transmission lines supplied with three-phase currents, E. W. Marchant. on REUTER messages state that two severe earthquake shocks were experienced in Mexico City at 4.20 a.m. and 4.25 a.m. on July 30. Half the city is said to have been destroyed by the earthquake. Chilpanzingo and Chilapa are reported to have been destroyed. Earthquakes are also reported as having occurred at intervals for fourteen hours at Iguala and Guerrero. At Acapulco not a single building escaped some damage; in this locality the most disastrous shock occurred during the afternoon of July 31, when the water in the harbour is said to have receded 33 feet and then to have risen with great force, causing much damage. Seventy-three shocks were felt during the three days July 30 to August 1. THE second International Congress for the Repression of Adulteration in Food, Chemical Products, Drugs, Essential Oils, Aromatic Substances, Mineral Waters, &c., is to be held in Paris on October 17-24. There are likely to be representatives present from every civilised country, and official delegates have been appointed by many Governments. The particular object of the congress is to define what operations are permissible in the handling of food, and follow upon the definitions accepted at the congress held in Geneva last year. The Society of the White Cross of Geneva originated the idea of holding these international congresses, and four congresses have been arranged; the third will be held probably at The Hague in 1910, and the fourth in London in 1911. The work of this year's congress will be held in three sections the first, on alimentary technology, will be presided over by Prof. Muntz, director of the chemical laboratories of the National Agronomic Institute, Paris; the second section, dealing with hygiene, will be presided over by Prof. Landouzy, of the faculty of medicine in the Paris University; and M. Guignard, director of the School of Pharmacy, Paris, is the president of the third section, which will be concerned with crude drugs, essential oils, chemical products, and mineral waters. Prof. Bordas is the president of the executive board, and M. Maurice Rivière, 16 Place Vendôme, Paris, the treasurer. Mr. Loudon M. Douglas, 3 Lauder Road, Edinburgh, is the honorary secretary for the United Kingdom, and men of science and others in this country proposing to attend the congress are asked to send an intimation of their intention to him. Subscriptions, which vary in amount according to the character of the membership, should be sent direct to the treasurer. No. 1 of vol. xvii. of the Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society, Edinburgh, is devoted to the presidential address of Mr. William Evans, in which our present knowledge of the fauna of the Forth area is discussed at considerable length. WE have been favoured with a copy of the report of the Colombo Museum for 1908, in which the director, Dr. H. Willey, emphasises the fact that the scope of that institution is restricted to the products, natural and artificial, of the island of Ceylon. Special attention is directed to a collection of bronzes and stone implements, several of which are figured, found by the Archæological Survey in 1907, and deposited in the museum last year. We have received from the author, Dr. E. Balducci, a copy of a paper, issued in the Pubblicazoni de R. Istituto di Studii Superiori Practici e di Perfezionamento in Firenze, on a forest-hog from the Upper Congo, for which the new name Hylochoerus gigliolii is proposed. No mention is made of H. ituriensis from the same region, named in 1906 by Dr. P. Matschie in the Annals of the Congo Museum, but there can be no reasonable doubt that the supposed new species is identical with that form. To vol. v., part vii., of the Annals of the South African Museum, Dr. R. Broom communicates further particulars with regard to the milk dentition of the aard-vark. The full dental formula he believes to be ., c.}, p.+m.} Dr. Broom accepts, provisionally, the opinion that Orycteropus is not an edentate; but there is at present insufficient evidence to determine its true affinities. It is suggested that the above-mentioned dental formula is inherited from an early ancestor, and that the genus may consequently be allied to the Mesozoic mammals, a number of which, he states, may probably have had a similar formula. Ar the conclusion of an article on the sense of direction in man, published in the July number of the Revue des Idées, Mr. V. Carnetz, who bases his opinion on observations made on natives of the Tunisian Sahara between the years 1891 and 1894, denies that the power of orientation is due to the possession of a sixth "sense. We have to deal rather, it would seem, with an instinct, if it may be so called, acting as an intermediate innate agent between the external medium and the sense of vision, of which it forms a kind of offshoot. It cannot act without vision, but the latter alone is insufficient for the purpose of finding the direction. IN the summer number (vol. iii., No. 6) of Bird Notes and News, attention is directed to the transference of the offices of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds from No. 3, Hanover Square, to 23, Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster, this transference having become necessary owing to the impending removal of the Zoological Society's offices from the former address. The summer number is accompanied by a pamphlet giving a summary of the arguments in favour of bird-protection and of the efforts which the society has made in this direction, together with an appeal for further assistance in carrying out and developing the society's work. THE July number of the Zoologist contains an article by Dr. E. Menegaux, of the Paris Museum, translated by the author from La Nature, on American egrets as victims of fashion. According to statements made by the well-known traveller and naturalist, Mr. Geay, large quantities of "ospreys " are collected as shed feathers by the natives of Venezuela and Colombia, and also that when the plume-hunters kill the birds themselves, they always spare the young birds, which yield no ornamental feathers; while it is further stated that when the parents of nestling egrets have been slain, the latter are fed by other birds, so that deaths from starvation do not take place. As an appendix the editor reprints a document published by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds as a kind of counterblast to Mr. Geay's assertions. in high southern latitudes which must have required a comparatively warm climate for its development. Ortmann's work on the Lower Miocene marine deposits of Patagonia, New Zealand, and Australia, which are certainly of littoral origin, is next cited as evidence of an inter-continental connection in later Tertiary times in high southern latitudes. Further testimony to the same effect is adduced from the present faunas of the great southern continents, more especially from beetles and other insects. The idea that such resemblances as exist between the different southern faunas may be explained by convergence is shown to be untenable, as convergence consists in resemblances between different groups, not the likeness of allied forms. A South Polar union of the southern continents in later Tertiary times is considered by the author to be now demonstrated. 64 THE anatomical structure of the Holothurians is described and discussed in an elaborate manner by Dr. Siegfried Becker in the third part of vol. i. of Dr. Spengel's Ergebnisse und Fortschritte der Zoologie from the point of view of the phylogenetic relationships of the various members of the class. In the opinion of the author, considerable modification of the generally accepted phylogeny of the group, as given, for instance, in the Cambridge Natural History," is necessary. The Synaptida, for example, are regarded as a very ancient group, which, with certain other forms, are widely distinct from the modern types. The Dendrochirota and the Molpadiida, again, in place of being, in common with the Synapta, derived from a hypothetical common stock, are regarded as of independent development. The remainder of the part last quoted is devoted to a memoir, by Dr. Max Rauther, on the morphology and mutual relationships of the nematode worms. or the THE Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology for June (vol. xix., No. 3) contains an interesting paper by Mr. R. E. Sheldon on the sensitiveness of the general body surface of the smooth dogfish to those chemical THE degeneration of armour in animals forms the sub- stimuli which in man provoke sensations of taste and ject of an article by Dr. Felix Oswald in the July number smell. Both normal and " spinal" dogfish were under of Science Progress. As instances of this disappearance observation; in other dogfish the spinal cord had been the author refers, among many other examples, to laby-destroyed, in others, again, the olfactory crura rinthodonts as contrasted with modern amphibians, four branches of the trigeminal nerve had been divided. to the disappearance of the solidly armoured glyptodonts and the survival of the less immovably shielded armadillos, the disappearance of the Paleozoic ostracoderms and placoderms and the emancipation from armour of modern fishes, and very specially to the numerous independent instances where the shell has been more or less completely discarded by gastropod molluscs. He might also have referred to whales and dolphins as contrasted with the zeuglodonts, and to the evidence recently quoted in NATURE as to the presence of vestiges of a dermal armour in the fox. To Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift for July 18, Prof. H. Kolbe communicates an interesting article on the theory of a former extension of the Antarctic continent, with remarks on the distribution of animal life in the southern hemisphere. Commencing with a reference to the hypothesis that the Arctic region formerly enjoyed a mild climate and a large continental area which served to a great extent as a centre of dispersal and radiation for animals in the northern hemisphere, the author proceeds to adduce evidence in favour of the former existence of very similar conditions at the opposite pole. Reference is made to recent discoveries indicating the large area still occupied by the Antarctic continent, and to the occurrence of a fossil flora The author finds that the dogfish reacts to chemical stimuli applied to any spot on the body surface or to the mouth or nostrils, that acids and alkalis, even when very dilute, are potent stimuli, that salt and bitter substances are less powerful, and that no reaction occurs towards sugars. The results of experimental interference indicate that the extreme sensitiveness of the nostrils of the fish is due to the trigeminal rather than to the olfactory nerve. The nerves of the lateral line appear not to be concerned in these "chemical" sensations, as no reactions occur after destruction of the spinal cord, the fish being viable for some weeks in this state. Cocaine is found to abolish tactile sensibility before response to chemical stimulation is affected. The author concludes that the sensitiveness to chemical stimuli is due almost exclusively to the nerves of general sensation, not at all to the olfactory and very little to the gustatory nerves, and that a special nervous mechanism, distinct from that for touch, constituting the apparatus of a distinct "chemical" sense, exists alike in the vertebrate and in the invertebrate world. AN essay by Miss B. Freire-Marreco on the hair- and eye-colour of school children in Surrey appears in the July number of Man. The essay was prepared for the diploma examination at the Oxford School of Anthropology-a welcome indication of the progress being made in this department. The observations, which extended to 591 subjects, have been tabulated on the plan recommended by Dr. John Beddoe, and have been examined by the aid of the index of nigrescence adopted by the same authority, and also by the index of M. Collignon. According to the former, the people of these Surrey parishes turn out to be four times as fair as the fairest people of Scotland; according to the latter the result is inconclusive, the reason being that the outstanding feature of the record is the predominance of medium eyes and the comparatively high percentage of brown hair. On the whole, girls are slightly darker than boys, and as the difference lies mainly in eye-colour, this is possibly a sex characteristic; and there seems to be some connection between red hair and medium eyes. The author suggests a third method of examination in addition to those of Beddoe and Collignon. The paper, on the whole, shows a decided aptitude on the part of the author for statistical work of this kind, and it may be hoped that she will follow up the subject, largely increasing the area of her inquiry and the number of subjects. ONE of the most interesting of the numerous writings to which the recent Darwin anniversaries have given occasion is the first article in the current number of the Quarterly Review. The article, which is by Prof. Poulton, discusses the various criticisms that have been directed against the Darwinian theory both in early and in recent times. The author passes in review the work of Weismann, of Mendel, and of de Vries, showing the relation of the results obtained by each of these investigators to the conclusions reached by Darwin. He demonstrates by an ample series of quotations that the idea of "mutations was constantly present to Darwin's mind, and that he only rejected the supposition that they might be concerned in the production of new species after giving the fullest consideration to the whole question. Prof. Poulton concludes, on several lines of evidence, including that of palæontology, that the mutationist theory of evolution is untenable, and that the only explanation of the course of evolution which really accounts for the facts is the principle of the accumulation of small differences by natural selection, as maintained by Darwin and Wallace. He is inclined to attach weight to de Vries's distinction between "elementary species and varieties, as exemplified by their different behaviour in relation to Mendel's law, but he considers that the only fundamental change in the original Darwinian doctrine which is actually valid is that brought about by Weismann's denial of the transmissibility of acquired characters. A FIRST volume of Transactions has been issued by the Liverpool Botanical Society, in which are published several papers read before the society, and a biographical list of deceased Lancashire botanists, prepared by the secretary, Mr. A. A. Dallman. A communication by Prof. R. J. Harvey-Gibson on the problem of photosynthesis concludes with a reference to experiments supporting the hypothesis that formaldehyde is produced in the leaf from carbon dioxide by electric currents generated by the chlorophyll. Messrs. J. A. Wheldon and W. G. Travis contribute a list of hepatics for South Lancashire. IN the course of an article in the Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna (vol. cxvii., part viii.), describing certain fungi collected in Java, Prof. F. von Höhnel adduces convincing evidence to show that there has been indiscriminate naming of tropical fungi, due partly to great variation in the species, partly to the examination of insufficient or dried material. Thus, with regard to fungi growing in the nests of white ants, all the portions of agaric material collected were referable to a single species, which the author assigns to Volvaria eurhiza; two species of Xylaria were also found in the nests, and a species of the nature of a Hypocrea. Another variable species is determined as an Oudemansiella. Among the new species identified are a Sphærocreas and a Corditubera. WE have received a copy of the schedule and rules of the International Agricultural Exhibition to be held at Palermo (Buenos Aires) by the Sociedad Rural Argentina from June 3 to July 31, 1910, under the auspices of the Government of the Argentine Republic, in celebration of the emancipation of the Argentine, May 25, 1810. The conditions of entry of live-stock, implements, &c., are clearly set forth, and full information is given for intending exhibitors. THE education committee of the Durham County Council has issued a report on further experiments on the feeding of dairy cows at Offerton Hall, by Messrs. F. P. Walker and S. H. Collins. The effect of brewers' grains has been again tested, both on the quantity of milk produced and on the percentage of butter-fat present. Mr. Collins also shows, in another experiment, that boric acid can get into milk if the cows are fed on food which, like Indian cotton cake, contains much of that substance. THE reports on experiments with crops and stock carried out during the past year at the Midland Agricultural and Dairy College, Kingston-on-Soar, and in the contributing counties, have just been published, and they show a very commendable zeal and activity on the part of the staff. The experiments deal with varieties of mangolds, potatoes, swedes, and oats, and also with the manuring of swedes and oats, and are designed to assist the farmers in selecting varieties of crop and the combinations of manure likely to prove profitable. AN interesting series of papers by Dr. Juritz has been appearing in recent issues of the Agricultural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope, discussing the soils of Cape Colony. Large numbers of chemical analyses and a certain number of mechanical analyses are quoted, and references are made to the special agricultural characteristics of some of the soils. Whilst the work in question forms by no means a complete soil survey, it marks a beginning, and shows that the Cape agricultural authorities are fully alive to the necessity of making systematic examinations of their soils. A NUMBER of bulletins have reached us from the United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Entomology, including papers on the codling moth in the Ozarks (E. L. Jenne), the striped cucumber beetle, Diabrotica vittata, Fab. (F. H. Chittenden), the hop flea-beetle, Psylliodes punctulata, Melsh. (F. H. Chittenden), the spring grainaphis, Toxoptera graminum, Rond. (F. M. Webster), and the wheat-straw worm, Isosoma grande, Riley (F. M. Webster and G. I. Reeves). A very useful pamphlet gives a list of all the publications issued from the Bureau since it was established in 1863. THE Journal of Agriculture for South Australia for June publishes the report of the experiments made at the Roseworthy College for the seasons 1907-9. The most important experiments are naturally those on wheat. Land values in many parts of South Australia are rising, and the old plan of growing wheat as the main crop with frequent fallows is no longer so profitable as before. The experiments show that the fallow is not necessary, but can be displaced by another crop; a rotation system has therefore to be evolved. The average rainfall is 17.4 inches. FUMIGATION under tents with hydrocyanic acid gas has been the principal means of controlling scale-insects on citrus fruit trees in California for many years. Most of the commercial orchards in the State are fumigated at intervals of one or two years, at a cost ranging from 25 cents to 1.50 dollars a tree. The results of the work of different manipulators, and against different scale pests, show considerable discrepancy, and a good deal still remains to be done to put the whole method on a sound basis. Mr. Woglum has recently published the results of investigations made in California with the view of clearing up some of the discrepancies; the paper, which is well illustrated, forms Bulletin No. 79 of the United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Entomology. THE Summary of the weather for the week ending July 31 shows that the period was again cold for the time of year over the whole country. The highest maximum shade temperature for the week over the United Kingdom was 73° in the east of England and in the Midland counties, whilst in the north and east of Scotland and in the north of Ireland the thermometer did not exceed 68°; the rainfall over England was everywhere largely in excess of the average. The summary for the eight weeks of summer, as yet expired, shows that the thermometer has not exceeded 77° in any part of the kingdom, and in the north-east of England the highest temperature is 73°. The excess of rainfall for the eight weeks amounts to 16 inches in the west of Scotland and in the north-west of England, and to 1.3 inches in the Midland counties. At Greenwich the excess of rain for June and July amounts to 2-4 inches, the aggregate measurement being 6-85 inches. The duration of bright sunshine for the summer, so far, is largely deficient of the average, the deficiency exceeding eighty hours in the north-east and south-east of England, 66 IN the Archiv for Mathematik og Naturvidenskab (vol. xxix., No. 12), Mr. A. S. Steen discusses the mean temperature of the sea surface on the Norwegian coast, reduced for the thirty-year period 1874-1903. With one exception the observations were made at light-stations between Torungen in the south-east and Gjesvær in the extreme north (lat. 71° 6). The lowest mean values occur in AFTER the Kangra earthquake of April 4, 1905, Prof. Omori, who had been sent by the Japanese Government to India, lent to the Indian Meteorological DepartThis instrument a portable seismograph of his design. ment The was set up in Simla, and in vol. xx., part iii., of the Memoirs of the Indian Meteorological Department a list is given of the seismographic records obtained with it between June, and November, 1908. 1905, records by the instrument is of the pattern which movement of a tracing point on a travelling sheet of smoked paper, and has a heavy mass of about 10 kg. at the end of a boom 75 cm. in length. Experience has shown that instruments of this type seldom give satisfactory records of the preliminary tremors unless the heavy mass is at least 25 kg., and the seismograms, reproduced in the memoir, show that the Simla instrument is exception to this rule. no In a recent number of Globus (xcvi., 1), Mr. W. Reinhard gives a short description, with facsimile, of a MS. map of the British Isles preserved in the British Museum, which does not seem to have hitherto met with the attention it deserves. It is of interest as occupying an intermediate such as those of position between early productions Matthew Paris, and the more precise work of Christopher Saxton, or even of Mercator and Ortelius. It is without date or author's name, but may be assigned with some confidence to the middle of the sixteenth century, being thus about contemporary with (Mr. Reinhard says earlier than) the map of George Lily (1546), stated by Gough to be the first exact map of Great Britain. While not quite correct as this as regards the outlines, especially of Scotland, it is perhaps superior as regards the amount of detail supplied, at least for England. Besides most of the principal towns and villages, it names a number of physical features. Among islands, we find Holy and Farne islands (Northumberland); Mersea and Foulness (Essex); Mt. St. Michael (Cornwall); Priestholm or Puffin island, Anglesey. The name Portland appears on the mainland, while Corfe and Selsea are both shown as islands. Of towns and villages swept away by the sea, we find Dunwich, Orwell (misplaced), and others, but not Ravenspur, though SO near February and March, and the highest in August. Selecting this had been destroyed only about 1530. A large island two stations on the Atlantic coast, we find at Utsire (lat. 59° 18') those values to be 39.2° F. and 58.5°, and at Andenes (lat. 69° 20') 33-3° and 51.1° respectively; up to lat. 63° the mean annual temperature of the 30-year period does not fall below 46-4° F. The tables also include departures of the monthly means from the normal value for each of the separate years 1874-1903. AMONG several useful papers on the climatology of Italy recently received from Dr. Eredia, we may refer to two of special interest, relating to torrential rains in Sicily (1879-1907), and to the disastrous floods, especially in the provinces of Syracusa and Catania, caused by severe thunderstorms in November last. The heaviest rains occur on the eastern slope of the island between September and April; at Riposto a fall of 7.64 inches within twenty-four hours occurred in November, 1889, and one of 8-12 inches at Catania in September, 1902. In the thunderstorms of November 17 and 18, Riposto recorded daily falls of 18.29 inches and 8-11 inches; 5.91 inches fell in twenty-five minutes. At Sant' Alfio the falls were 8.68 inches on November 17, and 14.39 inches on November 18. This remarkable downpour was caused by a shallow barometric depression passing from the south of Spain to Algeria, with high barometric pressure existing at the time over the Balkans and Upper Italy. seems indicated within the mouth of the Humber, though it would probably be risky to argue changes of coastline from such evidence. There is still much room for research as regards the data on which such maps were based. THE June number of Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity contains a frontispiece showing the magnetic survey yacht Carnegie under full sail, and an article describing her construction and the work she is intended to do. She has a displacement, when fully equipped, of 568 tons, and is built almost without iron, her bolts and metal fittings being of bronze, copper, or are amidships. The gun-metal. The observation rooms yacht is to make a magnetic survey of the oceans during the next fifteen years, with the object of correcting the magnetic charts and compass data at present available. Her first voyage will be to Hudson Bay and the North Atlantic Ocean. THE Electrician for July 16 contains an article, by Mr. L. W. Wild, on the comparative merits of photometers of the Bunsen type, of the Lummer type, and of the flicker type, for testing the brightness of lights of different colours. Mr. Wild has used two or three photometers of each type in the comparison of a carbon with a tungsten filament lamp, and comes to the conclusion that for accurate work |