out the use of any brakes whatever, the driver keeping his feet above the splash board to prove that no pedal brake was in use, and the side hand-brake was tied and sealed before starting the descent. The omnibus in question was driven by an ordinary four-cylinder petrol engine, but was practically under electrical control. The engine is started by an electrical device, and the variations of speed are under electrical control, the clutch and foot-brake being electromagnetic and controlled by one pedal. The speed control is obtained by shunt regulation of the dynamo in combination with the ignition and carburation, and gives the driver-it is claimed-perfect control without the use of brakes. Various tests for pulling up and starting were made and proved satisfactory, and the steepest portion of the hill was taken at a snail's pace without the use of brakes. We can only hope that, should this new method of control continue to prove so satisfactory, it will be adopted by the motor omnibus companies, and thus help to re-establish public confidence in one of the most useful innovations of recent years.

THE provisional programme of Section B (Chemistry) of the British Association meeting at York has just reached us; it is as follows:-August 2.-Presidential address, Prof. W. R. Dunstan; chemical research in the Dutch East Indies, Dr. Greshoff; utilisation of nitrogen in air by plants, T. Jamieson; the electrical discharge in air and its commercial application, Sidney Leetham and William Cramp; the action of ammonium salts upon clay and kindred substances, A. D. Hall; oxidation in soils and its relation to productiveness, Dr. F. V. Darbishire and Dr. E. J. Russel. August 3.-Report, present position of the chemistry of gum, H. H. Robinson; on a gum (Cochlospernum gosipium) which produces acetic acid on exposure to air, H. H. Robinson; report, hydrolysis of sugars, R. J. Caldwell; papers by the president and Dr. T. A. Henry and by Dr. Greshoff. Joint discussion with Section K, the production of hydrocyanic acid by plants. August 6.-Report, present position of the chemistry of rubber, S. S. Pickles; the constitution of caoutchouc, Prof. Carl Harries (Kiel); paper by Prof. W. A. Tilden; report, the study of hydroaromatic compounds, Prof. A. W. Crossley. August 7.-Joint discussion with Section I, the factors which determine minimal diet values, opened by Dr. F. Gowland Hopkins.

A SPELL of the hottest weather this summer has been experienced since the middle of the month over the Midland and south-eastern districts of England. At Greenwich the thermometer in the shade has exceeded 80° on four days since July 17, while there was only one day previously this summer, June 20, with a temperature above 80°. On July 18 the thermometer in the screen registered 86°.2, and on July 23 it registered 84°7. On three days this month the thermometer in the sun's rays at Greenwich has exceeded 145°. In the northern and western portions of the kingdom the temperature has been generally below the average. At Greenwich the total rainfall this month, to July 24, only measured 0-22 inch, which is about onetenth of the average. The weekly weather report issued by the Meteorological Office shows that on July 17 and 18 an exceedingly heavy fall of rain occurred in the northwest of Scotland, the aggregate amount for the two days measuring 4-9 inches at Fort William and 44 inches at Glencarron. An exceptionally important storm area for the time of year had its centre near the Shetlands on July 19, and strong westerly gales were experienced on the northern coasts of Ireland and Scotland and in the North Sea.

MR. G. A. HIGHT, writing from Audisques, Pas de Calais, states that among the peasantry of that district there is a universal belief that the magpie is a dangerous enemy to poultry, and it is shot by the farmers as vermin. His own observation seems to show that the stories of the magpie's depredations are unfounded, or at least greatly exaggerated, and he would be glad to know whether there is any authority for the belief.

IN the Proceedings of the United States National Museum, vol. xxx., Mr. T. W. Vaughan describes three new species of corals belonging to the genus Fungia, the a fossil species from Japan, the others being recent

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forms.

NEW or rare scombriform fishes form the subject of a paper by Mr. H. W. Fowler in the March issue of the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy, in the course of which several forms are described as new, while the genus Lepodus of Rafinesque is made the type of a new family. The same issue contains the second portion of a paper by Messrs. Pilsbry and Ferriss on the land-molluscs of the south-western United States.

THE Natural History Museum has just received an important collection of bird and mammal skins from Mount Ruwenzori, East Central Africa, obtained with the aid of subscriptions from a number of persons interested in natural history. The collection, we believe, includes a number of new forms, or of forms previously known only by a single specimen or so of each.

WE are indebted to Prof. K. Heider for a copy of an obituary notice of the late Dr. Fritz Schaudinn, published at Innsbruck, and reprinted from the Innsbrucker Nachrichten for June 26. Dr. Schaudinn's career, although brief (1871-1906), was a memorable and active one. Among the subjects to which Schaudinn specially devoted his attention was the study of blood-parasites, his last achievement in this line being the discovery of Spirochaeta pallida, which he believed to be the bacterium of syphilis.

the

A COPY of an illustrated guide to the German section of the International Exhibition at Marseilles devoted to the illustration of subjects connected with the study of ocean and sea-fisheries has reached us. In the German section, a prominent place is occupied by exhibits connected with the recent deep-sea and South Polar expeditions, and also by others displayed by the German Sea-fisheries Union of Hanover. The frontispiece to the guide represents a reproduction of an Antarctic scene, with seals and penguins on the ice.

IN the summer number (vol. ii., No. 2) of Bird Notes and News attention is directed to the wholesale collecting of eggs of the great skua in Iceland, as demonstrated by a photograph in a German ornithological serial, in which a collector is represented with no less than 240 eggs of that species. If egg-hunting is permitted on such a scale, it seems scarcely probable that the skua will long survive in the island. In another article gratification is expressed at the support accorded by Her Majesty the Queen to the crusade against the wearing of "osprey "plumes.

AT the date of publication (1880) of Dr. Günther's "Study of Fishes," but three representatives of the genus Chimæra were known to science. By the description in the Journal of the College of Science of Tokyo University (vol. xx., art. 2) of two new Japanese forms, Mr. S. Tanaka has brought up the number to no less than ten. The author seems to have had abundant material-no less

than twenty-one specimens for the description of his first species, although in the case of the second he had to be content with a couple of examples. Mr. Tanaka has found that the form and direction of the lateral line afford excellent characters for the discrimination of species.

ACCORDING to the June number of the Museums Journal, Salford has acquired a new natural history museum. Photography enters largely into the scheme of arrangement of the galleries, this being employed to illustrate the nesting of birds, and likewise to display the contrast presented by deciduous trees in summer and in winter. Attention is directed in another paragraph to the charge made by the trustees of the British Museum for permission to photograph plates and books in the print-room. It is urged that since publishers-who are compelled to supply the museum with a copy of the most expensive edition of each of their books-are the chief applicants for such permission, the new charge is inadvisable.

THE rose-breasted grosbeak, of which a coloured plate is given, forms the subject of the latest educational leaflet (No. 2) issued by the U.S. National Association of Audubon Societies. The following statement in favour of this bird is given :-" The spread of the potato-beetle pest caused an enormous loss to the farmers of the country, not only by the failure of the potato crops, but also by the cost of insecticides, principally Paris green, used to destroy this voracious beetle. whether the farmers of the country would have been able successfully to contend with the potato-beetle had not Nature interposed one of her powerful checks. As the beetle extended its range and became more numerous, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak developed a newly acquired taste for this pest."

It is doubtful

A BEAUTIFUL coloured plate (by Mr. H. Grönvold) of hitherto undescribed or unfigured eggs of South African perching-birds forms

an

attractive feature in the first number of vol. ii. of the Journal of the South African Ornithologists' Union. The accompanying notes are by Messrs. J. A. Bucknil and G. H. Grönvold. In a paper on bird-migration in South Africa (originally read at last year's British Association meeting), Mr. W. L. Sclater directs attention to the occasional breeding of the bee-eater during its (northern) winter sojourn at the Cape. The evidence is indisputable, but the question as to whether the same individual birds breed in May in the northern, and again in October in the southern, hemisphere has yet to be definitely answered. Possibly there are two phases of the bird-the one a northern and the other a southern breeder. Those interested in parasitism among birds should read an article by Messrs. Haagner and Ivy on the breeding-habits of certain South African cuckoos of the genus Chrysococcyx.

THERE is an interesting note by Dr. Raymond Pearl in No. 3 (1906) of the Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology on the correlation between intelligence

and the size of the head. The note is based on the measurements, published last year by Drs. Eyerich and Loewenfeld, of the head-circumferences of 935 Bavarian soldiers, who were also classified according to intelli

no

gence. These observers came to the conclusion that there was relation between the head-circumference and the grade of intelligence, but Dr. Pearl, using more efficient statistical methods, finds a correlation which, though small, is quite sensible. It is pointed out that the result is in accordance with those obtained by Prof.

Pearson (Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. Ixix.), and it is suggested that the interpretation is probably physiologic rather than psychologic," the larger size of head and the greater vigour in mental operations being both the consequences of good conditions of nurture.

A REVISED list of the group of red algæ known as Corallinæ is contributed by Mr. K. Yendo to the Journal of the College of Science, Tokio (vol. xx., article 12). The writer, after making a careful study of the generic distinctions laid down by previous authorities, enumerates seven genera, of which Cheilosporum is divided into three. and Amphiroa into four sections.

WRITING in the Monthly Review (July) upon the subject of instinct in the lower animals, Mr. C. B. Newland mentions a number of cases illustrating the actions and ways of instinct as manifested in animals, birds, and insects. When the faculty of intelligence is developed the instinctive faculty is diminished. Instinct is perhaps most pronounced in insects, and as an instance of remarkable development Mr. Newland describes the systematic method in which a small ichneumon fly bores into oak-apples with the purpose of depositing its eggs in the grubs of the gallfly that lie concealed within.

THE second edition of the volume on north Yorkshire, by Mr. J. G. Baker, dealing with the botany, geology, climate, and physical geography, that has been appearing in instalments in the Transactions of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union since November, 1888, is completed with the part published last April. This part is chiefly devoted to the mosses and hepatics, that have been revised and brought up to date by Mr. M. B. Slater. The name of Dr. Spence is closely associated with the early investigations of these plants, and in Yorkshire he laid the foundations of that knowledge that was put to advantage during his explorations in tropical America. The nomenclature and arrangement of

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the mosses are based on Braithwaite's "British Moss Flora," and for the hepatics Mr. Slater adopts the arrangement given in Pearson's Hepatice of the British Isles." THE scientific aspect of what has been designated in the United States as dry-farming " consists in utilising to the best advantage all the water that falls in semi-arid regions. An article by Mr. J. L. Cowan in the July number of the Century Magazine presents the main features of the system, and explains how it is possible to produce fine crops in regions where the rainfall averages only about 12 inches in the year. The first essential is thoroughly to break up the subsoil and collect in it all the rain-water; then, in order to prevent evaporation, the upper layers of the soil are kept in a finely pulverised condition, so that the water cannot rise to the surface by capillary action. Apart from these physical considerations, dry-farming requires continuous and intelligent husbandry. Another hope of the farmer in dry regions lies in finding or producing drought-resistant varieties, and this field of inquiry is yielding a bountiful harvest. In the case of wheat, a hard wheat, recognised in America as a distinct species, Iviticum durum, has been introduced from Russia; this gives a better yield in a dry than in a humid climate. Among other suitable dry-farming" crops are Kafir corn, emmer (a variety of wheat), dwarf milo maize, and varieties of oats and barley.

THE valedictory address delivered by Prof. J. G. M'Kendrick, at the close of the summer session of the University of Glasgow, on the occasion of his resignation of the professorship of physiology, provides a striking

be obtained. It is hoped that by this arrangement the difficulties which have been found to impede the prompt circulation of the journals of the society, which are of necessity published in a somewhat different manner from a regular periodical, may be finally removed.

AN important contribution to our knowledge of the liquefaction of gases is contained in a paper on the liquefaction of air and its application to the manufacture of oxygen and nitrogen, by M. Georges Claude in part i. of the Bulletin of the French Physical Society for session 1906. M. Claude adopts the principle of expansion with external work instead of expansion without external work as utilised in the plant devised by Linde, Hampson, and others. The result, it is contended, is to effect a surprising economy, while it becomes possible to employ very much smaller pressures than those hitherto considered necessary and to dispense with auxiliary cooling. The liquid air, obtained in this way at very small cost, can be used as a commercial source of oxygen and nitrogen. The two elements are separated by a process of fractional distillation; in the apparatus devised for this object, M. Claude displays remarkable ingenuity. The principle of " ative cooling is adopted, liquid air in one vessel being caused to evaporate by means of gaseous air compressed at 2 to 3 atmospheres circulating in pipes surrounded by the cold liquid. The nitrogen distils off more readily than the oxygen from the liquid air in the one vessel, whilst in the other oxygen is liquefied before nitrogen during the condensation of the air. Finally, nearly pure oxygen and nearly pure nitrogen are obtained. A machine has been constructed capable of supplying 1000 cubic metres of oxygen, containing 96 per cent. to 98 per cent. of the pure element, per day, with the expenditure of an amount of energy equal to only 1/20th or 1/30th that required in the processes based on the electrolysis of water.

recuper

It is contended

that the results obtained invalidate the assumption made by Dewar and confirmed by Linde that in the liquefaction of air the two component gases condense simultaneously; in reality, the more volatile nitrogen is condensed after the oxygen, and the process of liquefaction is strictly the inverse of vaporisation.

THE fourteenth volume of the Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington has now been completed by the publication of the brochure entitled "Organisation and Proceedings." This volume contains abstracts of papers and other communications brought before the society during the sessions 1900-1904.

A SECOND edition of the Class List and Index of the periodical publications in the Patent Office library has been published, price 6d., at the Patent Office, 25 Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane.

MR. EDWIN ANTHONY has issued through Messrs. George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., a pamphlet, price sixpence, on decimal coinage, weights, and measures, in which he discusses the question as to whether this country should adopt them, and passes in review the various arguments for and against the use of decimal coinage and weights and measures.

MESSRS. CHARLES GRIFFIN AND CO., LTD., have published a fifth, revised edition of Prof. G. A. J. Cole's 64 Aids to Practical Geology." The work has been brought up to date without increasing its size, so that it will maintain the leading position it has gained among manuals of determinative geology.

OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN.

REFLECTING TELESCOPES OF SHORT Focus.-In No. 5. vol. xxiii., of the Astrophysical Journal, Prof. Vogel discusses the relative efficiency of short-focus reflectors for astrographic work.

Prompted by the discovery of the Nova Persei nebula, Prof. Vogel turned his attention to the subject of reflectors, and finally obtained an excellent parabolic mirror, of 40 cm. effective aperture and 93 cm. focal length, from Mr. B. Schmidt, of Mittweida, Saxony.

exposure

With this instrument numerous problems of practical interest in reflector work have been investigated, and the results are tabulated in the present paper. Prof. Vogel also compares the efficiency of an instrument of this type with that obtained from other types of photographic telescope. For instance, he found that with an exposure of thirty minutes on the Pleiades nebula he obtained a photograph showing all the detail seen on Keeler's plates with four hours' exposure using the Crossley reflector. The nebulæ around y Cassiopeia appear quite as distinctly in forty minutes as on the plates taken by Dr. Roberts with ninety minutes' on October 25, 1895. THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA.-The Transactions, for 1905, of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada contain a number of papers of astronomical interest, a few of which are mentioned below. In the presidential address Mr. C. A. Chant made a summary review of the progress of astronomy during 1905, referring, among other systematically prosecuted at the Yerkes, Meudon, South things, to the spectroheliograph work which is being Kensington, and Potsdam observatories, and to the important results which these researches in solar physics may lead us in the study of terrestrial meteorology. Other papers selected for publication deal with sun-spots and magnetic storms, colour photography of the corona, stellar classification, and the new problem in solar physics recently enunciated by Dr. C. L. Poor.

MAGNITUDES AND PLACES OF 251 PLEIADES STARS.-At the desire of Prof. Wolf, Herr K. Schiller has continued the researches of Dr. Dugan on the photographic magnitudes and mean places of the fainter stars of the Pleiades group, and now publishes his results for 251 stars in No. 4102 of the Astronomische Nachrichten. The places for 1900, and a formula connecting the magnitude scale of the present series with that employed by Dr. Dugan, are given in the

This satellite is only about 2 per cent.. or 170,000 miles, more distant from Jupiter than the sixth, but, on account of their large eccentricities, they do not approach within two million miles of each other. The inclination of their orbits to each other is 28° 1'.

In addition to the foregoing elements, Dr. Ross also publishes an ephemeris, corrected for perturbations and giving the position angle and distance of the seventh satellite, for every fifth day between August 15, 1906, and April 27, 1907.

OBSERVATIONS OF MINOR PLANETS AND COMETS.-The results of a large number of observations of minor planets, comets, and comparison stars, made by Dr. J. Palisa with a wire micrometer attached to the 27-inch refractor of the Vienna Observatory, are given in Nos. 4099 and 4100 of the Astronomische Nachrichten, by Prof. E. Weiss. The list of objects includes comets 1904 i and ii, and 1905 ii. iii, v and c, and 296 comparison stars.

OPENING OF A NEW LABORATORY AT THE ROTHAMSTED EXPERIMENTAL STATION.

ON July Earl Carrington opened the "James

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Mason laboratory for agricultural bacteriology at the Rothamsted Experimental Station. Sir John Evans, chairman of the Lawes Agricultural Trust Committee, presided, and among those also present were Mr. J. F. Mason, M.P., the donor of the laboratory, Sir T. H. Elliott, Sir Michael Foster, Sir R. P. Cooper, Mr. Laurence Hardy, M.P., Mr. F. A. Channing, M.P., Mr. Abel Smith, M.P., Mr. Phipson Beale, M.P., Prof. R. Meldola, president of the Chemical Society, Sir Charles Lawes Wittewronge, Dr. Hugo Müller, Dr. H. E. Armstrung, Dr. J. A. Voelcker, and Mr. J. Bowen Jones.

further sum of 50l. a year toward its working expenses. The building contains a main laboratory looking north, 25 feet by 15 feet, fitted with teak-topped working tables and slate slabs to carry the incubators; a preparation room, where the working tables are covered with lead; a darkroom for photography, polariscope work, &c.; and a room for the director. The whole is floored with pitch-pine blocks, and heated by steam from the old laboratory adjoining.

RECENT RESEARCHES IN REGIONAL GEOLOGY.

He

Lord Carrington expressed the pleasure it gave him to find himself at Rothamsted, which had been the pioneer of agricultural research, not only in England, but in the world. Agriculture was rapidly ceasing to be a rule-ofthumb business, and as a highly skilled industry was more and more requiring the assistance of such scientific investigations as were being carried out at Rothamsted. sincerely hoped that some money might be found for the proposed council of agricultural research, but he felt bound to remind them that the income tax still stood at a shilling in the pound; but both he and the Government of which he was a member had every sympathy with the work represented by Rothamsted.

Sir Michael Foster then expressed the thanks of the Lawes Trust Committee to Mr. Mason for his munificent gift of the laboratory, and explained how the bacteria, the existence of which almost was unsuspected when the Rothamsted laboratory was built, were year by year being found to be of fundamental importance, not only to ourselves directly, but to the crops and to the soil. Sir Thomas Elliott, the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, seconded the expression of thanks, and declared that gifts like Mr. Mason's were the best argument he could have in approaching the Treasury for assistance for the work of Rothamsted.

Mr. Mason then replied, and explained how he was led to establish this laboratory as the best means of securing the continuance of the work to which his father had devoted so many years and had so much at heart. He also trusted that it might be a means of stirring public opinion, both generally and in the House of Commons, to recognise the necessity of research if agriculture was to maintain its position in this country.

After the meeting the company was shown round the laboratories, and afterwards visited the experimental plots, where the wheat and barley in particular were showing very interesting results.

The new laboratory takes the form of a wing added on to the Lawes Testimonial Laboratory, which was built in 1855; it is built of brick from the designs of Mr. V. T. Hodgson. It owes its origin to Mr. James Mason, of Eynsham Hall, Oxon, who for many years carried out on his own estate extensive experiments on such questions as the utilisation of leguminous plants in increasing the fertility of the soil, and the unlocking of fertility stored up in the subsoil, a summary of which may be read in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society for 1904. Mr. Mason died in 1902, and in his memory Mr. J. F. Mason, M.P., presented the trust with 1oool, for the building and equipment of a bacteriological laboratory, together with a

a memoir (price 1s.) by Mr. A. J. Jukes-Browne, to accompany the colour-printed geological map, Sheet 282. The country dealt with lies south and east of Devizes, and contains exposures of almost horizontal strata, from the Middle Jurassic to the Lower Eocene. The author refers the superficial 'clay with flints" to the weathering of Eocene material, and urges that its presence at any particular point shows that we are not far below the ancient plane of erosion on which the lowest Eocene deposits were laid down." He has sustained this position more recently in an important paper (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1906, p. 159). Notes are given on economic geology, including the general character of the soils.

Another memoir of the survey, also issued in 1905, is by Mr. Fox-Strangways and Prof. Watts (price 2s.), on the country between Derby, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and Loughborough, included in Sheet 141. The description of Charnwood Forest will probably attract most attention, and it is to be supplemented in a forthcoming memoir. Prof. Watts, from mapping the ground, finds that the famous "porphyroids of the region are not lava-flows, but are intrusive (p. 9); they have, however, shared in the general cleavage and shearing, and thus were in place before the Charnwood mass became a mountainous knot in the Carboniferous sea. We find the term fjord hardly a happy one when applied to the inlet of a Triassic lake (p. 11), which has become revealed by latter-day denudation. But Prof. Watts's reconstruction of the Charnwood

landscapes of Triassic times has already afforded us pictures for which we should be warmly grateful (see Geographical Journal, 1993). On p. 33, Mr. Fox-Strangways refers to an interesting puzzle as to the origin of certain Foraminifera once stated to be from the Keuper Marl. The suggestion is made that similar forms occur, as derived Liassic material, in the drift, and thence became erroneously recorded from the Keuper. With so many good geologists in the neighbourhood, this question ought not to be left long in uncertainty. The point suggests itself, moreover, that the local Boulder-clay, like that of the low ground of Lancashire, may possibly contain Foraminifera of its own, imported from some neighbouring sea. On this matter, by the by, a paper has reached us from Mr. Mellard Reade (Proc. Liverpool Geological Society, vol. x., part i., 1905), who believes that the abundance of Foraminifera in the Lancashire Boulder-clay points strongly to the probability of the whole of the low-level deposit having been laid down in marine waters under fairly quiet conditions. Mr. W. Edwards, on the other hand (ibid.), in a paper on the glacial geology of Anglesey, urges that the island was not submerged beneath the sea at the epoch of the formation of the well-known shell-bearing beds at Moel-yTryfan in Caernarvonshire.

A pleasant addition to the publications of the Geological Survey of Great Britain is the "Guide to the Geological Model of the Isle of Purbeck, by Mr. A. Strahan, F.R.S. (1906, price od.). The model, on the horizontal scale of six inches to one mile, was made by Mr. J. B. Jordan, and is accessible in the museum of the survey in Jermyn Street, Londen. Copies have also been acquired by the Government museums in Edinburgh and Dublin. The | purpose of the model is educational, and the guide, by marginal notes, points out how it illustrates an escarpment," an "anticline," a "trough-fault,' and so forth, so that it serves as a companion to the ordinary text-book. For those unable to consult one of the copies of the model

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