Cox, which led him not only to transliterate after their manner, but even to extend the fad into English, and to write such dreadful words as "Hellenik" and

“Dionysiak." As a critic said, "Why not Dionusiak Muth?" which was a palpable hit. However, to be just, much of this sort of thing also has disappeared from Mr. Brown's present book, which we readily allow to be a heap of antiquarian learning, Assyriological and other, on the subject of which it treats. Whether the Assyriology and the Sumerology are all right the lay critic is unable to tell, but there is probably a good deal in Mr. Brown's Assyrian learning that is not entirely orthodox, to judge from the undoubtedly unorthodox nature of much of his Greek philology, to which Amma-el- Otîa testifies. That dreadful soloikism (as we suppose Mr. Brown would say) makes us perhaps unduly suspicious. If so, we hasten to beg Mr. Brown's pardon, as we do not wish to share the fate of the Assyriological reviewer (not ourselves) of vol. i. of "Primitive Constellations" in NATURE (April 13, 1899, vol. lix., p. 553), who said that Mr. Brown made mistakes in his Assyrian and was smitten by a Browniak thunderbolt for his temerity.

The learned author refers to this circumstance in a note in the volume under review. Perhaps Mr. Brown may think he scored, but it is perfectly plain that when he wrote "Barsipki" as the name of the town of Barsip (Borsippa) he was under the erroneous impression that the written suffix -ki was pronounced, otherwise he would not have spelt it out. Barsipki" was written, "Barsip " was said; "Barsipki" was never either written or said. If Mr. Brown does not understand what is meant he does not understand the cuneiform writing, and if his Assyriology is bad the whole of his book must be bad too.

OUR BOOK SHELF.

Biologische und morphologische Untersuchungen über Wasser- und Sumpfgewächse. Erster Teil. Die Lebensgeschichte der europäischen Alismaceen. By Prof. Hugo Glück, Heidelberg. Pp. xxiv +312+ xiv figures and plates. (Jena G. Fischer, 1905.) Price 20 marks.

THIS elaborate and apparently exhaustive monograph is one of the fruits of the morphological school founded in Munich by Goebel, but the author, struck, as so many writers have been, with the enormous variability of these plants, has here attempted to bring together the facts, not only of the influence of the environment as expressed in the direct action of such agencies as light, situation, water, and other factors, but has also tried to weave these into a sort of system such as can be used by the systematist.

or special part deals with the biology in the German sense of the word, of the various species of Alysma, Echinodorus, Elisma, Caldesia, Damasonium, and Sagittaria. Each of these species is then examined in detail as regards the general action of the environment, its aquatic forms or varieties, its land forms, its seedlings, and its so-called monstrosities whether found wild in nature or produced in culture, and lastly, the condition in which it passes the winter. Here and there are notes on other matters of detail, such as floating apparatus, the influence of light, turios, submersed forms, &c.

The second or general part of the work describes an investigation of the adaptation of the various parts to different functions in general. One of the most interesting sections here will be the examination of the formative factors (gestaltbildener factoren), and another is the results considered in respect to systematic botany. There is a rather too meagre index, but a very special word of praise should be given to the plates, and we congratulate author and publisher alike on the drawing and reproduction of the figures. Few morphologists will be able to dispense with the book, and certainly no systematist concerned with the biology of this interesting group of water-plants. School Gardening for Little Children. By Lucy R. Introduction by Prof. P. Geddes. Pp. xxiv + 166. (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price 2s. 6d. net.

Latter.

THE value of any particular scheme of education for

little children depends more on the interest the teacher feels in the subject, and on the sympathy he or she is able to manifest towards the pupils, than on the scheme itself. We think this will be obvious to anyone who peruses the pages of the volume before us. Most children bred in the country have a "garden all to themselves," but we doubt whether any permanent benefit is derived by them unless their work in it is directed with sympathetic intelligence such as is revealed in Miss Latter's pages. "I have tried," says the author," to prove that it is possible to make nature-teaching the central point of the life of a school without detriment to the children; that such teaching gives a real meaning and incentive to all the handwork and leads to a richer and truer appreciation of poetry, pictures and music.

"The experiment has been going on for nearly six years, during which time it has successfully stood the test of Government inspection. Each year has shown an increasing gain to the children intellectually as well as physically and morally. Instead of the children being less prepared for the work of the senior schools, it is found that they read, write, and do arithmetic as well, if not much better, for having had daily contact with plants and animals and opportunities for observing the various natural phenomena which affect their lives in one way or another. It is further found that such children pass on to the senior schools with a quickened power of observation, a far greater amount of intelligence, a keener desire to learn, and a greater refinement of heart than if their earlier years had been spent in acquiring mechanical perfection in the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic before any real experience had been accumulated as a basis for those more formal branches of instruction."

Miss Latter speaks with authority, and a perusal of her book leads us to accord willing assent to it. In subsequent pages she tells us what have been the procedures which have contributed to her success, how part of the hard asphalt playground has been converted into the school-garden, how the garden is

"laid out," how it is maintained and cultivated, and what are the moral and religious lessons which arise gradually and spontaneously in a child's mind from the lessons afforded by the observation of plant-life and the habits of animals. We have no doubt of the truth of all this, but only on the condition before mentioned as to the tactful sympathy of the teacher.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE. No notice is taken of anonymous communications.]

The Earth's Interior.

IT has long been suspected that the earth is an iron planet, and now, through the work of Strutt and others, the evidence both for and against is intensifying.

It is just worth noting, as a matter of simple arithmetic,

that a core of metallic iron of density 7, covered with a crust of rock 500 miles thick of density 2.5, together make up the known average terrestrial density, 5-6; but recent evidence, interestingly summarised by Principal Griffiths in his presidential address to Section A of the British Association, points to a crust much thinner than the above. It is to be hoped that the "boring" proposals of the Hon. Chas. Parsons will before long attract the attention they deserve. OLIVER LODGE.

THE EARTHQUAKE IN SOUTH AMERICA. BETWEEN seven and eight o'clock on Thursday evening last, Valparaiso, Santiago, and many other parts of Chile were visited by a very severe earthquake, causing, it is feared, heavy loss of life and widespread damage. As was the case in San Francisco, the earthquake was followed by many outbursts of fire and the failure of the gas and electric light. According to a telegram to the New York Herald from Valparaiso, that city experienced, without any warning, the day having been unusually calm and pleasant, two distinct shocks of earthquake, and, standing as it does upon a formation of granite and gneiss, it suffered severely. The same correspondent reported the occurrence of many landslides round the city. According to Reuter, the shock at Santiago de Chile was the most severe within living memory; it lasted three and a half minutes, and was followed by heavy showers. The seismograph at the observatory was thrown out of order by the violence of the shocks, which, though slight, continued for some days.

The disturbance extended over a zone of nearly two degrees, and it is impossible at present to estimate the number of lives lost and the damage done, the accounts received being of a very conflicting

nature.

The Chilian Legation in London received the following telegram from Santiago on Monday last, and the wording is in marked contrast to that found in the communications sent by Press correspondents:

"On the evening of the 16th a severe earthquake was felt between Valparaiso and Talca. The loss of life is not very great.

the magnitude of the disaster. The record indicated that the first tremor took place at thirty-three minutes after midnight, Greenwich time, on Friday morning. The first maximum was reached at 1.2 a.m., which was followed by continuous convulsions until a second maximum was reached at 1.50 a.m.

Prof. Milne is reported to have obtained good records by means of his instruments at Shide, Isle of Wight. The first records were observed at twentyfour minutes past twelve in the morning, and from these it was known that a disaster had occurred somewhere along the western side of South America. According to Valparaiso time, it would then have been 7.15. The duration was more than five hours. According to Reuter's correspondent at Washington. a very heavy and distinct earthquake shock was recorded on Thursday evening by the seismographs of the Weather Bureau, beginning at five minutes twenty-two seconds after seven o'clock, time of the seventy-fifth meridian. Complete and perfect records

were obtained of both north to south and east to west movements of the earth's crust. The tremors were comparatively slow, and their motion was deliberate, each complete movement covering from eighteen to forty seconds.

The disturbances lasted without intermission for several hours, and finally ceased about midnight. The most violent shock seems to have occurred at fortytwo minutes twenty-six seconds after eight o'clock.

The instruments at the Hamburg Seismographic Institute are said to have shown greater and more prolonged signs of disturbance than at the time of the San Francisco disaster.

A telegram from Victoria, B.C., stated that the local seismograph recorded that the earthquake lasted four hours.

The tide gauges at Honolulu showed a disturbance. apparently of distinct origin, beginning at 5.23 a.m. on August 17. Three waves were indicated hourly, showing an oscillation of between three and four inches from the normal tides. Wireless reports from Maui and Hilo state that a wave 5 feet high occurred there. It manifested itself by an unprecedentedly heavy surf. In the enclosed Bay of Maalaca, on the island of Maui, the wave reached a height of 12 feet.

News has been received in New York that the earthquake has destroyed the island of Juan Fernandez (made famous by its supposed connection with Defoe's Robinson Crusoe "), which was used as a Chilian penal settlement.

66

A despatch from Fort de France, Martinique, reports that earthquake shocks of varying severity were experienced on the island at 1.15 p.m. on August 19 and at 3.47 a.m., 4 a.m., and 8.37 a.m. on August 20, but that no damage was done; and a Reuter telegram from Lima states that Valparaiso was visited by another heavy earthquake on the night of Monday last: also that slight shocks were felt at Lima and Huacho on that day.

PROF. BROUARDEL.

Brouardel, of Paris, who died on July 23 at the age of sixty-nine years. Prof. Brouardel had held a large number of most important positions in the University of Paris and in the official life of France. and he had many friends in England in connection with the important work in legal medicine and in hygiene which he had done.

He was born in St. Quentin in 1837, and received his early education at the Lycée St. Louis, in Paris. In 1859 he was an interne at the hospitals; he took

his M.D. in 1865; in 1869 he became médecin des hôpitaux and professeur agrégré, in 1879 he became a professor in the Faculty of Medicine, in 1881 a member of the Académie de Médecine, and in 1892 of the Académie des Sciences. For many years he was dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, his work in connection with the medical faculty being chiefly concerned with pathology and legal medicine. As a medical jurist he occupied a most distinguished position, and there is scarcely a portion of this subject

name

which has not received illumination from the numerous lectures and cases which he published in the " Annales d'Hygiène publique et de Médicine légale." His work as a medical jurist brought his frequently before the public through the evidence which he had to give on many technical points. He published many volumes upon legal medicine, dealing with such problems as infanticide, medical responsibility, le secret médical, sudden death, asphyxia by gases and vapours, &c., and his work as professor of legal medicine at the University of Paris, in which chair he succeeded Tardieu in 1879, made him perhaps the best-known teacher in Europe on this subject. For many years he gave practical instruction in pathology at the Paris Morgue, and he ascribed his illness and death to the insanitary conditions under which this work was carried on.

At many international congresses Prof. Brouardel was the representative of the French Government. He will be best remembered in this country by the speeches which he gave at the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography in 1891, and by the address which he gave at the British Congress on Tuberculosis in 1901. In the former he bore eloquent testimony to the priority of England in practical sanitary reform, and to the willingness of the English to sacrifice, not only much money, but also a large share of personal liberty, and thus by solidarity of ffort to secure the communal welfare. In this remark he brought out the strong point of popular representative government; for in this country, although there is possibly more blundering, there is greater practical action than in France, although in the latter the non-enforced theoretical recommendations are excellent of their kind. In the same address he drew a favourable augury for the twentieth century, from the fact that the nineteenth had seen Jenner at its commencement and Pasteur near its

end.

But the public address which was most influential for good was that given in 1901 by Prof. Brouardel to the British Congress on Tuberculosis. In this address he particularly emphasised the close association between tuberculosis and alcoholism. Quoting with approbation Sir J.. Simon's remark that "the wretched lodging is the purveyor of the public house, he said, "the public house is the purveyor of tuberculosis." To this he added, "in fact, alcoholism is the potent factor in propagating tuberculosis. strongest man who has once taken to drink is powerless against it. . . . A universal cry of despair rises from the whole universe at the sight of the disasters caused by alcoholism. . . . Any measures, State or individual, tending to limit the ravages of alcoholism will be our most precious auxiliaries in the crusade against tuberculosis."

The

The preceding sketch gives a very imperfect idea of the important work which Prof. Brouardel did. His influence pervaded every department of medical life in Paris and in France. Not only was he a distinguished physician, but also a great diplomat, and he thus succeeded in securing reforms which would otherwise have been impossible. His last public appearance was as president of the recent congress in

Paris for the suppression of the illegal practice of medicine. He was buried on July 26 in the Montparnasse Cemetery after a funeral service in the Church of Ste. Clotilde, and by his own request no funeral orations were pronounced. A. N.

NOTES.

began at Toronto on Tuesday last. THE annual meeting of the British Medical Association In addition to a large representation from the British Isles, the meeting is being attended by very many medical men from all parts of

Canada and the United States.

THE pressure upon our space prevents us from doing more than direct attention to the important letters on radium contributed to the Times of August 9, 15, 20, and 21 by Lord Kelvin, Sir Oliver Lodge, and the Hon. R. J. Strutt.

ACCORDING to a Reuter telegram of August 16 from Bombay, Dr. Bullock Workman, who has been mountaineering in Kashmir, ascended a peak in the Nunkum range more than 23,000 feet high. Dr. Workman, with his wife and Italian guides and porters, camped two nights at an altitude of more than 21,000 feet. This is stated to be the highest camp ever made by mountaineers.

FURTHER particulars respecting the forthcoming French exploring expedition under Major Lenfant are given by the Paris correspondent of the Times, quoting from the Dépêche Coloniale. Major Lenfant will go first to Brazzaville, where the real organisation of the expedition will take place; the mission will then proceed to Nola, the point of junction of the Mambere and the Kade which form the Sangha. At Nola it is probable that some time will be spent in the study of the immense forest there. From Nola the mission will ascend the Mambere to Bania. Thus far it will have followed the route recently taken by Major Moll for the delimitation with a German mission of the Cameroon frontier. From Carnot Major Lenfant will plunge into the wilderness. His goal is Lake Laka, which is situated between the Upper Logone and the depression of the Tuburi which he has already traversed. His object is to trace the various navigable stretches permitting the linking, so far as possible by means of the river routes, of the basin of the Logone to that of the

Sangha, and to establish between the Upper Logone and the Upper Sangha a direct trade route permitting France to dispense with the services rendered by the German colony.

A PORTRAIT of Robert Bunsen by Prof. Trübner, of Karlsruhe, is to be presented to the German Museum of Munich by the Grand Duke of Baden.

THE Graefe medal of the German Ophthalmological Society has been awarded to Prof. Hering, of Leipzig.

DR. THOINOT has been appointed professor of medical jurisprudence in the Paris Faculty of Medicine in succession to the late Prof. Brouardel.

THE appointment of Prof. A. Gruvel, formerly of Bordeaux, to examine and report upon the sea and river fisheries of the French possessions in West Africa is

announced.

MR. WILLIAM LUTLEY SCLATER has resigned the directorship of the South African Museum, Cape Town, which he has held for the last ten years, and has returned to England. He has accepted the post of director of the

Colorado Museum, Colorado Springs, U.S.A., which is in connection with a large college recently established there. Before leaving Cape Town, Mr. Sclater completed the Birds" of his series of the "Fauna of South Africa " by the issue of the fourth volume. It is to be hoped that his successor will be induced to carry on this important work to a conclusion.

MR. MICHAEL JOHN NICOLL, who recently returned from accompanying the Earl of Crawford as naturalist during his winter voyage in the Valhalla, R.Y.S., round Africa, has accepted the post of assistant-director of the Zoological Gardens at Giza, near Cairo, and has left England to take up the duties of his appointment.

THE Royal Economic Society is about to inaugurate an annual economic congress to be held in London in the January of each year. The first congress will take place on January 9 and 10, 1907, when it is hoped that many prominent economists, including visitors from foreign countries, will be present. It may be mentioned that Viscount Goschen, who has been president of the society from its inception in 1890, now resigns that position. The new president is the Right Hon. R. B. Haldane, M.P.

A COMMITTEE for the furtherance of cancer research has been formed by the Swedish Medical Society under the chairmanship of Prof. Berg.

WE record with much regret the death of Mr. James Dredge, C.M.G. (joint editor with Mr. W. H. Maw of Engineering), which occurred on Wednesday, August 15, at the age of sixty-six years. Mr. Dredge took great interest in the various international exhibitions held both in this country and abroad. He was created a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George for his services as Commissioner-General for Great Britain at the Brussels Exhibition of 1897.

THE death is announced of Prof. S. Tomaselli, of the University of Catania; of Dr. Alexander Bogdanov, professor of pathology at Odessa; also of Prof. Léon Adrien Prunier, director of the Pharmacie centrale des Hôpitaux, and a member of the Paris Académie de Médecine.

AT the seventy-eighth annual meeting of the Association of German Men of Science and Physicians, which is to take place at Stuttgart from September 16-22 next, the following addresses will be delivered :—transplantation in surgery, by Prof. Garré, of Breslau; embryonal transplantation, by Dr. Speman; regeneration and transplantation in the animal kingdom, by Prof. Korschelt, of Marburg. In the medical section a report by Profs. Starling, of London, and Krehl, of Strassburg, will be presented on chemical correlations in the animal organism.

In addition to the courses of lectures on "Hygiene in its bearing on School Life" and "Food and Meat Inspection," to which attention was directed in our issue of August 9, the Royal Sanitary Institute has arranged for the following courses the forty-second course of lectures for sanitary officers, commencing on September 10; the teath course of practical training for meat inspectors, beginning on September 21; and " Sanitary Science as applied to Buildings and Public Works," from September 28.

THE following lectures are announced for delivery at the meeting of the Verband selbständiger öffentlicher Chemiker to be held in Dessau from September 23-25

next: the founding of a chemical Reichsanstalt, Dr Treumann; the need of reform in the wine laws, Dr Kayser; on the radio-activity of the waters of health resorts, Dr. Aschoff; on the analysis of certain coals, Prof. Dr. Heyer; on the conditions imposed on industrial chemists when appointed, Dr. Treumann; modern milk hygiene, Dr. Lenze; demonstration of an apparatus for photomicrography, Dr. Wilhelm Lenz; modern methods of lighting, Dr. Thiele; on the preservation of secrecy of analytical methods, Dr. Vaubel; investigations of the phosphorus and sulphur compounds used in the manufar ture of matches, Dr. Becker; the occurrence of manganese in well water and the determination of the same, Di Woy.

A TUBERCULOSIS museum, to which the public is to be admitted free, will, it is stated in the British Medical Journal, be opened at Darmstadt on August 29. The museum, which is the first of the kind in Germany, is intended for the instruction of the people in the nature of the disease and the means of its prevention. After two months the museum will be transferred to some other town, and so on through the whole of the Grand Duchy of Hesse.

ACCORDING to Engineering, some interesting experiments have recently been carried out on the military Berlin-Zossen railway line the object of which was to ascertain the value of a new invention to prevent trains from leaving the metals on account of faulty rails, breakages of wheels or axles, or other causes. In order to make the experiments as realistic as possible, 2 kilometres of line were given up to the purpose, and on this distance intentional derailments were effected, the experiments naturally being of interest to both the civil and military authorities. The German State Railways suffer, it is said, an annual expenditure of 250,000l. through damage done by derail

ments.

ALTHOUGH the hydrographic appropriation by Congress has been reduced, the investigation of underground waters in the eastern United States is still being conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, and the work is to be extended later in the season.

AN economic investigation of iron-ore deposits in Utah, Colorado, and the Lake Superior region will, it is stated in Science, be conducted next year by Mr. C. R. Van Hise, of the U.S. Geological Survey. The mapping of the iron ores of the Iron Springs Special quadrangle of southern Utah was completed on July 1. A special topographic map on a scale of 1:45,000, with 50-feet contour intervals, has been made of an area of 225 square miles. The ore deposits themselves were mapped on a still larger scale of 250 feet to the inch. The maps and the report on the district will be published during the coming winter.

THE department of vertebrate palæontology of the American Museum of Natural History has, according to Science, no fewer than three expeditions at work this season. Mr. B. Brown is continuing the search for dinesaurs in the Cretaceous beds of Montana, Mr. W. Granger is searching for fossil mammals in the Eocene formations of Wyoming, and Mr. A. Thomson is exploring the later Tertiary formations of South Dakota.

ACCORDING to the British Medical Journal, an ingenious apparatus, invented by M. Chaulin, for the destruction of mosquitoes was recently presented to the Paris Academy It is a simple kind of metallic cage formed ĥne chains almost touching, and held rigid by two metallic rings abov

and below. This is suspended from the ceiling, an alternating electric current passes through the apparatus, and the insects, which are attracted by an electric light showing within, are literally electrocuted.

A SUBSTANCE that is spoken of as a kind of celluloid " has recently been patented in Italy by an English inventor. Celluloid, as is well known, is largely used as a substitute for tortoiseshell in the manufacture of combs and other small articles, but the use has always been attended with a certain amount of risk from its inflammable nature. It Is claimed for the new invention that in the most aggravated circumstances it will only carbonise, and not flow like a stream of melting sealing wax, setting fire to any flammable substance that may happen to come in its way. The immunity from taking fire is secured by mixing glue, gum arabic, and colza oil with the original substance when in a liquid state, and purifying it from sediment by Various processes, until it becomes perfectly clear, when it can be worked up to resemble any kind of tortoiseshell at 4 very much lower price.

Of the 728 persons who in 1905 underwent preventive Treatment for hydrophobia at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, four only died of the disease, and in one of these cases the disease manifested itself before the completion of the treatment. Excluding this case, the total mortality shows a percentage of 0.54. In the preceding year the number of persons treated was slightly higher, being 755. The persons treated at the Paris Institute are divided into three categories, as follows:-(a) Where the presence of rabies in the animal which inflicted the bite has been proved experimentally by the development of the disease in animals which were bitten by it or were inoculated with its medulla; (b) where the presence of rabies in the animal which inflicted the bite has been confirmed by veterinary examination; (c) where the animals in question were supposed to be suffering from rabies. One hundred and sixty-six of the persons treated are comprised in class (a), 306 in class (b), and 255 in class (c).

A STRIKING proof of the value of the finger-print method of identifying criminals is to be found in the recently issued report of the Commissioner of the City Police. During the past year 1028 persons were arrested for offences under the Prevention of Crimes Act, such as being found in enclosed premises or in other circumstances suggestive of felonious intent. Of these individuals 562 were not recognised at the time of their apprehension as having previously been under arrest, but on their finger-prints being taken and compared with the Scotland Yard registers it was ascertained that 265 of them were old offenders.

RECOGNISING the danger to art which was entailed by the use of cheap aniline dyes, the Amir of Afghanistan some time ago forbade the entry into his territory of carpets coloured with such dyes. The Kashmir Durbar has now, according to the Pioneer Mail, taken a step which should assist materially in saving the various beautiful arts for which the vale of Kashmir is famous from deterioration or destruction. The Durbar has decided to charge a heavy duty of 45 per cent. on all aniline dyes at the frontier, and at a certain district within the frontier to confiscate and at once destroy them.

WHILE acknowledging the good results obtained in the past by the Forest Department, the Government of India has decided to make better provision for scientific research in connection with Indian forests by the appointment of six special officers for the branches of sylviculture, work

ing plans, botany, zoology, chemistry, and economics to form an Imperial Forest Research Institute at Dehra Dun. The Indian Forester (June) contains a copy of the resolution and a short editorial note voicing the appreciation of the Service, and pointing out the necessity for working out sylvicultural problems for and in India. The editor also contributes a second article, with illustrations, on the types of forest rest-houses in India-the first article appeared in the February issue-contrasting the poor accommodation provided in Burma with the more substantial quarters found in the United Provinces.

PROF. A. H. R. BULLER has taken up a useful subject for research in making a study of the basidiomycetous fungus, Polyporus squamosus, that grows as a wound parasite on maples, elms, and other trees. An account dealing with the life-history of the fungus and its action on the wood of Acer is published as vol. i., No. 3, of the Journal of Economic Biology. As observers have noted for the spores of other basidiomycetes, germination is not easily effected; spores were germinated in artificial media, such as malt-wort extract and solutions containing peptone and asparagin, but the factors necessary to natural germination

were not discovered. Prof. Buller has devoted a separate paper, published in the Annals of Botany (January), to his examination for ferments, in which his tests point to the presence of seven ferments, including amylase and emulsin, but the tests for maltase and invertase yielded negative results.

COLOURED drawings made by Prof. L. Errera in connection with his studies on glycogen and paraglycogen in the fungi, to which reference was made in NATURE, June 7, p. 134, have been discovered, and have been issued as part of vol. i. of the Recueil de l'Institut botanique, Brussels. The test consists in producing a distinct red or brown colour with a solution of iodide in potassium iodide, that disappears on heating strongly and reappears on cooling. A very marked reaction was obtained with the zoospore of Polyphagus Euglenae, with the young oidium of Sphaerotheca Castagnei, and with the young ascus of Geoglossum hirsutum.

ACCORDING to the report for the past year, the Boston (U.S.A.) Natural History Society is making satisfactory progress in the matter of exhibiting a complete collection of the fauna of New England. During the year specimens. of moose and caribou have been installed, while the series of birds has been increased by specimens representing thirty-three species new to the collection.

In an exceedingly interesting article published in the August number of the American Naturalist Prof. R. S.. Lull discusses the various structural modifications for flight occurring in vertebrates. Inclusive of extinct forms, volant evolution, in the author's opinion, has occurred in seventeen distinct instances, ten of which are, however, merely adaptations for soaring leaps. Among these latter Mr. Lull includes the so-called flying-frogs (Rhacophorus), the volant powers of which have been denied, and the Sifaka lemurs (Propithecus) of Madagascar, the long leaps of which are said to be aided by a rudimentary patagium. In connection with flying-fishes, it may be noted that the author considers Colonel Durnford to have definitely proved the necessity for wing-vibrations. As regards pterodactyles, Mr. Lull is of opinion that while the long-tailed Rhamphorhynchus flapped its wings during flight, the gigantic Pteranodon of the Cretaceous had a sailing flight, with little or no wing-flapping, and may, indeed, have been