interior of Canada, and Dr. Helm brought forward some new observations on the migration of the starling in Germany. The third section, for biology, nidification and oology, was presided over by Dr. Victor Fatio, of Geneva, and received communications from the Rev. C. R. Jourdain on erythrism in eggs, and from Dr. R. Blasius on the bird-life of the Pyrenees. In this section also, Mr. Frank M. Chapman, of New York, delighted his audience by his vivid description of the breeding-places of the scarlet flamingo and brown pelican in the Bahamas, which he had lately visited, and by his excellent photographic illustrations of these birds and their nests. Mr. H. E. Dresser took the presidential chair in the fourth section, which was devoted to economic ornithology and the protection of birds, and was well attended. Papers were read here by Dr. Herman on his recent observations on the constituents of the food of birds, by Sir John Cockburn on the legislation that had taken place in Australia for the preservation of bird-life, and by Mr. T. Digby-Pigott on the present state of the laws on the same subject in Great Britain and Ireland, which seem to require careful revision. Mr. Frank E. Lemon, secretary of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, also lectured on the same subject. In section five (aviculture) the communications were not so numerous, but Mr. D. Seth-Smith, the editor of the Avicultural Journal, did not omit to urge the importance of his special branch of ornithology as an aid to scientific study, which, indeed, is now generally admitted. Besides the sections, general meetings were held on the Wednesday and Friday, at which various ornithological topics of general interest were discussed. Papers were read by Dr. Paul Leverkühn, of Sophia, on the breeding-places of the vultures and eagles in the Balkans, by Dr. Herman on the state of ornithology in Hungary and on the theory of the migration of birds and its origin, and by Mr. J. L. Bonhote on the hybridisation of ducks; while Mr. W. S. Bruce gave an interesting account of the ornithological results of the Scottish Antarctic Expedition which are now being worked out. Besides these papers, Dr. Edward Wilson gave an excellent lecture on the birds obtained and observed in the Antarctic seas and lands during the recent National Antarctic Expedition, and showed off the manners and customs of the penguins in a long series of photographs. on Thursday, June 15, was entirely devoted to a visit to the great zoological museum at Tring, of which the birds (under the curatorship of Dr. Hartert) form one of the most prominent features. It is needless to say that the ornithologists were most hospitably received and entertained by Mr. Walter Rothschild, who further delighted the visitors by a lecture birds extinct or likely soon to become so, one of his pet subjects of study. This lecture was illustrated by the exhibition of a splendid series of specimens of the birds in question, for which the Tring Museum is celebrated, and by numerous drawings collected from every quarter whence information on this subject could be obtained. At the final meeting, held on Saturday, June 17, it was agreed that the next assemblage of the International Ornithological Congress should take place in 1910 in Germany, with Dr. Reichenow, of Berlin, as president, and Dr. R. Blasius and Graf Hans von Berlepsch as vice-presidents. It was hoped that the meeting would be held at Berlin, but the president and vice-presidents were authorised to select any other city in Germany as the place of assemblage in case they should find it more expedient to do so. It was also agreed, on the motion of Mr. Walter Rothschild, to send telegrams to the Governments of Tasmania and New Zealand requesting them to interfere with the destruction of the penguins in the Antarctic islands now carried on in order to obtain the small quantity of oil which is contained in the bodies of these unfortunate birds. D THE THAMES FLOW AND BRITISH PRESSURE AND RAINFALL CHANGES. URING the years 1903 and 1904 there appeared two reports dealing with the flow of the Thames in relation to the rainfall of the river's basin, the first being published by the London County Council The and the second by the Thames Conservators. material dealt with extended over the period 1883 to 1903, and the very close association between rainfall and flow was clearly brought out. In a recent communication to the Royal Society by Sir Norman Lockyer and the writer, an attempt has been made to discuss data from the year 1860 up to the present time, involving not only statistics of rain fall over a wider area than that dealt with in the above mentioned inquiries, but changes of barometric pressure in Great Britain and certain distant areas. In consequence of the fact that the British annual variation of rainfall is at a minimum in about April and a maximum in about October, the rainfall observ ations have been grouped into twelve months extending from April to the following March, both months inclusive. The annual variation of the river flow (see Fig. 1) for similar reasons necessitated a different grouping of the twelve months; in this case the year was taken to cover the period September to the following August, both months inclusive. The flow of the river will thus be seen to lag five months behind the rainfall. In the following curves here reproduced the rainfall for each group of twelve months (April to March is compared directly with the river flow for the twelve months commencing in September of the same year. Re-computing the rainfall and river statistics, published in the above mentioned reports, according to these new divisions of the year, the changes from year to year can be seen in Fig. 2 (curves iii, and iv. continuous lines). To investigate variation in the river flow previous to 1883, an application to the Thames Conservators resulted in securing original data which have enabled the curve to be traced back to the year 1860 (Fig. 2, curve iii., dotted portion). As a check on the whole of this curve another series of gauge readings was similarly treated, and these are shown in curve ii. The synchronous variations in the two curves thus indicate that either curve may be taken to represent the flow changes. In the above mentioned reports the curve representing the rainfall of the river basin from 1883 (curve iv.) was deduced from the statistics of twelve stations covering a comparatively small area. It happens, however, that these rainfall variations in this valley are not restricted to this region alone, but are similar to those which occur over a very large area in the British Isles. By employing the Meteorological Office records, and computing them according to the present adopted system of grouping of months, curves can be obtained which commence in the year 1866. Investigation has shown that this type of variation is nearly common to England S., Midland Counties, and even the combination of Scotland E., England N.E. and E., and the Midlands, as can be gathered from the curves in Fig. 2 (curves v., vi., vii.). The other districts in the British Isles (with the exception of Scotland N., which is different from all other districts in these isles) are of a type similar to each other, but present variations which, although not widely different from the eastern and other districts, are sufficiently unlike them to be classified apart. The rainfall of the British Isles is produced mainly by the passage of areas of low pressure travelling over the country in a north-easterly or easterly direction. It should therefore be expected that on the average the greater the rainfall the more numerous the cyclones, and consequently the lower the mean value of pressure. In the United Kingdom, therefore, the rainfall variations from year to year should correspond very closely with the inverted pressure changes. That this is so can be seen by comparing the inverted Oxford pressure curve in Fig. 2 (curve viii.) with the rainfall curves underneath. Instead of Oxford, any other town in the United Kingdom, such as Armagh, might have been taken (curve ix.), for the pressure changes are so remarkably similar over a very wide area. IN 29 55 PRESSURE 60 (INVERTED) (APR-MAR.) ARMAGH 65 PRESSURE 65 (INVERTED) 70 (APR.-MAR) OXFORD.75L RAINFALL IN 36 SCOTLAND E IN. MIDLAND30 COUNTIES 25 (APR-MAR) RAINFALL 30 18600 ENGLAND 30 V (APR-MAR.) 26 BASIN NATURAL FLOW 700 (SCP-AUG.) TEDDINGTON FT. THAMES 15 AT (SEP-AUG.) 3 YEAR 5 1 18600 The question now arises, can British pressure be forecasted? It has been previously pointed out in this Journal (vol. lxx. p. 177, June, 1904) that there exists a worldwide barometric see-saw between two nearly antipodal parts of the earth, the one region about India and its neighbourhood behaving in an inverse way to that of South America and the southern parts of the United States. In some regions, and the British Isles was one of them, the pressure variation curves were found to be a distinct mixture of both the Indian and South American types, and it was difficult to classify them. To illustrate this, the accompanying figure is given It will thus be seen that the pressure, rainfall, and river flow are all intimately related, and any method, of forecasting pressure would make FIG. 2.-Curves illustrating the similarity between the Thames flow, and rainfall and it possible to determine beforehand pressure (curves inverted) in the British Isles. [The continuous and dotted vertical lines represent the epochs of sun-spot maxima and minima respectively.] the rainfall. Since the Thames flow has a lag of five months on both rainfall and pressure, a means is possibly available of stating the "expectancy" of excessive or deficient amount of water in the river. (Fig. 4). The upper curve represents an hypothetical curve with a period of 3.8 years, and beneath it the South American (Cordoba) pressure curve. At the very bottom is given the inverse of this hypothetical curve, and above this the Indian (Bombay) curve. Between the Bombay and the Cordoba curves is given that of Oxford. It will be noted that the Cordoba curve disagrees with its hypothetical curve in the years 1892 and 1900 to 1903, while the Bombay curve shows anomalies in 1892 and 1901 to 1903. If, now, the Oxford pressure be compared with those of Cordoba and India, and a list made showing the years in which high pressure at Oxford coincides with years of high pressure at Cordoba or India, or low pressure at Oxford with low pressure at Cordoba or India, the following table is the result (omitting the rainfall was highest and the pressure lowest, average conditions) :— which is exactly what was to be expected from the 4860 0 M T سبيل 1900 0 FIG. 4-Curve to illustrate the relation between the British (Oxford) pressure change and those of India (Bombay) and S. America (Cordoba). This table seems to suggest that during some years the British area is enveloped in the pressure system that extends over the large region in which India is about the centre, while for another series it is dominated by the antipodal pressure system of which South America is the middle portion. It is possible that it is this alternate reversion from one type to the other that prevents the 3.8-year change of the Indian and Cordoba curves from occurring in the British curves, and substitutes for it an apparent shorter period of about three years, which is very noticeable for some series of years in the British curves (Fig. 2, curve i.). It will thus be seen that it is difficult at present to forecast British pressure correctly, but further research relationship between pressure, rainfall, and river flow in these islands. Another point here indicated is that this long period change is real, and that there is a tendency now for the low river levels, deficiency of rainfall, and excess pressure of the last decade or more to be replaced by a greater mean flow of the river, increase in the rainfall, and a diminution in the barometric pressure. WILLIAM J. S. LOCKYER. A 18900 1900-0 1890-0 بلا 44 NOTES. to ROYAL garden party was held on Wednesday, June 14, and was attended by about six thousand guests. At the end of the official record of notable people present, supplied the Times by the readCourt Newsman," we "Invitations were issued to their Excellencies the Foreign Ambassadors and Ministers, with the personnel of their Embassies and Legations, the members of the Government, the Households of the King and Queen and of the Royal Family, and to many peers, members of Parliament, naval and military officers, clergy, and representatives of the musical, dramatic, and literary professions, many of whom with their wives and daughters were present at the party." We believe His Majesty the King is interested in the scientific as in the other activities of his subjects; but if so, it is clear that he is very badly served by the Lord Chamberlain's office, which is responsible for the issue of the invitations. Apparently, this department of the State has not yet realised that science is the only true basis of a nation's welfare and progress, and that scientific men exist in Britain. A few of the most distinguished Fellows of the Royal Society would represent the best interests of the nation even more effectively than actors and musicians. البشر 1860 0 1900 0 FIG. 3.-Curves to show the similarity between the flow of the Thames and the rainfall and pressure (inverted) changes at one station, namely, Oxford. will very probably render it possible when more is known about the mechanism of the atmosphere. In conclusion, it is interesting to note that in addition to this short period variation the curves (Fig. 2) indicate one of longer duration. An examination of these statistics, when the curves are smoothed by taking three-year means to eliminate the short period changes, shows that when the river flow was greatest, i.e. between about the years 1873-1883, THE Royal Society's annual conversazione, to which ladies are invited, will take place on Friday, June 23. PROF. E. RAY LANKESTER, F.R.S., has been elected president of the British Association for the meeting to be held at York next year. THE Stephen Ralli memorial-a laboratory for clinical and pathological research-will be opened at the Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, on Thursday next, June 29. AT the Borough Polytechnic Institute on Wednesday next, June 28, marble busts of Joseph Lancaster and Michael Faraday (the work of Mr. H. C. Fehr), presented to the institute by Mr. Passmore Edwards, will be formally unveiled by Prof. S. P. Thompson, F.R.S. Mr. Edric Bayley, chairman of the governors, will preside. THE annual conversazione of the Royal Geographical Society will be held at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, on Tuesday next, June 27. Ar the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society to be held in the evening of June 26, a paper will be read by Dr. Charcot on the French Antarctic Expedition. Dr. Charcot has just been created a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. WE learn from the Times that the Government of India has ordered the introduction of a standard time, with effect from July 1, on the railways (other than small local lines, where the change might be inconvenient) and in all telegraph offices in the country, and also in Burma. Hitherto Madras time has been adopted by most of the Indian railways. The standard now to be introduced is nine minutes in advance of the "railway time," as it is called in all parts of India, and is thus 5 hours in advance of Greenwich, being the local time of longitude 82° 30'. The standard for Burma is to be exactly an hour earlier, viz. 6 hours in advance of Greenwich and five minutes earlier than Rangoon local time. In inland places it has been found convenient generally to follow railway time; but the great seaports of Calcutta, Bombay, and Karachi have followed the local time of their respective longitudes. The Government of India does not prescribe the new standard for these and other places following local time, but if a general desire to adopt the new standard is evinced, the Government will be prepared to support the change and to cooperate in bringing it about. In all probability, therefore, there will, ere long, be a uniform time throughout India exactly 5 hours in advance of Greenwich, while that of Burma will be 6 hours in advance. THE death of Mr. James Mansergh, F.R.S., on June 15, at seventy-one years of age, deprives applied science of an acknowledged authority upon water supply and sewage disposal. Mr. Mansergh had unique experience and knowledge of these subjects, and was associated for many years with almost every important construction connected with them in this country. The extensive schemes which he formed for the water by constructing immense dams below the point where the two rivers meet. Mr. Mansergh was the author of about 150 reports upon schemes of water supply, sewerage, and sewage disposal for many large towns. He was also the author of "Lectures on Water Supply Prospecting for Water, Prospecting and Boring,” delivered at the School of Military Engineering, Chatham, The Water Supply of Towns," and other works. While president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1900-1, the Engineering Standards Committee was formed, and Mr. Mansergh was elected chairman. At the time of his death, as chairman of the main committee, he had more than thirty committees working on standardisation in different branches of engineering. Mr. Mansergh was a member of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Water Supply, and he was on the council of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1901 for his eminent work as a hydraulic engineer. IN the Irish Naturalist for June Dr. R. F. Scharff records the capture of two female bottle-nosed dolphins in Dublin Bay in April last. The only other record of the occurrence of Tursiops tursio in Irish waters dates from 1829. Dr. Scharff figures one of the Dublin specimens. We have received a copy of the March issue of the Bulletin of the Cracow Academy, to which Mr. V. Kulczynski contributes the continuation of an article on certain spiders, treating in this instance of Araneus curcubitinus and its allies. In other articles Mr. T. Browicz discusses the secreting function of the nucleus in the cells of the liver, while Mr. K. Wójcik describes the infra-Oligocene strata of Riszkania, near Uzsok, with lists of the fossils. A NOTICEABLE feature in the report of the Zoological Society of Philadelphia for the past year is the attention paid to the causes of the deaths which take place in the menagerie. In 140 instances a pathological examination was instituted, mostly with definite results in determining the cause of decease. The results are tabulated, and show that tuberculosis is by far the most fatal ailment, next to which comes inflammation of the stomach and intestines, followed, with a considerable diminution in the numbers, by nephritis, necrosis of the liver, and nontubercular pneumonia. IN the April issue of the Emu the editors continue the excellent practice of giving coloured illustrations of some of the more remarkable Australian birds, the plate, which is drawn by Mr. H. Grönvold, depicting in this instance representatives of Xerophila, Mirafra, and Amytis. In the case of Xerophila castaneiventris, one cannot help wondering what is the purpose of the pair of yellow eye-like spots at the root of the beak. Among the articles is an interest initiated and directed for the improvement of water supplying account, with photographs, by Mr. A. J. Campbell, and drainage will long remain as monuments to his memory. He was the designer of the waterworks and sewerage of Lancaster (where he was born in April, 1834), Lincoln, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Rotherham, Southport, Burton-on-Trent, Melbourne (Australia), Birmingham, and many other large towns. These designs include some of the largest schemes of water supply and drainage ever carried out, such, for instance, as the sewerage scheme for the metropolitan district of Melbourne, embracing an area of 133 square miles, and the supply of water to Birmingham from a source in Radnorshire seventy-three miles away. This scheme utilises water from the rivers Elan and Claerwen, and natural reservoirs have been one of the editors, of that remarkable bird the kagu of New Caledonia, in the course of which attention is directed to the danger of extermination now threatening that species. Thirty years ago it had already disappeared from the more settled parts of Caledonia, and the writer urges that steps should be taken, while there is yet time, to preserve such an interesting bird (the sole representative of its genus) from extermination. THE problems of "vitalismus" are discussed by Mr. K. C. Schneider, of Vienna, in Biologisches Centralblatt of June 1 at considerable length; while in another article Dr. H. Schmidt, of Jena, enters on the consideration of the fundamental law of biological development. In a third communication Dr. R. Rössle insists on the importance of immunity-reactions (that is to say, serum reactions and blood-immunity) in determining the systematic affinities of the higher animals, pointing out that by this method the intimate affinities respectively existing between fowls and pigeons, horse and ass, fox and dog, and sheep and goats, have already been established. The translation of an article by Prof. Marcus Hartog, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, constitutes the next most important part of the contents of this issue. THE most important articles in Indian Public Health for May (vol. i., No. 10) deal with the milk question in India and the Calcutta milk supply. SOME interesting observations on the influence of the root nodules upon the composition of soy beans and cowpeas have been made by Messrs. C. D. Smith and F. W. Robison (Bulletin No. 224 Michigan State Agricultural College Experiment Station). The conclusion is arrived at, after two years' work, that while on fairly fertile soils the root nodules may not notably increase the yield, they do cause an important and pronounced increase in the relative and absolute amount of nitrogen in the plants. IN the Bull. Internat. de l'Acad. des Sciences de Cracovie (No. 1, January) M. Panek contributes a chemical and bacteriological study of the Polish barszcz," a product of the fermentation of red beetroot. It is brought about by a micro-organism, named by the author Bacterium betae viscosum, which causes a fermentation of the canesugar with the production of viscous substances and mannite. M. Tochtermann describes the action of thionyl chloride on thiobenzamide, M. Niemczycki discusses syntheses effected by means of zinc chloride, and Madame Krahelska the merogonic development of the egg of Echinus microtuberculatus. THERE has been a considerable amount of uncertainty with regard to the blackwood of southern India, whether it was possible to distinguish two species. Mr. T. E. Bourdillon, writing in the Indian Forester (March), is able to show that Dalbergia sissoides and Dalbergia latifolia should be regarded as distinct species. The natives recognise dark blackwood, species latifolia, and pale blackwood, species sissoides, and although there are several points of distinction, the wood forms the best means of identification. To the Cowthorpe oak which grows near Wetherby, in Yorkshire, and was illustrated in NATURE of May II (p. 44), is generally assigned the honour of being the largest tree in the British Isles. The claim is based upon the girth and spread of the tree, as it is doubtful whether it ever attained a great height. The Yorkshire Herald, May 29, provides an illustration, reproduced from a painting, which is believed to be an accurate representation of the tree as it appeared sixty years ago, and extracts are given from a pamphlet issued with the picture. There is no doubt that this oak passed through its seedling stage several centuries ago; Dr. Jessop, in 1829, suggested an age exceeding 1500 years, but this is mere conjecture, as the tree has been hollow for at least two centuries. THE eighteenth and latest volume of the Transactions of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society contains the accounts of the society's meetings during 1904, the jubilee year. The president, Mr. W. S. Fotheringam, in reviewing the progress of the society, announced that the list of members had reached a thousand. The yearly excursion which was held in France provided an opportunity of visiting some of the magnificent State forests. At Champenoux and Haye the forests are principally oak, but beech and hornbeam are also grown, since they provide useful cover. Previously the system adopted was coppicewith-standards, but in both cases this is being converted into high forest. A very fine forest of silver-fir worked with a rotation of 144 years was inspected at Celles, in the Vosges. PROF. E. WIEDEMANN, of Erlangen, sends us a short statement of observations described in his work on electric discharges (Wied. Ann., xx., p. 793, 1883) relating to the effects referred to by the Rev. F. J. Jervis-Smith in our correspondence columns on May 4 (p. 7). He agrees with Mr. Jervis-Smith as to the action of ozone, and advises persons who work for a long while with influence machines not to have these machines situated in the working room. "Ozone belongs to the poisonous gases and is the more dangerous, since the injurious effects are not manifest at the time; on the contrary, breathing the gas produces at first a feeling of exhilaration, but afterwards it has a depressing effect on the nervous system. Binz has shown that it may cause sleep. I may add to what I have mentioned that during my observations I have suffered somewhat severely from nervous disturbance (hyperasthesia of the feet) due to breathing ozone. These lasted for one or two years. Moreover, I always experience discomfort after performing experiments in my lectures on Tesla discharges." SINCE March, 1904, several meteorological stations have been established by the Japanese Government along the coast of Korea. In April of that year the Japanese meteorological observatory in Chemulpo commenced to record observations. Mr. H. Mukasa, writing from Chemulpo, informs us that a new building for the observatory was completed lately on the top of the highest hill in Chemulpo (lat. 37° 29' N., long. 126° 37' E.), seventy metres above mean sea-level, where observations have been taken since January 1 last. At the invitation of Dr. Y. Wada, the director, the important residents of Seoul and Chemulpo visited the observatory on March 25 last. Various pieces of apparatus relating to meteorology, as well as the horizontal seismograph devised by Prof. F. Omori, were exhibited. Among the visitors were the Japanese, French, and British Ministers, and several Korean dignitaries. The exhibition succeeded in arousing the interest of the visitors in meteorology, and made a deep impression on the Korean guests. WE have received a copy of the first report of the Transvaal Meteorological Department, containing observations for one year ending June 30, 1904, with an appendix giving monthly and seasonal rainfall records for a number of years, from observations taken before the establishment of the meteorological department. This was only constituted in April, 1904, consequently the records are very incomplete, so far as official stations are concerned. In some cases a complete year's observations are pub |
