234 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



The second volume of " Topography of Lofthouse, 

 and Rural Notes," by an old contributor to our 

 columns, Mr. George Roberts, is in the press. It 

 •will contain a continuation of the Natural History 

 Diary, forming in both volumes, a series of twenty-two 

 consecutive years ; a Memoir of Charles Forrest the 

 antiquary (the discoverer of rock sculptures on, 

 Rombald's Moor) ; and additional lists of the 

 mollusks and plants of the Wakefield district. 



The Americans are turning to practical account the 

 discovery that the Utricularia is a devourer of young 

 fishes. There are from twelve to fifteen species in the 

 United States waters, and Professor Baird thinks the 

 discovery has an important bearing on the abundance 

 of the food fishes. Utricularia is therefore to be 

 destroyed in spite of its acquired ingenuity. 



Sheep's horn is being employed at Lyons for 

 making horse-shoes. It is said to be particularly 

 adapted to horses employed in towns, and known not 

 to have a steady foot on the pavement. 



In the Geographical Section of the recent British 

 Association meeting, Lieutenant Greely was present, 

 and delivered an address. He said not a word about 

 his sufferings ; and the details he gave of his observa- 

 tions, especially on Grinnell Land, and the compara- 

 tively warm tide coming from the Pole, are a real 

 contribution to science. Here is a land well worthy 

 of an expedition to itself, and of the special study of 

 geologists. It is an Arctic land, a neighbour of North 

 Greenland, with a great double ice-cap and immense 

 glaciers, yet with abounding vegetation, willows, 

 saxifrages, grass sufficient for herds of musk oxen, 

 freshwater lakes and rivers, old moraines, and 

 apparently receding ice. 



The most remarkable statement in Lieut. Greely 's 

 address at the British Association Meeting was the 

 discovery that when the tide was flowing out from 

 the North Pole it was found that the water was 

 warmer than when flowing in the ojDposite direction. 

 He made an elaborate set of observations (which will 

 shortly be published), showing this wonderful phe- 

 nomenon. 



Professor Moseley, in a paper read at the 

 British Association on the presence of eyes in the 

 shells of chitonidos, said he discovered the eyes during 

 the present summer. No other mollusca have any 

 sense-organs in their shells. In such chitonidse there 

 are i t,ooo eyes in the shell of a single animal. Each 

 eye has a calcareous cornea or bicornea, a lens or soft 

 tissue, with retina composed like the eye of the 

 common snail. New eyes are constantly being formed 

 at the margin of the shell by the growth of the latter 

 during the animal's life. Besides eyes, elaborate 

 organs of touch permeate the shell ; their end organs 

 can be protruded at its surface by means of pores. 

 The shells of the chitonida; thus differ fundamentally 

 from those of other mollusca. 



At the same meeting, Messrs. R. Law and James- 

 Horsfall gave an account of small flint implements 

 found beneath the peat on the Pennine hills of 

 Lancashire and Yorkshire. 



Bearings made of glass are being experimented 

 with in the rolling-stock of certain American rail- 

 roads, in regard to their frictionle^s quality. 



Mr. W. W. COLLIN'S is giving a series of clever 

 expositions of Spencer's "Principles of Biology" in 

 the "Midland Naturalist." 



Dr. Barcexa, Director of the Department of 

 Geology in the National Museum of Mexico, has 

 recently discovered the facial and mandibular bones- 

 of a human skull in a hard rock not far from the city 

 of Mexico. He will shortly describe the specimen 

 fully. 



Mr. J. H. GuRNEY, JUN., has some remarks in 

 the " Ibis " on the occurrence of the Egyptian nightjar 

 in Nottinghamshire. 



Mr. W. M. Maskell has published, in the Trans- 

 actions of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 

 an additional paper (illustrated) on the Coccidae in. 

 New Zealand. 



Mr. T. M. Reade's important paper, entitled, 

 " Experiments on the Circulation of Water in Sand- 

 stone," appears in the last number of the Proceedings 

 of the Liverpool Geological Society. 



Formic Acid is recommended as the quickest 

 means of destroying Bacteria. 



Some very interesting and highly readable 

 Miscellanex have been contributed by Mr. M. II. 

 Robson, hon. sec. of the North of England 

 Microscopical Society, to the Transactions of the 

 Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, 

 and Newcastle-on Tyne, &c. 



The Meeting of the German Society of Naturalists 

 and Physicians was held at Magdeburg on Sept. 

 iS-23. 



At the British Association meeting, Mr. Wethered 

 stated that an expert in the microscopical examination 

 of coal could judge of its nature from an examination 

 of a piece with a pocket lens. 



Mr. Mairet has expressed his belief that phos- 

 phoric acid is intimately connected with the nutrition 

 and action of the brain. 



The French railway companies are about to adopt 

 an electric gate-opener. 



M. d'Abbadie, a well-known French astronomer, 

 in a paper read before the Paris Academy of Sciences, 

 proposes the adoption of 10,000 kilometres as a unit 

 for the measurement of celestial spaces, and that 

 this unit shall be termed a megistc, from the Greek 



