290 



NATURE 



[December 28, 191 1 



i» ii»uatly rcuard.-d a« .. ed plant, and popularly 



mpf*md to have been I the Danes. The fevcn 



localitir* \vli.r<- !t l» i' .jntaln Roman remain*. 



Anglo-S. (inal book«, deriving from Roman 



»„ut\'S. \'-. <-' shrub tmdpf th-^ nnnr"! I.ow-wrrt nnd 



t, the latter term implyii 

 ic Danewort doe« not occm 

 Bratley has iome interesting notes on micrococci from 

 (li»ea«*»d larvae. Aimmc other evidences of ili<- work being 

 done by the <- popularisai •nee is a 



good lecture u;. Irx. C. D. N i his con- 



tains a useful sketch of afforestation problems, and an 

 interesting reference to the work of the Midland R*"- 

 aflorestation Association. Successful exp' 

 been mad** '^" nuinn pi mfntJons of trees on t; 

 surfaces i the Black Country. .Some 



trees are ^.^.....k ... .; ;.. pure coal-dust. The poplar, 

 wilk>w, ash, sycamore, and Wych elm do best. Oaks and 

 conifers take less kindly to the peculiar atmosphere and 

 soil. This is nn interesting undertaking. 



AnofT thrf' tlio attention of th<' T ' '' 



Society was ; i the occurrence o: 



deposits of modern marine shells west of Mallaranny, in 

 Co. Mayo, at heights of from loo to 800 feet above sea- 

 level. Mr. J. de W. Hinch {Jrxsh Naturalist, 191 1, p. 189) 

 has now cleared up any doubts regarding their origin, by 

 showing that the common limpet is by far the most 

 prevalent form in these deposits ; that the other species 

 lie all edible; and th.it trares of fire occur on the 

 .re they occur. Mr. Hiniii concludes: — " Th'- 

 ii'|M.s:t is certainly not a raised beach, nor a ' 

 il> |)osit. In my opinion it is a rock shelter of j)! 

 times." The modern talus has in places grown over and 

 entombed a large number of the shells. 



Mr. J. M. Clarke has published in a separate form hi>- 

 " Observations on the Magdalen Islands " (New York 

 State Museum Bulletin 149, 191 1). Thfse islands lie in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, north-east of Prince Edward 

 Island, and are quaintly described as " sea-wracked 

 [racked?] remnants of continental land." They are 

 occupied by about 7000 persons, chiefly of French origin. 

 A new term is introduced (p. 12), the " demoiselle hills ; 

 rounded, symmetrical, beehive-shaped elevations with 

 grassy surfaces and separated by shallow or deep cauldron- 

 like depressions." It appears that this term refers to what 

 may be styled, on the same grounds, mammillations ; the 

 form, as we know in Jura, has always appealed thus to 

 navigators. Mr. J. W. Beede describes and illustrates the 

 Lower Carboniferous fossils from the islands, including 

 s'v.ral new species of Productus. 



The Bulletin of St. Louis Univ^'-^Uv v,,i v'' \n c 

 treats of seismology. At this univ 



horizontal seismograph has been e3i...^.i..-..^vj. i... .vw^.v.,^ 

 are made on a surface of smoked paper. From January 

 to June, 1908, 19 disturbances were noted. During the 

 same period, but with apparatus which records photo- 

 graphically, we see that 52 earthquakes were noted at 

 Victoria, B.C., 47 at Toronto, 160 at Hamburgh, and 

 108 at Stonyhurst. All these observations have l>een 

 corroborated by records obtained at other stations, and are 

 therefore known to represent earthquakes which have dis- 

 turbed very large areas. Fifteen colleges in the United 

 States and one in Canada have been equipped with instru- 

 avents similar to the type adopted at St. Louis. 



To The Monthly Weather Review for May, published by 

 the U.S. Weather Bureau, Dr. O. L. Fassig contributes 

 an interesting article 00 *' The Trade Winds in Porto 



NO. 2200, VOL. 88] 



Rko," based on hourly observations for ten to twehw year* 

 at San I ' h". island lies wholly within the tone of 



the no- ades. and the tables show a prevailing 



wii u from north-east to south-east during 77 per 



cri. entire year, or an aggregate of 381 days, and 



from *oulh during 14 per cent., or 51 days. In the 

 diurnal period, from about 9h. a.m. to loh. p.m., the pre* 

 vailing direction is from the east for the entire year, and 

 from loh. p.m. to gh. a.m. from the south-east. TIm 

 night winds, being lighter, vary somewhat more than those 

 of the day. The average hourly wind-velocity for the year 

 is about 1 1 miles ; the minimum, 6 miles, occurs at sun* 

 rise, and the maximum, 16 miles, at about ah. p.m. i 

 Judging from the movements of the clouds, the average 

 depth of the trade-wind current probably does not exceed 

 10,000 f wer clouds are wholly within the trade- 



wind dii... ^ . changes in temperature due to change in 

 the direction of the wind are, as a rule, very small. 



In a paper on the analN-tical basis of non-Euclidean ^ 

 geometry (American Journal of Mathematics, xxxiiL. 3) ' 

 Dr. W. H. Young, F.R.S., makes the following suggestive 

 remarks : — " There is, it seems to me, a tendency at the 

 present time to throw dust in the eyes of the mathematic. ' 

 public, or rather of the schoolboy public, in respect of tl. 

 step taken which corresponds to Euclid's eleventh axiom. 

 To efforts, now recognised by all mathematicians to b-- 

 abortive, towards proving the eleventh axiom hav 

 succeeded treatments of the subject-matter of Euclid f^ : 

 future engineers and others which seem to gloze over tl: 

 difficulty this axiom involves. I have recently propos«*d ' 

 (Quarterly Journal, 1910, pp. 353-63) " to emphasise the 

 empirical character of the axiom by giving it a form which 

 challenges attention, a form, moreover, having the doub! 

 advantage that it relates to bounded space, and can !■ 

 experimentally verified by the dullest schoolboy, even h- 

 one to whom the ideas of an angle represents an incom- 

 pletely solved diflliculty. If, on the other hand, we leave 

 the region of school books, we find for the most part an 

 air of unreality and half-heartedness in the treatment of 

 the subject." In his present paper Dr. Young shows how 

 the refinements of modern analysis give a consistent account 

 of the three geometries which arise out of the alterr ' 

 for the eleventh axiom. 



Messrs. Burro u.comk and Co. have sent u 



a copy of the " \\\ ........ " Photo:r.K-.h]c Exoo>ure Rico: 



and Diary for the year 1912. 



photographic readers are aware, -^ 



nicely and strongly got-up pocket-book, and contains tl; 

 essence of photographic information in tabloid form. I; 

 it are given the directions and observations on such matter 

 as exposure, development, intensification, and the othe 

 procedures which go to the making of pictures. The it- 

 formation is very general, and the user of any plate i : 

 camera will find it equally serviceable. Instructions av 

 explanations are given with regard to such topics a> 

 factorial and time development, machine, tank or stand 

 development, the oil-pigment process, contact printing by 

 artificial light, colour photography, &c. All the figures and 

 factors, based upon actual experiment, have been worked 

 out for all the principal films and plates, and arr collected 

 in a neat, convenient form. By the ingenious exposur. 

 calculator attached to the cover, correct exp-jsures undt : 

 all circumstances can be easily secured. In addition to a. 

 this photographic information, there are pages for diar 

 and exposure notes, so that the book serves as a pocket- 

 book as well as a work of reference. It should be noted 

 that three separate editions of the pocket-book are pub- 



