January 20, 1898] 



NA rURE 



281 



A LETTER which" appears in our correspondence columns, on 

 poisoning from Koda millet, which is extensively used as a food- 

 grain in limes of scarcity, furnishes another instance of the 

 urgent need that exists for further facilities for scientific investi- 

 gation in India. Matters are continually arising which ought to 

 be made the subjects of systematic inquiry, but at present the 

 means for carrying out such investigations are altogether in- 

 adequate to the wants of our great Indian Empire. 



We learn from Science that ground was formally broken 

 for the Museum Building of the New York Botanical Garden on 

 December 31. The construction and equipment of the building 

 will cost 347,019 dollars. The plans for the great range of 

 horticultural houses have been completed, and specifications for 

 them have been printed. The sum of 15,000 dollars, in 

 addition to the funds provided by the Act of Incorporation, has 

 been made available for the building of portions of the drive- way 

 system. During the past season about 2900 species of plants 

 have been obtained, together with large quantities of museum, 

 library, and herbarium material. 



The Royal Photographic Society is organising an inter- 

 national exhibition of photographic apparatus and photographs, 

 which will open at the Crystal Palace on April 27. In addition 

 to the usual displays of pictures, &c., the leading firms, manu- 

 facturers and dealers, will be largely represented. There will 

 also be extensive loan collections, illustrating not only the 

 history of photography, but its scientific and commercial appli- 

 cations, photo-mechanical processes, photographs in colours, 

 photographs by means of the X-rays, and kindred exhibits. 

 The exhibition, the arrangements for which are in the hands of 

 a joint committee of members of the Society and exhibitors, 

 promises to be the largest and most interesting collection dealing 

 with photography that has ever been got together. 



The sixteenth annual meeting of the American Society of 

 Naturalists and Affiliated Societies was held at Cornell Univer- 

 sity at the end of last year. In the absence of the president, 

 Prof. Whitman, of the University of Chicago, the chair was 

 taken at the opening meeting by Prof. S. F. Clarke. The officers 

 elected for the ensuing year are : — President : H. P. Bowditch, 

 Harvard Medical School. Vice-Presidents : Prof. Wm. James, 

 Harvard University ; Prof. Simeon H. Gage, Cornell Uni- 

 versity ; Prof. H. S. Williams, Yale University. Secretary : 

 Prof. H. C. Bumpus, Brown University. Treasurer : Prof. 

 John B. Smith, Rutgers College. Executive Committee : Prof. 

 J. P. McMurrich, University of Michigan ; Prof. E. G. 

 Conklin, University of Pennsylvania. At the instance of Prof 

 Morgan, of Bryn Mawr College, the Society voted one hundred 

 dollars towards an additional table at the Naples Marine 

 Biological Station, and fifty dollars for the Naturalists' Table 

 at Woods HoU. It was reported that President McKinley was 

 about to appoint a politician to the office of Fish Commissioner, 

 and the sentiment of the assembled investigators upon this 

 matter is shown in the following resolution presented by Prof 

 C. L. Bristol, of New York University, and supported by Prof. 

 H. F. Osborn. " Resolved : {a) That the American Society 

 of Naturalists as representatives of the principal scientific and 

 educational interests of this country, unanimously express to the 

 President and Congress of the United States their sentiments 

 that the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries should, according 

 to the law of 1888, governing his appointment, be a person of 

 proved scientific and practical acquaintance with the fish and 

 fisheries of the coast, {b) That it is of the utmost importance 

 that the Fish Commission, as one of the most useful scientific 

 institutions of the Government, should be free froVn political 

 influence and should be administered with the highest degree 

 of scientific efficiency by an experienced officer. " A discussion 

 was held on the subject of '• The Biological Problems of To- 



NO. 1473. VOL. 57] 



day,'" and it was dealt with from the points of view of palreonto- 

 logy» botany, anatomy, psychology, physiology, developmental 

 mechanics, and morphogenesis. In addition to the combined 

 meetings of the societies, the following bodies held separate 

 meetings for the communication and discussion of papers bear- 

 ing upon their particular branches of science : American Physio- 

 logical Society, American Morphological Society, American 

 Psychological Association, Association of American Anatomists, 

 Association for Botanical Morphology and Physiology, Section 

 of Anthropology of the American Association. The Sodety will 

 meet next winter at New York. 



In the Zeitschrift fiir Vermessungswesen, Prof. Hammer 

 directs attention to a Babylonian plan depicted on a clay tablet 

 found in the excavations at Tello, and now preserved in th^ 

 Constantinople Museum. The plan was made about 3000 years 

 before the Christian era, and represents an estate belonging to King 

 Dungi. It is of importance not only as a contribution to the 

 early history of surveying, but also as a confirmation of the views 

 on Babylonian measures of length and of area propounded by 

 Reisner at a meeting of the Berlin Academy of Sciences on 

 April 9, 1896. A copy of the plan has been examined by Eisen- 

 lohr, the eminent authority on Egyptian archaeology, and he 

 claims to be able to read from the cuneiform inscription the names 

 of the two surveyors engaged. On one side of the tablet there 

 is a dimensioned sketch of the plan of the estate not drawn to 

 scale. The estate is divided by the survey lines into rectangles, 

 right-angled triangles, and trapeziums. In each case the 

 area is stated, two results obtained by different methods being 

 \ given. Eisenlohr has plotted the survey, and his (Calculations of 

 i the area agree with the results given on the tablet. On the 

 other side of the tablet the areas of the various portions are 

 added together, two sets of figures being used, and the arith- 

 metical mean taken as the correct area. The unit adopted, the 

 gan, is thought to be equal to 4199 square metres. The abso- 

 lute measures are, however, of slight importance. More im- 

 portant is the fact that land surveying was carried on 4000 years 

 B.C., apparently in an accurate manner, and certainly with check 

 measurements. 



M. E. \y\5^0\%{Bnllelins de la Sociite cT Aiithropologie de Paris, 

 1897, fascicule 4) infers from theoretical grounds, based partially 

 upon observation of the proportion of the surface of the retina 

 to that of the body, that the weight of the brain of mammalia of 

 similar form and the same species, varies directly as the surface 

 of the animal. 



A fresh development of Dr. Folgheraiter's investigations on 

 the magnetic properties of Etruscan vases is described in the 

 RendicoJiti della R. Accadetnia del Lituei, vi. 12, the object of 

 the present experiments being to discover by what process the 

 black vases obtained their colour. Three hypotheses had been 

 advanced by archaeologists : the first, that the vases were made 

 of a special kind of clay ; the second, that the clay was mixed 

 with fine carbon or lamp black ; and the third, that the colouring 

 matter was introduced into the clay after the vases had been 

 formed, and possibly after they had been baked. Dr. 

 Folgheraiter found, however, that carbon mixed with clay dis- 

 appeared almost completely when heated to a temperature of 

 about 380°, and that fragments of the old vases also lost their 

 colour at that temperature ; while to account for the magnetic 

 properties of the vases they must have been heated to over 420°. 

 Moreover, the clays experimented on did not lose their plasticity 

 until a temperature of 420^ to 500° was reached. The first two 

 hypotheses were thus negatived. With regard to the third, it 

 was found that the blackening could not be effected by heating 

 in a closed chamber full of carbon ; moreover, if the carbon was 

 infiltrated into the pores of the clay by carbonisation, it did not 

 burn away till a higher temperature was obtained than was 



