324 



NA TURE 



[February 3, 1898 



from the Rontgcn rays developed, and the letter X was distinctly 

 seen. Signor Tolomei attributes the previous failure to obtain 

 such effects to the short duration of the exposures. 



A LENGTHY report of the Committee, appointed by the 

 Academy of Science and Literature at Montpellier, to inquire 

 into the alleged vision through opaque objects, appears in La 

 Semaine Midicale (January 19). The Committee prepared 

 three letters, the contents of which could not be known to 

 them, by writing words and numbers on sixty-four cards, 

 placing them two and two into envelopes, and selecting three 

 of the thirty-two envelopes haphazard ; these three were care- 

 fully sealed. One envelope was sewn into the coat, another 

 placed in the pocket of a member ; the third, along with half 

 an exposed photographic plate, was wrapped in many thick- 

 nesses of paper and placed in a box, which was also sealed. 

 At Narbonne the box containing the envelope and plate was 

 placed on Dr. Ferroul's table, since that was the usual position 

 of the documents which had already been read by Mile. X. 

 The Committee then walked to Mile. X.'s abode, about 300 

 metres from Dr. Ferroul's house. Mile. X. did not succeed in 

 reading the contents of the envelopes carried by the members of 

 the Committee, and at first no success attended attempts to 

 describe the contents of the sealed box. About an hour and a 

 half after the commencement of the seance, during which time 

 Mile. X.'s sister passed to and fro, and Mile. X. herself left 

 the room on more than one occasion, the contents of the box 

 were more or less correctly described. On re-examining the 

 box the Committee came to the conclusion that it had been 

 opened, and on developing the contained piece of photographic 

 plate along with the other part, the former piece was fogged, 

 although the latter developed perfectly. 



The British Medical Journal of January 22 contains a reprint 

 of the special inquiry on the relative efficiency of certain kinds of 

 water filters which has been carried out for the yournal. Many 

 of the conclusions arrived at are by no means encouraging ; for 

 example, an examination of the portable filters supplied for 

 Army Field Service revealed the fact that not one of these 

 afforded any protection against water-borne disease ; that, on the 

 contrary, ' ' they would tend to increase rather than diminish the 

 risk incurred by those making use of them, since when such 

 filters had once been ch^ged with contaminated water they 

 would continue for some time afterwards to discharge the disease 

 germs into the 'filtered' water." This is a very serious matter, 

 and which, considering the numbers of cases of dysentery which 

 have already occurred in the present Indian frontier war, might 

 well demand the immediate attention of the Army Medical 

 Department. The filter of the future remains as yet, it would 

 seem, " a castle in the air" ; where efficiency is procured, the 

 rate of filtration is often such as to preclude it from practical use. 

 It appears, however, likely that diatomaceous earths or natural 

 stone will be generally preferred to denser media such as 

 porcelain, these three being, amongst the materials at present in 

 use for filters, the only ones which apparently supply an efficient 

 filtering medium. The same number of the yoitrnal contains a 

 communication by E. H. Hankin on " a simple method of 

 checking cholera in Indian villages," which consists in treating 

 the wells in an infected district with potassium permanganate; a 

 sufficient quantity being added in each case to give a pirik colour 

 lasting for several hours to the water. This plan a()pears to 

 have produced favourable results in combating cholera outbreaks, 

 and in some places even the natives have been induced to dis- 

 infect their wells by its means. 



The immense lava-sheets that cover an area of some two 

 hundred thousand square miles in the Deccan of India have 

 been looked upon as the grandest example of vulcanism in the 



NO. 1475. VOL. 57] 



world ; but an even more extensive outpouring of similar material 

 must formerly have been evident in the northern hemisphere, if 

 we accept the conclusions reached by Messrs. Newton and 

 Teall from a study of the geological collections made in Franz 

 Josef Land by the Jacksun-Harmsworth Expedition (Quart, 

 yourn. Ceol. Soc, December 1897). That archipelago is 

 formed of the fragments of an ancient basalt-plateau which 

 must have stretched far beyond its present limits. Similar 

 igneous rocks are found in Spitsbergen, Jan Mayen, Iceland, 

 Greenland, the Faeroes, the Hebrides and North Ireland ; and 

 the authors are inclined to regard all these areas as the isolated 

 fragments of a formerly continuous land-area, the greater part 

 of which has sunk to form the northern portion of the North 

 Atlantic Ocean. The period of this outpouring of lava was prob- 

 ably the end of Cretaceous and beginning of Tertiary times. 

 This period seems to have been distinguished by similar 

 occurrences in other parts of the world, for the great lava-flows 

 of the Deccan and of Abyssinia are of the same age. 



Prof. A. Ricc^ contributes to the latest Bollettino of the 

 Italian Seismological Society an account of the Geodynamic 

 Observatory of Catania, founded in 1891, and now one of the 

 best equipped in Italy. It is situated beneath the astrophysical 

 observatory, in the cellar of the former Benedictine convent. 

 The principal instrument is one of Cancani's great seismo- 

 metrographs, consisting of a pendulum 25 '3 metres long and 

 a mass of 300 kg., whose movements are magnified twelve and 

 a half times, and recorded by two pens on a strip of paper 

 moving at the rate of 60 cm. an hour. In addition to this 

 valuable apparatus are two other seismometrographs (Brassart's 

 and Cecchi's), a Guzzanti microseismoscope, one of Agamen- 

 none's photographically recording tromometers, a Cancani 

 photochronograph, which, at the moment of a shock, photo- 

 graphs the face of a clock, four seismographic pendulums of 

 different lengths and masses, ten seismoscopes of various patterns 

 for calling attention to the occurrence of a shock, and a puteo- 

 meter which records the movements of the water-surface in a 

 well 32^ metres deep. 



We have received from the Meteorological Reporter for 

 Western India a copy of his "Brief Sketch of the Meteorology 

 of the Bombay Presidency for the Year 1896-97." The weather 

 during the year presented several features of unusual character ; 

 for instance, unseasonable distribution of rainfall, for, although 

 the annual amount was above the average in most districts, the 

 deficiency was very great in September and October, and it 

 was owing to this that the crops withered and caused widespread 

 famine. Another feature was the prevalence of abnormally high 

 temperatures ; in April and October the means were respectively 

 6° and 7° above the average. These conditions appeared to 

 have considerable effect upon the plague ; from August to 

 November the mortality increased with an abnormal rise of 

 temperature, and vice versa, whereas the high temperature of 

 April appears to have had the effect of decreasing the mortality 

 in that month. This report contains some interesting details 

 of floods in the river Tapti since 1727 ; the highest flood on 

 record — viz. looj feet— occurred in July 1883, while that of 

 July 1896 — viz. 98 feet— occupies the third place on record. 



The part for January 1898 or "The Garden," edited by Mr. 

 W. Robinson, presents a very attractive contents to the gar- 

 dener and horticulturist. There are longer or shorter notes on 

 almost every department of gardening ; and no less than four 

 coloured plates, besides numerous woodcuts, are included in the 

 price of one shilling. 



In \S\G. Journal oi the Royal Society of Bengal for 1897 (part 

 ii. No. 2) is a brief article by Mr. F. Finn, of the Indian Museum, 

 on the Theory of Warning Colours and of Mimicry. It records 



