December i, 1923] 



NA TURE 



8oi 



of Arachnida) ; examples of sex dimorphism in cuttle- 

 fish ; the second and third cervical vertebrae of a 

 Sibbald's rorqual (revealing the exceptional size of the 

 original whale) ; cast of the skull of Baluchitherium 

 Grangeri from the Miocene, Central Mongolia ; ex- 

 amples illustrating the germination of the coco-nut ; 

 selection of minerals collected by Mr. F. N. Ashcroft 

 from Cavradi and Sedrun, Switzerland ; example of 

 a fish, Gigantura chuni, which had swallowed another, 

 Chauliodus, double its length ; a series of reproduc- 

 tions of remarkable photographs of African big game. 

 The Cambridge and Paul Instrument Company de- 

 monstrated microtomes manufactured by that firm. 



Dr. S. Judd Lewis has been awarded the gold 

 research medal of the Worshipful Company of Dyers, 

 on the recommendation of the Society of Dyers and 

 Colourists, for his work on the quantitative determina- 

 tion of the fluorescent power of various forms of 

 cellulose and its derivatives, published in the Journal 

 of the Society. It has been shown that the form and 

 dimensions of the fluorescence curve, having as its 

 co-ordinates the wave-length and fluorescent power 

 per cent, relative to a standard paper, are related to 

 the chemical constitution of the substance. The 

 curves for pure cellulose, hydrocellulose, oxycellulose, 

 cellulose acetate, etc., as well as those for various 

 sugars, are all characteristic, with peculiarities in 

 common for those substances of similar structure. 

 The physical condition of the material has very little 



effect on the results. It is anticipated that this new 

 method, which is conducted photographically, will 

 prove useful in throwing light on the constitution of 

 opaque solid substances in much the same way as 

 absorption spectroscopy is applied to the investigation 

 of transparent fluids. 



Mr. F. Edwards, 83 High Street, Marylebone, has 

 just circulated Catalogue No. 452 of nearly 1400 

 books of voyages, travels, exploration, and sport. 

 Among the works listed are the first edition of 

 Hakluyt's "Navigations," etc., a complete set of the 

 second series, to 1922, of the Hakluyt Society 

 Publications, and a set of the Journal and Proceed- 

 ings of the Royal Geographical Society to igiQ- The 

 same bookseller has also sent us a selected list of 

 books, engravings, and maps relating to West Africa. 



Among the new announcements of Messrs. ]\Iac- 

 millanand Co., Ltd., to which attention has not hitherto 

 been directed in Nature, are the following : The Auto- 

 biography of Sir Archibald Geikie ; " A Glimpse of the 

 Natives of Central Australia," by Dr. G. Home and G. 

 Alston, which will deal with the country, the habits, 

 customs, and beliefs of the Wonkonguru and their 

 neighbours (much of the information has been 

 collected at first-hand from the natives) ; and the 

 collected works on Economics of Prof. F. Y. Edge- 

 worth, in 3 vols., with introductions to the various 

 sections by the author. 



Our Astronomical Column. 



Reinmuth's Cometary Object. — After consider- 

 able delay, owing to its faintness, a third photographic 

 observation of this object was obtained by Graff and 

 Baade at Bergedorf. Stracke has deduced the 

 following elliptical elements : 



T 1923, Nov. 2892 G.M.T. 



« 182° 58' 19' 



il 229 17 10 



i 16 18 4 



e 0-4701 

 log ^ 0-1621 

 Period 4-537 years. 

 The Bergedorf plate showed no nebulosity, so the 

 object may be a minor planet, of the type of Aethra. 

 Its perihelion is well within the orbit of Mars. Its 

 position at midnight on Dec. 3 is R.A. i** 47-3"', 

 .\ Decl. 6° 27' ; daily motion -fi-55'", S. 18'. 



The Total Solar Eclipse of September 10. — 

 Popular Astronomy for October contains a photograph 

 of the corona taken at Lompoc, California, by Mr. 

 Worthington. The scale is too small to show much 

 detail, but the outline conforms to the type of sunspot 

 minimum. 



The Sproul Observatory at Durengo, Mexico, the 

 Steward Observatory expedition on the Gulf of 

 California, and the >lexican and German expeditions 

 at Yerbaniz, Berrcndu, and I'asage (all in Mexico), 

 all enjoyed good conditions and were able to carry 

 out their programmes. Most of the other parties 

 were partly or wholly clouded out. 



Mr. Morgen Brooks ascended a mountain in 

 Catalina Island and obtained some very interesting 

 views of the passage of the shadow on the clouds. 

 He makes the usual remark that liglit .seemed to 

 increase more rapidly than it diminished. This is 

 probably subjective, one's eyes becoming more 

 sensitive during thi- darkness. He saw no shadow- 

 bands. 



A Remarkable Meteoric Procession. — A swarm 

 of light meteors was seen on February 9, 1913, to- 

 pass over Canada, the United States, and the Atlantic, 

 the length of the track being several thousands of 

 miles. Prof. W. H. Pickering has made a study of 

 their motion m Popular Astronomy, proving that 

 their orbit before encountering the earth cannot 

 have been of a cometary character, but must have 

 been an ellipse not verj' different from the orbit of 

 the earth itself, to permit the relative velocity to 

 be so small. This would tend to support the view 

 of the late Sir Robert Ball that the slow-moving 

 fireballs were probably ejected from terrestrial 

 volcanoes in the distant past. Their velocity on 

 emerging from proximity to the earth would not be 

 very different from the earth's velocity, and their 

 subsequent orbits would be close to that of the 

 earth. 



Prof. Pickering notes that it is quite likely that 

 (with the aid of the moon) some of these bodies may 

 have been captured as satellites of the earth and 

 revolve around it above the atmosphere. When 

 they enter the latter they ultimately descend to the 

 ground. 



A Projected French Observatory. — La Nature 

 of November 3 states that M. Dina, an engineer, 

 is endowing an important new observatory at 

 Cruseilles in Haute-Savoie. He has recently dis- 

 cussed the plans with General Ferris and MM. H. 

 Deslandres and A. Danjon. It is expected that a 

 large reflector will be included in the eijuipment, 

 which will probably be devoted mainly to researches 

 in astrophysics. iVleteorology w II also occupy an 

 important place in the work o the observatory. 

 It may be presumed that the quality of seeing has 

 been already studied at the proposed site, as this is 

 of such vital importance in the case of large aperture 

 instruments. 



NO. 2822, VOL. I I 2] 



