494 



NATURE 



[April 20, 1876 



March 1 1, we learn that the past winter has been particularly mild, 

 the cold having been at no time either persistent or severe. The 

 rainfall has been considerable, and little snow has fallen, and 

 what did fall quickly disappeared. The absence of snow 

 allowed cattle and horses almost always to get good pastur- 

 ing, and in many places the young sheep were not put under 

 shelter till the end of January, a circumstance almost unpre- 

 cedented. At the date of writing, the Greenland ice had not 

 made its appearance in the north-west of the island, to which, 

 and to the unusual prevalence of southerly winds, the mildness 

 of the winter in Iceland has been due. The volcano in the 

 Northland has recently shown signs of disturbance by emitting 

 volumes of smoke at intervals, but no ashes or lava has been 

 reported. 



Some time ago an experimental inquiry was undertaken by 

 M. J. J. Miiller on a point of considerable importance in refer- 

 ence to our knowledge of the luminiferous ether, viz., whether 

 in light as in the case of sound, the wave-length is dependent 

 on the intensity, or (the same thing) the amplitude of the vibra- 

 tions. He gave an affirmative answer, and said that the wave- 

 length increases with the intensity. In view of the important 

 issues involved, M . Lipplch has recently been led to repeat the ex- 

 periments, and with arrangements of greater accuracy (about 2,000 

 times, as he estimates, more accurate than Miiller' s). From this 

 investigation, of which an account appears in the Sitzutigsberichte 

 of the Vienna Academy, he concludes, in opposition to Miiller, that 

 the wave-length of light, whether in free ether, or in any ponder- 

 able media, is independent of the intensity of the light vibra- 

 tions, and so, the duration of vibration being given, a constant 

 depending only on the nature of the medium considered at rest. 



The time elapsing between the action of an external stimulus 

 on some part of the body, and the giving of a signal (previously 

 agreed upon) in reply, has been determined in the case of several 

 senses, by various experiments. A short time ago M M. Vintsch- 

 gau and Honigschmied sought to determine this "reaction- 

 time '' for sensations of taste on the point of the tongue ; and in 

 the subject experimented on, this was found to be, for ordinary 

 salt, 0'i598", for sugar o*i639", for acid o'i676", and for quinine 

 0*235 1". ^^ is interesting to compare the results which the same 

 observers have recently obtained in fuxther experiments as to 

 the reaction-time for sensations of touch on the tongue. This, 

 in the same individual, was found to be 0'i507" in the case of 

 the tongue being touched with a pencil ; a smaller value, there- 

 fore, than that of the shortest interval in the former case of 

 taste. In the middle of the tongue the reaction-time, on 

 touching with a pencil, was o'i527". A weak electric stimula- 

 tion of the tongue-point was answered after o"i8i3", whereas 

 with a stronger electric stimulus the answer came in o"i4.52". 

 These numbers represeal', in all cases, the averages of all the 

 experiments. It will be seen, then, that the point of the tongue 

 is most sensitive for strong electric stimuli, and the order of 

 sensibility for the remaining stimuli, was (for this individual) : 

 Contact, saltness, sweetness, sourness, weak electric stimulation, 

 and bitterness. Other persons on whom similar measurements 

 were made, gave values that were different both relatively and 

 absolutely, and the results for different persons appear to be not 

 comparable together. Various secondary influences play an 

 important part, among which may be cited the thickness of the 

 mucous membrane at the particular part experimented on ; this 

 may considerably increase the reaction-time. An estimate of the 

 comparative sensibility of the separate organ of sense can best 

 be had from comparisons in one and the same individual. 



Mr. W. Saville-Kent, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c., formerly of 

 the British Museum, and more recently of the Brighton, Man- 

 chester, and Yarmouth Aquaria, has been appointed Managing 

 Naturalist to the Royal Aquarium, Westminster. Some of the 



fresh-water tanks are already stocked with fish ; the sea-water is 

 being rapidly imported, and it is anticipated that a fine collection 

 of both salt and fresh-water species will be on view in the course 

 of a few weeks. 



M. Am£d£e Guillemin announces a new edition of his well- 

 known work " Le Ciel," to be published in fifty-five weekly 

 parts. For the new edition the work has been to a great extent 

 recast, in order that account might be taken of all the important 

 recent discoveries and advances in astronomy. The results which 

 have been obtained by means of the spectroscope in relation to 

 the sun and the stars will especially occupy a prominent place in 

 the new edition, which will be larger l^y one-half than any of its 

 predecessors ; the number of plates and woodcuts will also be 

 increased in a like proportion. 



M. Mari£ Davy has asked the Municipal Council of Paris 

 to grant the necessary iunds for the construction of an experi- 

 mental lightning conductor. The apparatus is to be placed on 

 a pole erected at a distance from buildings, and to have a key, 

 so that continuity may be interrupted for scientific purposes. 



M. Berthelot, the well-known French chemist, has been 

 appointed Inspector of Public Instruction, in place of M. 

 Balard. 



Messrs. Collins and Co. have sent us a volume containing 

 " Tables, Nautical and Mathematical, for the use of Seamen, 

 Students, Mathematicians, &c., arranged, corrected, and some 

 re-calculated, " by Henry Evers, LL. D. The author has mainly 

 followed the best English authorities, and we believe the coUec- 

 tion will be found very useful by those for whom it is intended. 

 There are in all twenty-one different tables, and prefixed is an 

 introduction to the Logarithmic Tables, showing how they are 

 used. 



In the last issued part of the Transactions of the Manchester 

 Geological Society (Part ii., vol. xiv.) there are papers by Mr. 

 J. Dickenson, on Measuring Air in Mines, and by Mr. Aitken, 

 on Drift Deposits on the Western Pennine Slopes of the upper 

 drainage of the rivers Calder and Irwell, wfth suggestions as to 

 the cause of the partial absence of drifts on the Eastern Slopes. 

 Mr. Plant gives some interesting details on a submerged forest 

 near Holmfirth, and Prof. Boyd Dawkins states his belief, from 

 a critical examination of the coal-fields of New South Wales, 

 that there is not much doubt of their being palaeozoic. 



At the recent annual meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 

 Mr. Blochmann read extracts from an account of the Meywa, 

 Bheels, by Dr. T. H. Hendley, Residency Surgeon, Jeypore, 

 Rajpootana, who gives description of those members of the 

 Bheel race who reside in the Hill Tracts of Meywar (Oodey- 

 pore), where they have perhaps best preserved their indivi- 

 duality. In the chapter on the religion of the Bheels, Dr. 

 Hendley notices the cairns or sthans. which are erected on the 

 summits of high hills, and the curious reverence of the people 

 for the horse, which, as Sir J. Malcolm says, the Bheels worship, 

 and do not mount. Then follows a description of the customs 

 observed at births, marriages, and deaths, of the government and 

 the agriculture of the tribe, and statistical tables containing race 

 measurements. The Bheel skull is slightly dolichocephalic, and 

 differs very much from the long thin-walled cranium of the pure 

 Hindoo. Mr. Blochmann also read extracts from a paper by Mr. 

 J. A. Smith on the popular songs of the Humeerpore District, 

 N. W. P. This paper contains specimens of songs sung in Bun- 

 delkhund in honour of Hurdaul, a son of the notorious Bir Singh 

 Deo Bundila, Rajah of Uicha, who was poisoned by his brother 

 Jhajhar Sing. His ghost is worshipped in every village, and 

 chiefly at weddings in Baisakh. Hurdaul is also propitiated with 

 songs when storms appear. 



