May 1 6, 1889] 



NATURE 



61 



number of specimens of dwarfed trees — trees which are usually 



tall, but in the present case hardly attain the height of 2 or 3 

 feet. This exhibit excites much interest among gardeners. 



Zoologists will be interested in the exhibit of the Principality 

 of Monaco at the Paris Exhibition, as all the implements used 

 by the Prince in his dredging experiments are to be shown, 

 with numerous specimens of deep-sea fauna. The exhibit of 

 the results of the Talisman researches will unfortunately be 

 scanty. 



Last week, Mr. Ralf)h Moore, Inspector of Mines for the 

 Eastern District of Scotland, on his retirement from that post, 

 which he has held for t\venty-sev3n years, received a farewell 

 present from a number of gentlemen connected with the Scottish 

 coal and iron trades. In thanking the donors, Mr. Mooie gave 

 some interesting details of the improvement in mining appliances 

 since he first was a colliery manager, forty-eight years ago. At 

 that date, he said, there were cages at two or three collieries in 

 the county of Edinburgh, but there was none in Lanarkshire. 

 The coals were all drawn in corbes. A few years after, there 

 was not a single colliery without them. Pug engines were first 

 introduced about 1845. Ventilating furnaces were of the most 

 primitive description. Fans were unknown. The first fan in 

 .Scotland was put up in 1868 ; now there were hundreds, and 

 scarcely anyone thought of doing without a fan. The amount 

 of ventilation in a colliery was from 8000 or 10,000 down to as 

 low as 1000 cubic feet per minute, and now there were some 

 collieries in the district with 250,000 cubic feet per minute. 

 Last year he made the calculation that eight tons of air were 

 sent into the mines for every ton of coals extracted. Wire ropes 

 were not in use at the time of which he spoke ; now there was 

 nothing else. Underground mechanical haulage was practically 

 unknown ; now it was universal. Many large collieries had only 

 one shaft, now all had two. A coal-owner putting out 100,000 

 tons a year was a large coal-owner. There were coal-owners 

 now putting out over 600,000 annually. As a consequence of 

 all these improvements, the output of minerals in the district, 

 which in 1856 was 4,500,000 tons, was now 17,000,000 tons, 

 and the death-rate, which in 1853 was one for every 250 persons 

 employed, is now about one in 800. 



In connection with the Congress of German Anthropological 

 Societies, which is to meet this year at Vienna, a large exhibi- 

 tion of prehistoric objects is being formed. All the smaller 

 public collections and the most important private ones of 

 Austria will be represented. 



Sir W. Brandford Griffith, Governor of the Gold 

 Coast, has reported to Lord Knutsford the occurrence of 

 a smart shock of earthquake at Accra on April 5, at 12.2 

 noon. The seismic wave seemed to run from south to north, 

 and was felt at Aburi, twenty-six miles to the northward of 

 Accra. Sir W. B. Griffith had not heard of any serious damage 

 being caused in the colony, nor, so far as he could hear, was 

 the earthquake felt at sea or at Addah. Christ iansborg Castle, 

 ihe Government House at Accra, was once laid in ruins by an 

 earthquake. 



Earthquakes still continue in the neighbourhood of Vyernyi 

 in Turkestan. On February 19, at 3 p.m., an earth-tremor was 

 felt after a fortnight of absolute rest. The shock was quite 

 isolated, and lasted but a few seconds. Another slight shock was 

 felt during the night, at 2 a.m. On February 25, at 11 a.m., a 

 noise like that of a discharge of a battery of guns was heard, and 

 the soil was set in motion for about three seconds. Many houses 

 cracked, but there was no loss of life. 



La Nature of April 27 contains a representation, by photo- 

 lithography, of an interesting synoptic table of weather predic- 

 tion, by MM. Plumandon and Colomes, whereby anyone may 



find mechanically the probable weather, by observing the 

 direction of the wind, as based upon fourteen years' ob- 

 servations at the Puy-de-Dume Observatory. The table 

 from which the representation is reduced, is printed in 

 six colours, and is divided into eight sectors correspond- 

 ing to the principal directions of the wind, and comprising 

 216 weather conditions. A m-vable indicator, with three 

 arms, works upon a pivot ; one arm being moved to re- 

 present the wind direction as shown by the clouds or a 

 good wind-vane, the others then point to the region of 

 lowest barometer, and to the probable weather, indicated by one 

 of the cases referred to. These conditions are contained in a 

 few words, and differ for each season of the year, and for 

 different states of the barometer, e.g. high, low, &c. The prin- 

 ciple involved is merely an application of the rule known as 

 Buys Ballot's law ; " Stand with your back to the wind, and 

 the barometer will be lower on your left hand than on your 

 right," combined with the experience gained in weather predic- 

 tion during the last thirty years. A card somewhat similar ir> 

 principle was published some years ago by the late F. Pastorelli. 

 Persons unable to consult daily weather charts may find the 

 diagram very useful. 



In a private letter recently received from Dr. Macgregor, the 

 Governor of British Guinea, an interesting account of his trip in 

 the Hygeia through the Louisiade Archipelago and the adjacent 

 groups of islands is given. He found them, he says, all thickly 

 inhabited, the natives being in thousands, and in many cases 

 very wild — so wild, in fact, that he thinks it probable they had 

 never seen a white man before. On some of the islands he found 

 hot mud-springs, some of them being strongly impregnated with 

 sulphur. Gold was found on many of the islands, but in no 

 instance was it in payable quantities. 



According to Allen s Indian Mail, the Madras Museum 

 now possesses the skeleton of the largest elephant ever killed in 

 India. This elephant was the source of great terror to the 

 inhabitants of South Arcot, by whom it was killed and buried. 

 The Museum authorities despatched a taxidermist to the spot 

 to exhume the bones and transfer them to Madras. The skele- 

 ton is exactly 10 feet 6 inches in height, being 8 inches higher 

 than the highest hitherto measured in the flesh by Mr. 

 Sanderson. 



Mr. Lester Ward has recently claimed an American origin 

 for the entire genus Platanus, of which the plane and the syca- 

 more are the best-known species. It occurs abundantly, how- 

 ever, in these isles, in the Lower Eocenes of Mull, Reading, 

 and the Middle Eocene of Lough Neagh, the former being 

 probably at least as old as the beds in which it makes its earliest 

 appearance in America. It probably came into existence in the 

 Old World in late Cretaceous time=. 



Dr. Marion describes, in the Annales des Sciences Geolo- 

 giqiies, a new conifer, having the foliage of Araucaria with the 

 cones of Dammara, and therefore an essentially Australasian 

 type, which only became extinct in France in the Miocene- 

 The material is so perfect and ample that very little more would 

 remain to be learnt about it, were it still living. The same, or 

 a nearly allied, species abounded in the Isle of Wight in the 

 Oligocene. In outward form the tree must have resembled 

 Cryptoaieria. 



The May number of the Ke7v Bulletin opens with an inter- 

 esting account (with plate) of the Persian dye plant Zalil, pre- 

 pared by Sir Joseph Hooker for the April number of the 

 Botanical Magazine. This is followed by an account of Tas- 

 manian woods, some curious details as to lily flowers and bulbs 

 used as food, a paper on Pu-erh tea, an account (with plate) of 

 the short-podded yam-beam, and a list of the staffs of the Royal 



