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NATURE 



{May 30, 1889 



subdivision being chronological under the authors' names, and, 

 at the end, a list of authors' names is given, with references to 

 the pages on which their works are found. We think that, con - 

 sidering the large amount of materials to be dealt with, this is 

 the best arrangement that could be made, although, whenever a 

 minor classification is attempted, it invariably leads to difficulties 

 of arrangement, and to corresponding difficulties in turning up 

 any particular work. We should like to have seen some reference 

 to the libraries in which the older works are to be found, as has 

 been done for all titles given in the Brussels catalogue. The work 

 is one of the greatest importance to all meteorologists, and we 

 can only hope that the favourable reception it is sure to meet 

 with in all countries will induce Congress to order its regular 

 publication, and that of the volumes relating to all other meteoro- 

 logical subjects, the materials for which are already prepared. It 

 was on this distinct understanding that Mr. G. J. Symons 

 handed over his 20,000 titles to General Hazen, some years 

 ago. 



At a recent meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, 

 General Andrews, commenting on a paper about the proposed 

 Tehuantepec ship railway, made some interesting remarks on the 

 general subject of ship railways. Estimates which he regards as 

 incontrovertible show that a ship can be hauled by a locomotive 

 over a ship-railw ay, or, as he prefers to designate it, a ship- 

 tramway, with the expenditure of only one-half the amount of 

 coal which the same ship must burn to propel herself through 

 the water of a canal. The most frequent objection urged against 

 the practicability of the scheme is that it would rack the ship ; 

 but General Andrews explained that the weight is so distributed 

 among the numerous supports that no one need sustain a greater 

 weight than a man presses upon his foot in walking. The 

 gradients of the route will be very slight, not exceeding 2 inches 

 in 400 feet, the entire length of a vessel. He had made obser- 

 vations, during a voyage aboard the steamer Britannic, to 

 measure the amount of strain to which she was exposed in a sea 

 of no very great roughness, and found by stretching cords that 

 the steamer was bent sixteen inches by the waves, but without 

 the slightest injury : hence he infers that the stress on a vessel in 

 crossing the isthmus would be inappreciable and harmless. 



Mr. Alexander Durlacher has presented to the Royal 

 Colonial Institute an interesting collection of native weapons and 

 implements from Western Australia. 



A RESOLUTION has been issued by the Government of India, 

 dealing with the preservation of antiquarian treasures, with the 

 view of making known the conditions under which the Government 

 can claim articles of archaeological interest, and to provide fortheir 

 better preservation for the public by holding out the prospect of 

 sufficient reward to finders of treasures. The resolution lays 

 especial stress on the importance of paying proper consideration 

 to the claims and expectations of these latter, as the end in 

 view will be defeated if those who discover objects of antiquarian 

 value are not induced by the hope of sufficient reward to make 

 their discoveries known to the public authorities. 



Captain A. P. Madsen lately communicated to the 

 Northern Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen an account of 

 his examination of the celebrated great "kitchen-midden" at 

 Meilgaard, in Jutland, which has only once before (in 1869) 

 been slightly examined. It is now situated several miles inland, 

 but the configuration of the country showed that at the time of 

 its formation a bay existed there. The midden was at one time 

 some 12 feet in depth, but is now only 6. Oyster-shells predomi- 

 nated, then came the common blue mussel and winkle-. There 

 were also shells of three kinds of other mussels, of which two 

 are extinct, but the third species is still found in the Limfjord. 

 There were three places with remnants of charcoal and ashes. 



The bones found were those of water rats, ring seals, grey seals, 

 dogs, pigs, foxes, martens, otters, boars, roe-deer, stags, bullocks; 

 common swans, wild ducks, the great loon, sea-gulls, ring- 

 doves, and crows ; and of fishes, those of salmon, jack, eel, cod, 

 and flounder. Of implements from the Stone Age were flint 

 chisels, hooks of bone, a flint wedge, arrow-heads, drills, &c. 

 The quantity of the remains indicated that a considerable popu- 

 lation had lived in the vicinity, who no doubt brought the spoils 

 of the chase thither. The land was now 20 feet above sea-level, 

 but there was every appearance of the site having once been on 

 a promontory by the sea. Many of the middens in Jutland were 

 now situated from five to six miles inland, but had undoubtedly 

 once lain by the sea. In one midden, Captain Madsen had 

 found split marrow-bones, ornamented pottery, and polished im- 

 plements, together with bones of sheep and goats, but no 

 marine shells, indicating that there were also middens from a 

 more recent period. Commenting upon these explorations. Prof. 

 Japetus Steenstrup maintained that Captain Madsen's account 

 of the rising of the land was exaggerated. 



The last number of the Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei 

 Lined contains a reference to an Italian precursor of Franklin, 

 the Venetian physician Eusebio Sguario, reputed author of a 

 work on "Electricity, or the Electrical Forces of Bodies," pub- 

 lished in 1746. In this work occurs the following passage: — 

 " Still it seems impossible for the violence of a subtle effluvium 

 to acquire such intensity, however increased we may suppose it 

 to be, unless by this means we should succeed in discovering 

 the tremendous velocity of that subtle igneous matter which 

 constitutes lightning. And who will ever venture boldly to 

 deny that lightning is nothing else than a subtle electrical sub- 

 stance impelled to the last degree of its violence? It would 

 certainly be a fatal surprise for that experimenter, who, finding 

 in this way a means of producing artificial lightning, might fall 

 a victim to his curiosity." This was written two years before 

 the appearance of the work on physics by Nollet (Paris, 1748), 

 who has hitherto been supposed to be the first writer who has 

 expressed in clear language the close relation existing between 

 the phenomena of electricity and lightning. 



The British Secretary of Legation in Rio de Janeiro, in a 

 recent report states that for ^many years, though with varied 

 intensity, a destinictive disease has existed in the best zone of 

 territory for coffee in the province of Rio de Janeiro. It has 

 never been so bad as the coffee-leaf disease in Ceylon and Java, 

 but still has done much harm. A scientific Government employe, 

 Dr. E. Golde, in correspondence with Dr. Soltmedel, of Java, 

 has now almost proved that the Brazilian root-disease and the 

 Ceylon leaf-disease have the same origin — namely, a small worm 

 in the root, belonging to the group of Nematoids, similar to the 

 worm in beetroots in Europe. 



The Hydrographical Department of Russia has devoted, since 

 1837, a good deal of attention to the secular rising of the coasts 

 of the Baltic Sea, and a number of marks have been made on 

 the rocky coasts of the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland in order to 

 obtain trustworthy data as to the rate of the upheaval of the 

 coasts. Since 1869, observations have been carried on in a 

 systematic way for measuring the changes in the level of the 

 Baltic at several of the above-mentioned marks, and the results 

 of the observations are now summed up by Col nel Mikhailoff 

 in the Izvesiia of the Russian Geographical Society (vol. xxiv. 3). 

 Taking only those stations at which the secular change could be 

 determined for a number of years varying from thirty-one to 

 thirty-nine years (1839-78), the rise of the coast in a century 

 would appear to be as follows : Aspo, 20*3 inches ; Lehto, 

 ii"5 inches ; Island of Kotko, 267 ; Sveaborg, 228 and 25*1 ; 

 Hangoudd, 337; Island of Skotland, 12-5; Island of Jussari, 

 3I"6 ; Tvermino, 36*2 ; Island of Gloskar at Redhamn, 12-2. It 



