June 13, 1889] 



NA TURE 



i6- 



magnitude has taken place somewhere. The authorities of the 

 Science College have sent to the Hydrographical Bureau of the 

 Naval Department, asking for information as to the state of the 

 tide and seas. It may be as well to remark that it is not certain 

 whether the maximum motion of 17 millimetres, as given by 

 the seismograph, is perfectly accurate, as it is very difficult to 

 measure slow oscillation like this with absolute certainty." It 

 is now known as a fact that Vries Island, outside Yokohama 

 JJay, and possibly sixty miles off, was in a state of violent 

 volcanic eruption. 



The Admiralty has published an interesting Report on the 

 bore of the Tsien-Tang Kiang, by Captain W. U. Moore, of 

 H.M.S. Rambler, as a fitting termination to a long series of 

 tidal observations made on that vessel in Chinese waters. 

 Scarcely anything was before known about this phenomenon, 

 although it occurs twice a day, seventy miles from Shanghai. 

 The bore was found to originate, not at the mouth of the river, 

 as was expected, but twelve or fifteen miles outside it. Captain 

 Moore states that the bore cannot be accurately described as a 

 wave, there being no undulation, nor any depression after it has 

 passed. It is divided into two branches, which join together 

 four miles from Haining, making a continuous white line two 

 miles in length. It shortly afterwards contracts in width, and 

 increases in speed and height, rising 8 to 1 1 feet high, and tra- 

 velling between 12 and 13 knots an hour. The three cutters 

 employed in making the observations were at times in consider- 

 able danger, and the Hydrographer pays a high compliment to 

 the skill with which the boats were brought safely out of their 

 dangerous situation. 



The meteorological observations for the year 1888, made at the 

 Rousdon Observatory, Devon, under the superintendence of Mr. 

 Cuthbert E. Peek, have been published. They are a continuation 

 of those issued last year. The instruments continue to perform 

 to Mr. Peek's satisfaction, and have been regularly read by his 

 assistant, Mr. C. Grover. The observatory is a second order 

 station of the Royal Meteorological Society. 



Mr. Thomas Scott, of the Scientific Department, Scottish 

 Fishery Board, recently fertilized ripe ova of the common 

 gurnard {Trigla gurnardus) with milt of the whiting {Gadus mer- 

 langus). Segmentation soon set in, and development proceeded 

 for about' a day and a half ; but the ova then gradually sank, 

 showing that death had supervened, this being attributed to an 

 imperfect supply of fresh sea-water. An attempt to fertilize 

 gurnard ova with milt of the common dab {Pletcronectes limanda) 

 failed ; but ova of the lemon sole {P. microcephalus) were success- 

 fully fertilized by milt of the same species, and floated 

 buoyantly. 



A SHARK 10 feet long and 4 feet in girth was caught on the 

 morning of June 7, about twenty-four miles south-east of 

 Ventnor by the mackerel nets of the smack Pioneer, of Brighton. 

 It has three rows of teeth, and is supposed to be three years old. 



Traces of glacial action have been discovered on the 

 Thomasberg, which is over 800 metres high, near St. Mar- 

 garethen, in the Rosenthal in Carniola. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. have issued a new edition 

 of Pi of. T. H. Core's "Questions on Stewart's Lessons in 

 Elementary Physics." The late Prof. Balfour Stewart, writing 

 of the first edition of this useful little volume, said that Prof. 

 Core had made his questions " at once simple and suggestive, 

 leading on in some cases to higher results, so as to enco-irage 

 students to proceed with the subject." 



All students of ethnology and anthropology will welcome the 

 first number of Verdjfentllchungen from the Berlin Museum 

 fur Volkerkunde. This periodical, which is clearly printed on 



good paper, fakes the place of the Original- Mil t/ieilungen aus 

 der Ethnologischen Abtheilung der Koniglichen Museen, The 

 first number consists of plates illustrating American antiquities,, 

 with full descriptions and explanations. In some instances 

 analogous objects from other parts of the world are repre- 

 sented along with those from America. The text is by Dr. 

 Uhle, and Dr. Bastian contributes a brief prefatory note. 



An interesting paper on Palaeolithic man in America, by Mr. 

 W. J. McGee, of the United States Geological Survey, has been 

 reprinted from the Popular Science Monthly. Mr. McGee holds 

 that there is definite and cumulative evidence of man's existence- 

 in America during the latest ice epoch, with a strong presumption 

 against an earlier origin than the first Quaternary ice-invasion ;. 

 and that the primitive American "haunted the ice front rather 

 than the fertile plain, and must have been hunter or fisherman." 



Among the antiquities recently acquired by the Christiania 

 Museum are some from the middle Iron Age, found in two 

 barrows at Larvik. They consist of fragments of a lance, a 

 shield with iron handle, a pair of shears or scissors, and a 

 buckle of silver, besides a number of vessels, among which 

 the most remarkable is a glass beaker, ornamented with threads 

 of glass fused on to the exterior, a wooden bucket caulked 

 with tar, and many urns. Among the latter is a large handsome 

 one with a long neck. The graves in the barrows were made of 

 stones. On a farm in the parish of TjoUing, also on the west 

 coast of the Christiania fjord, a barrow, which had been formerly 

 disturbed, has been excavated. Round it is a ring of raised 

 stones. It dates from the early Iron Age. On the eastern and 

 western side a Batttasten, or memorial stone, is raised. The 

 funeral chamber is built of stone. Only three buckles of bronze, 

 with silver ornaments, a plain ring made from an alloy of gold 

 and silver, and the jaw-bone of a man with teeth remaining, 

 were found. The body had not been burned. A yard further 

 to the east a grave with calcined human remains was also 

 found. 



The fourth issue of the yahrbuch der Natttrivissenschaften 

 has just made its appearance. It is published by the Herder- 

 schen Verlagshandlung a t Freiburg im Breisgau, and it remains 

 under the editorship of Dr. Max Wildermann. It contains 

 about 570 octavo pages, with an introduction. The sub- 

 divisions are under the control of different competent authorities. 

 The section on physics occupies seventy-six pages, and is under 

 the care of the editor ; chemistry, with forty-six pages, and 

 several sub-heads, under that of Dr. Hovestadt ; applied 

 mechanics, forty-six pages, under Dr. van Muyden ; astronomy, 

 thirty pages, under Dr. Franz ; meteorology, under Dr. Pernter,. 

 forty-four pages ; zoology, under three different editors, thirty- 

 two pages ; and similarly with botan)', forestry, and agriculture, 

 mineralogy and geology, anthropology, physiology, medicine 

 and sanitary matters, geography, and ethnography. An 

 appendix contains obituaries of eminent .scientific men, and a- 

 report of the proceedings of the sixty-fourth meeting of the 

 Association of German Naturalists and Physicians. 



Naphtha is now much used as fuel in Middle Russia. Last 

 year, 880,000 tons of it were sent up the Volga for fuel purposes ;. 

 and it is expected that the export for the same purpose will this 

 year reach no less than one million tons. 



The province of St. Petersburg is very rich in marshes 

 covered with a thick carpet of vegetation, which conceals water 

 to the depth of several feet — sometimes 25 feet and more. Small 

 lakes and branches of rivers are continually being transformed into • 

 such marshes, and M. Tanfilieff, who has studied the way in 

 which the transformation goes on, comes to the following con- 

 clusions {Memoires of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists,, 

 vol. xix.). The pioneers of the transformation of a lake intc^- 



