596 



NATURE 



\Oct. 17, 1889 



students entered, but only eleven passed the first year's course. 

 It is, however, expected that a large number will enter during 

 the coming session. There was an average of twenty -five 

 students in the agricultural class. In connection with the latter 

 class, the students are compelled to work with their own hands 

 at all the ordinary agricultural processes, and each receives a 

 plot of land, which he is expected to till as directed. Besides 

 practical agriculture, the students are taught mechanical and 

 chemical analyses of soils and practical field-surveying. Garden- 

 ing and carpentry are also taught. One of the greatest hin- 

 drances (o the progress of this and similar institutions in India 

 is the dislike of the Brahmins to any manual labour ; but 

 the authorities do not despair of overcoming this difficulty. 



Some Italian observers have been recently testing the senses 

 of criminals ; and they find these duller than in the average of 

 people. Signor Ottolenghi, in Turin, found, last year, a less 

 acute sense of smell in criminals ; and he now affirms the same 

 for taste, which he tested by applying bitter and sweet substances 

 (strychnine and saccharine) in dilute solution to the tongue. He 

 finds also the taste of the habitual criminal less acute than that of 

 the casual offender, and a slightly more acute taste in male than 

 in female criminals. Experiments w ith regard to hearing were 

 made by Signor Gradenigo (also in Turin) ; and of 82 criminals 

 he found 55 (or 67*3 per cent.) to have less than the normal 

 acuteness, the greatest inferiority being in the oldest. In female 

 criminals the relations were somewhat better : 15 out of 28 had 

 hearing under the average. The limits of variations in acute- 

 ness also appeared to be much wider in criminals than in normal 

 persons. Ear disease was common. Signor Gradenigo at- 

 tributes these things to bad hygienic conditions of life, and 

 vicious habits. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. have issued Part 2, compris- 

 ing Book II., of the fifth edition of Prof. M. Foster's "Text- 

 book of Physiology." The woik has been largely revised. 



The sixth edition of the well-known " Treatise on Dynamics 

 of a Particle," by Prof. Tait and the late Mr. W. J. Steele 

 (Macmillan), has been issued. The work was begun by Prof. 

 Tait and Mr. .Steele towards the end of 1852, and first appeared 

 in 1856. "At Mr. Steele's early death," says Prof. Tait in the 

 preface, "his allotted share of the work was uncompleted, and 

 I had to undertake the final arrangement of the whole. In the 

 subsequent editions it has derived much benefit from revision : 

 first by Mr. Stirling of Trinity in 1865, then by Mr. W. D. 

 Niven of Trinity in 1871, and by Prof. Greenhill of Emmanuel 

 in 1878. It last appeared after a general revision by myself, 

 with the assistance of Dr. C. G. Knott and of my colleague 

 Prof. Chrystal. The present edition has been prepared by me, 

 with the assistance of Dr. W. Peddie." 



The second volume of the " Geological Record " for 1880-84 

 (inclusive) has been issued. It is edited by Mr. W. Topley, 

 F.R.S., and Mr. C. D. Sherborn. The subjects to which the 

 lists of publications relate are physical and applied geology, 

 petrology, meteorites, mineralogy, mineral waters, and palaeonto- 

 logy. There is also a division entitled " General," and another 

 deals with maps and sections. A carefully compiled index adds 

 to the value of the work. Mr. Topley and Mr. Sherborn ap- 

 peal to editors, publishers, and authors to aid them in future 

 labours by forwarding copies of their publications, especially 

 pamphlets separately published, and new series. 



Messrs. Dulau and Co. will publish, in December, a 

 "Catalogue of British Fossil Vertebrata," by Arthur Smith 

 Woodward and Charles Davies Sherborn. The volume will 

 consist of about 350 pages, and will tabulate the results of re- 

 searches upon the British fossil Vertebrata since the time of 

 Linnaeus. The nature of the type specimen in each case is 



stated, and, whenever traceable, the museum or collection in 

 which it is now preserved is mentioned. Special attention has. 

 been given to the distribution of the Pleistocene Mammalia. 



We have received from Napier, New Zealand, a copy of a 

 pamphlet containing some papers on Maori folk-lore read before 

 the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute by Mr. Williairr 

 Colenso. The first is entitled " Ancient Tide-lore and Tales- 

 of the Sea," and gives the Maori lore on the cause of the tides,, 

 on the sounding, or, as it is styled in Cornwall, the " calling," 

 of the sea. These are followed by other Maori stories from the 

 east coast of New Zealand, translated with explanatory notes. 

 The whole forms one of the most charming contributions to 

 folk-lore that have ever come under our notice. 



In his last Report to the Foreign Office on the agricultural 

 condition of Colombia, the British Consul at Bogota says that 

 the potato is the chief food of the people of the cold part of 

 that country. Two principal varieties are known — namely, the 

 crioUas, which are red-skinned and orange-coloured inside, and 

 the ordinary white potatoes. In 1865 the potato disease, which 

 was unknown till that year, attacked the crops, and they have 

 decreased very much in quantity since then. It is worthy of 

 remark that the greater the altitude at which potatoes are 

 planted (they are sometimes planted at a height of above 9000 

 feet on the mountains) the less tendency is there for the disease to 

 break out, and at the greatest altitudes the disease is almost, if 

 not quite, unknown. With regard to the cinchona industry, the 

 Consul reports that in 1884 the Government of the Republic 

 passed a law for the purpose of promoting the plantation of 

 cinchona, india-rubber, and eucalyptus trees, and the President 

 was authorized to award valuable prizes to the most successful 

 growers of cinchona trees. The trees to be planted were to be 

 of four siDecies, C. ledgeriana, C. officinalis, C. lancifolia, and 

 C. pitayensis, but, though the distribution of trees was free, the 

 law has remained a dead letter; no new plantations have beerx 

 made under its provisions. 



A NEW series of experiments upon the v.apour- density of 

 aluminium chloride have been made by Profs. Nilson and 

 Peltersson, with the view of deciding the somewhat vexed 

 question of the valency of aluminium. Former experiments of 

 the Swedish chemists led them to the conclusion that aluminium 

 chloride does not become completely vaporized until a tempera- 

 ture of about 8co° C. is attained, when the density of the vapour 

 corresponds to the formula AICI3, this value (4 '6) remaining, 

 constant until over 1000° C. On the other hand, Messrs. Friedel 

 and Crafts, emp]o}ing the method of Dumas, found that between 

 218" and 433° C. the density remains constant at a value (9'2) 

 corresponding to the formula AlgClg. In oider to render their 

 experiments as unimpeachable as possible, Profs. Nilson and 

 Pettersson have made their redeterminations at the lower tem- 

 peratures by Pettersson and Ekstrand's modification of Dumas 

 method, and have also been enabled by taking advantage of 

 recent improvements in the construction of the Perrot furnace, 

 to extend their observations to a white heat of 1600° C. Taking, 

 the higher temperature determinations by Victor Meyer's method 

 first, the platinum apparatus used in the former experiments was 

 discarded for glass and porcelain, as it has been shown that 

 heated platinum has a slightly injurious effisct upon the stability 

 of aluminium chloride. Using glass apparatus heated in sulphur 

 vapour (440" C.) the density was found to be 7*5. Heated still 

 further in vapour of phosphorus pentasulphide (518°) the density 

 diminished to 7 '16. In stannous chloride vapour at 606° it 

 became reduced to 5 '34. The former results with the platinunvi 

 apparatus at temperatures from 800° to iooo° showed that thej 

 density remains constant at about 4*6, corresponding to AICI3. 

 Using the new Perrot furnace and a porcelain apparatus at 1400%! 

 the density is still found to be not much reduced, 4 '26 ; and at! 



