December 8, 1910] 



NATURE 



179 



from which the pictures were made. Mr. Guy E. Mitchell 

 contributes a well-illustrated paper on a " New Source of 

 Power," in which he deals with the extensive beds of 

 lignite in the United States. The State geologists have 

 stimated that the lignite deposits in the United States, 

 • xclusive of Alaska, amount to 740X10' tons, of which 

 fully one-third belongs to the public lands. The total area 

 underlain by lignite and sub-bituminous coal — coal mostly 

 >f little, if any, value in steam plants, but of great effici- 

 ncy in gas producers — is 246,245 square miles. The U.S. 

 (ieological Survey fuel tests have showed that when coal 

 is made into producer gas and then used in a gas engine, it 

 has from two to three times the efficiency that it has 

 when burned under a steam boiler in the ordinan.' way. 

 Moreover, the experiments showed that lignite, which is 

 useless for steaming purposes, can be used most success- 

 fully in the gas producer. Other articles in this issue of 

 the magazine are " Kboo, a Liberian Game," by Mr. 

 G. N. Collins; the " Pest of English Sparrows," by Mr. 

 \. Dearborn; and "The Mistletoe," by Mr. W. L. Bray. 



The remarkable series of earthquakes that occurred in 

 Alaska in September, 1899, is described in a valuable paper 

 by Mr. Lawrence Martin (Bulletin of the Geol. Soc. of 

 America, vol. xxi., 1910, pp. 339-406). The first known 

 >hock occurred on September 3, the last on September 29. 

 In these four weeks there were four, possibly five, world- 

 -haking earthquakes, and several hundred minor shocks. 



The strongest of all was the second ■ great shock of 

 September 10. It disturbed an area of probably not fewer 

 than 432,000 square miles, and produced water-waves in 

 Lake Chelan, Washington, which is nearly 1200 miles 

 from the origin. Shore-lines were raised as much as 

 47j feet, and depressed 5 feet or more in Yakutat Bay, 

 and new reefs were uplifted. Sea-waves 20 or 30 feet 

 high swept the shores. The Muir Glacier subsequently 

 -''treated eight miles in as many years, while other glaciers 

 were subject to brief spasmodic advances. But, though 

 the earthquake ranks among the greatest that have visited 

 :he American continent, there was no recorded loss of life 



imong the twenty thousand inhabitants of the disturbed 



irea, while the destruction of property was insignificant. 



This immunity was, no doubt, due to the fact that the 

 people lived in tents, log cabins, or low frame buildings. 



In Bergens Museums Skrifter. Ny Raekke., Bd. i.. 

 No. I, Dr. A. Appellof, of the Bergen Museum, describes 

 the investigations on the life-history of the common 

 lobster, upon which he has for a number of years been 

 ' ngaged. The monograph (" Untersuchungen iiber den 

 Hummer ") contains also a summary of previous work on 

 the subject, and, as a whole, gives the best account of our 

 knowledge of the natural history of the lobster which is 



>t present available. With regard to the migrations of the 

 mimal. Dr. Appellof, basing his opinion chiefly on the 



esults of marking experiments, concludes that the lobster 



s a stationary animal, and remains in a very restricted 

 area for many years, undertaking only short migrations, 

 a conclusion which is of great importance when possible 

 Mhemes for stocking a fishery by means of artificial rear- 



ng of lobster larvae are under consideration. The author 

 considers that the probability of increasing the supply of 

 lobsters on the fishing grounds by means of artificial 

 hatching, combined with the rearing of the larvae until 

 they reach the bottom-haunting stages, is very great, and 

 refers to the successful rearing experiments carried out by 

 Mead in the United States. The monograph is illustrated 

 by a series of plates showing the various stages of develop- 

 ment of lobster larvae. 



NO. 2145, VOL. 85] 



We have received from Mr. ' A. Ghose a letter with 

 reference to the review in Nature of September 29 (p. 

 406) of his paper on "Manganese-ore Deposits of the 

 Sandur State." Mr. Ghose points out that the Indian 

 outputs of manganese ore were quoted incorrectly ; our 

 reviewer regrets the error, and supplies the correct figures 

 as follows : — Production of manganese ore in the State of 

 Sandur during 1908, 23,413 tons ; during the quinquennial 

 period 1904-8 (four \ears), 50,872 tons. Production of 

 manganese ore in the Presidency of Madras during 1908, 

 118,089 tons; in the quinquennial period 1904-8, 513.845 

 tons. Production of manganese ore in the whole of India 

 during 1908, 685,135 tons; in the quinquennial period 

 1904-8, 2,545,718 tons. The production of Sandur is 

 therefore a little more than 3 per cent, of the whole out- 

 put of India. 



The meteorological chart of the North Atlantic for 

 December (first issue), published by the Meteorological 

 Committee, has some interesting details of the two West 

 India hurricanes experienced during October last. .A 

 cablegram from Havana on October 13 stated that the 

 barometer was then falling, and later on a destructive 

 cyclone passed over the south of Cuba, and was central 

 between there and Cay West on October 15. On 

 October 17 another storm of greater intensity (referred to 

 in London newspapers on October 19) passed over Havana, 

 and the island of Cuba is reported to have sustained the 

 greatest material damage in its history. Several steam- 

 ships were driven ashore by one or other of these hurri- 

 canes. Interesting synoptic weather charts are also given 

 for the period November 10-16. These and the useful ex- 

 planatory text indicate the existence of three high-pressure 

 areas, one over the western American States, another to 

 the north of Iceland, and a third which was gradually 

 transferred from Europe to the region of the Azores. Over 

 Europe as a whole the weather was dominated by de- 

 pressions developed over the upper portion of the Atlantic, 

 between the Icelandic and Azores high-pressure systems. 



We have received from the Abb^ T. Moreux, director 

 of the Bourges Observatory (Cher), a revised edition of 

 his pamphlet entitled " Introduction to the Meteorology of 

 the Future : the Sun and the Prediction of Weather." 

 The Abbe is dissatisfied with the present method of fore- 

 casting weather for a day or two in advance. He points 

 to the changes in the sun, which seem to have some con- 

 nection with those on the earth, and asks whether this is 

 not something more than a simple coincidence. He quotes 

 step by step the progress made in tracing this connection 

 from the time that Sir W. Herschel discussed the ques- 

 tion of sun-spots (Phil. Trans., 1801, p. 265), and rapidlv 

 passes in review the labours of Schwabe, Wolf, and sub- 

 sequent investigators down to the present day, and manv 

 references are given to the discussions which have appeared 

 in our columns and elsewhere. The spectroscopic re- 

 searches and discoveries of Sir Norman Lockyer and M. 

 Janssen, and the establishment of the Solar Physics 

 Observatory at South Kensington, are referred to as of 

 prime importance ; the former marked the epoch of ex- 

 tended observations on the simultaneity of solar and 

 terrestrial changes, and the latter formed a base for 

 similar inquiries in other parts of the world. The author 

 observes that we have now an important groundwork of 

 operations, and it must be maintained at any price. 



In two notes published in the Bulletin International of 

 the Academy of Sciences of Cracow (March and April) 

 Dr. Const. Zakrzewski communicates the results of 

 measurements made by him on the dispersion of metallic 



