230 



NATURE 



\yan. 9, 1890 



In May next, the six hundredth anniversary of the foundation 

 of the University of Montpellier will be celebrated. 



M. CossoN, member of the French Academy of Sciences, 

 and the author of many memoirs on the flora of Algeria and 

 Tunis, died a few days ago in Paris, and was buried on the 

 4th inst. 



We review to-day the volumes which conclude the series of 

 Reports on the zoological results of the Challenger Expedition. 

 In a prefatory note introducing Vol. II. of the Report on 

 Physics and Chemistry, just issued, Dr. Murray explains that 

 with the exception of a volume on deep-sea deposits, which will 

 be issued in March next, and a summary volume, which, it is 

 hoped, may be finished in about a year thereafter, the entire 

 series of Reports is now completed. These Reports have been 

 issued at intervals during the last nine years, whenever ready, 

 and without any reference to systematic arrangement. They are 

 bound up in forty-seven large quarto volumes, containing 27,650 

 pages of letterpress, 2662 lithographic and chromo-lithographic 

 plates, 413 maps, charts, and diagrams, together with a great 

 many woodcuts. 



Some time ago Mr. J. T. Cunningham, Naturalist at the 

 Plymouth Marine Biological Laboratory, wrote to the Times 

 about the occurrence of anchovies on the south coast of England. 

 In another letter, printed in the Times on Wednesday, he has 

 given some fresh information about the matter. From Mr. 

 Whitehead, of Torquay, he learns that the sprat fishermen at 

 that place were catching a number of anchovies in their sprat 

 nets together with sprats ; that about a fifth of their catches 

 consisted of anchovies. Mr. Dunn has sent him specimens 

 from Megavissey. These were caught, as it were, accidentally 

 in pilchard nets. Mr. Cunningham has made inquiries among 

 the pilchard and heiring fishermen at Plymouth, and finds that 

 almost every time they shoot their nets they catch a few ancho- 

 vies — from one to a dozen. The mesh of a pilchard net is much 

 too large to hold an anchovy, and these occasional specimens 

 are caught only in parts of the nets that get entangled ; they are 

 not meshed in the ordinary way. Of the anchovies he has 

 obtained from the pilchard fishermen, he says there is no doubt 

 whatever as to their being of the same species {Engraulis en- 

 crasicholus) as those which we import from France and It aly. 



A RATHER serious subsidence has occurred near Dane Bridge, 

 Northwich. A large hole, nearly 10 feet deep and covering a 

 space of 50 feet by 30 feet, has been formed near the roadway. 

 The Bridge Inn is now 24 inches out of the perpendicular, or 

 some 5 inches more than it was before the subsidence. The 

 inn had been securely bolted and the walls secured some time 

 since, otherwise it would probably have collapsed. Some 

 wooden structures standing on the opposite side of the road 

 have been rendered untenantable. The gas and water mains 

 were dislocated, and had to be repaired by the local board. 



The General Report of the Survey of India Department for 

 1887-88, which has recently been published, indicates a gradual 

 increase in the annual amount of work done. The triangulation 

 along the Madras Coast has been extended 370 miles in length ; 

 and similar operations have been conducted in Baluchistan, one 

 series along a parallel of 30° N. , and another along the meridian 

 of 67° E., both meeting at Quetta and having an aggregate 

 length of 270 miles. The topographical surveys during the 

 year covered an area of 15,673 square miles. It is gratifying to 

 note that the system, started in the previous year, of employing 

 the village /a/warzV as cadastral surveyors has been continued 

 with very encouraging results, the aggregate area surveyed 

 cadastrally being 5435 square miles. The special telegraphic 

 longitude operations were resumed, and 7 arcs of longitude in 

 Southern India measured, with the particularly interesting result 



of indicating an excess of gravitation toward the ocean surround- 

 ing India. Geographical surveys in Burmah have been made on 

 a large scale, the Ruby Mine tract receiving special attention. 

 A valuable addition to our knowledge of Afghanistan is furnished 

 by the report of Yusuf Sharif, who accompanied the Afghan 

 Boundary Commission, and succeeded in surveying 4600 miles of 

 new country on his return. The statistics of the output of maps 

 and reproductions at the principal offices show a marked increase. 

 The value of the Dehra Dun station for purposes of solar photo- 

 graphy is forcibly demonstrated by the fact that photographs 

 of the sun were obtained on no less than 327 days, and forwarded 

 to the Solar Physics Committee, to complete the Greenwich 

 series. The Report is accompanied by the usual maps and 

 narratives of the various expeditions. 



We owe a new and interesting application of photography to 

 M. Bertillon, the well-known director of the Identification 

 Department at the Paris Prefecture of Police. M. Bertillon has 

 been devoting himself for some months to the study of the 

 physical peculiarities engendered by the pursuit of different 

 occupations. The police have frequently to deal with portions 

 of bodies, and it would greatly aid their investigations to be able 

 to determine the calling of the murdered person in each parti- 

 cular case. The hand is as a rule the part naturally most 

 affected by the occupation, and M. B ertill on has taken a very 

 large series of photographs, each one showing on a large scale 

 the hands, on a smaller scale the whole figure of the workman 

 at his work, so that one may see at a glance the position of the 

 body, and which are the parts that undergo friction from the 

 tools in use. From the hands of the navvy all the secondary 

 lines disappear, and a peculiar callosity is developed where 

 the spade handle rubs against the hand ; the hands of tin-plate 

 workers are covered with little crevasses produced by the acids 

 employed ; the hands of lace- makers are smooth, but they have 

 blisters full of serum on the back and callosities on the front 

 part of the shoulder, due to the friction of the straps of the 

 loom ; the thumb and the first joints of the index of metal- 

 workers show very large blisters, whilst the left hand has scars 

 made by the sharp fragments of metal. Experts in forensic 

 medicine (Vernois among others) have before drawn attention 

 to the subject, but this is the first time that an investigation has 

 been carried out on a large scale, and in M. Bertillon's hands it 

 should 1 ead to the best results. 



Shocks of earthquakes continue to be felt in the province of 

 Semiryetchensk, Russian Turkestan. After September 12, they 

 were felt nearly every day, the most severe shocks having been 

 experienced on September 17, at 11.45 a.m. ; on the 22nd, at 

 1. 15 p.m. ; on the 23rd, at 4.55 a.m. On September 30, at 6.30- 

 p.m., there was a particularly severe shock, preceded by a loud 

 underground noise. 



Severe shocks of earthquake were felt on the northern and 

 north-eastern shores of Lake Issyk-kul nearly every day from 

 November 19 to December 5. Many chimney-pots in several 

 villages were destroyed by the shock of November 19. 



The latest information as to the earthquake which visited 

 Lake Issyk-kul on July 12 is given in the Akmolinsk Gazette, 

 It lasted from 3.15 to 3.30 a.m., and destroyed, or rendered un- 

 inhabitable, all buildings in the villages Uital, Sazanova, 

 Preobrajensk, and Teplyi Klutch, of the Issyk-kul district. 

 Eight persons were killed, and 43 injured, some of them 

 severely. The greatest disasters, however, appear to have 

 occurred among the Kirghizes, who camped in the Kunghei 

 Alatau, on the northern shore of Lake Issyk-kul. They 

 had no fewer than 26 killed and 15 injured. The numbers 

 of cattle killed during the earthquake were : 283 horses, 75 

 horned cattle, and 379 sheep. Several villages of the district 



