570 



NATURE 



[April 17, 1890 



-drama, and, in Bengal especially, is described as for the most 

 part worthless and immoral. 



It is well known that a connection has been observed (in 

 Munich and other towns) between ground-water and typhus ; 

 the disease gaining force as the water goes down, and declining 

 as the water rises. (It is thought that certain decompositions 

 are favoured by air taking the place of water in the ground.) 

 While in former years Hamburg has exemplified this effect, the 

 last typhus epidemic there, according to Prof. Bruckner, was 

 quite in discordance with the variations of ground-water. From 

 1838, it is stated, the typhus mortality in Hamburg steadily fell 

 from 19 to 2 or 3 per 1000 ; but from 1885 it rose again to 9 ; 

 and whereas before 1885 the epidemic was a summer one, with 

 its maximum in August, it now became a winter one, with 

 maximum in December. The curve of ground-water continued 

 to have the same course as before. Prof. Bruckner points out 

 that this epidemic of 1884-87 corresponded in time with certain 

 harbour works being carried out at Hamburg, and he attributes 

 it to the upturning of enormous masses of earth, the abode of 

 •numberless bacteria, whose diffusion among the inhabitants was 

 thus facilitated. 



The volume of Results of the Magnetical and Meteoro- 

 logical Observations made at the Royal Observatory, Green- 

 wich, in the year 1887, contains an appendix of considerable 

 importance to meteorologists, viz. the hourly reduction of the 

 photographic records of the barometer for 1874-76, and of the 

 ■dry and wet bulb thermometers for 1869-76. This appendix, 

 which is also published separately, continues the results for the 

 twenty years published in 1878. The tables now given complete 

 the reduction of the photographic records nearly to the present 

 time, commencing with the year 1 854 for the barometer, and 

 with the year 1849 for the thermometers. The means for the 

 two periods are given separately, but their value would be farther 

 ■enhanced if the results for the whole period were also given in 

 a combined form. 



With the month of January, the Monthly Weather Review 

 of the United States Signal Service entered upon its eighteenth 

 year of publication. The Review is based upon reports from 

 1934 observers, a large majority of whom belong to the State 

 Weather Services. This number is exclusive of the reports which 

 are usually supplied by the Central Pacific Railway Company, but 

 which couldnot be forwarded for January, owing to snowblockades 

 and floods. One hundred and twenty miles of the railroad 

 •crossing the Sierra Nevada range of mountains was blockaded 

 by snow, being the heaviest blockade ever known there, and it 

 s estimated that fully 50 per cent, of the live stock was lost 

 from exposure and starvation. The paths of twelve depressions 

 that appeared over the North Atlantic Ocean are plotted on a 

 chart. Of the nine depressions that moved eastwards from the 

 American continent, four were traced to the British Isles. Three 

 storms first appeared over the ocean, and two of these were alsi 

 traced to the British Isles. Among the " Notes and Extracts " is 

 an article on the recent comparison of anemometers, by Prof. 

 Marvin. The results obtained show that of the anemometers 

 exposed to the same wind, those with short arms gave a lower 

 velocity than those with long arms. No experiments were made 

 beyond 32 miles per hour, and although various formulas were 

 given for the reduction of wind velocities, Prof. Marvin states 

 that they cannot be depended on for velocities beyond the 

 •experimental values, so that much more information has yet to 

 be gained, as to the action of anemometers with high velocities, 

 from careful experiments with whirling machines. We take this 

 •opportunity of pointing out that a general subject-index to the 

 Monthly Weather Reviews and the Annual Reports of the Chief 

 Signal Officsr, to 1887, has been published, and affords easy 

 reference to the valuable information contained in these 

 publications. 



A RECENT writer in the North China Herald of Shanghai 

 says that the climate of Asia is becoming colder than it formerly 

 was, and its tropical animals and plants are retreating southwards 

 at a slow rate. This is true of China, and it is also the case in 

 Western Asia. The elephant in a wild state was hunted in 

 the eighth century B.C. by Tiglath Pileser, the King of Assyria, 

 near Carchemish, which lay near the Euphrates in Syria. Fou 

 or five centuries before this Thothmes III., King of Egypt, 

 hunted the same animal near Aleppo. In high antiquity the 

 elephant and rhinoceros were known to the Chinese, they had 

 names for them, and their tusks and horns were valued. South 

 China has a very warm climate which melts insensibly into that 

 of Gochin-China, so that the animals of the Indo-Chinese 

 peninsula would, if there were a secular cooling of climate, 

 retreat gradually to the south. This is just what seems to have 

 taken place. In the time of Confucius elephants were in use for 

 the army on the Yangtze River. A hundred and fifty years after 

 this, Mencius speaks of the tiger, the leopard, the rhinoceros, and 

 the elephant, as having been, in many parts of the empire, driven 

 away from the neighbourhood of the Chinese inhabitants by the 

 founders of the Chou dynasty. Tigers and leopards are not yet 

 by any means extinct in China. The elephant and rhinoceros 

 are again spoken of in the first century of our era. If to these 

 particulars regarding elephants be added the retreat from the 

 rivers of South China of the ferocious alligators that formerly 

 infested them, the change in the fauna of China certainly seems 

 to show that the climate is much less favourable for tropical 

 animals than it formerly was. In fact it appears to have become 

 drier and colder. The water buffalo still lives, and is an extremely 

 useful domestic animal, all along the Yangtze and south of u, but 

 is not seen north of the old Yellow River in the province of 

 Kiangsu. The Chinese alligator is still found in the Yangtze, 

 but so rare is its appearance that foreign residents in China knew 

 nothing about it till it was described by M. Fauvel. The flora 

 is also affected by the increasing coldness of the climate in China. 

 The bamboo is still grown in Peking with the aid of good shelter, 

 moisture, and favourable soil, but it is not found naturally grow- 

 ing into forest in North China, as was its habit two thousand 

 years ago. It grows now in that part of the empire as a sort o 

 garden plant only. It is in Szechuan province that the southern 

 flora reaches farthest to the northward. 



Some interesting experiments on the physiology of sponges 

 have been recently made by Dr. Lendenfeld, of Innsbruck 

 {Humboldt). He operated with eighteen different species, 

 putting carmine, starch, or milk, in the water of the aquarium, 

 and also trying the effect of various poisons — morphine, strych- 

 nine, c&c. The following are some of his results : Absorption 

 of food does not take place at the outer surface, but in the 

 interior ; only foreign substances used for building up the skeleton 

 enter the sponge without passing into the canal-system. Grains 

 of carmine and other matters often adhere to the flat cells of 

 the canals, but true absorption only takes place in the ciliated 

 cylindrical cells of the ciliated chamber. These get quite filled 

 with carmine grains or milk spherules, but starch grains prove 

 too large for them. Remaining in these cells a few days, the 

 carmine cells are then ejected ; while milk particles are partly 

 digested, and then passed on to the migratory cells of the inter- 

 mediate layer. Any carmine particles found in these latter cells 

 have entered accidentally through external lesions. The sponge 

 contracts its pores when poisons are put in the water ; and the 

 action is very like that of poisons on muscles of the higher 

 animals. Especially remarkable is the cramp of sponges under 

 strychnine ; and the lethargy (to other stimuli) of sponges treated 

 with cocain. As these poisons, in the higher animals, act in- 

 directly on the muscles through the nerves, it seems not without 

 warrant to suppose that sponges also have nerve-cells which 

 cause muscular contraction. 



