302 



NATURE 



{July 1 8, 1878 



At last it occiirred to me why they came, and on placing the 

 cage on the floor the onslaught on the contents was a convincing 

 proof that A. patithera would never be naturalised at St. Pedro. 



I cDuld adduce many other instances of the smelling and the 

 " perception of sound" (to phrase it), but will not intrude on 

 your space. E, L. Layard 



British Consulate, Noumea, New Caledonia, April 26 



P.S, Since writing the above I named the subject to Fere 

 Montrousier, the celebrated French naturalist so long resident in 

 this colony. He detailed the following experiment that he had 

 made. He immersed a long-snouted weevil {Octhorinus cru- 

 ciatus) so as to cover it, all but the tip of the antennae, with a 

 coating of wax. On presenting to it oil of turpentine it became 

 violently excited and endeavoured to escape. Another now had 

 the tips of its antennse only coated with the wax, and neither 

 turpentine nor any other strong smelling substance at all affected 

 it. He places the faculty of the "perception of sound" equally 

 in the antenna;. Since the discovery of the telephone who shall 

 say to what extent these delicate organs can recogniie the vibra- 

 tions of the air? And after all, what is our own " perception 

 of sound " but the appreciation of a vibration? E. L. L. 



On the Lichen Gonidia Question 



The morphological side of Schwendener's theory may be 

 now regarded as fully proved. The opponents have confinied 

 themselvej on the whole to a priori argument-;, and of 

 those who have applied themselves to carefully working 

 out afresh the relations of hypha and gonidium, several, if 

 not all, have been converted to the new views. No one can 

 have much faith in the haphazard style of preparation and 

 examination known, pjr excellence, as the " lichenological." 

 However, one or two points remain which have not as yet 

 received much attention. These are the beautiful symmetry of 

 the lichen as a whole, the rareness of the application of the 

 hypha to the gonidium, and the generally healthy look of the 

 gonidia themselves. All this contrasts greatly with what we 

 find, as a rule, in the relations of parasitical fungus and host. 



With regard to the first objectiDn I may call attention to the 

 equally beautiful and symmetrical forms we find in galls, such 

 as the spangles of the oak, the rose bedeguar, and the exquisite 

 rosettes of certain Dipterocarpece. 



It is, however, well known that many of the lower fungi can 

 build up their protoplasm and live perfectly, if in addition to 

 the salts needed for the growth of all plants (including nitrates 

 or ammonium salts), there be present a tartrate or sugar. Now 

 the gonidia, like the algae with which they correspond, excrete 

 as a cell-wall a thick layer of gelatinous consistency but giving 

 reactions which show it a form of cellulose. It is in contact with, or 

 through this that the hypha ramifies, and from this it can take up 

 the necessary complement of the mineral food supplied by the 

 substratum and medium. It can grow freely ; and the gonidium, 

 with its protoplasm intact, can go on growing as comfortably as 

 the oyster infested by Clione. Perhaps like the oyster it may be 

 stimulated to a more active secretion of e ivelope, but its health 

 is unimpaired. Hence, too, there is no physiological need for 

 the hypha to come in contact with the gonidia, and the last 

 argument of the old school becomes untenable 



Owens College, Manchester Marcus M. Hartog 



The Phonograph 



In experimenting lately with the phonograph it occurred to 

 me to try whether, after a series of musical or articulate sounds 

 have been recorded, other series could successively be superim- 

 posed on the same tinfoil and reproduced. I found that if the 

 instrument be simply reset to the starting-point, and sung or 

 spoken to a second time, it will afterwards faithfully reproduce 

 both series of sound; as though two persons were singing or 

 speaking simultaneously, and by repeating the same process, a 

 third and fourth voice may be added, or one or more instru- 

 mental parts, all of which will be reproduced. This experiment 

 forms a striking cpmmentary on Helmholtz's theory of the mode 

 in which the ear recognises different tones in a chaos of sound, 

 by analysing the compound wave, which it receives, into its 

 component simple vibrations. Here the aggregate impressions 

 on the tin-foil produce, so to speak, a compound indentation 

 capable of reproducing a wave of sound which the ear can 

 resolve into the original constituents. 



Temple George P. Bidder 



Remarkable Form of Lightning 



During a thunderstorm on Sunday afternoon, August 24, 

 1873, I saw a flash of lightning here exactly answering to Mr. 

 Joule's description of " punctuation." The note of the storm in 

 my diary says : — " Lightning and thunder very frequent but not 

 violent. One flash, very near, had the appearance of a chain of 

 allei-nate links, and remained visible, I should think, for half a 

 second, gradually fading out." This persistence was, no doubt, 

 mainly an optical illusion, but it shows the definiteness of the 

 form. The flash was from cloud to cloud, and followed a very 

 sinuous line, as described by Mr. Lawrence. Is not^ this what 

 old books describe as " chain lightning?" 



B. WooDD Smith 



Branch Hill Lodge, Hampstead Heath, July 12 



OUR NEW PROTECTORATE 



A^rE have only to do with politics in this journal in 

 * • so far as they concern science ; but without 

 pronouncing any opinion on the wisdom of the action 

 taken by our government in the Eastern question, it 

 may not be amiss to say a f6w words from a scientific 

 standpoint on the interesting territories which have just 

 been brought into close relation with this country. To 

 England the region included in Asiatic Turkey is in some 

 respects the most interesting in the world. If not exactly 

 the cradle of our family, there is good reason to believe 

 that it is in close proximity to it ; and no doubt it was one 

 of the pathways by which the early Aryans sought their 

 way to Europe. Historically and prehistorically, for the 

 student of religion and the student of science, Turkey in 

 Asia possesses features of the highest interest, and we 

 may hope that one result of our new connection will be 

 that our very imperfect knowledge of it in its various 

 aspects will be rapidly filled up. Its shores — the Black 

 Sea on the North, the .(tgean on the west, the Mediter- 

 ranean on the south, and, may we say, the Euphrates and 

 Tigris rivers on the east — teem with historical associations, 

 A careful investigation of its mountains and valleys, its 

 rivers and numerous salt lakes, would doubtless yield the 

 geologist a rich harvest of results, bearing everywhere 

 as they do unmistakable evidence of former powerful 

 volcanic action. 



Asiatic Tui-key, in its five great divisions of Anatolia or 

 Asia Minor, Armenia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, and Syria, 

 may be regarded as a western extension of the great 

 central Asian plateau, with its surface much broken up 

 by mountain chains and isolated ranges. This great 

 plateau narrows very considerably as it approaches the 

 Turkish territory in Asia, but increases in elevation. 

 Here begins the Alpine region of Persia with Kurdistan ; 

 here are the lakes Urumiyeh and Van, and the sources of 

 the rivers Zab, Tigris, Aras, and Euphrates. The table-land 

 is broken up into and replaced by mountains, which rise 

 to a great height, and by elevated valleys between them. On 

 the north-east ofTurkey-in-Asia both the mountain-ranges 

 and the table-lands are united in the compact mountain- 

 region and high table-land of Armenia, the countiy to the 

 west resembling Europe in structure rather than Eastern 

 Asia. Physically there are four divisions of this region, 

 corresponding nearly to the divisions referred to above. 

 The first is the elevated and mountainous table-land of 

 Armenia, which extends in the form of a triangle between 

 the angles of the three seas — the Caspian, the Black Sea, 

 and the Gulf of Alexandretta on the south. Its central 

 plain, on which stands Erzeroum, about which so much 

 has recently been heard, rises to 7,000 feet above sea- 

 level, and the highest peak of Ararat rises to above 17,000 

 feet. 



The second great division is formed by the Caucasus, 

 which is beyond the range of our present subject. The 

 third separate mass is formed by the peninsula of Ana- 

 tolia, or Asia-Minor, in the interior, a table-land of an 

 average height of 3,000 feet, and joined to Persia by the 

 mountain-chain of the Taurus. The Syrian mountains 



