i68 



NATURE 



\Pec. 21, 1876 



at different dates is indicated by various colours. The material 

 for the account of the fossil forms, namely, Bison latifrons and 

 B. antiquus, was obtained by Mr. N. S. Shaler, the Director of 

 the Kentucky Geological Survey during 1868 and 1869, at Big 

 Bone Lick. Independent of its scientific interest the description 

 of the chase and rapid diminution of the existing animal will be 

 found well worthy of perusal. 



Coloration of Water by Salp^. — Coral reefs, as is 

 well known, give a greenish appearance to the surrounding water 

 when they do not lie far below the surface of the sea. The 

 captains of merchant- vessels are accustomed to report the obser- 

 vation of such spots in th*" ocean when they are not marked on 

 the charts. It has, however, frequently occurred, that subse- 

 quent navigators are entirely unable to find at such points any 

 trace of hidden reefs. Baron von Schleinitz, commander of the 

 German vessel Gazdle, in the report on his late exploring 

 expedition, mentions that he encountered ten such places in the 

 meridian 177° E. and 31° S. The iead was sunk to distances 

 varying from 400 to 600 feet, at all these places, without reach- 

 ing bottom. The green water presented an appearance as if an 

 oily liquid was constantly rising to the surface, and a quantity of 

 it was secured for examination. Investigation showed the cause 

 of the phenomenon to be the presence of a great number of 

 small, transparent, spherical salpse. These were joined together 

 in double rows of sevei each, and by simultaneous expansion 

 and contraction maintained a regular and comparatively rapid 

 motion. 



The Evolution of the Camelid^. — Prof. Cope traces an 

 acceleration of the process of ossification of the cannon bones in 

 Camelidae, by which the three constituent metapodials become 

 united at earlier and earlier periods of life. In the oldest genus, 

 Poebrotherium, these bones are permanently distinct ; they are 

 long distinct in Procamelus ; and in Auchenia the bones are 

 united before birth. There has been a concurrent reduction of 

 the incisor teeth. In the Soup Fork genus Protolabis the three 

 superior incisors persisted throughout life. In Procamelus occi- 

 dentalis the second of these teeth persisted without being pro- 

 truded till nearly adult age ; the first incisor was very small, and, 

 with its alveolus, was early removed. In the -existing Camelidae 

 the second incisor disappears in the same way. In ruminants 

 other than Camelidae the third or external incisor has undergone 

 the same process, while in the Bovidae the canines have also 

 been atrophied. 



Self-Fertilisation of Plants. — Mr. Thomas Meehan, 

 continuing his observations on this subject, has found that the 

 flower of Campanula pulcherrima, when confined in fine gauze 

 bags, seeded perfectly ; the method of this self-fertilisation he 

 has not discovered. He has ^observed the self- fertilisation of 

 chicory, which has rather large white pollen grains. The whole 

 process takes about two hours. About six o'clock in the morning 

 the pistil with closed stigmatic lobes elongates, pushing through 

 the mass of pollen, and carrying quantities with it. About an 

 hour after the stigmatic lobes expand, and the pollen falls into 

 the cleft and on to the stigmatic surface. The flowers close en- 

 tirely by nine or ten o'clock of the same day. No doubt pollen, 

 eating insects visited the flowers, but when these were carefully 

 excluded, all the flowers had pollen on their stigmatic surfaces, 

 nevertheless. {Proc. Acad Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, 1876, p. 142.) 



An Unusual Case of Natural Selection.— The usual 

 causes for the origin and increase of secondary sexual characters 

 do not exist among gasteropods ; there is no struggling between 

 the males for possession of the females. Mr. E. S. Morse has 

 described {Proc. Boston So:. Nat. Hist., 1876, p. 284) a curious 

 case in which in a limited area the shells of the males of 

 Buccinum undatum scarcely equalled half the length of the 



female shells, and there was no doubt abont their maturity. The 

 rocky ledge on which they lived was at all times washed by im- 

 petuous currents, and the specimens of Buccinum were always 

 found hid in nooks and concealed in cracks and crevices. Only 

 the smallest males could work their way into such constricted 

 quarters to the females ; thus a diminution of the normal size of 

 the male had arisen from a singular secondary'sexual cause. 



Gelatine in Relation to Nutrition. — Proceeding from 

 the supposition that the processes of digestion are merely decom- 

 positions under the influence of water, which furnishes smaller 

 and more diffusible molecules, that are afterwards compounded 

 into the constituents of the body, M. Hermann recently [Natur- 

 forscher) proposed the question whether it might not be possible to 

 employ gelatine for synthesis of albumen in the system (its decom- 

 position products being very similar to those of albumen), merely 

 adding tyrosin to it, the products of albumen-decomposition which 

 are wanting. He accordingly requested M. Escher to make cer- 

 tain experiments on the subject. For a number of days the same 

 food, containing gelatine but no albumen, was given to animals, 

 and their weight and urme were determined. Then, for a similar 

 number of days, the same amount of food was given, with a 

 small quantity of tyrosin added, and weight and urine again 

 determined. If the above supposition were correct, the body- 

 weight should diminish during the first period, and the excreted 

 urine correspond to the gelatine taken, plus some albumen of the 

 body ; in the period in wliich tyrosin was given, the body-weight 

 should decrease less quickly or not at all, or even increase, and 

 the urine be diminished so much as would correspond to the 

 quantity of gelatine retained in the body together with tyrosin, like 

 albumen. The experiments (nine series of them) made on pigs 

 and dogs gave the following results : — i. Gelatine and tyrosin are 

 absorbed in the intestine ; they do not appear again in the excre- 

 ment. 2. In food containing no albumen, gelatine alone cannot 

 sustain the animal organism ; the weight diminishes. 3. The 

 same holds for tyrosin in food that is without albumen. 

 4. In food without albumen, gelatine and tyrosin may together 

 sustain the organism ; the weight of this remains stationary, or 

 even increases. 5. The addition of tyrosin to food containing 

 gelatine, but no ^albumen, diminishes the excretion of urine, so 

 that less nitrogen is excreted thanjaken. 



NOTES 

 Next month a new mineralogical journal will appear in Ger. 

 many to be called Zeitschrift fiir Krystallographie und Mine- 

 ralogie. The editor is Dr. Groth, Professor of Mineralogy in 

 the University of Strassburg. The most eminent German and 

 foreign mineralogists have promised their co-operation. 



The Nation states that the Trustees of the Johns Hopkins 

 University are prepared, if convinced of the want ot such a 

 periodical, to assist in the publication of an American JourttaloJ 

 Pure atid Applied Mathematics. A circular to elicit an expres. 

 sion of views on this subject has been issued under the signatures 

 of Professors J. J. Sylvester, Simon Newcomb, Henry A. Rov.^- 

 land, and William E. Story. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. are about to publish the first 

 volume of a "Treatise on Chemistry" by Prof. R'>scoe and 

 Dr. Schorlemmer. The aim of the authors in this, work has 

 been to furnish a concise but at the same time complete treatise^ 

 which they hope will serve as a standard for the use of those who 

 desire to obtain a more extended knowledge than can be derived 

 from the various excellent smaller manuals that exist. The 

 authors endeavour to give as complete and accurate an account 

 as possible of purely chemical phenomena, and a clear descrip- 

 tion of the chief chemical processes. In the case of each element 

 and of the chief compounds a, short historical statement of the. 



