758 



NATURE 



[August ii, 192 i 



majority of which were beetles. No insect seems 

 to come amiss to the trout as an article of food, 

 and so important is this source of food-supply that 

 the active rising of the fish is dependent on the 

 activities of the land insects at the time. 



In the Journal of the Torquay Natural History 

 Society (vol. iii., No. i) Mr. Harford J. Lowe gives 

 an interesting account, compiled from original notes 

 and manuscripts, of the excavation work accom- 

 plished by the Rev. J. MacEnery at Kent's Cavern 

 in Devonshire in the early years of last century. 

 MacEnerv was the pioneer worker at this famous 

 cave, and by his energies and enthusiasm dug up 

 huge collections of the remains of extinct British 

 mammals and of the work of early man in Britain. 

 Unfoftunatelv, the results of his work seem to have 

 been overshadowed by the publications of his more 

 illustrious contemporary Buckland, with whom he 

 was in constant communication, and, although pub- 

 lished after his death by Vivian in 1859 and Pengelly 

 in 1869, the work accomplished by MacEnery never 

 seems to have received due recognition and reward. 

 It is interesting to learn from Mr. Lowe's paper 

 that, in spite of the prejudices and antagonistic 

 opinions prevailing at the time, MacEnery had more 

 than a suspicion of the important bearing of his work 

 on the antiquity of man in Britain. MacEnery's col- 

 lection was, unfortunately, dispersed by auction at his 

 death, and students of this subject will be grateful 

 to Mr. Lowe for the information which he gives as 

 to the ultimate destination of part of it at any rate. 

 Some of it found its way to the Jardin des Plantes, 

 Paris, the British Museum, the .Athenaeum Museum, 

 Penzance, the Plymouth Institution, and possibly to 

 Bristol, while some at least remained at Torquay. 



We have received the first number of a new serial 

 publication, the AusXraXian Museum Magazine, issued 

 by the Australian Museum under the editorship of 

 the director. Dr. C. Anderson. The object of the 

 magazine is to put the museum into more intimate 

 relationship with its owners, the public of Australia, 

 by keeping them in touch with the work that it is 

 doing, by making its collections better known, by 

 giving accurate and up-to-date information in simple 

 language on the natural history and geology of the 

 Commonwealth, and, in general, by showing how the 

 museum can be of service to the nation and, con- 

 versely, in what ways the public can help the museum. 

 Thus in this first number are to be found articles on 

 the scope, work, and management of the Australian 

 Museum and on museum groups, in which some in- 

 sight is given into the technical work that has to be 

 done in the preparation and exhibition of specimens, 

 in addition to interesting accounts of Blackfellows' 

 pictures, white ants and other Australian insects, 

 snakes, crawling jelly-fish, and the lure of the big 

 nugget. This experiment of rendering an account of 

 its stewardship by the Australian Museum is one that 

 might well be tried by other national museums. The 

 museum is making a praiseworthy efTort to stimulate 

 a healthy pride among the people of Australia in 

 their national institution and to secure that measure 

 of interest and sympathy so essential if it is to 

 NO. 2702, VOL. 107] 





develop its activities to the fullest extent. We hope 

 the public will respond by leaving nothing, undone 

 that will place the Australian Museum among the 

 first of its kind. 



The publications of the Naturhistorischer Verein 

 der preussischen Rheinlande und Westfalens for the^ 

 years 19 13-19 have now reached us, and show thej 

 remarkable activity of the society even during-' 

 years of war. The volume of the Verhandlungen 

 for 1916 was completed in 1918, and the paper used 

 and the mode of illustration show little falling-away'| 

 from the high standard of 1914. As has happened in 

 so many countries, deterioration sets in under the 

 conditions following the war; but even now the 

 plates do not suffer. The work of the society is 

 largelv geological, but chemists and biologists, are 

 concerned with August Thienemann's detailed 

 • Phvsikalische und chemische Untersuchungen in 

 den Maaren der Eifel " (1913-14/. The marked 

 differences in the plankton of the various crater- 

 lakes depend on the distribution of "oxygen in the 

 waters. The mineral springs entering from the vol- 

 canic rocks show marked differences of composition 

 in different lakes. The author of these researches 

 adds in 1915 a study of the midge larvae inhabiting 

 the Maare, and in 1917 he describes the vertical 

 zoning of the plankton in the Ulmener Maar. In 

 19 1 6 F. Goebel gives a morphological description of 

 the- well-known district of the Ruhr, on the east bank 

 of the Rhine. F. Winterfeld, of Cologne, publishes 

 (1918) an illustrated paper on "Der aufrechte Gang 

 des Menschen," in which he finds no room for 

 pessimism. He concludes that "der Mensch der 

 Zukunft wird im geistigen Sinne des Wortes aufrecht 

 gehen, sich aufrecht halten, gehoben durch seine 

 Ideale." We cannot help remembering the melan- 

 cholv fact that hitherto physically upright man has 

 been preserved mainlv by the compulsion of military 

 service. Enough has been said to show the range 

 of research embodied in these undeterred publications 

 of the war-time. 



Under the editorship of M. Maurice Solovine, 

 Messrs. Gauthier-Villars et Cie are issuing a collection 

 of " Maitres de la Pens^e scientifique " in order to keep 

 alive the memory of the advances made in the past by 

 the great masters in every branch of science, whether 

 these masters are French or of other nationalities. 

 The volumes are 6| by 4I in., contain about 100 pages, 

 and are issued at about 3 francs each. Huygens's 

 "Lumi^re," Clairaut's "G^om^trie," Carnot's "Re- 

 flexions," and d'Alembert's " Dynamique " are 

 amongst the works issued, some of which extend over 

 two volumes of the series. D'Alembert's work is 

 reproduced from the second considerably enlarged 

 edition which appeared in 1758, fifteen years after the 

 first. It furnishes a good example of the clear and 

 logical methods of development of a subject which 

 were adopted by French scientific writers of a centuf" 

 and a half ago. 



In the July issue of Science Progress Prof. W. 

 Bragg gives a summary of our knowledge of tl 

 dimensions of atoms and molecules. He points ~ 



