124 



NA TURE 



{Dec. 13, 1877 



Tn their new brewery, near the railway station, the crushed 

 malt is lifted from one floor to another by a series of cups 

 revolving on a leathera .band. The casing, which incloses the 

 banc?, is full of floating malt dust while the revolution is g >ing 

 on, and on opening one of the doors of the casing a puff of malt- 

 dust is sent out into the room. Soon after the brewery was 

 opened, a workman went with an undefended light to make 

 some examination of the working of the leathern band, and on 

 opening the door of the cas ng an explosion followed ; not of a 

 very serious character, but enough, I think, to throw the band 

 cut of gear. The cause of the explosion is evident ; the rapid 

 cox bust icn of the fine malt dust with which the air puffed out 

 into the room was charged. 



Dr Bottinger died a ii^f) years since, but it would probably not 

 be diffcult to get accurate details of the accident from Messrs. 

 AUsopp and Sons. A. Mackennah 



Bowdon, December 11 



Means of Dispersal 



In his great work, " Insecta Maderensia," Mr. Wollaston 

 remarks upon the great affinity in the coleopterous fauna of 

 Madeira with that of Sicily, and in his "Coleiptera H speri- 

 dum," on the iiorthem character of that of the Cape Verde 

 Isles. Mr. Andrew Murray also found that out of 275 Cape Verde 

 species 91 were comm n to the Canaries and 81 to the Madeiran 

 group. The last author would seem to rely on the efficacy of 

 now submerged continents as a means of transmission between 

 the two areas. 



Towards the end of the fifteenth and commencement of the 

 sixteenth century, the Portuguese carried the sugar-cane from 

 Sicily to Madeira and the Canaries, The means of introduction 

 would probably be the same then as now ; .the young shoots of 

 cane would be conveyed in boxes or baskets of earth from one 

 locality to the other, as the writer once carried young cane plants 

 from Car Nicobar vid Rangoon to Penauir, and has seen the 

 same arrive in the last locality from the West Indies. There 

 can be little doubt that many of these plants must have been 

 carried from Sjcdy to the Atlantic Isles before a successful or 

 sufficient introduction was made, and with the earth in wliich 

 the plants were conveyed, many geodephagous and other 

 coleoptera would find an enforced means of migration. The 

 sugar-cane is also reported as having been introduced into 

 Cyprus from Asia, and transplanted from there to Madeira, thus 

 adding another link to the localities in which these colej^jteral 

 affinities have been detected. 



It is not proposed th« this was. the sole, but only a probable 

 means of the transmission of common form-; in ihe coleopteral 

 faunas of these widely-separated districts, ; The number of causes 

 which have been factors ,to the sa^ne in the past may be in an 

 inverse ratio to our knowledge of thpno. W, L. Distant 



Supplementary Eyebrows 



I MET a gentleman a few days agu who has on either side of 

 the forehead a suppleoientary eyeljrow branching off from the 

 superciliary ridge uear the supra-orbitaL notch, and passing 

 obliquely upwards and o itwards f r about | inch across the 

 forehead. Beneath these brows, which contain large and coarse 

 hairs, are lints of soft down-like hair, one on either side occupy- 

 ing the usual position of the eyebro'vs. Since my aitenton was 

 drawn to this subject I have noticed that many persons have a 

 short secondary spur of hairs at the points indicated. Artists, I 

 believe, have noticed this deviation from the normal eyebrow-lme, 

 as we occasionally observe it in por raits of Puck and other 

 mischievous spiitcs. 



There is a spot about midway between the orbits in animals 

 that I have examih d (namely, horses, dogs, and cats), whence 

 the lines of hair-insertion into the skin radiate in various direc- 

 tions. If we consiler the secondary eyebrj vs of man as a 

 reversion to an ancestral type, we must conclude that our hairy 

 progenitors also possessed such a radiating point of hair insertion 

 upon their foreheads, and that the secondary eyebrows are only 

 remnants of a hairy covering which originally enveloped the 

 whole face. W. Ainslie Hollis 



Brighton 



Diffusion or Cohesion Figures in Liquids 

 With reference to the above, allow me to relate some experi- 

 ments made several years ago, and easily repeated, 



I. Take a tall precipitate glass, fill it with water, drop into it 

 a piece of lump or refined sugar and four or five grains of common 



salt. Let the vessel remain quiet, so that when the sugar is dis- 

 solved there may be different densities in the fluid from top to 

 bottom. Then lightly touch the surface with a piece of lunar 

 caustic (silver nitrate), and observe the figure which results. 



2, The experiment may be repeated with sugar, diluted sul- 

 phuric acid, and barium chloride, the figures varying with the 

 proportions of the ingredients used. 



3, Take a common tumbler glass filled with water, dissolve in 

 it half a tea-spoonful of common salt. Touch the surface of the 

 solution with the point of a pen filled with ordinary black ink, 

 and the characteristic figures are produced. F.R.S. 



Brighton, December 12 



Meteor 



At 8h. 13m, (i; 2m.) p.m. on December 9, a brilliant meteor 

 passed from 32 Cameleopardalis (± 1°) through m Lyrae (± i'^), 

 and disappeared about 6° beyond ; time of passage, i"6 (± ■3) 

 sec. ; mag.. 8 (± 2) x Lyrse ; colour, emerald green ; track, 

 yellow, visible I second ; seen from 51° 24' 43" N., 2' 13" E. 

 This may enable a'northern observer to fix the position. 



Bromley, Kent ' W. M, F. P. 



ON THE CAUSATION OF SLEEP 



THE last nutnber of Pfiilger's ArcJiiv (vol. xv., p. 573) 

 contains the following interesting note by Dr. 

 Striimpell : — 



*' In the autumn of last year there was received into the 

 medical clinik of Leipzig a youth, aged 16, in whom variou J 

 phenomena of anaesthesia gradually developed themselves 

 to an extent which has very rarely been observed. The 

 skin of the whole surface of the body was completely 

 insensible, and that in respect to every kind of sensation. 

 The most powerful electric current — a burning taper held to 

 the skin — was not able to produce any pain or even a sensa- 

 tion of touch. Almost all the accessible parts of the mucous 

 membrane of the body exhibited the same insensibility to 

 pain. Al-o all those sensations which are classed together 

 under the name of ' muscular sense,' were entirely absent. 

 The patient, when his eyes were closed, could be carried 

 about round the room, his limbs could be placed in the 

 most inconvenient positions without his being in any way 

 conscious of it. Even the feeling of muscular exhaustion 

 was lost. In addition there carhe on also a complete loss 

 of taste and smell, amaurosis of the left eye, and deafness 

 of the right ear. 



"In short, hece was an individual whose only con- 

 nection with the otiter world was limited to two doors of 

 sense — to his one (right) eye, and his one (left) ear. 

 Moreover, both these remaining doors could at any time 

 be easily closed, and in this way it was possible to inves- 

 tigate the consequences of completely isolating the brain 

 from all external stinmlation through the senses. I have 

 frequently made the following experiment, and often 

 showed it to others : — If the patient's seeing eye was 

 bandaged and his hearing ear was stopped, after a few 

 (usually from two to three) minutes the expression of sur- 

 prise and the uneasy movements which at first showed 

 themselves ceased, the respiration became quiet and 

 regular ; in fact the patient was sound asleep. Here, 

 therefore, the possibihty of artificially inducing sleep at 

 any time in a person simply by withholding from the 

 brain all stimulation by means of the senses was realised. 



" The awakening of the patient was as interesting 

 as the sending him to sleep. He could be awakened 

 by an auditory stimulation, as, for example, by calling 

 into his hearing ear or by visual stimulation, by allowing 

 the stimulus of light to fall upon his seeing eye ; but he 

 could not be woke by any pushing or shaking. If he 

 was left to himself he did eventually wake up of his 

 own accord in course of the day, after the sleep had 

 lasted many hours, the awakening being due, it might be, 

 to intrinsic stimuli started in the brain, or it might be to 

 slight external unavoidable stimuli acting through his 

 still functional sense organs, and making themselves felt 

 in consequence of the sensitiveness of the brain being 

 increased during the repose of the sleep." 



