Feb. 7, 1878] 



NATURE 



283 



to my friend Dr. W. F. Tolmie, of Victoria, and have just 

 received from him an account verifying in all essential particulars 

 the extract quoted by Mr. Moseley from the Weekly Oregonian. 



A party of Makaw or Makah Indians of Cape Flattery were 

 returning from a visit to the Songish Indians of the vicinity of 

 Victoria, and camped the first afternoon at Metchosin, on the 

 south shore of Vancouver Island. A young woman having 

 separated herself from the others to bathe, did not return in the 

 evening, and after having searched for her in vam the next 

 morning, the rest of the party were about to continue on their 

 journey, when, on rounding the first point, they saw the body of 

 the woman as if seated on the sandy sea-bottom, with a large 

 octopus attached to if, which, according to the description of 

 Dr. Tolmie's informant, resembled a *' fifty-pound flour sack, 

 full. " The body was rescued in the manner de.scribed in the 

 Oregonian, and when brought ashore, still had portions of the 

 arms of the octopus adhering to it. 



Dr. Tolmie also mentions the case of an Indian woman at 

 Fort Simpson, who had, many years ago, a narrow escape from 

 a similar death ; also that among the Chimsyan Indians traditions 

 of escapes and occasional cases of drowning exist, and further, 

 that among these people a story is current that ' ' A two-masted 

 vessel manned in part or whole by men with obliquely placed 

 eyes and wearing queues (at Milbank Sound, lat. 52°, about 

 seventy years ago) was seized by an enormous squid, whose ten- 

 tacles had to be chopped with axes ere the craft was clear of it. 

 The ship is said to have been wrecked further south on the coast, 

 in consequence of the evil influence of the monster." 



George M. Dawson 



Geological Survey of Canada, Montreal, January 1 1 



Eucalyptus 



In Nature, vol. xvii. p. 10, Mr. A. Nicols says he has seen 

 attacks of fever come on in a forest of Eucalyptus ; malaria 

 prevails there, he maintains. Does that malaria, the degree of 

 gravity of which he does not describe, seriously compromise 

 health ? That is the question. It is probable, notwithstanding 

 the presence of Eucalyptus, that there are yet numerous cases of 

 fever near Lake Fetzara (Algeria), but really of such small 

 importance as to permit, without serious danger to health, the 

 working of the ground or the mines of these districts. 



As to mosquitoes, allow me to recall that there exist very 

 many species of these animals which, apart from their common 

 quality of feeding on and tormenting mammals, and especially 

 man, have origins, habitats, evolutions, and habits completely 

 different ; some live only in the larval state, others frequent 

 moist ground, and others live, always in the larval state, in fungi. 

 In a country which is far from being tropical and marshy, 

 Newfoundland, the pine woods are infested during the short 

 summer by myriads of mosquitoes, which become a real danger 

 for the rash traveller. It will be understood that all these 

 species do not exist at the same time in the same place, and that 

 at Lake Fetzara the marshes are being profoundly modified, or 

 are disappearing, and the mosquitoes, properly called, are also 

 disappearing. Moreover, if there does not exist in the country, 

 as is probable, any species of mosquito living in the shade of the 

 forest, the country will be rid of these animals, a thing which 

 cannot take place in Australia, where there are species living in 

 the forests. In other words, it is not the Eucalyptus which at 

 Fetzara has caused the mosquitoes to disappear, but rather the 

 absence of the conditions necessary to the life and reproduction 

 of mosquitoes, which have become deficient in consequence of 

 the modification of the soil, brought about by the numerous 

 plantations of Eucalyptus. Dr. Calmy 



Saigon, December 19, 1877 



Explosive Dust 



In Nature, vol. xvii. p. 123, I noticed a letter by A. Mac- 

 kennah on an explosion of malt dust in a grinding machine. 

 This I believe to be not an uncommon occurrence, as I hear 

 there have been three explosions in our mill within a period of four 

 years, and these not due to any such culpable carelessness as 

 allowing a naked flame to approach the heated impalpable dust, 

 but ignited either by a spark from a piece of flint passing through 

 the steel rollers (barley from some localities is invariably accom- 

 panied by quantities of small fragments of flint), or from exces- 

 sive friction on some part of the wood fittings. 



The following facts I obtained from the man in charge of our 

 mill at the time of the worst of these explosions, about three 

 years ago : — 



They were grinding at the ordinary pace about mid-day with 

 the window open and no gas turned on. 



The explosion was quite sudden and the flame sufficient to 

 singe the man's whiskers ; the force was so great that the door 

 of the engine-room was blown open, though the only opening 

 between the two rooms was a small hole through which the 

 shafting worked. 



Havmg had several holes bored through the wood lining to 

 allow a free current of air, there has been no explosion since. 



The danger of fine impalpable coal dust in collieries is too 

 manifest to need argument based on the action of analogous 

 bodies, but still the above facts may interest some of your 

 readers. F. E, L. 



Burton-on-Trent, January 22 



Dendritic Gold 



Will one ot my fellow-readers of Natttre be good enough 

 to inform me, through its columns, with the name and pu'>li>her 

 of such a work on mineralogy (xhort, if possible) as will give 

 me the best information on the subject of the dendntic i old 

 existing in sandstones in New Zealand, as reported in the PtO' 

 ceedings of the Wellington Society (Nature, vol. xvl. p, 567). 



It is my wish specially to know the colour of sjich dendrites, 

 the geologic age of the rock containing them, and, if possible, to 

 obtain a satisfactory account of their origin, as hitherto I have 

 believed that metals take this form solely by deposition from 

 solution. 



I ask this in the interest of friends in South Africa (in addition 

 to the personal drsire for knowledge), where, in manv parts of 

 the Transvaal, gold *' prospects " can be ob'ained, though usually 

 in quantities improfitably small, in nearly every case there being 

 no quartz from which it could have been derived ; at least so said 

 my informants, old Australians. 



Black dendrites I have noticed between the (once) horizontal 

 strata of sandstone boulders in the Kimberley diamond mine, 

 but was unable, at the time, to decide their nature. R. 



DEMONSTRATION OF CURRENTS ORIGI- 

 NATED BY THE VOICE IN BELL'S TELE- 

 PHONE 



T F two wires, A and B, be respectively connected with 

 -*■ the two binding screws, R and s, of a telephone, and 

 the other ends of the wires be connected with a 

 Thompson's reflecting galvanometer, the following experi- 

 ments can be made : — 



1. On pressing in the iron disc a deflection is produced 

 on the scale, say, from right to left. 



2. On reversing the wires so that A is connected with 

 S and B with R, and repeating Experiment i, a deflection 

 is produced in the opposite direction, i.e. from left to 

 right. 



3. Shouting or singing produces no deflection. 



If a Lippmann's capillary electrometer be substituted 

 for the galvanometer, the following results are obtained :— 



4. If Experiments i and 2 be repeated, similar move- 

 ments are observed, i.e. in one case the mercury column 

 moves to the point of the capillary tube, in the other 

 away from it. 



5. If the gamut be loudly sung up, note by note, to 

 the sound ah, one note is found to give a movement of 

 the mercury column, about ten times as great as that 

 observed in Experiment 4, towards the point of the tube. 

 The octaves, especially the higher ones, and some har- 

 monics of this note yield similar results. (It is this note 

 which tetanises a nerve muscle preparation as observed 

 by Fick, &c.) 



6. If the wires be reversed and the same note sung, a 

 movement of the mercury column is seen as large as that 

 in Experiment 5, but in the same direction. So that 

 reversing the wires does not alter tJte direction as indicated 

 by the electrometer. 



7. If the primary wire of a Du Bois Reymond's coil be 

 placed in the circuit of a telephone, and the wires from 

 the secondary circuit coupled with the electrometer, the 

 note mentioned above produces the same movement as 

 in Experiments 5 and 6, when the secondary coil is about 



