286 



NA TURE 



{Feb. 7, 1878 



untired frog's muscle is sufficient to raise 3 mgrm. of 

 water from 0° to 1° C. 



7, By adopting some very probable assumptions it can 

 be inferred that the combustion of assimilated food, as far 

 as the oxygen inspired is employed in producing chemical 

 force, takes place almost exclusively in the muscular 

 tissues. P. Frankland 



ERNST HEINRICH WEBER 



WE are called upon to chronicle the death, at Leipzig, 

 on January 26, of Prof, Ernst Heinrich Weber, 

 whose name is so closely united with the fundamental 

 principles of modern optics and acoustics. He was born 

 at Wittenberg, June 24, 1795, and after having studied at 

 the university of that city received, in 18 15, the degree of 

 M.D. Two years later he published a short work on the 

 anatomy of the sympathetic nerves, which brought his 

 name at once into prominence. The following year he 

 was appointed extraordinary professor of anatomy at 

 the University of Leipzig, and in 1821 he became ordi- 

 nary professor of human anatomy. He was early well known 

 by his edition of Hildebrandt's " Anatomie," of which he 

 wrote anew a considerable part in 1830. The chair of phy- 

 siology was offered to him in 1840, and he actively fulfilled 

 the duties of this position until a short time before his 

 death. During this period he issued several manuals of 

 physiology, and published a number of investigations, the 

 most valuable of which are gathered together in his book 

 " Annotationes anatomicas et physiological" (1851). 

 Science is, however, chiefly indebted to Prof. Weber for 

 the classical researches carried out by him and his 

 brother Wilhelm Eduard while still young men, on which 

 is grounded the celebrated wave-theory. The work in 

 which their investigations are recorded—" Die Wellen- 

 lehre auf Experimentegegriindet" (1825), is a remarkable 

 relation of the most delicate and ingenious observations 

 ever undertaken to establish a series of physical laws. 

 Among the most notable, of these might be mentioned 

 the experiments on waves of water in mirrored troughs, 

 by means of which they found that the particles near the 

 surface move in circular paths, while those deeper in the 

 liquid describe ellipses, the horizontal axes of which are 

 longer than the vertical. By another series of com- 

 parative observations on water and mercury the law 

 was established that waves moved jwith equal rapidity 

 on the surfaces of different mediums, while the rapidity 

 increases in both cases with the depth of the liquid. 

 These and a multitude of other facts, studied and elabo- 

 rated in the most scrupulous and conscientious manner, 

 form the basis for the whole theoretical structure accepted 

 at present as explanatory of the phenomena of light and 

 sound. So thoroughly and scientifically were these re- 

 searches carried out that subsequent physicists have 

 never been called upon to correct them. In 1850 Prof. 

 Weber completed an extensive series of experiments 

 designed to study the wave-movement in the arterial 

 system and explain the fact that the pulse-beat was felt 

 at the chin a fraction of a second sooner than in the foot. 

 The results showed that the pulse-beat travels with a 

 rapidity of about thirty-five feet per second, and that in 

 general the rapidity of a wave in small elastic tubes is 

 not affected by the increase of pressure on the walls. At 

 a later date Prof. Weber published some interesting 

 results of experiments on the mechanism of the ear, as 

 well as on the microscopic phenomena visible on bringing 

 together alcohol and resin suspended in water in capil- 

 laty spaces. 



DR. P. BLEEKER 



ON January 24 death quite suddenly overtook one of 

 the most mdefati gable workers in the field of zoolo- 

 gical science, the well-known ichthyologist. Dr. P. Bleeker, 

 who died at his residence in the Hague, at the age of 

 fifty-nine. Born at Zaandam in 1819, he had an early 

 taste for natural history, and studied medicine with a 



view to an appointment in the army. In 1838 he received 

 an appointment in the medical staff of the East Indian 

 army, and left for Batavia. Here an immense field was 

 soon opened to his activity. He set himself to form an 

 immense collection of fishes from different parts of the 

 colonies, assisted in many ways by a number of his medi- 

 cal colleagues at different stations. He himself always 

 remained at Batavia, gradually rising in his profession 

 till he obtained the inspectorate of the Colonial Medical 

 Service. At the same time he was the centre of a keen 

 scientific movement in the cip'tal of the Dutch Indies, 

 starting several societies and taking the chair in the 

 principal of them for many consecutive years. His con- 

 tributions to the Indian ichthyological fauna were regu- 

 larly published in Batavian scientific journals. In i86d 

 he returned to his native country, and first took up his 

 residence at Leyden, with a view to comparing the trea- 

 sures contained in the zoological collections there with 

 his own. Extensive consignments of fishes had been 

 made by him to this institution at the time of 

 his residence in Batavia, part of the arrangement 

 and determination of which he now took upon 

 himself. Not long afterwards he went to live at the 

 Hague, where the dignity of Councillor of State Extra- 

 ordinary was conferred upon him. He set to work at the 

 gigantic task he had undertaken — the publication of his 

 "Atlas Ichthyologique des Indes Orientales N^erland- 

 aises," seven volumes of which, illustrated by several 

 hundreds of coloured plates have appeared. He was 

 herein largely assisted by grants from the Colonial Go- 

 vernment. Many important groups, the Gobioidas, the 

 Scombridee, the Scorpa^nidse, &c., as well as the whole of 

 the Elasmobranchs are left unfinished. He himself esti- 

 mated that little less than half of the work remained to 

 be published, and latterly had misgivings whether he 

 would really be able to finish it. 



The number of separate publications on East Indian 

 fishes which have appeared from his hand in different 

 journals exceed three hundred ; they form the basis on 

 which he gradually raised the structure of his Atlas. 



He had brought home his large collection of sp'rit 

 specimens which has always remained in his private 

 possession. Of late years, as he advanced with 

 the publication of his Atlas, he disposed of the speci- 

 mens of those groups which he had finished ; in this 

 way no less than 150 of his unique type-specimens 

 were acquired by purchase by the British Museum. 

 Another disadvantage under which a private collection of 

 these dimensions often labours — and Bleeker's was no 

 exception— is the loss of the exact localities from which 

 the different specimens of one species were procured, a 

 detail which is afterwards of such high importance in 

 determining the geographical range of varieties. Here, 

 however all the specimens are mixed together in one 

 bottle without being separately labelled. 



An extensive collection of reptiles and amphibians from 

 the Archipelago, on which he had published several 

 papers during his stay in India, have passed to the 

 British and Hamburg Museums, 



ABOUT FISHES' TAILS 



MOST people know the difference in shape that there 

 is between the tail (caudal fin) of a salmon and that 

 of a shark ; how in the former the lobes of the fin seem 

 to be equal or symmetrical (homocercal), and in the latter 

 only the lower lobe of the fin is, as it were, developed, and 

 the back bone (vertebrae) of the fish seems to be prolonged 

 into the feebly-developed upper lobe (heterocercal). This 

 remarkable distinction was first of all recognised by 

 Agassiz, and long ago Owen wrote, "the preponderance 

 of'heterocercal fishes in the seas of the geological epochs 

 of our planet is very remarkable ; the prolongation of the 

 superior lobe characterises every fossil fish of the strata 

 anterior to and including the magnesian limestone ; the 



