Sept. 16, 1875J 



Nature 



447 



Some of our readers may be glad to learn that the Philo- 

 sophical Magazine lor the present month contains, in full, Mr 

 CroU's paper on " The Challenger CmdaX Test of the Wind and 

 Gravitation Theories of Oceanic Circulation," read before the 

 British Association. 



The second number of Mr. Flemming's Veterinary Journal 

 maintains its promised standard of excellence. The original 

 articles are instructive, and the manner in which the most 

 recent home and foreign investigations are placed before the 

 reader will add greatly to the facilities for acquiring advanced 

 information. "We would direct special attention to the trans- 

 lation, from the German, of Prof. Siedamgrotzky's observations 

 on the Thermometry of the Domesticated Animals. 



A NEW American fossil Crustacean from the Water Lime 

 Group, named by its discoverers, Mr. A. R. Grote and Mr. W. 

 H. Pitt, Eusarcus scorpionis, is described and illustrated by an 

 excellent photograph in the last number of the Bulletin of the 

 Buffalo Society of Natural Science. It is allied to Eurypterus 

 and Pterogotus, but is peculiar ,in the narrowness of the 

 cephalo-thoracic portion, and the] suddenjconstriction of the ter- 

 minal segments. 



Mr. W'illiam Longman has reprinted [in a separate form 

 his interesting article'inthe August number of Eraser's Magazine, 

 " Impretsions of Madeira," containing some interesting notes on 

 the natural history, scenery, climate, and life of the island. 

 A good map accompanies the paper. 



The Report of the Council of the Leicester Literary and 

 Philosophical Society speaks hopefully of its position and pro- 

 spects. The Society is now in its fortieth year, has more than 

 250 members, and is regarded as " the leading institution for 

 the cultivation of literary and scientific tastes " in the town and 

 county. The Society has resolved to commence the publica- 

 tion of Transactions by bringing out ' gradually a brief but com- 

 plete history of the proceedings of the Society from the date of 

 its formation. In speaking of the decreasing attendance on the 

 lectures by eminent outsiders, the Report gives a hint to scien- 

 tific lecturers which we reproduce here for the sake of those 

 whom it may concern: — "It must be ^acknowledged that the 

 professors have sometimes relied too much upon their reputation, 

 and given to a critical audience mere badly arranged notes, or 

 information which any handbook would supply. And it is not 

 too much to say that the quality of the lectures delivered gra- 

 tuitously by the Society's own members and friends is of such a 

 character that the advantage on the side of the professors is not 

 always very striking." We hope the Society will go on with 

 increased vigour when it enters upen its new premises, and espe- 

 cially that the various sections will set themselves to organise 

 really valuable practical work. 



From the Third Report of the Leicester Town Museum, we 

 notice that several important additions have been made during 

 the year, and that the Committee are in earnest to make the 

 collection serve a really educational purpose. We hope that 

 when the new premises are ready and the Museum transferred, 

 that it, like the Leicester Society, will take a decided step for- 

 ward. We are glad to see 'that the gratuitous lectures in con- 

 nection with the Museum have been fairly well attended. 



We have received the Fifty-fourth Annual Report of the 

 Board of Direction of the Mercantile Library Association of 

 New York. This library is the fourth largest in the United 

 States, and contains upwards of 155,000 volumes, with a 

 membership of upwards of 8,000. The library leems to be well 

 administered and to serve a very useful purpose, and, to judge 

 from the report of books added during the past year, contains a 

 lair amount of scientific literature. 



From the Forty-first Annual Report of the York School 



Natural History, Literary, and Polytechnic Society, we are 

 glad to see that the first-named branch obtains a fair amount of 

 attention. 



The night of July 7-8,' 1875, will be long remembered in 

 Switzerland for the thunderstorms, several of them of almost 

 unexampled severity, which occurred in Val de Travers, Liestal, 

 Lucerne, Argovie, Zurich, and St. Gall (Rapperswyl), Langen- 

 thal, Grisons, Valais, Fribourg, and Geneva. Of these, the 

 thunderstorm which broke over Geneva was unprecedentcdly 

 severe and disastrous. A detailed account of the phenomenon 

 has been sent us under the title " L'Orage du 7 au 8 Juillet, 

 1875. Extrait du Journal de Geneve, du 9 au 12 Juillet." It 

 appears to have originated to westward in the department of 

 Ain, and took an easterly course up the valley of the Rhone to 

 Geneva, on reaching which it spread over a wider area, and 

 thence directed its course over Savoy. As midnight came on, 

 though the heat was suffocating and not a breath of wind stirred 

 below on the streets, light objects on the roofs of the houses 

 began to be whirled about and carried 'off as by a tempest of 

 wind. At the same time a dull rumbling sound, resembling neither 

 that of wind nor that of thunder, announced the approach of the 

 thunderstorm, and at 12 midnight exactly it burst over Geneva 

 in all its fury. An avalanche of enormous hailstones with no 

 trace of rain was precipitated from the sky, and shot against 

 opposing objects by a tempest of wind from the south-west. In 

 a moment the street lamps were extinguished, and in a brief 

 interval incredible damage was inflicted, the glass and tiles of 

 houses smashed to powder, trees stripped of their bark on the 

 side facing the west, and crops of every sort were in many 

 places all but totally destroyed. The smallest of the hailstones 

 were the size of hazel-nuts, many were as large as walnuts and 

 chestnuts, and some even as large as a hen's egg. Some of the 

 hailstones measured four inches in diameter, and six hours after 

 they fell weighed upwards of 300 grammes. For the most part 

 the hailstones were of a flattish or lenticular form, with a central 

 nucleus of o*i6 to 0*40 inch diameter, enveloped in several con- 

 centric layers of ice, generally from 6 to 8, alternately trans- 

 parent and opaque. An interesting map accompanies the 

 description, showing the districts where the storm was felt as 

 well as the degree of its intensity in each locality. The electrical 

 phenomena were very remarkable ; the flashes of lightning suc- 

 ceeded each with so great rapidity from midnight till a few 

 minutes after I o'clock in the morning, that a mean of froi* 2 to 

 3 were counted each second, or from 8,000 to 10,000 per hour. 

 Electrical phosphorescence was remarkably intense before and 

 during the hail. The ground, animals, prominent objects, as well 

 as the hailstones, were strongly phosphorescent. Immediately 

 after the hail, ozone was greatly developed, the smell being so 

 pronounced as to be compared by nearly all observers to garlic. 

 The incessant electrical discharges passed from cloud to cloud 

 over a central point from which the hail fell, but thunder was 

 very rarely^heard. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Syrian Fennec Fox i^Canis famelicus) from 

 Persia, presented by Mr. Edwyn Sandy Dawes ; two Glaucous 

 Gulls [Larus glaucus) from Greenland, presented by Capt Loftua 

 F.Jones ; two Fork-tailed Jungle Fowl {Gallus tarius) from 

 Java, presented by Mr. W. Eraser ; a Royal Python {Python 

 regius) from West Africa, presented by CapL II. T. M. Cooper ; 

 a Dotterell {Charadrius motinellus), European, presented by 

 Dr. C. R. Bree ; a Weeper Capuchin (Celnts cafucinus), a 

 Golden-crowned Conure (Conurus aureus) from South- East 

 Brazil, eleven Blackish Sternotheres (Sternotharus subniger) 

 from Madagascar, deposited ; a Malabar Parrakeet {Pahcornis 

 columboides) from South India, a Blue-crowned Conure (Conurus 

 ha:tnotrhous) from Brazil, two Burrowing Owls {Pholtoptynx 

 cuniculata) from America, pur«has«d. 



