February io, 192 i] 



NATURE 



769 



A DESTRUCTIVE earthquake occurred on February 4 

 on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec separating the Gulf 

 of Mexico from the Pacific. According to messages 

 received in the United States from Mexico City, con- 

 siderable loss of life was caused and much damage 

 to property. 



A JOINT meeting of the Faraday Society and the 

 Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society will 

 be held at 36 George Street, Manchester, to-morrow, 

 February 11, at 6.30 p.m. The meeting will be pre- 

 sided over by Sir Henry Miers, president of the Man- 

 chester Literary and Philosophical Society, and Prof. 

 A. \V. Porter, president of the Faraday Society. The 

 subject to be discussed will be " Measurements of 

 Surface Tension," and it will be opened by Dr. Allan 

 Ferguson. 



Dr. W. Crooke discusses certain curious rites at 

 the accession of Rajas in India in the January issue 

 of Man. In Vedic times the Raja used to start in 

 his chariot and shoot an arrow at an animal from 

 i the herd of one of his relations. Even so recently as 

 \ 1886, when Madhava Rao Sindhia was invested, the 

 \ farm was given over to plunder, the sufferers being 

 afterwards compensated at the cost of the State. 

 When a Rajput Raja came to the throne his first 

 duty was to perform the " inaugural foray " by 

 marching against and sacking a town belonging to a 

 1- neighbouring chief. These are what French anthropo- 

 logists call files, de passage, ceremonies at periods of 

 crisis performed with a magical intent. They repre- 

 sent the period of anarchy occurring between the 

 death of a Raja and the accession of his successor. 

 The new Raja performs an act of bravery or redresses 

 n admitted grievance, such acts being of happy 

 lugury for the future reign. 



Drs. R. W. Hegner and G. C. Payne in the 

 Scientific Monthly for January (vol. xii., No. i, p. 47) 

 give a summary of the intestinal protozoa of man in 

 health and disease. They express the hope that the 

 di.scussion of the subjects presented in this paper will 

 stimulate investigation, and they plead for a carefully 

 organised survey of the intestinal protozoa among 

 civil communities. 



Wk have received the report of the Research 



Defence Society for the last quarter of 1920. The 



aociety has now been in existence since January, igoS, 



and iij propaganda work has been very valuable in 



Ihi; cause of biological science. The president and 



asurers of the International Medical Congress of 



(13 have handed over to the society the surplus of 



!lio funds of the congress, amounting to some 35/. 



' I r. Stephen Paget is no longer hon. secretary, having 



on elected vice-chairman of committee, but he will 



ntinue writing and advising for the society. Miss 



'Tothy Hurgiss-Hrown remains ns secretary. 



In connection with the attempt to scale Mount 



t, which is to be made by the Royal Geo- 



.il Society and Alpine Club's expedition, 



is of interest to learn the views of Col. H. H. 



■<lwin-.\usten, whose surveying experiences in 



K.ishmir date back to 1857 and in Bhutan to 1863. 



NO. 2676, VOL. 106] 



Col. Godwin-.Austen, in an article in the Surrey 

 AdTKrtiser for January 22, expresses the opinion that 

 the best men for the task will be found in the Survey 

 Department of India, and he believes that the number 

 of climbers even in the reconnaissance party projected 

 for the coming summer should be small. He recalls 

 some of his experiences in the first surveys made 

 in Sikkim and the views of Mount Everest which 

 he had from Senchal, near Darjeeling, in 1863. Inci- 

 dentally, he thinks that the discovery of a route to 

 Mount Everest may not prove a very difficult task. 



We have received from Messrs. \V. and A. K. 

 Johnston several sheets of the survey on a scale of 

 I : 125,000 of the Gold Coast, prepared under the 

 direction of Major F. G. Guggisberg and engraved 

 and printed in Edinburgh. Each sheet is i° square, 

 with full reference in the margin to conventional 

 signs and orthography. Hill features are shown by 

 brown shading, but there are no contours ; water 

 features and names are in blue, and boundaries in 

 red and brown. The maps are clear and finely en- 

 graved, and contain a great deal of information with- 

 out any crowding or illegibility. The sheets published 

 cover the whole of the Gold Coast, and join in the 

 north the War Office i : 250,000 sheets of Ashanti. 



Two useful articles on Spitsbergen appear in 

 Naturen for September-October, 1920, the publication 

 of the Bergen Museum. Prof. B. J. Birkeland, in 

 writing on the climate, has been at pains to collect 

 most of the meteorological data, some of them 

 previously unpublished, which have been taken at 

 various times. In addition to means of seven years 

 from the Norwegian wireless telegraph station 'at 

 Green Harbour and Swedish records from Cape 

 Thordsen and Mossel and Treurenbcrg Bays, Prof. 

 Birkeland gives five years' records from ."Xxel Island, 

 in Bell Sound, three years' from South Cape, and 

 several years' from different stations in Edge and 

 Barents Islands. The South Cape, Edge Island, and 

 Barents Island records, having been made by winter 

 hunters, are in most cases incomplete for the summer 

 months. No data are given from the former Russian 

 station in Horn Sound or from the German station 

 in Cross Bay. The second paper, by Mr. O. Holte- 

 dahl, deals with the geology of Spitsbergen and Bear 

 Island, and includes two revised geological sketch- 

 maps, besides several illustrations. 



In 190a Miss Rathbun, of Washington, described 

 three specimens of a tiny prawn found in the Gala- 

 pagos and belonging to the crustacean group Caridea. 

 On them she established a new genus Discias, the 

 representative of a new family combining highly 

 specialised characters with others that appear to be 

 primitive. In the Records of the Indian Museum 

 (vol. xix., part 4) Dr. S. Kemp describes n new, but 

 closely related, species from five specimens (male and 

 female) found on a sponge in the Andaman Islands, 

 which arc "separated from the Galapagos Islands by 

 almost exactly half the circumference of the globe." 

 A full-page shaded drawing of an "ovigerous female " 

 is reproduced by photogravure— a luxury indicating 

 the ifnportance attached to the discovery; but if Dr. 



