Jan. 31, 1889] 



NATURE 



327 



Prof. J. 11. Gore, of the Columbian University, has in 

 preparation a bibliography of geodesy. During two trips to 

 Europe he has collected about seven thousand tit'es, having 

 examined nearly every large library except that at St. Peters- 

 burg. He begins with the first effort to ascertain the shape of 

 the earth by triangulation in the seventeenth century. The work 

 will be published soon by the Coast Survey. Prof. Gore is 

 trying to make his service complete by personal application for 

 data, he having written to all astronomers and other mathe- 

 maticians in the world whose addresses he could obtain. 



The American Society of Naturalists {Science reports) held in 

 Baltimore, on December 27 and 28, one of its largest and most 

 successful meetings. Methods of instructing large classes in 

 botany were presented by Profs. Goodale and Wilson, and in 

 geology by Profs. Niles and Williams. The Society fully 

 approved the excellent work of its committee on education, in 

 paving the way for better instruction in the natural sciences in 

 all grades of schools, especially the lower ones. Mr. J. E. 

 Wolff showed a photographic method of class illustration, and 

 Prof. W. M. Davis explained a most interesting series of paper 

 models, illustrating the development of certain topographic 

 forms and their relation to base-levels of erosion. The Society 

 is composed largely of teachers, and desires to so arrange its 

 meeting next year that the members may be able to attend the 

 meetings of specialists held about the same time. 



We referred recently to the investigations in the Torres .Straits 

 of Prof. A. C. Iladdon, of the Royal College of Science, Dublin. 

 The Ceylo)i Olnenrr now publishes extracts from some later 

 letters from Prof. Haddon, from which it appears that he was 

 anxious to spend some time in Ceylon, to work out the life- 

 history of the Ceylon turtle and to add to his collections ; but 

 it is unlikely that he will be able to do more than call at Colombo 

 on his way home. Writing in November from Thursday Island, 

 Prof. Haddon says : — " I have now been out nearly three 

 months, and have had a very pleasant time, and have seen and 

 learnt much. I find that the anthropology is an untouched field, 

 absolutely so as regards the manners and customs of the past, 

 and I have taken some trouble and a great deal of interest in 

 collecting what information I can in the short time at my dis- 

 posal. In most of the islands the people are dying off; the 

 younger men know nothing of the life of their forefathers, and 

 there are but few old men left. In a few years' time it will be too 

 late, so I have deemed it desirable to turn some of my attention to 

 that subject, although I had no intention of so doing when I 

 started. Experts at home must judge whether my information is 

 of value. I have had a little peep at New Guinea for a few 

 hours — Mowat — to this end. In April and May I am going to 

 the Louisiades, Sudest and other islands of the south-east end, 

 and also to Port Moresby and Motu-Motu, Mr. Chalmers 

 strongly urged me to give an extra month to that end of New 

 Guinea, promising to take me about, an opportunity which 

 money could not purchase, and which falls to the lot of very 

 few. So I shall conclude my stay in this part of the world with 

 a good look at New Guinea under the best of guidance. It has 

 been a great grief to me that I could not manage Ceylon as well, 

 but I feel I have done quite right in not yielding to the strong 

 temptation." 



E.\PERIMENTS have recently been made (says Science) showing 

 in what order a fatigued eye recovers the power of perceiving 

 different colours. The important factor is what colour has been 

 used to induce fatigue. If the eye has been fatigued by long 

 exposure to red, the sensitiveness for green is the first to re- 

 appear, then for blue, then yellow, and finally red. After a " blue- 

 fatigue," the order is yellow, red, green, blue; after a "green- 

 fatigue," the order of recovery is red, blue yellow, green ; after 

 " yellow-fatigue," it is red, blue, green, yellow. The eye recovers 

 last the perception of the colour by which the fatigue has been 



induced, and first recovers the sensitiveness for the comple- 

 mentary colour. The fatigue is in the retina, for it is an inde- 

 pendent phenomenon in the two eyes. The point of finest 

 vision, the fovea, requires a longer time to recover from colour- 

 fatigue than the less sensitive lateral portions of the retina. The 

 physiological process is considered to be related to the visual 

 purple of the rods and cones. On the sense of taste, the same 

 journal states that in the case of a patient whose entire tongue, 

 including the large circumvallate taste-papillae at the root of the 

 tongue, had been removed, it was found that some power of 

 taste remained. The sensations of sweet, bitter, and sour could 

 be obtained by applying appropriate substances to the back of 

 the pharynx or the stump of the tongue, though if applied to the 

 tongue the taste was apparent only during swallowing. The 

 taste of salt was not perceived. Though these results are not 

 fully in harmony with previous experiments, they are helpful ii> 

 localizing the tasting-powers of various portions of the mouth 

 cavity. 



The Indian papers report that a severe earthquake, lasting 

 about four seconds, followed by slight momentary shocks at in- 

 tervals, occurred at Quettah on the morning of December 28. 

 The shocks were felt at intervals till December 31. No injury, 

 beyond the destruction of a few native shops and bazaars, is 

 reported. 



Turkestan has again been the scene of earthquakes. Oi> 

 November 28 last, at 11.40 a.m., a shock of earthquake, much 

 stronger than any lately experienced, was felt at Tashkent. After 

 a feeble earth tremor, which lasted for four or five seconds, there 

 was a violent shock ; the houses cracked, windows rattled, and 

 the inhabitants rushed into the street. The wave of the earth- 

 quake came from the east, and at Khojent some houses were 

 damaged . 



Prof. Mushketoff has made a gifc to the Russian Geographical 

 Society of a very interesting album of 175 photographs, showing 

 the effects of the last great earthquake at Vyernyi. It illustrate* 

 with perfect accuracy, the damage done in the houses, as also 

 several geological changes due to the earthquake. 



A MEMBER of the Astrakhan Scientific Society has been 

 taking photographs of fishermen at work .it the mouth of the 

 Volga, and of the inplements used by them. An album of 

 200 photographs gives a complete representation of the present 

 state of these important fisheries, and a copy is to be deposited 

 at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. 



. In December last, a Chinese scientific expedition, under the 

 learned functionary Miao, arrived at Irkutsk. 



At a recent meeting of the Geological Society of Stockholm, 

 Dr. N. O. Hoist exhibited the forehead and part of the leg of 

 the skeleton of a bison found in a bog near Vadstena, The 

 discovery was made by a farmer as far back as 1865, but it has 

 only recently been proved that the parts are those of a bison. 

 Only two similar discoveries have been made in Sweden, viz. in 

 the province of Scania. Baron dc Geer maintained that recent 

 careful researches disproved the theory held by some that a sound 

 had in prehistoric times separated Scania, from the rest of 

 Sweden, and thus prevented the immigration of the bison thither. 



In a recent British Consular Report on the Agriculture of the 

 Department of the Maritime Alps, Consul Harris says that the 

 reckless destruction of the forests had already considerably 

 altered the climate and other conditions of that region in the 

 first half of this century, and had caused a large portion of the 

 soil, or the "flesh of the mountains," as Elisee Reclus calls it, 

 to disappear from the summits, which are now only the most 

 barren slopes. When the snows of winter melt off the higher 

 mountains, devastating floods are very common, and the 

 population has, within the past twenty years, decreased very 



