6g2 



NA TURE 



[May 27, 1922 



forges can be seen in most of the valleys to-day. 

 When the manufacture of cutlery was established 

 higher grade iron ore had to be imported. This 

 occupation demands a high degree of skill, and it 

 became a domestic manufacture. Many survivals of 

 those economic conditions still exist and give a 

 peculiar character to the organisation of labour in 

 Sheffield to-day. Steam power eventually replaced 

 water power, and the industry as a result has crowded 

 on the lower ground. Coke replaced charcoal as 

 metallurgical fuel. Local coal, firestone, and ganister 

 all helped to retain the industry in Sheffield, but as 

 potent a factor as any other is the traditional skill 

 of the workers. This factor still holds the industry 

 to the district, although few of the former advantages 

 of its localisation are now of value. 



Tertiary Mollusca of Santo Domingo. — A " Re- 

 vision of W. M. Gabb's Tertiary Mollusca of Santo 

 Domingo," long wanted by students of tropical 

 American palaeontology, has now been published in 

 the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 of Philadelphia (1921, Pt. II., pp. 305-435, pis. xvi.- 

 xlvii., and text figs.). It is the work of the well- 

 known conchologist Dr. H. A. Pilsbry, to whom 

 great praise and thanks are due. Gabb's investiga- 

 tions were conducted in the years 1869-71 and his 

 observations and descriptions published by the 

 American Philosophical Society (Trans, xv.) in 1873. 

 His fossils were presented to the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, but unfortunately were not 

 figured, while the descriptions were not always suffi- 

 ciently full to ensure recognition. Prior to Gabb, 

 Mr. T. S. Heneken had brought fossils from the 

 island to London, and these were described by Moore, 

 G. B. Sowerby, and later by Mr. R. J. L. Guppy. 

 The present work was begun in co-operation with 

 Mr. C. W. Johnson and submitted for publication in 

 191 7 ; printing had, however, to be deferred and 

 only an extract containing descriptions of the new 

 species appeared at the time. The full work is now 

 presented with some modifications entailed by the 

 work of Miss Maury. The nomenclature has inten- 

 tionally been left uniform with the 191 7 paper, but 

 surely even at that date the use of Pteropoda as a 

 class apart from the Gastropoda was antiquated. A 

 few further new species are included, but the value 

 of the work lies in the more careful diagnoses of the 

 species and the excellent figures, over 480 in number, 

 which do infinite credit to the artist, Helen Win- 

 chester. 



Australasian Natural History. — The Papers 

 and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 

 for the year 1921, recently received, include some 

 articles of great interest and importance. H. H. 

 Scott and C. E. Lord, writing on " Nototheria 

 and Allied Animals," are convinced that several 

 groups of more or less generalised animals lived in 

 the Australian zoogeographical province and "that 

 the names Diprotodon, Nototherium, Phascolonus, 

 Eury zygoma, etc., stand as outpost flags of a largely 

 unexplored realm," and " that the most generalised 

 groups have yet to be reconstructed." Dr. R. W. 

 Shufeldt describes " Skeletons of the Monotremes in 

 the Collections of the Army Medical Museum at 

 Washington [U.S.A.]." Two skeletons of Ornitho- 

 rhynchus and one of Echidna are described at some 

 length and figured, on the ground that these animals 

 are now becoming rare. W. L. Crowther and C. Lord 

 give a " Description of Two Tasmanian Aboriginal 

 Crania," which will intrigue anthropologists. Pre- 

 historians of the school to which Mr. Reid Moir 

 belongs will find much support from the figures and 

 descriptions of " The Concave Stone Implements of 

 the Tasmanian Aborigines," described by Dr. G. 



NO. 2743, VOL. 109] 



Home. The Tasmanian specimens are compared 

 with similar ones from south-east Victoria and their 

 mode of use illustrated by reference to the methods of 

 the aborigines of the latter district. Judging from 

 the figures these implements are of the crudest char- 

 acter even when allowance is made for the nature of 

 the material from which they have been chipped. 

 " A Preliminary Sketch of the Glacial Remains pre- 

 served in the National Park of Tasmania," by A. N. 

 Lewis, with " Some Geographical Notes on a Model of 

 the National Park at Mt. Field, Tasmania," from the 

 pen of Prof. G. Taylor, furnish together an interesting 

 account of the physical geography of a district 

 which, although small, abounds in features of remark- 

 able character, especially the parallelism of the valleys 

 and the arrangement of some of the lakes therein. 



Some Australian Diptera. — G. H. Hardy contri- 

 butes to the Papers and Proceedings of the Roya,l 

 Society of Tasmania for the year 1921 a monograph on 

 " Australian Bombyliidae and Cyrtidae (Diptera)." 

 This catalogue contains a key to the genera, 

 and descriptions of two new species belonging to 

 genera in which no previous species have been de- 

 scribed from Australia. Also there are numerous 

 synonyms suggested, and a number of species have 

 been 'placed in the genera they more readily conform 

 to than those in which they were originally placed. 



Meteorology at Falmouth. — Falmouth Observa- 

 tory has published meteorological notes and tables for 

 the year 1921. The work is carried on under the 

 auspices of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society 

 by Mr. J. B. Phillips. Observations are supplied to 

 the Meteorological Office, and the Observatory is 

 assisted financially by the Government. The mean 

 pressure for the year was 30-126 in., which is 0-15 in. 

 above the average and a record for the past 50 years. 

 Bright sunshine was registered on 315 days, which is 

 1 1 days more than the average, and the total duration 

 was 181 7 hours— 64 hours above the average. Every 

 month had an excess of temperature, the mean for 

 the year being 53°-6 F., which is 2°-9 above the normal 

 for 50 years. Rain was measured on 186 days, a 

 total 22 short of the average, and the total measure- 

 ment was 28-9 in., which is 16-7 in. less than the 

 normal for 50 years. The highest hourly wind 

 velocity was 55 miles in a south-westerly gale on 

 March 28, and the strongest gust was at the rate of 

 77 miles an hour. 



An Efficient Sound Producer. — In our issue of 

 April 12, 1917, p. 132, attention was directed to the 

 work of Prof. King of McGill University on the 

 efficiency of the compressed air syren used at Father 

 Point, Quebec, for signalling during fog. Of the 100- 

 horse power used only 2-4 was converted into sound. 

 From a paper by Prof. Kerr Grant, of the University 

 of Adelaide, published in the April number of the 

 Proceedings of the Physical Society of London, there 

 appears to be some possibility of producing sound 

 more efficiently. The new apparatus makes use of 

 the vibrations set up in a thin metal plate a foot in 

 diameter. A stream of air or liquid issuing from a 

 flanged pipe, the flange of which is placed near and 

 parallel to the plate, impinges on the latter. The 

 arrangement is a reproduction on a mechanical scale 

 of the scientific toy illustrating Bernouilli's law of 

 flow of fluids, in which a sheet of paper is placed on 

 the end of a flanged pipe and attempts are made to 

 displace the paper by blowing up the tube. In the 

 sound producer, the surface of the flange is made 

 convex to the plate, and the edge of the latter is 

 provided with a strong rim to which the pipe and 

 flange are attached in a way to provide for adjustment 

 of the distance separating flange and plate. 



