September 2, 191 5] 



NATURE 



13 



laterials, whetstones, beads, knives, coins, and other 

 lall objects. Most of these rubbish-pits date be- 

 ?een a.d. 50 and 200, and by comparison of datable 

 ith undatable specimens much light has been thrown 

 jn the seriation of types. From another rubbish-pit 

 King- William Street nine Samian vessels of the 

 rst century have been reconstructed, one of them 

 being a vessel finer than any hitherto found in Lon- 

 don, and two specimens of a type hitherto unknown in 

 England. These were associated with a lamp, two 

 coins, and other pottery and bronze objects. 



The novel discovery in the Fayum of a nephrite 

 celt is announced by Mr. Oric Bates in the September 

 issue of Man. This specimen is remarkable because 

 its greatest width is not, as in the common Fayum 

 type, along the cord of the cutting edge. The mate- 

 rial is a sort of nephrite, composed of minute fibres of 



ctinolite, and in its present form it is of meta- 

 iorphic origin. The source whence the stone may 



ive been obtained is at present uncertain, and it is 



ipossible to say whether this development of actino- 



ite is due to regional metamorphism or contact meta- 



"morphism. At any rate, the rock can only have come 



from some region where there has been extensive 



metamorphism of one kind or another. 



An important monograph on the genus Sansevieria, 

 the source of bow-string hemp, occupies seventy-six 

 pages of the current number of the Kew Bulletin 

 (No. 5). The account is by Mr. N. E. Brown, who 

 has made a lifelong study of this difficult and highly 

 important economic group of plants. The paper is 

 illustrated by a series of text figures representing the 

 salient features of the different species, and there are 

 two plates of a new species, 5. Dawei, from Uganda. 

 Fifty-four species in all are described in detail, and a 

 full key is provided which should be of great value 

 in running down the plants. In order that the paper 

 may be of use to the planting community, in whose 

 interests it has largely been prepared, the few 

 technical terms employed are fully explained at the 

 beginning. Africa is the true home of the genus, 

 and East .A.frica in particular, where it is an important 

 fconomic product. Only four species are known to 

 occur outside Africa, and they are found in Ceylon, 

 India, Burma, and possibly China. Of the fifty 

 African species only five are natives of South Africa, 

 the rest being confined to the tropical area of the 

 Continent. As considerable doubt still exists as to 

 which species yields the best fibre, it is hoped that 

 the publication of the monograph may help to bring 

 about a solution of so important a question. 



Botanical specimens are commonly deprived of all, 

 beauty, and much of their value, by the loss of colour 

 in the fiower-heads. This very serious drawback has 

 now been removed by the timely discovery of a 

 method of colour-preservation by Dr. C. F. Fother- 

 gill, and described in detail in the Museums Journal 

 for July. It has the further merit of extreme sim- 

 plicity. Briefly, Dr. Fothergill employs sheets of ab- 

 sorbent cotton wool, placed in three layers forming 

 two compartments between two " grids," which are 

 made of a "wire mesh-work of half-inch squares with 

 NO. 2392, VOL. 96] 



a heavy encircling band." The necessary pressure is 

 obtained by fastening one or two straps, preferably 

 of webbing, around the grids, and tightening them 

 as required. The flowers to be pressed, having been 

 placed in the grid, are then suspended in front of a 

 fire, or in the sun, when this is sufficiently powerful. 

 The explanation of the success of the method is, that 

 the process of drying is so rapid that the pigment is 

 fixed instead of being slowly decomposed. Fresh 

 carnations can be preserved in about seven hours. 

 Primroses picked fresh off the living plant can be 

 permanently dried to retain a lifelike colour in two 

 hours if the press containing them is placed in the 

 oven. 



The first part of vol. v., section 2, of Flora 

 Capensis has now appeared, having been prepared 

 at the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 

 The families dealt with are the Thymeleaceae, 181 

 species in twelve genera ; the Peneaceae, 24 species in 

 five genera ; the Geissolomaceae, with the single mono- 

 typic genus Geissoloma ; the Loranthaceae, consisting 

 of 42 species in two genera ; and the Santalaceae. 

 This last family, which contains six genera in South 

 Africa, is completed as far as the 112th species of 

 Thesium in the present part. 



Prof. G. S. Boulger has published in the form 

 of a pamphlet, price one penny, his paper on the 

 History of Kew Gardens, read before the South- 

 Eastern Union of Scientific Societies. The paper, 

 though covering a well-explored field, contains 

 several interesting particulars about the early history 

 of the Royal Gardens. A letter from Gilbert White 

 to Robert Marsham about Stephen Hales, written in 

 1 79 1, which is reproduced, presents a very vivid 

 picture of that ingenious physiologist's versatility in 

 all forms of experiment. The history is brought 

 down to the present day, and an outline of the func- 

 tions of Kew is given in conclusion. 



At the last monthly general meeting of the session 

 of the Zoological Society of London, his Grace the 

 Duke of Bedford in the chair, it was announced that 

 two Californian sea-lions had been added to the 

 menagerie of the society, thus partially repairing 

 the loss by disease sustained some time ago. Two 

 tortoises, new to the collection, were received on de- 

 posit on July 18. One of these is the blackish tor- 

 toise (Testudo nigrita) from Indefatigable Island, the 

 other Bauer's tortoise (T. galapagoensis) from Charles 

 Island. The receipts in gate-money for July showed 

 a decrease of 724/. as compared with July of last year. 

 The receipts for admission at the gates during the 

 present year — to the end of July — showed a decrease 

 of 274]!. as compared with the corresponding period 

 during the last ten years. Having regard to the 

 times, this falling-off in receipts is less than might 

 have been expected. 



The National Geographic Magazine for August 

 should attain a phenomenal sale, if only on account 

 of its illustrations, which include no fewer than eighty 

 coloured figures of American game birds, by Louis 

 Fuertes. Both from the point of view of scientific 

 i accuracy and artistic merit these are as near perfec- 



