September 24, 19 14] 



NATURE 



95 



ings of the British Association and the British Medical 

 Association. He graduated in the Queen's University 

 of Ireland, and afterwards studied at London, Leipzig, 

 Paris, Heidelberg, and Naples. For eight years he 

 was lecturer on anatomy and assistant professor of 

 physiology- in Queen's College, Belfast, and for more 

 than twenty-five years he occupied the chair of natural 

 history in Gahvay. He was co-editor of the Inter- 

 national Journal of Anatomy and Physiology ; was an 

 honorary president at Lisbon Medical Congress, Sec. 

 Intermediate L ; an honorarj- president at Buda Pesth 

 Medical Congress, Sect. Board H. ; a vice-president 

 Anatomical Section, British Medical Association, at 

 Glasgow. He made a speciality in his studies of 

 vertebrae skeleton and mammalian morphology. His 

 published works include "The Elephants" (1895), 

 "The Whales and Dolphins" (1896), "Chelonia" 

 (1912), and "German Influence: Intellectual and 

 Moral " (1896). Dr. Anderson graduated M.A. with 

 the highest honours in the Queen's University, and at 

 the examination for the M.D. degree of that Univer- 

 , sity he obtained first place, the Peel scholarship, and 

 a gold medal. He was a member of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons (England). 



Ix Man for August Dr. S. N. Shannus describes a 

 form of iron-smelting furnace used by the Angonis 

 of Nyasaland. The furnace is about 10 ft. in height, 

 bottle-shaped, and made of clay, supported by wooden 

 poles let into the ground, bound round the outside. 

 At the base there are eight holes through which 

 earthenware pipes having an internal diameter of 3 in. 

 are inserted to create the draught. THe furnace is 

 built on a slight slope, which allows of a hole being 

 made at the lower side from which the slag escapes. 

 A rough platform of logs is made up against the 

 upper side for the convenience of those filling the 

 furnace. It is filled almost to the neck with charcoal, 

 which is ignited from the top, and a mixture of char- 

 coal and iron-stone in equal proportions is added at 

 intervals. The operation lasts for two days, when an 

 opening is made at the base of the furnace, and the 

 iron, which has collected in a circular trough at the 

 bottom, is extracted. 



Mr. a. D. Pass.more discusses in Man for August 

 the reason for the absence of large flint implements 

 in Gloucestershire. In this district there is no indi- 

 genous flint, and the raw material was probably im- 

 ported from Wiltshire. In Wiltshire, where flint is 

 common, a man who broke a large axe could afford to 

 throw the pieces away and pick up a fresh lump to 

 replace it. But in Gloucestershire the reverse would 

 be the case, and the pieces would immediately be used 

 up to make arrowheads, scrapers, and the like. At 

 Windmill Hill, near Avebury, Wilts, flakes and pieces 

 of flint which were once obviously parts of axes have 

 been found in great numbers. It has been supposed, 

 in order to explain this fact, that a successful invading 

 race of bronze-using people went round after the con- 

 quest smashing- up the flint weapons of their victims. 

 This is, he thinks, more probably due to the fact that 

 working material of tried value was used in preference 

 to that which was not tried, and the fragments were 

 the waste remaining after the conversion of broken 

 NO. 2343, VOL. 94] 



implements into smaller articles. As a parallel, he 

 quotes the case of a repairer of old furniture using an 

 old table-top which bore a peculiar yellow polish, with 

 the result that small pieces bearing this peculiar polish 

 could be picked up in all corners of the workshop. 



In the report of the Otago University Museum for 

 1913 it is recorded that considerable additions have 

 been made to the Hocken library-, the principal con- 

 tributors being Mrs. Hocken herself and Mr. Trimble. 

 The curator laments that school teachers neglect the 

 opportunities offered by the museum for instruction in 

 nature-study. 



According to the report for the year ending June 

 30, 1914, the most important recent addition to the 

 natural section of the Warrington Museum is the her- 

 barium of the late Mr. W. Hodge, of Northwich, 

 which was acquired by purchase. It includes 931 

 sheets of flowering plants, representing 824 species, 

 and 121 sheets, with 115 species, of mosses, together 

 with five volumes of notes. Nearly half the specimens 

 were collected locallv. 



The biology of humble-bees and honey-bees and the 

 various forms of cells constructed by different kinds of 

 wasps are discussed by Mr. O. J. Lie-Pettersen in the 

 combined July and August number of Naturen. 

 Another article on bees appears in the August issue 

 of the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy, in 

 which the author. Dr. N. E. Mclndoo, describes the 

 scent-producing organ of these insects. This organ, 

 situated between the fifth and sixth abdominal seg- 

 ments, is furnished with gland-cells, which were long 

 considered to be for the purpose of secreting perspira- 

 tion, but their true function was pointed out by Sladen 

 in 1902. Apparently these glands secrete a volatile sub- 

 stance, which collects in a special reservoir (ampulla), 

 whence it passes through a chitinous tube to a canal 

 on the dorsal surface of the abdomen. So long as the 

 abdomen remains straight, the canal is well protected, 

 and the liquid can only evaporate slowlv ; but directly 

 this part of the body is strongly flexed, the entire 

 canal is more or less fully exposed to the air, in which 

 the odour of the evaporating fluid becomes rapidly 

 diffused. 



A GEOLOGICAL map of Nova Scotia in one sheet, on 

 the scale of one inch to eight miles, has been issued 

 by the Geological Survey of Canada. The Palaeozoic 

 sequence is remarkably complete. While the crystal- 

 line rocks of Cape Breton Island are clearly pre- 

 Cambrian, a Devonian granite is prominent in the 

 south-west of the country, w-here it forms the water- 

 shed. North-west of it, the coastline of the Bay of 

 Fundy is moulded on the strike of a long band of 

 Triassic dolerite. 



Dr. F. R. von Huene, of Tubingen, summarises 

 the conclusions of his recent work on Dinosaurs in 

 the American Journal of Science, vol. xxxviii. (1914), 

 p. 145. He urges that the dinosaurs are not a 

 natural order, and that Seeley's two divisions, the 

 Saurischia ( = Therop>oda + Sauropoda) and Orni- 

 thischia ( = Orthopoda), were separately derived from 

 the Pseudosuchia. References are given to his three 

 papers published in Germany in the present year. 



