238 



NATURE 



[October 29, 1914 



sectivorous stage between the infantile plankton-phase 

 and the permanent mollusc-crushing habit 



To the October number of the Zoologist Mr. J. C. 

 Moulton, curator of the Sarawak Museum, contributes 

 an account of a collecting expedition in the Sarawak 

 province of Borneo, in which he followed to a great 

 extent the route taken by Dr. Wallace more than half 

 a century ago. In the Sadong district, where the great 

 naturalist often saw three or four in a day, orang- 

 utans are now much scarcer than in Wallace's day, 

 despite the fact that they are protected by Government, 

 except when, as occasionally happens, one of them 

 takes to raiding fruit-trees, when its destruction is 

 permitted. Two photographs of groups of land-Dayaks 

 are of considerable interest. These people- — formerly 

 persecuted by head-hunting sea-Dayaks — are the only 

 tribe in Sarawak retaining customs indicative of 

 Hindu influence, due, no doubt, to their Javanese 

 origin. 



Some years ago the Indian Museum published the 

 first part of "An Annotated List of the Asiatic Beetles 

 in the Collection." More recent work, by Mr. H. 

 Gravely, on the Passalidae — a family nearly related to 

 the Lucanidae, or stag-beetles — showed that the con- 

 tinuation of a mere list of localities was, in the pre- 

 sent state of our knowledge of that group, altogether 

 insufficient, and that illustrated descriptions of all the 

 Oriental species were urgently required. This led to 

 an inquiry into the general principles adopted in the 

 current classification of the family, which was found- 

 to require but little modification in order to render 

 it satisfactory from a modern point of view. The 

 result has been a monograph of 176 quarto pages, illus- 

 trated with three plates, of the Oriental members of 

 the family, issued as No. 4 of vol. iii. of Memoirs of 

 the Indian Museum. As remarked by the author, the 

 figures of the heads of the various species will be of 

 permanent value, even if some of the systematic por- 

 tion of the work may require revision. 



To the author, Mr. F. Cole, w^e are indebted for a 

 copy of an article on the history of anatomical 

 museums, reprinted from " A Miscellany: Presented to 

 J. M. Mackay, LL.D." (Liverpool and London, 1914). 

 In discussing the earlier museums, the author points 

 out that these had to depend almost exclusively on desic- 

 cation and injection for the display of the anatomy of the 

 soft parts, and that skill in making such preparations 

 attained a development which in certain cases has 

 never afterwards -been equalled. Even after the intro- 

 duction of alcohol as a preservative medium, the use, 

 both of the spirit itself and of the glass vessels in 

 which it is contained, was greatly restricted by their 

 cost, the Hunterian Museum, which, in its founder's 

 time, was unusually rich in moist preparations, having 

 only 4829 of that type, as against 8636 not requiring 

 fluid. The purely anatomica'l museum attained its 

 zenith with John Hunter, whose collection, in the 

 author's words, had no rivals and no imitators. 

 " Modern ideals discover a narrower outlook, and a 

 relaxing hold on anatomical verity. The museum of 

 the present day is designed to illustrate, first the 

 general principles of classification, and afterwards the 

 elements of systematic anatomy." 

 NO. 2348, VOL. 94] 



The report of the Refrigeration Research Com- 

 mittee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was 

 presented at the meeting of the institution on October 

 16. With regard to the rating of refrigerating 

 machines, it recommends that the refrigeration be 

 expressed in (kilogram) calories per second, that the 

 standard conditions be, for the cooling w^ater, 15° C, 

 at inlet to 20° C. at outlet, for the cooled material, 

 0° C. to —5° C, the temperatures being those of 

 steady working ; the refrigeration produced under 

 these conditions to be called the " rated capacity " of the 

 machine. The coefficient of actual performance is the 

 ratio of the refrigeration to the work spent in driving, 

 that of ideal performance the ratio of the refrigeration 

 to the work spent in an ideal adiabatic cycle with the 

 same initial and final temperatures and pressures. 

 The quotient of the two performances is to be the 

 "relative efficiency." The report contains entropy- 

 total heat charts for carbonic acid, ammonia, and sul- ; 

 phurous acid, the last two being provisional only. 

 The chairman, Sir A. Ewing, has added an appendix 

 showing the great convenience of the entropj'-total 

 heat charts as compared with the entropy-tempera- 

 ture charts in calculations respecting refrigerating 

 machines. 



Vol. XI. of the Collected Researches of the National 

 Physical Laboratory consists of reprints of fourteen 

 memoirs by the staff of the institution, which have 

 appeared recently in the Proceedings of scientific socie- 

 ties or in the technical Press, and extend to more 

 than 300 pages. Some idea of the importance of the 

 work carried out at the laboratory may be formed by 

 noting a few of the conclusions to which the authors 

 of these memoirs have arrived in the course of their 

 investigations. Mr. F. E. Smith finds the value of the 

 ohm by his modification of the method of Lorenz 

 slightly less than it has been taken in the past — 106-25 

 instead of 106-30 cm. of mercury. Drs. Harker and 

 Kaye conclude that when a heated metal vaporises it 

 sends out, in addition to the ordinary uncTiarged 

 metallic particles, electrically charged particles which 

 are shot out at right angles to the metallic surface 

 and produce electric currents of the order of an 

 ampere. Dr. Rosenhain and his staff show that there 

 is a transition point for iron about 900° C, and pro- 

 vide further evidence in support of the theory of the 

 existence of an amorphous cement between the crystals 

 of metallic substances. Mr. Paterson and his col- 

 leagues prove that the electrometer must be given a 

 place amongst the instruments suitable for standard 

 measurements in electrical engineering. Dr. Stanton 

 shows how inadequate are the accepted formulae for 

 the flow of viscous liquids through pipes to represent 

 the actual facts, and Mr. Baker gives the results of his 

 investigation of the effects of the lengths and shapes 

 of bow and stern portions of mercantile ships on the 

 resistance at various speeds. It is to be hoped that 

 the national importance of work of this type will not 

 be overlooked even in such times as the present. 



Engi>ieenng for October 23 contains an illustrated 

 account of the United States Fleet collier, Jupiter, 

 which is of special interest at the present time in 

 view of the importance of the rapid recoaling of war- 



