^52 



NATURE 



[April 25, 19 18 



The Department of Justice, for example, obtained for 

 •Dr. Al§§ Hrdlifika, curator of physical anthropology, 

 three months' leave of absence from the museum in 

 order that he might undertake the anthropological ex- 

 amination of about 800 Chippewa Indians for the pur- 

 pose of determining which should be classed as " full- 

 bloods." This necessitated a preliminary study of the 

 Sioux Indians of North and South Dakota. Apart 

 from the immediate purpose of this investigation, valu- 

 able scientific results have been obtained, for in all 

 11200 Indians were examined, and from the data thus 

 collected it has been possible to establish thoroughly 

 the characteristics of the Sioux people, and to put on 

 record the present racial status of the Chippewa people, 

 who, as a pure race, are fast disappearing. 



How thoroughly alive the U.S. Department of Agri- 

 culture is to all affecting the welfare of agriculture is 

 well illustrated in a recent Bulletin (No. 621) by Mr. 

 E. R. Kalmbach on "The, Crow and its 'Relation to 

 Man." The economic position of the common crow 

 \Corvus brachyrhynchos) and its four subspecies has 

 long been an intricate problem, and has formed the 

 subject of many investigations, of which the most im- 

 portant is that of Barrows and Schwarz (1895), based 

 upon an examination of the stomach contents of 909 

 birds, mainly from the eastern States. The report 

 now issued is based upon an examination of 1340 adults - 

 and 778 nestlings. As the result of this inquiry the 

 author shows that 25 per cent, of the yearly susten- 

 ance of the adult birds is animal matter, and 71-8 

 vegetable matter. Of the former 18-7 consists of 

 insects, and of the latter 51 per cent, of corn and other 

 grain, 3-7 per cent, of cultivated fruit, and 17 per cent. 

 of wild fruits and seeds. The young birds remain in 

 the nest for about three weeks. The percentage of 

 animal food in the nestlings was 83-4, and i6-6 of 

 vegetable matter. Of the former 48 per cent, con- 

 sisted of insects, 6-2 per cent, of rodents, and i-6 per 

 cent, remains of poultry and their eggs. The actual 

 corn was only about 10 per cent. Mr. Kalmbach is 

 of opinion that the misdeeds of this bird greatly out- 

 number its virtues, and points out that its capabilities 

 for good or evil are great. The attitude of farmers, 

 he thinks, should be one of toleration where no serious 

 losses are suffered, rather than one of uncompromising 

 antagonism resulting in unwarranted destruction. This 

 bird seems to fill a position somewhat analogous to 

 that occupied by the rook in this country, and from 

 the results obtained in this investigation we should 

 have presumed that a considerable reduction in its 

 numbers was advisable. 



The influence of the Cambridge geological school on 

 palaeontology outside our islands is evidenced by the 

 appearance in 1917 of two handsomely illustrated 

 memoirs, one by Dr. F. R. Cowper Reed, on " Ordo- 

 vician and Silurian Fossils from Yunnan " (" Palaeon- 

 tologia Indica," vol. vi., Mem. 3, Geol. Surv. India), 

 and the other by Mr. H. Woods, on "The Cretaceous 

 Faunas of the South Island of New Zealand" (N.Z. 

 ,Geol. Surv., Pal. Bull. No. 4). 



Prof. E. W. Skeats (Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. xlv., 

 p. 81, 19 18) usefully reviews the evidence of the Funa- 

 futi boring in reference to the current discussion on 

 the origin of barrier reefs and atolls, and points out 

 that the discovery of a thickness of iioo ft. of shallow- 

 water deposits cannot be lightly set aside. On p. 194 

 of the same volume, he shows that the conversion of 

 marine limestone into dolomite is eommonly asso- 

 ciated with shallow-water conditions. The rock at 

 Funafuti from 635 ft. down to 11 14 ft. is dolomitised, 

 and hence this mineral feature affords additional 

 evidence of subsidence of the atoll as it grew. 



NO. 2530, VOL. lOl] 



Owing to the difficulty most people have at the 

 present time in getting copies of scientific periodicals 

 published abroad, the appearance of the monthly parts 

 of Science Abstracts is awaited with much less patience 

 than was the case before the war. The indexes of 

 the two volumes for the year 1917 have just been 

 issued, so that the volumes now become available for 

 reference. The physics volume deals with nearly 1400 

 abstracts, has 640 pages, the name-index twenty-three 

 pages, and the subjeot-index forty-four pages. The 

 electrical engineering volume deals with fewer than 

 870 abstracts, has only 490 pages, a name-index of 

 eleven pages, and a subject-index of twenty-two pages. 

 The average length of an abstract in the former volume 

 is a little more than 0-4, and in the latter a little more 

 than 0-5 of a page. Both show a material increase in 

 length over abstracts of five or six years ago, due, we 

 presume, to so many of the most experienced ab- 

 stractors being otherwise occupied. The volumes 

 remain two of the most useful issued in this country, 

 and their cessation would entail an expenditure of time 

 on the part of scientific workers in looking up refer- 

 ences which cannot be contemplated with any satis- 

 faction. 



In the Biochemical Journal for December last Mr. 

 A. Weinhagen describes the reduction of phenylethyl- 

 amine, prepared from phenylalanine, by shaking the 

 aqueous solution of its hydrochloride with finely divided 

 platinum and hydrogen. It was found that almost 

 exactly the volume of hydrogen theoretically requisite 

 was actually absorbed. The product of reduction is 

 hexahydrophenylethylamine, of which the platini- 

 chloride, the aurichloride, and the picrate are described. 

 On the other hand, all the author's attempts to reduce 

 synthetic phenylethylamine by the same method were 

 in vain, although the finely divided platinum used was 

 shpwn to be active. No explanation for the failure can 

 as yet be offered. Practicall}'^ the only difference be- 

 tween the synthetic phenylethylamine and that obtained 

 from phenylalanine is that the former decolorises per- 

 manganate solution only very slowly, whilst the latter 

 does so instantly. Attempts to reduce tyrosine, phenyl- 

 alanine, and j!)-hydroxyphenylethylamine in the same 

 way were also unsuccessful. 



In our issue of March 9, 1916, we made a passing 

 reference to the Derwent Dam, then recently com- 

 pleted, forming part of one of the five large reservoirs 

 included in the Derwent Valley scheme for the supply 

 of water to the towns of Leicester, Derby, Sheffield, 

 and Nottingham and the counties of Deriby and Not- 

 tingham. A paper by Mr. Edward Sandeman, read 

 before the Institution of Civil Engineers on April 9, 

 gives a fuller account of the undertaking now being 

 carried out by the Derwent Valley Water Board. 

 The works authorised by Act of Parliament in 1899 

 comprised the provision, in six large reservoirs, of a 

 total storage capacity of 10,000 million gallons, with 

 aqueducts, filter-beds, and other ancillary works, at 

 an estimated expenditure of about 6,000, oool. One of 

 these reservoirs, the highest and smallest, was after- 

 wards abandoned, and the storage capacity of the 

 Derwent reservoir correspondingly increased. The 

 gathering ground is 31,946 acres in extent, and lies on 

 the southern slope of the Pennine Range at an eleva- 

 tion varying froim 500 ft. to 2000 ft. The average rain- 

 fall is 47 in. per annum. The water is very soft — 2° to 3^ 

 of hardness — ^but is discoloured by peat when in flood. 

 The first instalment of work, which has been completed, 

 comprises the Howden and Derwent reservoirs, siopply- 

 ing 13 million gallons per day. The two dams are 

 very similar as regards dimensions, their lengths being 

 respectively 1080 ift. and 11 10 ft. ; their heights, 117 ft. 

 and 1 14 ft. ; and their greatest base widths, 176 ft. 



