June 20, 19 18] 



NATURE 



311 



lor the publication of these. Whilst the hospitality 

 of foreign scientific journals is duly acknowledged, 

 and notwithstanding that there has been some hesita- 

 tion about increasing the number of periodicals dealing 

 with chemical questions, it is now considered necessary 

 lor the society to have its own journal — and all the 

 more so since the present postal restrictions are 

 hindering the publication in other countries of 

 riicmical researches carried out in Switzerland. In 

 the new periodical it is proposed to give accounts of 

 investigations made, both by chemists living in 

 Switzerland and by Swiss chemists who are domiciled 

 abroad, so that the result will represent, as it were, 

 ili(^ whole national effort in this branch of scientific 

 inquiry. Papers will be printed in any of the three 

 national languages (French, German, Italian), and 

 tliere will be six or eight issues a year. The first 

 number opens well with a contribution by A. Werner 

 on a new type of isomerism in cobalt compounds. 

 This is followed by half a dozen other communica- 

 tions, some of which are excellent examples of re- 

 search work in pure chemistry. The periodical is 

 clearly printed and neatly produced. Chemists in this 

 country will follow the new venture \\ith sympathetic 

 interest. 



The announcement of the death on May 12 of Dr. 

 R. G. Hebb brought a sense of personal loss to a 

 . wide circle of scientific colleagues and friends, felt 

 with particular Keenness by the fellows of the Royal 

 Microscopical Society, to whom Dr. Hebb had en- 

 deared himself by his tact and geniality, no less than 

 by his erudition and intimate acquaintance with 

 things microscopical during the thirty-three years he 

 had been connected with the society. Dr. Hebb w^as 

 the eldest son of the late John Hebb, of East Dulwich. 

 A graduate in arts and medicine at Cambridge, King's 

 College Hospital shared with the University in foster- 

 ing that keenness in microscopy which occupied so 

 large a share of his life's work. Pathology, both 

 naked eye and microscopical, early claimed his 

 energies, and he was undoubtedly seen at his best in 

 the post-mortem room or laboratory ; but, at the same 

 time, he was a sound clinical teacher, and made his 

 mark in the out-patient department and in the wards 

 of Westminster Hospital, the staff of which he joined 

 in 1888, and where for many years he held the dual 

 posts of physician and physician pathologist. His 

 association with the Royal Microscopical Society was 

 long and intimate. In 1855 Mr. (now Sir) Frank 

 Crisp, at that time its secretary, enlisted his services 

 on the staff of the society's Journal, and from then 

 onwards Dr. Hqbb was a regular contributor to 

 the pages of the Journal. He was elected an ordinary 

 fellow of the society in November, 1885, and appointed 

 to the council a few years later. In 1902, on the death 

 of Mr. A, W. Bennett, Dr. Hebb succeeded to the 

 editorship of the societv's Journal (the first number 

 for which he was solely responsible being that for 

 April, iqo2), a post he continued to hold to the time 

 of his death. In i8q2 he became co-secretary with 

 DalHnger, from which time until iqii he was virtually 

 responsible for the conduct of the society's affairs. 

 ^ .^fter the resignation of Dallinger in iQoy, Dr. Hebb 

 became the senior secretary, and had as associate 

 secretaries, first J. W. Gordon, and afterwards 

 F. Shillington Scales. In iqii he resigned the post 

 of secretary and was elected a vice-president. During 

 the fourteen years he held office Dr. Hebb proved him- 

 self an ideal secretary, and the society, which has lost 

 a devoted officer, fully realises the debt it owes to 

 his exertions. 



THorcH Benjamin Franklin at the beginning of the 

 \\'ar of Independence seriously considered the f>ossi- 

 NO. 2538, VOL. lOl] 



bilityof arming the American troops with the longbow, 

 as a cheaper and more effective weapon than the flint- 

 lock musket, archery among the Indian tribes is nearly 

 a lost art since the introduction of the rifle. There 

 is little evidence to show how these tribes made and 

 used the bow and arrow. Mr. S. T. Pope induced 

 the last survivor, Ishi, of the Deer Creek Indians of 

 North-Central California, to live at the University of 

 California from 19 11 to 1916, and from him a mass of 

 information on the subject was obtained, a summary 

 of which has been published in vol. xiii., No. 3, of the 

 University Publications in American Archeeology and 

 Ethnology. The process of making bows and arrows 

 is elaborately described. Ishi's greatest flight-shot was 

 185 yards, which contrasts badly with that of Ingo 

 Simon in France in 19 14, with a very old Turkish 

 composite bow, of 459 yards. The greatest recorded 

 flight with the English longbow was made by 

 I. Rawlins in 1794, ^ distance of 360 yards. The best 

 American flight-shot is 290 yards, done by L. W. 

 Maxson in 189 1. 



The Carnegie Institution of Washington has issued 

 an elaborate monograph by Mr. W. Churchill on " Club 

 Types of Nuclear Polynesia!" By " Nuclear " Polynesia, 

 a term proposed by the writer, he means Samoa, as the 

 "nucleus," with Nina, Tonga, and Viti on the peri- 

 meter. He divides the clubs of this region into various 

 types — the billet, rootstock, missile, pandanus, axe- 

 bit, lipped, mace, coconut-stalk, and others. In each 

 section is provided a full series of measurements and 

 descriptions, with details of specimens in American 

 and other collections. In previous volumes the author 

 has discussed the linguistic evidence, and the present 

 investigation corroborates the theories already arrived 

 at. " In these wooden artifacts of Nuclear Polynesia, 

 highly evolved in form to correspond with needs not 

 only utilitarian, but even vital in their necessity, most 

 remarkably specialised in ornament, there are found 

 with equal clarity ' the memorials of such transit 

 and sojourn of the peoples of the Nuclear Polynesia 

 race through and in various parts of Melanesia as 

 has already been established through the study of 

 the many languages of the two Pacific areas." 



In the Bulletin of Entomological Research (vol. viii., 

 parts 3-4, 1918) there is a noteworthy paper by Dr. 

 J. J. Simpson on "The Bionomics of. Tsetse-flies in 

 the Gold Coast." By marking a large number of 

 flies and liberating them at various distances from 

 the river near which they had been captured it was 

 ascertained that a few returned from a point four 

 miles away, but no large proportion from more than 

 two miles away. As none were found farther from 

 the river than their place of liberation, it seems that 

 these insects are constantly attracted by water. Mr. 

 H. Tetley contributes a paper of value on the mouth- 

 parts of Pangonia longirostris. pointing out some 

 marked secondary sexual differences, and drawing 

 comparisons with corresponding structures in other 

 Tabanidae. It is doubtful if the minute lobe of the 

 maxilla, described by Mr. Tetley as the lacinia, really 

 represents that. element of the typical appendage. 



In an interesting memoir on the early developmeni 

 of Didelphys aurita (Quarterly Journal of Micro- 

 scopical Science, vol. Ixiii., part i). Prof. J. P. Hill 

 points out a fundamental distinction between the 

 blastocyst of the marsupials (Didelphia) and that of 

 the higher mammals (Monodelphia). In the former 

 the process of segmentation gives rise at once to a 

 hollow blastosphere, the wall of which is composed 

 of a single layer of cells, differentiated into formative 

 and non-formative polar areas. The formative area 

 furnishes both ectoderm and entoderm of the blasto- 



