September 6, 1917] 



NATURE 



II 



rnometer exceeded 80°, registering 84° at Nairn. At 

 Kew the highest temperature was 75°, and at Hampstead 

 7-,°. Temperature is said to have been much more 

 favourable than in August, 1912, when the thermo- 

 meter failed to rise above 70° at any but a few scat- 

 tered places in England, and at many places in the 

 northern and western districts it failed to exceed 65°. 



Symons's Meteorological Magazine for August con- 

 tains a short account of the unusually heavy and 

 persistent rain in the south-east of England between 

 July 29 and August 4. In London the rainfall for 

 the six days amounted to 378 in. More than 7 in. 

 . fell at a number of places : at Canterbury (St. Thomas 

 Hill) the measurement was 10-31 in.; at Maidstone 

 8-09 in.; at Kingston Rectory 7-51 in.; at Teynham, 

 Kent, 7-32 in. ; and at Margate 705 in. These amounts are 

 in many cases said to have been quite unprecedented. 

 In the three days, from July 30 to August i, the 

 rainfall rneasured 6- 18 in. at Maidstone, 582 in. at 



interbury, . and 558 in. at Meopham. A more de- 

 fied account is promised in "British Rainfall, 1917." 

 in July the rainfall over the whole of the British Isles 

 wa^ only 69 per cent, of the average; in England and 

 Wales it was 76 per cent. Correlations of the several 

 meteorological elements are being studied with the 

 view of securing long-f)eriod forecasts, and the maga- 

 jzine contains a short account of correlations between 

 the temperature at South Orkneys and the rainfall in 

 the Argentine Republic, by N. A. Hessling. With two 

 years' interval between the temperature and the rainfall 

 the correlation is negative, whilst with three and a half 

 years' interval the correlation is positive. It is sug- 

 gested that the negative correlation may be explained 

 by the annual ice, and the positive correlation by ice 

 which has broken away from the permanent ice-barrier, 

 the greater thickness of this ice explaining the longer 

 interval. Similar reasoning is followed for correla- 

 tions between temperature at Stykkisholm in Iceland 

 and Jacobshavn in Greenland and the rainfall at 

 Albany, N.Y,, with two years' interval; there are also 

 similar correlations for Paris, Greenwich, and Ponta 

 Delgada. 



In the Times for August 27 Dr. Andrade continues 

 the discussion on the sound of gunfire introduced by 

 Mr. Sleggs's letter (see Nature for August 23, 



p. 513). Referring to the work of Prof. Mach 

 and more recent writers, he remarks that " the 

 sound produced by a high-velocity gun, as heard 



in front of the piece, is double, consisting of 



-a sharp crack, which is very distressing to the 



*ar, followed at an interval (which for the 60-jpounder 



.may be two or three seconds if the listener is in the 

 line of fire) by a dull boom, which is the true sound 

 of the firing of the piece. This boom is a much duller 

 and heavier sound, which shakes buildings, but does 

 not hurt the ear. The sharp crack is not produced 



'by the gun directly, but by the shell during its flight, 

 and then only if the inidal velocity of the shell exceeds 



ithat of sound, as is the case with all modern guns. . . . 

 The interval between the two sounds is greatest in 

 the line of fire; as one walks to a flank it becomes less 



.and less, until fina'ly only one sound, that of the 

 gun itself, is heard, the same sound that is heard 

 behind the gun. The zone within which the double 



•sound is heard is bounded by lines from the gun, 

 making an angle of somewhere about 45°-65° on 



• either side the line of fire, varying with the initial 

 velocity of the shell and also with the angle of elevation 

 at which it is fired." Dr. Andrade points out that this 



•shell-wave accounts for the fact that for an observer 



•some distance in front of the batteries taking part in a 

 bombardment the noise is much more trying to the ear 



rthan for one an equal distance to the rear of the 



NO. 2497, VOL. 100] 



i batteries, quite apart from the noise of the enemies' 

 j guns. Owing to the shell-wave being directed, and 



also originated, in the air well above such obstacles as 

 1 trees and houses, it carries farther than the gun-wave, 

 ; and is often the only sound heard of the enemies' guns, 

 i the true noise of the discharge of the piece being lost 



if the gun is far back behind the enemies' lines. 



In his paper on " Masks and Acting," published as 

 No. 7 of Occasional Publications of the Classical Asso- 

 ciation, Dr. F. B. Jevons remarks that while of late 

 years classical scholars, both of Oxford and Cambridge, 

 have paid increasing attention to anthropology as well 

 as to the classics, it is surprising how little discussion 

 has been devoted to the possibility that there may be 

 some connection between the use of masks in the per- 

 formance of savage mysteries and in the performance 

 of the Greek drama. Outside Europe masks and act- 

 ing are part of the commemoration of the dead, and 

 also form an element in the worship both of vegeta- 

 tion spirits and of theriomorphic spirits. A presump- 

 tion is thus raised that similar rites were used in 

 Greece, and that these three types of observances 

 : eventually gave rise to tragedy, comedy, and the satyric 

 ' drama. This is corroborated by the mummers' plays 

 of England and modern Greece, and if the conjecture 

 be accepted, these mummers' plays spring from the 

 same source as did Greek comedy, and, like it, inherit 

 I their masks and acting from prehistoric times. 



I The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society now appears 

 I (vol. viii., part 3) after unavoidable delay caused by 

 j the war. The chief contribution to this number is a 

 I paper on " English Gypsy Folk-tales and other Tradi- 

 1 tional Stories," collected by Mr. T. W. Thompson, who 

 by long intercourse with branches of the tribe has 

 acquired a remarkable familiarity with their manners 

 and customs. Many gipsy folk-tales have already been 

 collected by Campbell, Groome, Sampson, Leland, 

 Hall, and others, and the material seemed to have 

 been fully gathered. Mr. Thompson has now dis- 

 I covered some old gipsies who possess a hitherto un- 

 known stock of traditions, and during six months he 

 I recorded no fewer than sixty marchen, drolls, and 

 j lying tales hitherto unknown. From the instalment of 

 his collection now published he is perhaps inclined to 

 i over-estimate the value of this new material, many of 

 I the tales being little more than trivial anecdotes. But 

 i there is much of substantial value, such as the fine 

 i tragical story of "The Robber and the Housekeeper " 

 and a gipsy version of " Jack and the Beanstalk." Mr. 

 Thompson appeals to students of folk-tales for assist- 

 ance in collecting parallels to the incidents with a 

 view to the publication of the entire collection at a 

 future time. 



In the Veterinary Revievj for August (vol. i., No. 3) 

 Capt. Frank Chambers, A.V.C., states that evidence 

 has been obtained that animal trypanosomiasis can 

 be and is spread in tsetse-free areas by the agency 

 of biting flies, of which the Tabanidae are the worst 

 offenders. This number also contains a further series 

 of abstracts of papers, which is such a valuable feature 

 of this journal. 



An address to nurses delivered by Dr. Mercier to 

 the nursing staff of The Retreat at York in 1909 has 

 been issued in booklet form ("The Ideal Nurse," The 

 Mental Culture Enterprise, 329 High Holborn, W.C.i, 

 price 15. 3d. net.). While written primarily^ for the 

 mental nurse, it contains a number of hints and 

 suggestions which would be of value to any nurse, 

 and these are presented to the reader in an attractive 

 form. 



The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly for April, which 

 has just reached us, contains a brief but interesting 



