February 21, 19 18] 



NATURE 



489 



I 



longer receive the daily time-signals transmitted from 

 the Kiffel Tower. At the urgent request of several 

 establishments, the Swiss Administration of Telegraphs 

 and Telephones decided to arrange for the retrans- 

 mission of such signals, by telephone, as received from 

 the Paris Observatory. Since August, 19 16, therefore, 

 Swiss telephone subscribers have thus been able to 

 receive, by telephone each day, between 10.56 and 

 II aim., the Eiffel Tower signals transmitted to Berne 

 and repeated simultaneously. In a recent communica- 

 tion to the Swiss Geophysical Society (quoted in ha 

 Xaftire for February 2), M. Paul Ditisheim, the 

 rminent Swiss horologist, states that this service has 

 worked perfectly, and that the signals transmitted in 

 this manner do not vary more than ±0087 sec. from 

 the time as transmitted from Paris. 



Replying to a number of questions raised by the 

 vote for a supplementary sum of 4000/. for expenditure 

 in respect of art and science buildings in connection 

 with the Civil Service Supplementary Estimates, Sir 

 A. Mond said, in the House of Commons on Monday, 

 February 18, that the Imperial Institute was partly 

 occupied for the sugar rationing purposes of the Minis- 

 try. As to the new Science Museum, it was in course 

 of construction, and incomplete. It had been repre- 

 sented that the work of construction ought to be con- 

 tinued during the war, but he was not in a position 

 to complete the construction of museums in existing 

 circumstances. Corsiderable expense had been in- 

 curred in making the finished part of the building suit- 

 able for the work now to be done there. Museums 

 now wholly or partly occupied by Government Depart- 

 ments were" the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the 

 Wallace Gallery, the Victoria and Albert JJluseum, and 

 the British Museum, of which a small part had been 

 taken over. The vote was agreed to. 



The Norwich Public Library has received for its 

 extensive local collection a valuable donation from Mr. 

 A. -H. IPatterson, the well-known Norfolk naturalist. 

 On Tuesday, February 19, the Norwich City Council 

 passed a resolution of thanks to Mr. Patterson for his 

 generous gift -of "a large and valuable collection of 

 his writings and sketches, comprising his manuscript 

 notebooks from 1878 to 1916 (including original draw- 

 ings, printed articles, and letters), a complete set of 

 his published works relating to the natural history of 

 Norfolk, and about a thousand of his political, foot- 

 ball, and fishing cartoons of local interest." 'Mr. 

 Patterson has had the opportunity of making continu- 

 ous observations for about forty years in a district — 

 the Norfolk estuary (Breydon) — which is particularly 

 attractive to naturalists. It is one of best districts in 

 the country for observation of fishes arid birds, includ- 

 ing a large number of bird immigrants, some of which 

 are extremely rare visitants to our shores. Great suc- 

 cess has attended his unceasing vigilance, and he has 

 been aWe to make valuable additions to the list of Nor- 

 folk fauna, particularly fishes. His notebo6ks are a 

 mine of valuable information, for in them since 1878 

 he has recorded day by day his careful observations of 

 the fauna, and has preserved notes of curious and in- 

 terestinif specimens which 'have been brought to him, 

 pen-arid-ink ^k^tches, and coloured drawings of in- 

 teresting examples, and letters from other naturalists 

 regarding his work. 



At the opening ceremony of the Bose Research In- 

 stitute at Calcutta, the founder. Sir J. C. Bose, delivered 

 an address, published in the Pioneer Mail of December 

 8 last, in which he pointed out that thirty-two years 

 I go, when he began the teaching of science, it was 

 :4enerally supposed that the Hindu mind, immersed in 

 metaphysical speculation, was unable to undertake 



NO. 2521, VOL. 100] 



scientific inquiries. There were then no well-equipped 

 laboratories, no skilled mechanicians. '"Twenty-three 

 years ago some of the most difficult problems connected 

 with electric -waves found their solution in my labora- 

 tory, and received high appreciation from Lord Kelvin, 

 Lord Rayleigh, and others. The Royal Society honours 

 me by publishing my discoveries and offering an appro- 

 priation from a special Parliamentary grant." He 

 added : — "The work alreiidy carried out in my labora- 

 tory on the response of matter and plant-life has 

 opened out very' extended regions of inquiry in physics, 

 physiology, medicine, and psychology; but high suc- 

 cess is not to be obtained without corresponding experi- 

 mental exactitude ; hence the instruments and appa- 

 ratus designed here which stand before you in our 

 entrance hall." The institute is admirably equipped 

 for the special research which its staff intends to under- 

 take. An interesting feature is a small garden of sensi- 

 tive plants. A large double tracing is being auto- 

 matically made in two parallel curves, one recording 

 atmospheric changes, while the other summarises the 

 responses of a large tree to these changing conditions 

 for every minute of the twenty-four hours. 



Some exceptionally large stone implements discovered 

 in 1887-88 near the Johnstone River, on the Pacific 

 coast of Queensland, are described in the February 

 issue of Man by Mr H. Ling Roth. The materials; 

 from which they are made are an altered diabase,, 

 argillaceous and micaceous grit, and an arenaceous, 

 shale. One implement measures 16-5 cm. by 109 cm. by 

 2-9 cm. Dr. Walter E. Roth, who made someinquirres- 

 regarding them, states that at the present-day such 

 stone axe-heads are not used— in fact, no stone axes 

 are used. They seem to have been procured from 

 quarries, one about ninety miles from the scene of the 

 discovery. Dr. Roth found, in the neighbourhood -Of 

 Boulia, an axe-head measuring 9 in. in its greatest 

 diameter — considerably larger than any in the collec- 

 tion now described. These appear to be the largest 

 dressed stones hitherto found in Australia, but ^the 

 BankfieM Museum possesses a similar implement from 

 Lifu, 'Loyalty Islands, formed of impure jade. It is 

 not so large as some of the big New Caledonian stones 

 fastened: at right angles to a handle by sinnet passed 

 through two holes in the stone. 



According to an investigation on the "Diet, Nutri- 

 tion, and Excretion of Asiatic Races in Singapore," 

 undertaken byiProf. J. Argyll 'Campbell, and published 

 in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asia- 

 tic Society in 1917, the -energy value of the diet of :a 

 Chinese, a Tamil, or a Malay medical student was 

 only about 1600 Calories. That of a Brahmin was 

 higher, but, the diet being vegetable, was to a large 

 extent unutilised. To compare with this, we may take 

 the diet of an Anglo-Indian, according to McCay, which 

 was 2800 Calories, and that of a Filipino, which w:as 

 2630 Calories. It is syggested that the low^enecgy 

 value of the Singapore diet may be due to the morst 

 atmosphere, which retards loss of heat by evaporation, 

 so that less food is required. Another contributory 

 cause is 'the small amount of muscular exercise taken 

 by the Singapore student. Although Europeans in the 

 tropics are not inclined to take much exercise, they 

 cannot keep healthy on a European diet unless they 

 do so. The author found the Singapore students to 

 do as much brain work as his previous European 

 students did. 



In a letter written on Christmas Day, 1917, from 

 Dongonab, via Port Sudan, Nubia, Mr." Cyril Cross-- 

 land reports his having found a species of Ophio- 

 glossum growing in a patch of disintegrated coral just 

 below the top of a cliff 136 ft. high on Rawaya penin- 



