i6 



NA TURE 



[May 6, 1897 



important opportunities sometimes wasted by curiosity-hunters. 

 Thirst House is probably derived from " The Hurst House," or 

 the house in the wood. An interesting and iUustrated account 

 of the find is given, by J. Ward, in The Reliqitary and Illustrated 

 Archctologist {\%(y] , p. 87). 



F. H. CusHiNC, in the American Anthropologist (vol. x. p. 17), 

 suggests that the artificial deformation of the skull, like other 

 mutilations of the person, were designed to liken a man either 

 to his totem or to the animal whose distinguishing traits were 

 essential to the ofhce held by the man, and thus to confer through 

 actual physical resemblance ideally conceived animal powers. 

 The evidence Mr. Gushing adduces from America lends some 

 support to this view, which may be an explanation of some, if 

 not of all, the mutilations that have occurred in America. This 

 theory is worth bearing in mind when considering analogous 

 facts in other parts of the world. 



The question of suppressing the rabbit pest in Australia by 

 employing the microbes of chicken cholera for their destruction, 

 has been recently again brought prominently forward by the 

 publication of an able report by the Government bacteri- 

 ologist, Mr. G. J. Pound. This idea owes its origin, in 

 the first instance, to Pasteur ; but one of the principal ob- 

 jections raised at the time to its adoption in New South 

 Wales was the reluctance felt to introduce a new disease^ 

 and one hitherto unknown in the Colony. ■Mr. Pound, how- 

 ever, commences his official document by the announcement 

 that he has discovered the existence of chicken cholera in 

 Queensland and New South Wales ; and he describes in detail 

 the various scientific investigations which he has made, placing 

 its identification beyond all question. Experiments on a large 

 scale were carried out last year to test the efficacy of this method 

 of destroying rabbits ; and the results were so encouraging, that 

 the Government has been recommended to grant permission to 

 farmers and others, who suffer from the depredations of these 

 animals, to utilise this means of suppressing them. It has been 

 calculated that two gallons of broth infected with chicken- 

 cholera microbes added to pollard, is sufficient to destroy at 

 least 20,000 rabbits, irrespective of infection induced by con- 

 tagion. As, however, pellets of pollard infected with these 

 microbes are rendered completely innocuous after three hours' 

 exposure to the (Jirect rays of the sun, the distribution of the 

 morbific material over the fields is recommended to take place 

 either just before or after sun-down. 



The Vermont Botanical Glub, organised two years ago, now 

 numbers sixty active members. It is vigorously prosecuting a 

 botanical survey of the State. 



We have received the eighth part of vol. i. of the " Records 

 of the Botanical Survey of India," consisting of a note on the 

 botany of the Baluch-Afghan Boundary Gommission of 1896, by 

 Mr. F. P. Maynard and Mr. D. Prain. 



A SECOND Appendix for 1897 of the Ketv Bulletin of Miscel- 

 laneous Information is devoted to a list of plants brought into 

 cultivation for the first time during the year 1896, or re-intro- 

 duced after having been lost from cultivation. The list includes 

 over 300 species. 



The recently established New York Botanical (warden is on a 

 very large scale. The buildings, with decorative approaches 

 and surroundings, will cover 25 acres ; pines and other coniferous 

 trees, 30 acres ; deciduous trees, 70 acres ; natural forest, 

 mostly undisturbed, 25 acres ; shrubs and small trees, 15 acres ; 

 herbaceous ground for scientific arrangement, 8 acres ; bog 

 garden, 5 acres ; lakes and ponds, 6 acres ; meadows, 10 acres. 

 The museum building will have a frontage of 304 feet, with two 

 wjngs each 200 feet in length. 



NO, 1436, VOL. 56] 



There are several ways of cultivating interest in science, am 

 not the least serviceable of them are works of fiction into whicL 

 scientific facts and problems are woven. Mr. H. G. Well 

 commences a new story in the April number of Pearson's Maga- 

 zine, entitled " The War of the Worlds," and its chief idea is an 

 attack which inhabitants of Mars are supposed to make upon 

 the earth. It is evident from many paragraphs that Mr. Wells 

 reads his Nature, and closely follows the jjlanetary observations, 

 described in our astronomical column from time to time. 



A NUMBER of our readers will be glad to have their attention 

 called to the advertisement, appearing in another column, of a 

 cruise to the capitals of the Baltic, visiting Ghristiania, Copen- 

 hagen, Stockholm (for the exhibition), and on to St. Petersburg 

 for a seven days' sojourn in Moscow, returning by the Baltic 

 Canal. The cruise is by the Albion Steamship Company's steam 

 yacht Norse King, and starts from Newcastle-on-Tyne oa 

 May 22, returning on June 19. 



The extensive use of induction coils in surgical and physio- 

 logical work with Rontgen rays, has created a demand for a 

 practical book which shall show medical men, and others who 

 have entered the new field of experiment, how to make the best 

 use of their instruments. Mr. Lewis Wright, the author of 

 well-known books on experimental optics and optical projection, 

 has prepared a work of this kind, and it will be published in a 

 few days by Messrs. Macmillan and Go. under the title, ' ' The 

 Induction Coil in Practical Work, including Rontgen X-Rays." 



Among the noteworthy papers and other publications which 

 have come under our notice within the past few days are the fol- 

 lowing :— The Comptes rendus of the works presented at the 

 meetings of the Societe Helvetique des Sciences Naturelles, 

 held at Zermatt in 1895, and at Zurich in 1896 ; also the Actes 

 ( Verhandhmgen) of the same meetings. Th e London agents of 

 these publications are Messrs. Williams and Norgate. — " Le 

 Glimat de la Belgique en 1896 " (pp. 190), by A. Lancaster. This 

 essay is an excerpt from the Annnaire of the Royal Observatory 

 at Brussels for 1897. — The third part of the Report of the 

 International Meteorological Congress held at Chicago in 

 August 1893 (pp. 585-772), edited by Oliver L. Fassig {Bulletin 

 No. II, U.S. . Department of Agriculture, Weather Bureau). 

 The report contains twelve papers on climatology, and ten on 

 instruments and methods of investigation. All the papers are in 

 English, and together they make a collection which British 

 meteorologists will highly value. — Proceedings of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, for the meeting 

 held at Buffalo in August 1896 (pp. 269). The addresses of the 

 retiring President, Prof. E. W. Morley, and of the Presidents of 

 the different Sections are printed in full, but only the titles of 

 the papers read are given. — Proceedings and Transactions of the 

 Nova Scotian Institute of Science, 1895-96. Among the sub- 

 jects of the papers are the calculation of the conductivity of 

 mixtures of electrolytes, and Nova Scotian undeveloped coal- 

 fields, geology, and Orthoptera. — Bulletin of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, vol. viii., 1896 (pp. 327). Several 

 of the articles in this publication have already been noticed in. 

 Nature, from authors' separate papers. Attention may, how- 

 ever, usefully be called to papers on alleged changes of colour ia 

 the feathers of birds without moulting, catalogue of meteorites in 

 the American Museum of Natural History, the temple of Te- 

 poztlan, Mexico (illustrated by five plates), descriptions of new 

 North American mammals, notes on birds observed in Yucatan, 

 and transformations of some North American Hawk-Moths. — 

 Atti della reale Accademia delle scienze fisiche e matematiche di 

 Napoli, second series, vol. viii., 1897. Eleven memoirs are 

 included in this volume, and among the subjects dealt with are : 

 a class of equations with derived partials, microscopic changes 

 in nerve cells due to functional activity, and under the action of 



