May 20, 1897] 



NATURE 



61 



Idaho, the principal part of the Bitter Rest Mountain region in 

 Montana and Idaho, the Cascade Mountains of the Yosemite 

 National Park, the San Jacinto Mountains in Southern CaU- 

 fornia, and the Uintah Mountains in Northern Utah. The 

 selection of these forest lands was made by the Commission 

 appointed by the National J Academy of Sciences. Strong 

 opposition has been made to the appropriation by private 

 owners. 



"The Florentine Crickets" is the title of an interesting 

 essay in the folk-lore of these insects, by Sophia Beale, in The 

 Reliijuary and Illustrated Archceologist (vol. iii,, 1897, p. 65). 

 In Florence, at the Festival of the Ascension, "all the inhabi- 

 tants prance about carrying little cages dangling from their 

 fingers. It is an ancient custom, its origin is as vague as the 

 date of its institution, but all agree that the little beasts, which 

 are imprisoned in the cages, are a species of talisman — an omen 

 for good or evil to the person who possesses them." 



The re arrangement of the Free Public Museums of Liverpool 

 is rapidly progressing under the administration of Dr. II O. 

 Forbes. He recognises that Anthropology, or rather that portion 

 of it which is now sometimes termed Anthropography, is a 

 branch of Biology, and so he has devoted a gallery to an ex- 

 position of the main races of men at the end of the series of 

 galleries allocated to the Vertebrates. The collection formsjan 

 instructive introduction to Ethnology, and we hope that he will 

 be able to make it more complete as opportunities present them- 

 selves. The Ethnographical collections, which are in another 

 part of the building, are well displayed, and contain many 

 interesting objects. These collections, together with the well- 

 known Archaeological treasures in the Museums, afford a good 

 foundation for Anthropological studies in Liverpool. 



The i^^r^ra'j of the Geological Survey of India (vol.xxx. part l) 

 contain the full account of a palaeo-botanical discovery which 

 has been made independently and simultaneously in India and 

 in South Africa. The fossil plant-structure long known under 

 the name of Vertebraria is now shown to be nothing else than 

 the rhizome of the fern Glossopteris, which has given its name to 

 the remarkable flora of the Gondvvana-bads of the southern 

 hemisphere. The specimen-; figured by Mr. R. D. Oldham 

 show the association of leaf and rhizome clearly, as also do those 

 described by M. Zeiller from near Johannesburg. 



M. Emile Muller, Professor in the Lycee of Tashkent, 

 sends to the Sociele de Geographie an extract from an account 

 of an expedition on the Pamirs by Messrs. Olifsen and 

 Filipsen, Danish officers, describing a remarkable tribe of 

 dwarfs discovered in a little-known part of this region. The 

 men of this tribe are invariably of exceedingly small stature, 

 and a similar dwarfish habit extends to the domestic animals ; 

 the oxen of this district are about the size of donkeys, donkeys 

 are no bigger than dogs, while goats and sheep are mere 

 miniatures. In the original account published in the Russian 

 journal, Pravitelstvenni Viestnik, for January 11/23, the 

 explorers ascribed these anomalies to the exceptional environ- 

 ment and the arrested development due to the great scarcity of 

 food. The tribe in question is entirely savage, badly armed, 

 and wholly occupied in hunting ; their religion is a species of 

 fire-worship. 



Among recent papers dealing with optical theories in general, 

 we would call attention to Herr Paul Glan's interesting series of 

 theoretical investigations on elastic bodies and light, in IViede- 

 matin's Annalen, where results are found agreeing remarkably 

 well with those obtained by experiment with Rontgen and ultra- 

 violet rays ; to a short paper in the Berliner Sitzungsberichte, 

 by Prof. H. Rubens and E. F. Nichols, on the observation of 

 NO. 1438, VOL. 56] 



electric resonance in heat rays of great wave-length ; to a lengthy 

 memoir, by Prof. G. Quesneville, on the double elliptic refraction 

 of quartz (Paris, Offices of the Monilenr Sctentifique, 1896), in 

 which the author criticises MacCullagh's theory ; and to Prof. 

 Augusto Righi's two papers in the Atti del Lincei, vi. 6— one 

 on the elliptic polarisation of electromagnetic waves and their 

 ellipsoid of polarisation in selenite, the other dealing with the 

 absorption of electro-magnetic waves. 



Prof. G. O. Sars, who has for many years been specially 

 engaged in the study of the various groups of Crustacea, has in 

 preparation a complete account of the Crustacea of Norway, 

 and his work is now in course of publication by the Bergen 

 Museum. All the known Norwegian species will be described, 

 and will be accompanied by carefully drawn figures of all the 

 forms. Parts iii. and iv. of vol. i., containing descriptions and 

 illustrations of members of five families of Isopods, viz. 

 Anthuridae, Gnathiidse, .(^gidae, Cirolanidae, and Limnoriida;, 

 have just been issued. 



Somewhat late in the season we have received from Mr. 

 Murray a new editicn of his " Handbook for Travellers in Lower 

 and Upper Egypt," which has been practically re-written and 

 edited by Miss Brodrick, Prof. Sayce, and Captain Lyons, R.E. 

 It has long been known that the late Sir G. Wilkinson's " Guide " 

 was antiquated, and many of his views and conclusions have 

 for some time past been shown to be untrustworthy, notwith- 

 standing their excellence forty or fifty years ago. Mr. Murray's 

 new work is well printed on thin paper, and takes up less room 

 than the earlier editions ; we venture to think that a " Guide " in 

 one volume is always more useful than one in two. We welcome 

 the new maps with which the book is furnished, and every one 

 who takes any interest in hieroglyphics will rejoice that the old 

 wood-blocks of the cartouches of the kings' prsenomens and 

 nomens have been replaced by legible hieroglyphic type. A 

 special feature of the book is the Arabic Vocabulary ; and 

 although it is hard to understand on what principle the words 

 have been selected, it will, no doubt, be useful to the intelligent 

 visitor to Egypt. 



Messrs. George Houghton & Son, photographic manu- 

 facturers and dealers, have just published a comprehensive 

 illustrated catalogue of photographic apparatus and materials. 



Many chemists have at various times expressed the view that 

 the acid amides, such as acetamide and benzamide, have not the 

 constitution which is usually assigned to them, NHj . R = O, 

 but are in reality hydroxy-derivatives of the formula NH = R. OH 

 An important contribution to this subject is made in the current 

 number of the Berichte by W. Eschweiler, who has suc- 

 ceeded in preparing a new isomeride of glycoUamide, 



CHafOH) . C"^ , which differs entirely in properties from 



that compound, and appears to be the hydroxy-compound 



CH.2(0H).C<^ . The new compound is obtained by 



heating the corresponding nitrile, CH2(OH).CN, with water 

 to a high temperature, and, like glycoUamide, is converted into 

 glycoUic acid by the action of alkalis. The author has obtained 

 similar isomerides of a number of other acid amides, the full 

 description of which will be awaited with interest. 



The current number of the Zeitschrift fiir Physikalische 

 C>4«wiV contains a paper, by Prof. Ostwald, on the crystallisation 

 of super-saturated solutions and of super-cooled liquids, which 

 adds considerably to our knowledge of this little-studied subject. 

 The chief difficulty of the experiments is caused by accidental 

 infection of the solutions by particles of solid dust. This may 

 be avoided by a proper choice of substances, and it may then be 



