June 3, 1897] 



NATURE 



109 



there was no preface, the editors were unable to say how very 

 much it owed to Mr. Wilson's skill and care. 



To the list of cave animals which appears in Dr. A. S. 

 Packard's monograph in the " Cave Fauna of North America " 

 must now be added seven forms which are new to science, and 

 ■veral forms which, while known, have not hitherto been 

 L'finitely reported from Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. This new 

 material is described by Dr. Ellsworth Call in the American 

 Naturalist (May). The specimens described are very minute, 

 and this fact is in itself sufificient to explain their late appearance 

 in lists of the cave fauna. The paper is a noteworthy contri- 

 bution to a knowledge of the life of the most interesting cave 

 on the American Continent. 



A REPRINT from the Transactions of the New York Academy 

 of Sciences gives an account of the results obtained by an ex- 

 pedition to Puget Sound, organised by the Department of Zoology 

 of Columbia University in the summer of 1895. The party 

 consisted of six members, under the leadership of Dr. Bashford 

 Dean. Their main object was to obtain materials for the study 

 of the development of the Chimeroid fish Hydrolagus, and eggs 

 and young of the Myxinoid form Bdellostoma, both known to be 

 abundant there. In both these respects success was achieved, 

 and large collections of other groups of marine animals were 

 secured for future study. 



Among noteworthy articles which have come under our notice 

 during the past few days are the following : — Dr. R. W. Shul- 

 feldt points out, in the Photogram (June), that many of the figures 

 throughout zoological literature are very frequently anything but 

 correct, depicting often the subject in impossible attitudes, badly 

 proportioned, and with erroneous portrayal of characters. To 

 assist in the improvement of this state of things, he describes 

 how photography should be called in with the view to secure 

 pictures of living animals for reproduction by photographic 

 processes. — The Century Magazine for May contains three well- 

 'llustrated articles on the construction and use of kites for 

 meteorological and photograph purposes. In the June number 

 of the same magazine, Mabel L. Todd describes the establish- 

 ment and work of the Harvard College Observatory. — An 

 address on "The Problems of Astronomy," delivered by Prof. 

 Simon Newcomb at the dedication of the Flower Observatory, 

 University of Pennsylvania, is printed in Science of May 21. 



Some further details, of great interest as to the ferment- 

 ation of sugar in the absence of yeast-cells (see Nature, 

 March 11, p. 442), are given in the current number of the 

 Berichte by Buc hner. The active extract of yeast very rapidly 

 loses its power of producing fermentation, owing probably to 

 the presence of peptic enzymes. The activity of the solution 

 is not affected by the presence of antiseptic substances, and the 

 solid residue left on evaporation at a low temperature is found 

 to yield an active solution, even after having been kept for 

 nearly three weeks. These facts seem to definitely prove that 

 the fermentation in these cases is not brought about by living 

 protoplasm in any form, but is really due to the substance 

 which the author has termed zymase. This is further confirmed 

 by the fact that dried yeast which has been heated at 100° for 

 six hours, and is incapable of further development, still yields 

 an active solution when treated with sterilised 37 percent, sugar 

 solution. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Chimpanzee (young) {Anthropopithecus 

 troglodytes, 9 ) from West Africa, presented by the Hon. Sir W. 

 Grantham ; a West African Sheep (^Ovis aries, var. S) from 

 West Africa, presented by H.E. Colonel F, Cardew, C.M.G.; 

 a Broad-snouted Cayman {Caiman latirostris) from South 

 NO. 1440, VOL. 56] 



America, presented by Mr. C. L. Hutchings ; an Olive-brown 

 Snake {Phrynonax fasciatus) irom Trinidad, presented by Mr. 

 R. R. Mole ; a Pleasant Antelope (Tragelapkus gratits, <J ), four 

 Royal Pythons (Python regius) from West Africa, thirteen 

 Cunningham's Skinks (Egernia cunninghami), two Punctulated 

 Tree Snakes (Dendrophis punctulatus) from Australia, de- 

 posited ; an Alpaca (Lama pcuos, <J ) from Peru ; two Red- 

 topped Amazons (Chrysotis rhodocorytha), three White-eared 

 Conures (Pyrrhura leucot is) from Brazil, purchased ; two Japanese 

 Deer (Cervus sika, i (J), a Red Deer (Cervtis elaphus,<i\ a 

 Burrhel Sheep (Ovis burrhel, 9 ), born in the Gardens. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



The Rotation Period ok Jupiter's Satellite HI.— 

 Mr. Douglass has quite recently determined the period of rota- 

 tion of Ganymede, Jupiter's third satellite, the period being 

 given as 7 days, 5 hours (Kiel Telegram). This satellite is the 

 brightest and largest of them all, and its sidereal revolution is 

 7 d. 3 h. 43 m., so that the period of rotation is practically the 

 same as the time of its orbital revolution. This observation 

 partly corroborates what Herschel concluded in 1797, namely, 

 that, like our moon, all the satellites of Jupiter turn the same 

 face towards their primary, thus always presenting to us, when 

 in the same relative situations, the same obscure or brilliant 

 sections of their globes. Engelmann's researches in 1 871, and 

 C. E. Burton's, two years later, made this statement of Herschel's 

 almost certain regarding the outer satellite, and since that time 

 it has always seemed probable that it would also apply to the 

 other three. This new observation of Mr. Douglass shows that 

 the deductions of the earlier observers were not very far from the 

 truth. 



Referring to this satellite in 1893, I^^of- W, H. Pickering 

 [Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. xii. p. 199) said: "On 

 account of its size and brightness, this is much the easiest 

 satellite to observe. Indeed, even the occasionally elliptical 

 shape of its disc has been noted by Lassell, Secchi and Burton. 

 . , . Like our moon, therefore, its period of rotation coincides, 

 at least approximately, with that of its revolution in its orbit. 

 ... Its surface markings are readily seen, especially during 

 transit, the most conspicuous being a dark belt situated in the 

 northern hemisphere, and inclined about fifteen degrees to its 

 orbit." 



Automatic Photography of the Corona. — The idea of 

 connecting several different kinds of instruments with some sort 

 of central automatic arrangement by which one man may work 

 them all during a total eclipse of the sun, is not new ; but 

 weather conditions have up to the present prevented any trial 

 being made at the time of an actual eclipse. Mr. David P. 

 Todd, who for the past few years has given considerable atten- 

 tion to this question, describes in the current number of the 

 A strophy sic al Journal (No. 5, vol. v.) the special automatic 

 shutter and electric commutator which was devised for the 

 Amherst Eclipse Expedition of last year, but which was, unfor- 

 tunately, not used owing to the bad weather. In all twenty 

 photographic instruments would have been worked by an auto- 

 matic system, which would have given more than four hundred 

 exposures with several types of reflecting and refracting telescopes, 

 photographic doublets, a pair of spectroscopes, photometers, and 

 a pair of polariscopes. 



The system which Mr. Todd advocates is an electric system of 

 control, and he has found that it is perfectly competent to operate 

 any available number of eclipse instruments adapted for photo- 

 graphic purposes ; it further makes the time record of every 

 automatic movement in a form which can be identified. 



It would be difficult to give the reader a clear idea of this 

 arrangement without the medium of an illustration ; so that we 

 refer him to Mr. Todd's article for detailed information. 



The Gegenschein or Zodiacal Counterglow. — In 

 some former numbers of \\\c Astronomical Jourtial (A. J. , vii. 

 186, xi. 19, and xiii. 169), Prof. Barnard contributed his 

 observations of this phenomenon as seen at the Lick Obser- 

 vatory. His communication to a more recent number (No. 

 403) of the same journal contains some further observations 

 of considerable interest made at the Yerkes Observatory. He 



