February 2, 1893] 



NATURE 



325 



faces of these stones are plane, bearing a number of grooves 

 parallel to the length, forming ridges like those seen on Poly- 

 nesian tapa mallets. The implements resemble closely, he thinks, 

 those used by many different peoples in beating out fibrous bark 

 for clothing, paper, &c. Mr. Hough suggests that they may have 

 been used for purposes of this kind in prehistoric times, and that 

 they may give some insight into the manufacture of (he paper 

 on which the Mexican codices are painted. 



Mud Gorge, on the Hurnai route to Quetta, has been giving 

 much trouble to the engineers engaged in the construction of the 

 new railway. Landslips are frequent, and an unusually bad one 

 has occurred within the last few weeks. On this occasion the 

 hill, according to the Pioneer Mail, slipped in such a way " as 

 to lift the rails bodily up and turn ^them over, sleepers upper- 

 most. " The mountain is said to be a great porous mass of clayey 

 soil with large boulders imbedded therein, and it sucks in 

 moisture like a sponge. After heavy rain it begins to move 

 •downwards, and even in dry weather disintegration goes on with 

 disastrous results to the railway. New fissures are reported to 

 have appeared hundreds of yards up the slopes above the line, 

 and each of these indicates that thousands of tons of earth and 

 boulders will sooner or later find a lower level. A committee 

 of experts has been appointed by the Indian Government to 

 examine the mountain thoroughly, and the Pioneer Mail truly 

 says that "if they succeed in devising a means to conquer it they 

 will achieve a notable feat in engineering." 



Dr. Low, President of Columbia College, New York, has 

 been slating in the American Educational Review his impres- 

 sions as to the condition and tendencies of the higher education 

 in the United States. One of the points on which he strongly 

 insists is that a general college training should be considered 

 necessary before students begin their University education in 

 theology, law, and medicine. "The prophetic eye," he says, 

 " can even now discern the day when a college education will 

 be a condition precedent for entrance into the professional 

 schools of the American university. This will not mean that 

 only college-trained men will make good practitioners in law or 

 medicine, for example, nor that only col lege- trained men are 

 entitled to a professional education. It will rather mean, I 

 think, that the university will then have fully realised its own 

 obligation to the country to send forth into professional life, in 

 all parts of the land, men of a thorough and wide equipment." 



Arch^ologists have observed that in Greek statues the 

 male eye is strongly arched, while the female eye has rather a 

 flattened surface ; and referring to accounts by the older anato- 

 mists who have affirmed such a difference to exist, they have seen 

 in this a fresh proof of the exact 'observation of nature by the 

 ancient Greeks. The rule is not without exceptions, for the 

 cornea in the Zeus of Otricoli has quite a flat form. Herr 

 Greef recently set himself {Archiv fiir Anat.) to inquire whether 

 such a sexual difference actually exists, and from individual 

 measurement of the radius of the cornea in the horizontal meri- 

 dian, he gets an average of 7-83 mm. for men, and 7-82 mm. for 

 women (Bonders gives 7*858 and 7799), so the difference is so 

 small as to be imperceptible to the naked eye. Measurement 

 of other dimensions gave but minute differences also. The 

 author concludes that the Greeks (from artistic motives) did not 

 in this case follow nature. 



The difference between the aspect of the sky at full moon and 

 the clear and deep azure observed on a moonless night is ex- 

 plained by M. Clemence Royer in his " Recherches d'Optique 

 Physiologique et Physique" on the basis of some observations 

 made by M. Piltschikoff. In studying the polarising action of 

 the moon on the atmosphere, the latter found that the propor- 

 NO. 1214, VOL. 47] 



tion of polarised light in the nocturnal sky diminishes continu- 

 ously from the time of the full moon up to that of the new 

 moon, when it becomes zero, subsequently to increase again 

 until the time of full moon. There appears to be a struggle 

 between the polarised light of the moon and the so-called 

 natural light of the stars, and the proportion of polarised light 

 sometimes reaches 62 per cent. The diffusing power of the 

 atmosphere necessarily varies with the relative proportions of 

 natural and of polarised light, since the latter is not capable of 

 reflection in all directions. Hence we see why very serene but 

 moonless nights may yet be relatively very clear, and the sky of 

 a beautiful sombre blue, whereas the white light of the moon, 

 reflected, diffused, and polarised, tends to give the sky a tint of 

 a paler and somewhat greyish blue. 



At the last annual meeting of the American Association of 

 Official Agricultural Chemists, the Proceedings of which have 

 just been issued, Mr. N. T. Lupton referred in his presidential 

 address to the immense phosphate beds in the south-western part 

 of Florida. Last winter a visit was paid to some of the localities 

 where deposits are found, and samples were collected for 

 analysis. They were of two varieties, which may be called hard 

 and £oft. The hard variety consists of boulders of moderately 

 hard rock, some of immense size, cemented together with 

 white clay. A white and friable mass resembling kaolin is 

 occasionally found. This is probably produced by the natural 

 disintegration of the hard rock by rolling, attrition, or con- 

 cussion. The deposits vary in thickness. A depth of 20 or 

 30 feet is not uncommon, and even a thickness of 50 feet has been 

 found. Assome, especially foreign, manufacturers object to buying 

 phosphates which contain over 3 per cent, of oxides of iron and 

 aluminium, large quantities of these materials have accumulated 

 at the mines. A few manufacturers, aware of the agricultural 

 value of South Carolina floats, have established mills in Florida 

 for pulverising these soft aluminous deposits, which are sold to 

 farmers for use without conversion into soluble phosphates. 

 Experiments are now in progress on the Alabama Experiment 

 Station, under control of the chemist, to determine the chemical 

 composition and agricultural value of these soft phosphates 

 when used alone with cotton seed and with cotton-seed meal. If 

 decomposing organic matter, as is believed, renders insoluble 

 phosphates available as plant food to any considerable extent, 

 Mr. Lupton thinks that the question of cheap phosphates will 

 be solved, and that the American farmer will be enabled to 

 purchase fertilisers at a much less cost than at present. 



Messrs. W. H. Allen and Co. have issued the thirty- 

 seventh thousand of Dr. M, C. Cooke's " Manual of Structural 

 Botany." The book is intended for the use of classes, schools, 

 and private students. 



The February number of Natural Science includes, among 

 other things, articles on some problems of the distribution of 

 marine animals, by Otto Maas ; on Pasteur's method of inocu- 

 lation and its hypothetical explanation, by G. W. Bulman ; the 

 industries of the Maoris, by J. W. Davis ; some recent re- 

 searches on insect anatomy, by G. H. Carpenter ; parasites on 

 algas, by G. Murray ; the underground waste of the land, by 

 H. B. Woodward ; Owen (concluded), by A. S. Woodward ; 

 and the restoration of extinct animals. 



The following are the arrangements for science lectures at the 

 Royal Victoria Hall during February : — Feb. 7, Mr. J. Scott 

 Keltic, on Africa and its people ; Feb. 14, Mr. E. Wethered, 

 on interesting objects under a microscope ; Feb. 21, Mr. 

 J. T. Leon, on breathing and burning ; Feb. 28, Dr. H. 

 Forster Morley, on chemistry of life. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include seven Azara's Opossums {Didelphys azara) 



