December io, 1891] 



NATURE 



35 



Principal J. L. Thompson, of the Hawkesbury Agricultural 

 College, New South Wales, has no doubt that the climate and 

 much of the soil of Australia are well suited for the culture of 

 the olive. All that is needed, he thinks, is an adequate supply 

 of labour. He himself has been very successful in preserving 

 green olives ; and in a paper on the subject in the August number 

 of the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales he gives the 

 following account of the system adopted. The olives are very 

 carefully picked from the trees when about full grown, but 

 perfectly green. They should be handled like eggs. If they are 

 bruised in any way, they will become black and decompose. In 

 the green state, olives contain gallic acid, which gives them an 

 acrid taste. To remove this they are first of all steeped in alkaline 

 water, made either of wood ashes, lime water, or washing soda ; 

 of the latter, about three or four ounces to the gallon of water. 

 As soon as the lye has penetrated through the pulp, which is 

 usually in from eight to ten hours, they are put into clean water 

 and steeped until all acrid and alkaline taste has been removed. 

 During that time the water is changed every day. They are then 

 put into brine, composed of one pound of salt to each gallon of 

 water, and kept carefully covered with a thick linen cloth, for if 

 exposed to the air they will turn black. They are finally put 

 up in air-tight jars. 



The Meteorological Department of the Government of India 

 has published Part IV. of "Cyclone Memoirs," being an inquiry 

 into the nature and course of storms in the Arabian Sea, and a 

 catalogue and. brief history of all recorded cyclones in that sea 

 from 1648 to 1889. The work, which has been prepared by 

 Mr. \V. L. Dallas, chiefly for the use of mariners navigating 

 those parts, will no doubt be of considerable use to them, as 

 hitherto there were no track charts of the storms in the Arabian 

 Sea for the different months. For the majority of the storms 

 quoted the available materials are admittedly very scanty ; 

 nevertheless, the author has been able to draw some useful con- 

 clusions from them, with reference to the general behaviour of 

 the storn^s. The paper is divided into two parts — the first gives 

 the details of each of fifty-four storms in chronological order, 

 the second treats of their geographical distribution and move- 

 ments according to months and seasons, and the discussion is 

 followed by charts showing the tracks of the storms in the 

 different months. The cyclones are formed on the northern 

 limits of the south-west monsoon ; when the northern limits of 

 the monsoon reach the land, and also when the northeast 

 monsoon extends from Asia to the equator, which is the case 

 from December to March, no cyclones are formed over the 

 Arabian Sea. The barometric fall is gradual and equal on all 

 sides, except near the centre, and a depression of o"25 inch 

 below the average is indicative of the exis:ence of a cyclone in 

 the neighbourhood. When the storms are in confined waters 

 they may burst with great suddenness, but in other cases strong 

 winds are felt for several hundred miles around the centre. The 

 northern parts of the Arabian Sea are liable, during the pre- 

 valence of the north-east monsoon, to be disturbed by small 

 cyclonic storms descending fiom the highlands of Persia and 

 Beluchistan, but the whole of the south-west of the Arabian Sea, 

 though liable to southwest gales during the summer monsoon, 

 and to strong north-east winds duri ng the winter monsoon, is 

 free from cyclones. 



Dr. Stirling's Notoryctes typhlops, the lately discovered 

 Australian animal, to which we have repeatedly called attention, 

 forms the subject of an interesting note in the "Hand-List of 

 Australian Mammals," by J. Douglas Ogilby, an advance copy 

 of a portion of which has been forwarded to us. The con- 

 clusion at which Mr. Ogilby has arrived, after an exhaustive 

 study of Dr. Stirling's pamphlet, is that in this animal we have 

 at last obtained a definite connecting link between the Mono- 

 tremes and the Marsupials. At the present stage of our know- 

 NO. 1154, VOL. 45] 



ledge it would, he thinks, be presumptuous to class Notoryctes 

 among the Monotremes proper, although several leading 

 naturalists incline to the opinion that its affinities are closer to 

 these mammals than to the Marsupials. He prefers for the 

 present to look upon it as an aberrant Polyprotodont. 



The Institute of Jamaica has isued the first number of a 

 Journal which is to contain, among other things, contributions 

 regarding newly discovered flora and fauna of the island, and 

 articles dealing with botany and kindred sciences. Four 

 parts will be published in the year. In this first number there 

 are excellent notes, by Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell, on the trans- 

 formation of some Jamaica Lepidoptera. He points out that, 

 although many species of butterflies and moths have been 

 described from Jamaica, the transformations of very few are 

 known. 



Dr. a. H. Post, the well-known anthropologist, describing 

 in this week's Globus various marriage customs, refers to a 

 strange sort of symbolical marriage which is supposed to have 

 originated in India. It is a marriage with trees, plants 

 animals, or inanimate objects. If anyone proposes to enter 

 upon a union which is not in accordance with traditional ideas, 

 it is believed that the ill-luck which iv sure to follow may be 

 averted by a marriage of this kind, the evil consequences being 

 borne by the object chosen. In various regions a girl must not 

 marry before her elder sisters, but in some parts of Southern 

 India the difficulty is overcome by the eldest daughter marrying 

 the branch of a tree. Then the wedding of the second daughter 

 may safely be celebrated. Dr. Post gives several other instances, 

 which are likely to be new to many students of anthropology. 



According to an official French Report, the copper mines of 

 French Congo are likely to prove of considerable importance. 

 They lie in the district around the sources of the Ludima-Niadi, 

 about two days' journey south of Stephanieville. The ore is 

 malachite, which is brought to the surface by about 350 negroes. 

 Their methods of woik are extremely simple. They reach the 

 malachite by digging out, with implements of hard wood, holes 

 or shafts three feet wide and twice as deep. The malachite is 

 broken on the ground, and afterwards, when pulverized, put 

 into a furnace on a tray with charcoal, on which bellows are 

 made to play. In due time the tray is removed by means of 

 pieces of bamboo, and the metal is poured into sand moulds. 

 The entire district is said to be rich in copper, and masses of 

 malachite are frequently found in the Ludima. 



Mr. ErnestE. Thompson, of Toronto, contributes to the new 

 volume of the Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum, (vol. 

 xiii.) a valuable study of the birds of Manitoba. He gives an en- 

 thusiastic description of the music of prairie larks, large numbers 

 of which, at dawn, may be heard in the spring to ' * burst all together 

 into a splendid explosion of song, pouring out their rich, strong 

 voices from every little height and perch, singing with all their 

 might." They sing all day, and at night joyously hail the moon. 

 As their notes become more complicated, the most casual 

 observer cannot fail to perceive " that the love-fires are kindling, 

 and thateach musician is striving to the utmost of his powers to 

 surpass all rivals and win the lady lark of his choice." "On 

 one occasion," says Mr. Thompson, "as I lay in hiding near a 

 fence, three larks came skimming over the plain. They alighted 

 within a few yards of me, and two of them burst into song, 

 sometimes singing together and sometimes alternately, but the 

 third was silent. When at last they flew up, I noticed that the 

 silent one and one of the singers kept together. I had been 

 witness to a musical tournament, and the victor had won his 

 bride." 



Another of the many birds of Manitoba about which Mr. 

 Thompson has something interesting to say is the crane. The 



