January 7, 1892] 



NATURE 



219 



were shown to be the result of the flux and reflux of 

 waves of heat as hotter or colder years alternated, the 

 effects of which were by no means eliminated in the five 

 or six years over which the record extended. But the 

 remarkable diminution of temperature from the surface 

 down to 1 foot cannot be thus explained. It appears 

 at all the stations, for even at Calcutta there is an increase 

 of onlyo'"2 in the first foot below the surface, and then an 

 increase of i" 3 between i and 3 feet ; and it appears to 

 be independent of the character of the surface, which at 

 Calcutta is grassy, and at Jeypore pure sand absolutely 

 without vegetation. At Calcutta and Allahabad, the i-foot 

 thermometer as originally installed was found to have its 

 temperature lowered by air-convection at night in the tube 

 around the thermometer ; but steps were taken to prevent 

 this both at these and the other Observatories, and the 

 invalidated registers were rejected. Yet it is difficult to 

 imagine the existence of any cooling agency which should 

 keep the temperature at i foot below the surface on an 

 average r or ir lower than either above or below that 

 level, and the matter certainly requires further investiga- 

 tion. 



The foregoing remarks deal with subjects which, 

 although intimately connected with meteorology, lie 

 somewhat apart from the ordinary field of meteorological 

 observation. There is, however, very much in Mr. 

 Eliot's Report, on the more familiar class of subjects 

 usually dealt with by meteorologists that is well worthy 

 of reproduction, especially the characteristic phenomena 

 of Indian storms, which Mr. Eliot has made the object 

 of his special study. These must be reserved for another 

 notice. 



The frequent reference in the foregoing paragraphs to 

 the admirable work of the late Prof. Hill fand, after all, 

 but few of the many subjects have been noticed to which 

 his active mind contributed so largely) forcibly brings 

 before me how great a loss has been sustained by Indian 

 science in his premature death — a loss the more con- 

 spicuous in a country where the workers are so few and 

 the field of research so large and fruitful. It is but a sad 

 consolation to offer this slight tribute to the memory of a 

 man who was as modest and amiable as he was able and 

 accomplished as a devotee of science ; but all who know 

 his work will cordially re-echo the words of the Governor- 

 General in Council — that the Meteorological Department 

 of India "lost in him an officer whose industry, talent, 

 and technical knowledge it will be hard to replace." 



H. F. B. 



FRENCH MALACOLOGY. 

 Les Coquilles marines des Cotes de France; description 

 des families, genres, etesphes. Par A. Locard. Pp.384; 

 348 Figures in Text. (Paris: Bailli^re, 1892 [or rather 

 1891].) Also issued as tom. xxxvii. (1891) of the 

 Annates de la Societe Linndenne de Lyon. 

 \J\ ORE favourably situated than these isolated and 

 •'■'-*■ comparatively chilly shores, France possesses a 

 Molluscan fauna which numerically is richer far than 

 ours ; whilst her political boundaries embrace portions of 

 two terrestrial regions and two marine Molluscan pro- 

 vinces. 



NO. I 158, VOL. 45] 



The land regions (Germanic and Lusitanian) yield 

 probably something under 300 species. The last trust- 

 worthy work, that by Moquin-Tandon, describes 266 

 species — 219 being terrestrial and 47 fresh-water forms. 



The marine provinces are the Celtic and Lusitanian. 

 The former includes the greater portion of the English 

 Channel, and is common ground, therefore, to ourselves 

 and our neighbours. The latter, especially the Mediter- 

 ranean as distinguished from the Atlantic version of it, 

 furnishes the French conchologist with his happiest 

 hunting-ground. Nearly 1200 species are to be found in 

 the Mediterranean, and another 150 (besides 418 common 

 forms) on the Atlantic coast. 



In contrast with this abundance of Molluscan life, all 

 that we can boast is some 550 marine and 130 non- 

 marine species. 



Whilst, however, the material obtainable by the French 

 conchologist is thus plentiful, the literature at his disposal 

 for purposes of research and identification is by no means 

 so complete as that which lies ready to the hand of his 

 British confrere. The French Forbes and Hanley, or 

 even Jeffreys, has yet to be compiled ; no single work 

 exists giving adequate descriptions, with synonymy, notes, 

 and figures. 



For the non-marine species Moquin-Tandon's careful 

 work remains unsurpassed : for the whole subject the 

 only approach yet made consists of the three volumes by 

 M. Locard, of which the one now under consideration 

 forms the last. The first two were issued under the title 

 " Prodrome de Malacologie Frangaise, Catalogue general 

 des Mollusques vivants de France," and dealt respec- 

 tively with the land, fresh- and brackish- water MoUusca, 

 and with the marine. In these volumes the author gave 

 no descriptions : a synonymy of each species, with refer- 

 ences to the best descriptions and figures, and a list ot 

 the French localities, were all that appeared. In the 

 present work M. Locard proposes to supply this de- 

 ficiency, so far as the shells of the marine testaceous 

 Gastropoda, Pelecypoda, and the Brachiopoda are con- 

 cerned, by furnishing a concise — mostly too concise- 

 description of each species, and a more detailed descrip- 

 tion, with a figure, of the typical forms of each genus and 

 section, or "groupe " as he terms it, thereof. The syno- 

 nymy and the bibliography are not repeated, and so each 

 work remains incomplete without the other, and double 

 reference is entailed — a process which is always vexa- 

 tious. 



Unfortunately, too, the subject is conceived exclusively 

 from a shelly point of view ; indeed, the fact that the 

 shells ever had an animal origin and connection, is most 

 skilfully concealed in the body of the work, and the 

 'nasty creature' is only alluded to when, in the intro- 

 duction, it becomes necessary to refer to its habitat, or 

 to describe the method of its elimination prior to the 

 deposition of the all-precious tenement in the cabinet. 

 To such a point is this persistent ignoring of the animal 

 carried, that, in defining the topography of a bivalve 

 shell, the customary and intelligible terms " right " and 

 "left valve" are discarded in favour of the arbitrary 

 designations of "upper" and "under," a nomenclature 

 derived from their position when the shell is placed on 

 its side upon the table with the umbones pointing towards 

 the left. 



