lO 



NATURiz 



[June 19, 1919 



radiographers. He recommends that (i) the tube 

 should be entirely enclosed in a box opaque to X-rays, 

 and (2) scattered radiations should be prevented from 

 reaching the body of the observer. The measures to 

 be taken to fulfil these conditions are discussed. True 

 secondary radiation is not a danger except in the case 

 of certain metallic articles worn close to the body, 

 and then only if the precautions named are not 

 efficiently carried out. 



Bulletin 174 (May, 19 18) of the Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station of the Rhode Island State College 

 deals with the part played by bacteria of_ the para- 

 typhoid group in the causation of disease in poultry. 

 The authors (Philip Hadley, Marguerite Elkins, and 

 Dorothy Caldwell) conclude that there are six principal 

 disease types among the typhoid- and cholera-like 

 diseases of birds : — (i) Fowl cholera, due to B. avi- 

 septicus of the Pasteurella group ; (2) fowl typhoid, 

 due to B. gallinarum, Klein, of the actual paratyphoid 

 group ; (3) paracolon infections, due to paracolon bac- 

 teria in the strict sense ; (4) bacterial white diarrhoea, 

 due to B. pullorum A; (5) infections in adult stock 

 with B. pullorum B ; and (6) infections with certain 

 intermediate strains. The report succeeds in eluci- 

 dating the bacteriology of several poultry diseases 

 about which much confusion formerly existed. 



The World Trade Club, of San Francisco, has 

 circulated widely copies of a letter addressed by the 

 club to Lord Balfour of Burleigh, advocating the 

 immediate introduction of the metric system of 

 weights and measures in the United Kingdom. The 

 letter points out that both Great Britain and the 

 United States were obliged to make use of the metric 

 system in foreign countries during the war, and 

 urges that the adoption of the "meter-liter-gram" 

 system is absolutely necessary in the interests of 

 education and business, and of our foreign trade in 

 particular. Recipients of the letter are requested to 

 sign and dispatch the printed forms at the end, ad- 

 dressed to Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson 

 respectively, calling for legislation to bring about the 

 exclusive use of the svstem in this country and in 

 the United States. 



In the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research 

 Society (vol. iv., part iii., September, 1918) Dr. W. 

 Crooke describes a rem.arkable form of headdress 

 worn by women of the Banjara tribe, wandering car- 

 'riers in northern India and the Deccan. It consists 

 of a stick or " horn " made of wood or silver, which 

 is placed upright on the top of the head, the hair 

 being wound round it, and over it the headcloth is 

 drafted in a graceful fashion. Numerous analogies 

 to this form of headdress are traced in Central Asia, 

 Assyria, among the Druses, and in ancient Indian 

 statuary. It seems to be a mark of distinction, pre- 

 sumably confined to married women, and its use may 

 ultimately depend upon the theory of the sanctity of 

 the head. But, so far, the evidence from India does 

 not fullv corroborate this. The same is the case with 

 the theory which would connect the Banjaras with 

 some northern tribe, though it is possible that the 

 Charan branch may have been priests of the Gurjaras, 

 one of the many branches of the Hun tribes which 

 invaded India in the fifth and sixth centuries of 

 our era. 



Messrs. A. N. Winchell and E. R. Miller (Amer. 

 Journ. Sci., vol. xlvi., p. 599, and vol. xlvii., p. 133) 

 describe a remarkable dustfall that occurred at Madi- 

 son, Wisconsin, on March 9, 1918. Microscopic 

 examination and mechanical analysis indicate that the 

 material is not volcanic, but merely wind-borne, and 



NO. 2590, VOL. 103] 



was derived from rocks physically disintegrated in a 

 very arid climate, probably from New Mexico or 

 Arizona. It is pointed out that a single storm may 

 thus "transport a million tons of rock material a 

 thousand miles or more." 



Mr. S. S. iBuckman, in a paper entitled "Jurassic 

 Chronology : I. — Lias " (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc 

 London, vol, Ixxiii., p. 257, 1918), has made the most 

 important contribution to our knowledge of Jurassic 

 strata in the Inner Hebrides since Judd's work of 

 forty years ago. The paper, with Mr. J. W. Tutcher's 

 appendix on zonal sequence in the Lower Lias, covers 

 also a wider field, and the discussion to which it 

 gave rise shows that the gaps in the record suggested 

 by the details of the palaeontology -were not imme- 

 diately accepted by stratigraphers. 



The Journal of the East Africa and Uganda Natural 

 History Society for November, 1918 (Longman^ 

 London, price 5s, 4^.) contains an account by Mr. 

 C. W. Hobley of a volcanic eruption of Donyo 

 L'Engai, a mountain in the trough-valley about forty 

 miles south of the Anglo-Gennan boundary in East 

 Africa. This outburst occurred in January, 1917, and 

 appears remarkable for the amount of sodium car- 

 bonate thrown out with the volcanic dust over a wide 

 area. Mr. Hobley goes back to the old theory^ that 

 metallic sodium may be a cause of volcanic eruptions ; 

 but the presence of Lake Natron a few miles to the 

 north makes it possible that Donyo L'Engai was 

 built up above the deposits of similar saline waters,, 

 which were blown up With the volcanic matter from 

 below. 



Prof. Filippo Eredia has published an instructive r 

 paper on the climate of Gorizia in a recent issue of | 

 the Bollettino Bimensuale of the Meteorological Society ; 

 of Italy. Gorizia is in lat. 45° 56' N., long. 13° 37' E., 

 and meteorological observations have been maintained 

 since 1870, which are discussed for the forty-five 

 years ended 1914. The mean annual temperature is 

 12-7° C. (54-9° F.), the average varying from 

 22-8° C. (73- 1° F.) in July to 28° C. (37°^ F.) in 

 January. Pressure falls to a minimum in April, when 

 cloud amount is highest, and is at a maximum in 

 January. August is the sunniest month, with 63 per 

 cent, of the total possible against 41^ per cent, in 

 April. The mean annual rainfall is 1595 mrn. 

 (62-8 in.), with extremes of 200 mm. 1(7-87 in.) in 

 October and 70 mm. (2-76 in.) in January. The 

 wettest month was October, 1889, with 497 mm. 

 (19-57 in.), and in the Januaries of 1880 and 1888 

 and the Februaries of 1890 and 1891 no rain fell. 

 Calms prevail for more than half the time, and 

 north-east is the most frequent wind experienced in 

 every month of the year. Snow falls on five days, 

 hail on four days, and rain on 142 days annually. 

 Thunderstorms are frequent, the mean annual number 

 being twenty-eight, of which 60 per cent, occur in 

 the three summer months. In a note entitled " Sulla 

 Direzione delle Correnti Aeree in Sicilia," that appears 

 in vol. xxvii. of Rendiconti della R. Accademia del 

 Lincei, Prof. Eredia gives an analysis of the monthly 

 direction of the wind for nine places in Sicily based 

 on observations from 1891-1910, the mean direction 

 being obtained by Lambert's formula. 



According to U.S. Commerce Report No. 85 (1^19), 

 a discovery of copper is reported from near Beaudoin- 

 ville, a port at the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, 

 Belgian Congo. 



Bulletins Nos. 9 and 10 of the Advisor}^ Council 

 of Science and Industry for the Australian Common- 

 wealth are just to hand. They deal respectively with • 



