June 22, 1893] 



NATURE 



•79 



efforts by accumulation became prominent, and simple 

 weariness passes into what was called "distress." Here 

 the result depended not so much on the direct effects of 

 the work on the parts which were actively employed, not 

 so much on the changes wrought in the muscles or 

 in the nervous machinery at work, as on the suc- 

 cess with which other members of the body came 

 to the aid of those actually engaged in labour. The 

 internal life of the body, no less than the external 

 life, was a struggle for e.\istence, a struggle between the 

 several members, a struggle the arena of which was the 

 blood. And it would seem that the onset of distress was 

 chiefly determined by the failure of the organs to keep 

 the blood adequately pure. Something depended on the 

 vigour of the muscles themselves, something on the 

 breathing power of the individual, something also on the 

 readiness with which the heart responded to the greater 

 strain upon it ; but beyond and above all these was the 

 readiness with which the internal scavengers freed the 

 blood from the poison which the muscles were pouring 

 into it. Undue exertion was exertion in which the 

 muscles worked too fast for the rest of the body. The 

 hunted hare died not because he was choked for want of 

 breath, not because his heart stood still, its store of 

 energy having given out, but because a poisoned blood 

 poisoned his brain and his whole body. So also the 

 schoolboy, urged by pride to go on running beyond the 

 earlier symptoms of distress, struggled on until the 

 heaped up poison deadened his brain, and he 

 fell dazed and giddy, as in a fit, rising again, 

 it might be, and stumbling on unconscious, or 

 half conscious only, by mere mechanical inertia of his 

 nervous system, falling once more, poisoned by poisons 

 of his own making. All our knowledge went to show 

 that the work of the brain, like the work of the muscles, 

 was accompanied by chemical change, and that the 

 chemical changes were of the same order in the brain as 

 in the muscle. If an adequate stream of pure blood 

 were necessary for the life of the muscle, equally true, 

 perhaps even more true, was this of the brain. More- 

 over, the struggle for existence had brought to the front 

 a brain ever ready to outrun its more humble helpmates, 

 and even in the best-regulated economy the period of 

 most effective work between the moment when all the 

 complex machinery has been got into working order and 

 the moment when weariness began to tell was bounded 

 by all too narrow limits. If there were any truth in what 

 he had laid before them, the sound way to extend those 

 limits was not so much to render the brain more agile as 

 to encourage the humbler helpmates, so that their more 

 efficient cooperation might defer the onset of weariness. 



NOTES. 



From the Times we learn that a volcanic outbreak has occurred 

 at Fukushima, in Northern Japan. Large volumes of dust and 

 vapour have been emitted, and the country for miles around has 

 been covered with volcanic ash. Landslips of great extent 

 have occurred in the same neighbourhood, and are supposed to 

 be caused by the volcanic action. 



Dr. H. J. Johnston-Lavis sends us the following informa- 

 tion : — After many years in which the crater of Etna has been 

 in a solfataric state lava has again risen, and now occupies it. 

 This is a very rare condition of things in that volcano. Earth- 

 quakes continue in the north of Sicily, but on the flanks of 

 Etna there is marked quiescence, which might be expected when 

 . the main chimney is free. 



On June 13 a select committee of the House of Commons 

 resumed the hearing of evidence in connection with sea fisheries. 

 Prof. Ray Lankester urged that a proper survey should be 

 instituted round the coasts, in order to ascertain the movements 

 and habits of fish in the areas resorted to by fishermen. An 

 NO. 1234, VOL. 48] 



adequate cnmmercial return could be expected from such a 

 survey, for new fishing grounds might be discovered. To carry 

 on this work, the present Government Grant of ;^iooo a year, 

 received by the Marine Biological Association, ought to be 

 trebled, and a grant of jf 5000 should be made for a deep-sea 

 vessel. Dr. Gunther expressed the opinion that hatcheries 

 should be established for the protection and extended cultiva- 

 tion of sea-fish, and Mr. Holt testified to the considerable 

 depletion of the fisheries in the North Sea, to prevent which a 

 size-limit for different kinds of fish was recommended, rather 

 than an absolute close-time of four months in the year. 



A PHOTOGRAPHIC exhibition usually includes mechanical 

 appliances and improved outfits specially designed to catch 

 the eye of the artless amateur photographer. But there is to be 

 a new departure in this, as in many other customs. In October 

 next an exhibition of photographic pictures, to be called the 

 " Photographic Salon," will be held at the Dudley Gallery, 

 Piccadilly, and it will be concerned, wholly and solely, with 

 photographs of pictorial merit, leaving the means by which 

 such results can be obtained to be otherwise advertised. Those 

 who desire to have their pictures hung in this academy of photo- 

 graphic art should communicate with the secretary before the 

 beginning of September. 



A NU.MBER of lectures will be delivered in connection with 

 the Gilchrist Trust, from September to December, in the Great 

 Assembly Hall, Bethnal Green. Prof. V. B. Lewes will open 

 the series with a lecture on " The Atmosphere and its Relation 

 to Life." He will be followed by Sir Robert Ball, on " Other 

 Worlds," Dr. Andrew Wilson on "The Brain and Nerves," 

 the Rev. Dr. Dallinger on "Spiders: their Work and their 

 Wisdom," and Dr. J. A. Fleming on "Magnets and Electric 

 Currents." 



Lovers of the piscatorial art will welcome the suggestion 

 that the 300th anniversary of the birth of Izaak Walton, on 

 August 9, shall be commemorated by some memorial. There 

 is a marble bust of Walton at his birthplace, Stafford, and 

 a statue at Winchester, where he is buried, but in 

 London, the home of his adoption, his claim to have his 

 name and work written on a memorial tablet has hitherto 

 been neglected. Mr. Marston, of the Fishing Gazette, thinks 

 St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet Street, would be an appropriate 

 building whereon to affix a mural decoration. In com- 

 memoration of the tercentenary, a special edition of "The 

 Complete Angler " will be published by Messrs. Bagster in Sep- 

 tember. Mr. J. E. Harting, librarian to the Linnean Society, 

 is editing the volume, and adding to it notes from the point of 

 view of a naturalist. 



An international anthropometrical congress will be held at 

 Chicago, from August 28 to September 2, under the auspices 

 of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposi- 

 tion. It is requested that the titles and abstracts of papers on 

 anthropology be forwarded as early as possible to Prof. C. 

 Staniland Wake, Department of Ethnology, in order that the 

 programme may be arranged. 



Mr. a. O. Walker informs us that about 8.15 p.m. on 

 June 15, three shocks in rapid succession were felt at Colwyn 

 Bay. The shocks present the characteristic features of true 

 earthquakes, but evidence from a wider area is required to decide 

 the question. 



The thunderstorms which occurred in some parts of our 

 islands about the middle of last week were accompanied gene- 

 rally by very little rain ; in parts of Kent, for instance, the total 

 rainfall since the beginning of March has only amounted to 

 about three-quarters of an inch, or 13 per cent, of the normal 

 amount. The temperatures have been exceptionally high, the 



