iS4 



NATURE 



[June 22, 189^ 



Finlay's Comet (1886 VII.)-— The following ephemeris for 

 this comet is continued from Astronoiniichen NachricJiten, No. 

 3164:— 



12/;. M.T. Talis. 



+ 14 21 

 + 20 56 



The comet during this week lies towards the southern part of 

 the c:insteIlation of Aries, passing near Aries 38 on the 26th. 



A Bright Comet?— A telegram which we have received 

 from Kiel contains the following data obtained on June 5 and 12 

 with regard to a probable comet : — 



JE93. R.A. Decl. 



h. m. ' 



June 5 ... 9 57-1 



12 ... 10 4-3 



This object lies somewhere in the region of ij Leonis. 



Observations of Nebul.*. — In Astronoiiiischen Nach' 

 richten. No. 3167-68, Dr. Rudolf Spitaler communicates the 

 observations ot nebulse that he has recently made with the 27- 

 inch Grubb refractor of the Observatory in Vienna. He also 

 compares the brightnesses obtained by him with tho^e in 

 Dreyer's new General Catalogue o( Nebulje and Clusters. In 

 addition to the mean places of these objects and of the compari- 

 son stars employed for the years 1891 and 1892, he gives several 

 notes and a plate illustrating many of the nebulas. 



The Yerkes Ts.i.Y.'iCOV!..— Astronomy and Astrophysics for 

 June gives some particulars about the Yerkes telescope, from 

 which we make the following tew notes. The great tube pier 

 and clockwork are being built by Messrs. Warner and Swasey, 

 the makers of the Lick 36-inch. The column will be made in 

 five sections, each section except the base one (which will weigh 

 about 18 tons), weighing about 54 tons each. The column rises 

 31 feet 4 inches from the base. I'he pier head weighs 54 tons ; 

 thus the total weight of the column and head reaches about 45 

 tons. The polar axis, which is of steel, is 15 inches in diameter, 

 13 feet long, and weighs about 3J tons, the declination axis 

 measuring 12 inches in diameter and weighs ij tons. The 

 length 01 the sheet steel tube (exclusive of eye end) measures 

 625 feet, its greatest diameter reaching 52 inches, and weighs 

 6 tons. The focal length of the objective is about 64 feet. All 

 quick and slow motions and clamps can be operated either from 

 the balcony, eye end, or floor, by hand or by electricity as may 

 DC required. The floor will be an elevating one like that at the 

 Lick. The telescope weighs in all 75 tons, and an idea of its 

 size may be gathered from the fact that " when the telescope is 

 pointed 10 the zenith, the object glass will be 72 feet in the air, 

 or about as high as a seven-story house." 



The Smithsonian Report for Year Ending 1892. — 

 Among the many interesting points to which Mr. S. P. Langley, 

 the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, refers to in 

 this report, we note the following : The Smithsonian Astro- 

 physical Observatory still occupies the " temporary wooden 

 shelter on the grounds." Although the money for the perma- 

 nent building is in hand, the Institution is only waiting lor the 

 action of Congress to provide a site. With respect to the work 

 that is being done and is proposed for the future, Mr. Langley 

 makes a special reference. The branch of astronomy to which 

 the resources of the Observatory will be devoted will be that of 

 exploring the great unknown region in the infra-red end of the 

 spectrum by the method recently improved by Mr.. Langley 

 himself. The secretary refers also at some length to the recent 

 gift of 200,000 dollars to the Institution>by Mr. Thomas George 

 Hodgkins, of Setauket, N.Y., the interest on 100,000 dollars of 

 which is to be used for the general purposes of the Institution 

 on the "increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," 

 provided that the interest on the remainder be used in the inves- 

 tigation of the properties of atmospheric air considered in its 

 very widest relationship to all branches of that science. The 

 report contains the result of several communications on the 

 subject. At some length are treated also reports on the National 



NO. 1234, VOL. 48] 



Zoological Park, which, by the way, seems to be in a not very 

 flourishing condition, on the financial aid given to Research, the 

 National Museum, Bureau of Ethnology, &c. , which we must 

 pass over, as they do not appertain directly to the subject of this 

 column. One point we must refer to is the proposed plan of 

 publishing a work on the moon which shall represent the present 

 knowledge of her physical features. The Institution is already 

 in communication with some of the leading observatories of the 

 world, and it is hoped that " a series of photographic represen- 

 tations of hitherto unequalled size and definition, which shall 

 represent the moon's surface as far as possible on a definite 

 scale, and entirely without the intervention of the draughtsman." 

 We heartily wish the co-workers in this scheme success, for 

 have we not now, with the present state of photography and 

 fine instruments, a good basis to work upon. 



THE MORPHOLOGY OF THE VERTEBRATE 



EAR} 



I. 'T'HIS elaborate and important monograph monopolizes the 

 first two parts of the sixth volume of the Journal of 

 Alorphology. It is the second of a projected series on 

 "Vertebrate Cephalogenesis." lis predecessor was published 

 in the same journal two years ago, and the instalment now under 

 consideration has been anticipated by three shorter communica- 

 tions (Nos. 5, 7, and 8 of the literature cited) of a distinctly 

 sensational character. The 320 pages of contents are illustrated 

 by 26 simple woodcuts ; and by 12 magnificent folding plates, 

 printed in colour, and bearing the charmed names of Werner 

 and Winter. 



The monograph is subdivided into six sections, with a re- 

 capitulatory one, and is based upon the morphological study of 

 the ears of adequate representatives of leading classes and 

 orders of vertebrates, and upon experimental observations 

 chiefly involving the pig and cat. The author's work bears 

 every trace of extreme caution in manipulation, and he lays 

 much stress upon deceptive effects produced by the action of 

 reagents — for example, the knobbing and apparent collar-for- 

 mation met with in the hair-cells of the avian basilar organ. 

 In seeking to correct certain kindred errors which have arisen 

 during the work of his predecessors, the author concludes (i.) 

 that Retzius' " nerve plates " of the avian labyrinth are "products 

 of the maceration process" ; (ii.) that the "horseshoe figure," 

 which the same investigator attributed to the mammalian hair- 

 eell, is an "optical effect"; (iii.) that the continuity be- 

 tween the pillar-fibres and basilar membrane described by Noel 

 "does not exist"; and (iv.) that the basilar membrane itself — 

 defined as " a modified portion of the skin of the head which 

 forms first and last the floorupon which the sense organs rest" — 

 is not elastic enough ' ' to serve for the transmission of the delicate 

 undulations which it has been supposed to transmit." While 

 denying the presence of " spiral nerves " in the cochlea, he con- 

 cludes that they "exist in the living condition as delicate 

 walled but relatively large lymph channels " ; and concerning 

 the very involved question of relationship between the 

 nerve fibres and hair-cells, he asserts that the ultimate fila- 

 ments are "continuations of the nerve into the hair processes." 

 The " membrana tectoria" of the mammal is said to be 

 but a " cupula terminalis-like structure produced by the gluing 

 together of the hairs of the sensory cells of the organ of Corti, 

 and the breaking away of the whole from the cells which bear 

 them"; and it is incidentally remarked that as found in ordi- 

 nary preparations it is but "an artifact produced by the use of 

 reagents. " However much disposed to accept this very revolution- 

 ary deduction, we await confirmation of certain of the author's 

 detailed observations, before fully acquiescing in the belief 

 that "the membrana tectoria, the membrana reticularis, 

 Loewenberg's net, and the three or four main trunks of the system 

 of spiral nerves of the cochlea" so-called, are one and all pure 

 artifacts. 



In the course of his inquiry the author has been led into a 

 re-examination of the detailed relationships of the auditory 

 nerves ; and in this department he has done a lasting service 

 by sufficiently emphasizing Breschet's long-recorded discovery 

 that the auditory nerve of man is " divided into two branches, 

 each of which supplies semicircular canal organs" {i.e. that 



1 "A Contribution to the Morptioloey of tlie Vertebrate Ear. with a Re- 

 consideration of its Functions " By Howard Ayers, Director of the Lake 

 Laboratory, Milwaukee, Wis., U.S.A. 



