September 7, 1893] 



NATURE 



445 



vations over the North Atlantic the disturbance was tracked 

 from the tropics, along the coast of the United States, and 

 eventually to our own shores. Doubtless the Weather Bureau 

 of the United States will undertake a thorough and exhaustive 

 study of the cyclone which has but just occurred. 



On the 28lh ult. a hurricane passed over the more northerly 

 of the Azores Islands, and caused great damage. 



The Rev. Leonard Blomefield, father of the Linnean Society, 

 died at Bath on September i, in his ninety-first year. 



An International Exposition will be held in the city of San 

 Francisco, State of California, beginning on January I, 1894, 

 and continuing for six months. The general classification will 

 be as follows :— Department A — Agriculture, food and its acces- 

 sories, forestry and forest products, agricultural machinery and 

 appliances ; horticulture, viticulture, and pomology ; fish, 

 fisheries, products and apparatus of fishing. Department B — 

 Machinery ; mines, mining, and metallurgy ; transportation — 

 railway, vessels, vehicles ; electricity and electrical appliances. 

 Department C — Manufactures ; liberal arts — education, litera- 

 ture, engineering, public works, constructive architecture, music 

 and the drama ; ethnology, archaeology ; progress of labour and 

 invention. Department D — Fine arts: painting, sculpture, 

 architecture, decoration. Department E — Isolated and col- 

 lective exhibits. Mr. M. H. de Young is the Director-General 

 and President of the Executive Committee, and all applications 

 for space, &c., must be made to him, addressed Director- 

 General, California Midwinter International Exposition, San 

 Francisco, California, U.S.A. 



It is a custom to break clay vessels as a funeral rite in modern 

 Greece, and there are proofs of the existence of similar customs 

 among various Asiatic, African, American, and Australian 

 peoples. Prof N. G. Politis has investigated the origin of the 

 practice (Journal of the Anthropolgical Institute, August), and 

 has been led to conclude that it is connected with the purifica- 

 tions which now, as of old, form part of the funeral ritual. In a 

 great many places, people on returning from a funeral or visiting 

 a house of mourning, wash their hands, or are purified in some 

 way with water, the vessels and towel used being afterwards 

 destroyed. Prof. Politis is therefore of the opinion that the 

 breaking of vessels is based upon two leading notions : (l)that 

 everything used in the ritual of purification ought to be de- 

 stroyed, lest the efficacy of the purificatory act be annulled 

 through the profane use afterwards of things employed in its 

 performance ; and (2) that objects given to the dead must be 

 destroyed, to guard against the possibility of their use for other 

 purposes which annul their dedication to the dead, the belief 

 being that all chattels must perish by fracture or mutilation of 

 some kind in order to serve the purpose of a dead person, be- 

 coming through such mutilation unfit for living use. 



In "Midsummer Night's Dream," Shakespeare refers to 

 '. " Russet-pated choughs many in sort, rising and cawing at 

 I the gun's report," but there appears to be a difference of opinion 

 I among ornithologists as to the bird so distinguished. So far 

 back as 1871 Mr. J. E. Ilarting, in his "Ornithology of 

 Shakespeare," interpreted the expression as meaning the gray- 

 headed jackdaw, but the reviewer of the book in these columns 

 remarked at the time that " without doubt the poet had in his 

 mind the real Cornish chough, and the expression is quite 

 accurate. ' Russet-pated' is having red pattes, or feet {e.g. the 

 heraldic croix pattk, not a rei pale or head), a feature equally 

 inapplicable to chough or daw, while the red feet of the former 

 arc as diagnostic as can be." Mr. Ilarting returns to the sub- 

 , ject in the Zoologist for September, and, in support of his view 

 ! that the gray-headed jackdaw, and not the red-legged chough, 

 is referred to, brings forward evidence to show (i) that the 



NO. 1245, VOL. 48] 



name chough was not exclusively bestowed upon the bird with 

 red bill and red legs, but was also applied to the jackdaw ; {2) 

 that "pated" means " headed," and cannot be read " patted" 

 for "footed"; (3) that "russet" is not red, though it may be 

 reddish and is often used for gray ; and (4) that the habit of 

 the birds referred to by Shakespeare as "many in sort, rising 

 and cawing," indicate a mixed flock of jackdaws and rooks, 

 and not choughs and rooks. 



We have received from the Deutsche Seewarie vol. xv. of 

 Aus Jem Archiv, containing the report upon the work of that 

 institution for the year 1892. In the department of maritime 

 meteorology, especially, much activity has been shown, notwith- 

 standing the serious obstacles experienced by the lamentable 

 cholera epidemic. The various publications under this head 

 include sailing directions for the Indian Ocean, daily synoptic 

 weather charts for the North Atlantic (in conjunction with the 

 Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen), and the collection of 

 observations made beyond the sea. The observations received 

 from ships alone amounted to an aggregate of 192 years, and 

 these are used in the discussion of the meteorology of lheocean> 

 which for this purpose is diviiled, according to the usual practice, 

 into squares of ten degrees of latitude by ten of longitude. The 

 department of weather telegraphy is also conducted with marked 

 activity, and daily and monthly reports are regularly published. 

 In addition to these operations, and the testing of numerous 

 meteorological instruments and chronometers, many valuable 

 discussions are undertaken, some of which are contained in the 

 monthly Annalen der Bydrographie, &c. We shall refer later 

 on to one or two of the special discussions included in the presen 

 volume. 



As regards the behaviour of pathogenic forms in vegetable 

 tissues, Russell states that, with but few exceptions, they were 

 unable to exist for any length of time under these conditions. 

 Lominsky, however, who conducted no less than 300 experi- 

 ments on the vitality of anthrax, the typhoid bacillus, and 

 staphylococcus pyogenes aureus in plants (Wratsch 1890), found 

 that these organisms were not only able to exist but to multiply. 

 Of especial interest was the behaviour of the anthrax bacillus 

 when inoculated into a^apanthus leaves. The bacilli grew into 

 long threads, and at the end of seven days signs of spore forma- 

 tion were detected, both spores and threads being found later, 

 not only at the point of inoculation, but within the healthy 

 cells of the soft part of the leaf; moreover, after forty- 

 two days' residence in the leaf, their virulence, as shown by 

 inoculation into animals, was in no way impaired. Although 

 saprophytic bacteria, as well as pathogenic forms, have not so 

 far been found capable of inducing any disease in plants when 

 artificially introduced, yet bacteria have been isolated which 

 are especially pathogenic to plants. Amongst these may be 

 mentioned the B. hyacinlhi of Wakker affecting the bulbs and 

 leaves of hyacinths, and the more recent B. hyacinthi septicus of 

 Heinz, which affects also the (lower clusters. The pear blight 

 has been traced to a distinct bacillus, and Savastano describes 

 a bacillus {B, oleittuberculoiis) causing destruction of tissue and 

 formation of spaces in the tissue of numerous fruit trees, whilst 

 closely allied to this form is a bacillus which produces tumours 

 on the Aleppo pine. The list, although limited, is receiving 

 constant additions, and there is a wide field open for researches 

 on the bacterial diseases of plants, which may, moreover, be 

 prosecuted without the intervention at, present of the anli- 

 vivisectionist ! 



IlERR F. VON Hefner-Ai.teneck, in the Elcctrotcchnische 

 Anzeiger, makes a provisional statement about a system of 

 electric control of clocks which appears likely to solve this 

 much-attempted problem in a satisfactory manner. The main 

 difficulty up to the present has been the necessity for a special 



