44 



NATURE 



[March io, 1910 



reference to the blood destruction which occurs in the 

 tropical disease known as blackwater fever. This is 

 followed by a note on a new method for determining the 

 alkalinity of the blood, by Drs. Boycott and Chisholm. 

 The editor and his colleagues contribute two important 

 papers, one relating to the bearings of the physical proper- 

 tics of colloids and of adsorption on physiological problems, 

 and the other to the properties of a new sapoglucoside 

 obtained from Mowrah seeds. Papers on the action of 

 ether on the circulation by Dr. Embley, and the influence 

 cf the pancreas on glycolysis in muscle by Dr. Simpson, 

 bring the number to a conclusion. We have to congratu- 

 late the editors on their success in adding to British scien- 

 tific literature a journal of such a high standard. 



The advantages offered to students of natural history by 

 the opening of a " mountain " laboratory at Tolland, 

 Colorado, situated at a considerable elevation, yet immediately 

 accessible by train, forms the subject of an article con- 

 tributed by Prof. F. Ramaley to the University of Colorado 

 Studies (vol. vii., No. i). Swamp meadow, grass-land, 

 scrub, pine, and spruce forests are found in the immediate 

 vicinity, while a short railway journey up or down gives 

 access to Alpine conditions or vegetation of a warmer 

 region. 



\ SECOND paper by Mr. E. P. Stebbing on undescribed 

 •species of Indian boring beetles of economic importance 

 belonging to the family Scolytidae is published as the 

 second part of the zoological series of Indian Forest 

 Memoirs. Three species of Scolytus were taken on the 

 deodar ; in this respect they agree with the American types 

 which infest conifers, whereas the Japanese and European 

 soecies, including the well-known Scolytus destructor of 

 the elm, infest dicotyledonous trees. Four species of 

 Tomicus were discovered on different conifers, and a fifth 

 was collected on the s&\ tree, Shorea robusia. Two species 

 of Pityogenes, also taken on coniferous trees, are remark- 

 able for their wide distribution. 



Systematic papers are prominent in the first part of the 

 twenty-fourth volume of Transactions and Proceedings of 

 tlie Botanical Society of Edinburgh. A short list of sea- 

 Vv'eeds collected in the West Indian island of Dominica is 

 contributed by Mr. S. Grieve, and Mr. A. Bennett dis- 

 cusses the validity of Naias flexilis and Atriplex calotheca 

 as British and Scottish species respectively. Miss I. M. 

 Hayward prefaces a list of Tweedside alien plants with 

 the remark that wool is largely imported into the district; 

 this probably explains the presence of two species of 

 Senecio, a Helipterum and Atriplex spongiosa, all 

 Australian plants, and Cenia turbinata, a common weed 

 tiiroughout Cape Colony. An anatomical description of 

 thorny aerial roots of the palm, Acanthorhiza aculeata, is 

 communicated by Miss B. Chandler. They emerge as soft 

 green roots, but on lengthening shed their root-cap, and 

 eventually become hardened into thorny structures; they 

 function, at any rate in the early stages, as breathing 

 roots. 



An elaborate and extremely useful account of the Indo- 

 Malayan woods, with a systematic enumeration of the 

 tices furnishing them, is presented by Dr. F. W. Fox- 

 worthy in the botanical series (vol. iv., No. 4) of the 

 Philippine Journal of Science. The author has found it 

 convenient to summarise largely under types known by 

 recognised common names. Attention is especially directed 

 to the great importance of the timbers furnished by trees 

 of the family Dipterocarpaceae, some of which are hard- 

 woods, others are of soft or medium grades. " Rassak " 

 applies to certain hardwoods yielded by species of Vatica 

 NO. 2IC6, VOL. 83] 



and Cotylelobium ; " yacal " is obtained from species ol 

 Shorea and Hopea. Softer woods, used for planks and 

 light constructive work, known as " lauan," " meranti," 

 and " almon," are yielded by other species of Shorea, 

 Hopea, and Anisoptera. The family of Leguminosae also 

 supplies many valuable trees, to mention only the genera 

 Albizzia, Intsia, and Pterocarpus. Details are furnished 

 of Philippine ebony trees and substitutes for other standard 

 timbers, and a number of illustrations taken from trans- 

 verse sections of the woods are provided. 



Prof. G. Mercalli, of the University of Naples, has 

 recently published a valuable report on the Messina earth- 

 quake (Atti del R. 1st. d'Incorraggiamento di Napoli, vol. 

 vii., 1909), in which special attention is paid to the pheno- 

 mena exhibited in the south of Calabria. Although there 

 were no immediate precursors of the great shock, at least 

 six slight tremors were felt during the previous month at 

 Messina, Reggio, and other places within the meizo- 

 seismal area. The earthquake itself consisted of two 

 shocks, or of two distinct phases, separated by a brief 

 interval, the first part being the longer and the second 

 the more violent, the whole shock lasting about forty 

 seconds. On the map of the central area four isoseismal 

 lines are drawn, the innermost being nearly elliptical, 

 about 18-20 km. long from north to south, and about 

 10 km. wide, and agreeing closely with the curve laid 

 down by Prof. Omori as bounding the strongly shaken 

 area. The epicentre was evidently submarine, and its 

 position cannot therefore be exactly determined. Prof. 

 Mercalli, who has made a special study of the Calabrian 

 earthquakes, states that two of the after-shocks of the 

 great earthquake of 1783 originated in the same centre 

 as the Messina earthquake, as well as four other shocks 

 in the years 1509, 1599, 1780, and 1876. 



The current number of Science Progress contains the 

 first part of a paper on recent hydrobiological investiga- 

 tions, by Mr. James Johnstone, of the Liverpool University 

 Fisheries Laboratory. The paper deals with the results 

 of the international explorations of the seas of north- 

 western Europe, more particularly with those set 

 forth in the papers of Nansen and Helland-Hansen, 

 and examines the relation between the " Gulf Stream " 

 (by which, it appears from the paper, is meant the 

 Norwegian branch of the " Gulf Stream drift ") and 

 climate and crops in northern Europe. The series of 

 curves worked out by Nansen and Helland-Hansen show- 

 ing the remarkable parallelism between air temperature and 

 sea temperature, growth of fir trees, and yield of various 

 harvests in Norway is illustrated. In the absence of 

 further investigation in lower latitudes in the open Atlantic 

 it is still quite uncertain how far the sea temperature is 

 determined by the varying proportions in which the north- 

 ward moving water is derived from the equatorial currents, 

 and the relations of cause and effect are still so obscure 

 that it seems premature to conclude th.at it is " inevitable 

 that the yield of the land-crops depends on the tempera- 

 ture of the sea." 



A SOMEWHAT novel treatment of the hydrodynamical 

 equations representing the general circulation of the atmo- 

 sphere is given by Mr. F. R. Sharpe in the American 

 Journal of Mathematics, xxxii., i. Besides writing down, 

 in polar coordinates, the equations of flow of matter and 

 momentum for a viscous fluid, the author takes, in place 

 of the ordinary adiabatic assumption, an equation represent- 

 ing the flow of energy, which latter is equivalent to the 

 energy equation of the kinetic theory. Making use of the 

 fact that the height of the atmosphere is a small fraction 



I 



