76 



NATURE 



[March 17, 1910 



Interest in the North Polar question has again been 

 roused by the refusal of the Naval Committee of the United 

 States House of Representatives to recommend any honour 

 to Commander Peary until he has submitted proofs of his 

 attainment of the Pole. As an expert committee appointed 

 by the National Geographic Society of Washington, and 

 consisting of three such competent authorities as Dr. H. 

 Gannett, Admiral Chester, and Mr. O. H. Tittman, 

 unanimously agreed that Peary reached the Pole, it may 

 be felt that the Naval Committee might have accepted 

 this verdict. The official committee of the House of 

 Representatives is, however, hardly to be blamed for its 

 caution in declining to recommend a Parliamentary honour 

 until the official data have been published, or at least 

 submitted to it. The scepticism felt by some authorities 

 as to Peary's claim is based partly on his great accelera- 

 tion after leaving his last white colleagues — his pace in- 

 creasing from 96 miles to 264 miles a day on the journey 

 north, and to 44 miles on the southward journey until 

 he rejoined Captain Bartlett — and partly on the statement 

 that he took noon observations at the Pole ; at that date 

 the apparent path of the sun, as seen from the North 

 Pole, would have been so nearly horizontal that noon 

 observations would have been practically impossible. The 

 National Geographic Society of Washington has been 

 most intimately connected with Peary, and might be pre- 

 judiced in his favour ; but no such suspicion could be felt 

 in regard to the committee it appointed. The report of 

 that committee was, however, a brief statement of its 

 conviction, and the materials on which its judgment was 

 based are not yet available for public information. If 

 Peary at his most northern point on April 6 was able to 

 •determine noon from the sun, he was probably some little 

 distance south of the Pole. To determine the actual 

 mathematical point of the Pole would be impossible during 

 the hasty journey of a lightly equipped sledge party ; but 

 any slight error in the observations would not affect the 

 conclusion adopted by most British geographers that Peary 

 reached sufficiently near the Pole to justify his claim. It 

 is to be hoped, however, that his full data will be soon 

 published. 



In Man for February Mr. H. A. Rose describes various 

 -modes of establishing fictitious kinship now current in the 

 Panjab. Such are the ties between people who have joined 

 in the same pilgrimage ; the p&hul or initiation rite of 

 the Sikhs ; the exchange of wristlets by youths, of turbans 

 by men, and sheets by women ; adoption by a patron to 

 secure protection. These are important as illustrating the 

 practices of adoption and succession, and they also throw 

 light on the methods by which tribes grew under a process 

 of accretion before the present rigid rules of exogamy and 

 ■endogamy came to be established. 



The Botet collection of fossil mammals from the Pampa 

 of Argentina, belonging to the city of Valencia, Spain, 

 Is one of the most important collections of its kind, but 

 bas not hitherto been exhaustively studied or described. 

 It comprises, not only fine specimens of the ordinary 

 ground-sloths and glyptodonts, Smilodon, and hoofed 

 mammals, but also several new species and a remarkably 

 well-preserved human skeleton. In view of its scientific 

 interest. Prof. E. BoscA, of the University of Valencia, 

 has arranged to prepare an illustrated descriptive catalogue 

 of the collection, and, as a preliminary to this work, he 

 is at present in London studying the original specimens 

 ■described by Owen. After visiting the European museums 

 Prof. Boscd will proceed to Argentina to examine the rich 

 ■collections in Buenos Aires and La Plata. 

 NO. 2107, VOL. 83] 



According to the second annual report, the demonstra- 

 tions and lectures on natural history and economic sub- 

 jects instituted by the Norwich Museum Association con- 

 tinue to meet with popular appreciation and support. The 

 subjects of the 1908-9 course included the food of birds, 

 flies as disease-disseminators, fungoid diseases of plants, 

 Norfolk soils, and insect fruit-pests. 



In the February number of Naturen an anonymous 

 correspondent describes two albino Norwegian lemmings, 

 of which one is figured. Such albinos are stated to be 

 extremely rare. In the same issue another writer con- 

 tributes a notice of the capture by a trawler of the rare- 

 fish Macrurus coelorhynchus, a species first described in 

 1842, and of which very few examples have since been 

 taken. 



At the close of an article in the February number of 

 the American Naturalist on the question whether regenera- 

 tion in animals exhibits a repetition of the ontogenetic and 

 phylogenetic processes, Mr. Sergius Morgulis observes that 

 " while the evidence shows that, as a rule, organs originate 

 from similar germ-layers, both in ontogeny and in regenera- 

 tion, there are also some striking exceptions to the rule. 

 The hypothesis that the method of regeneration is causally 

 influenced by the course of ontogeny is, therefore, quite 

 unnecessary as a corollary. With the elimination of this 

 hypothesis the conception of the atavistic nature of re- 

 generated peculiarities, i.e. the conception of a repetition 

 in regeneration of phylogenetic processes, loses its chief 

 logical support. This last theory, however, is also 

 objectionable, (i) because of its inherent inconsistency, 

 (2) because it depends upon more or less problematic 

 assumptions." 



In a paper entitled " Ungarnered Grain," published in 

 the January number of the Victorian Naturalist, Dr. T. S. 

 Hall directs attention to the need of further research into 

 the natural history of Victoria. Sponges and protozoans, 

 he points out, are still very imperfectly known, and much 

 the same is the case with regard to crustaceans. Among 

 fishes, it requires to be ascertained whether Galaxias 

 spawns in fresh water, while no one appears to be able 

 to produce definite evidence that the Australian eel breeds 

 at great depths in the sea, or if, indeed, it journeys to the 

 ocean at all. Further information is likewise required 

 with regard to the breeding-habits of the native frogs, 

 especially whether or no they require water during the 

 metamorphosis. 



To the February number of the Zoologist Colonel C. E. 

 Shepherd communicates an account of the ear-bones of 

 fishes, and more especially the one known as the asteriscus. 

 Three pairs of these bones are developed, of which the 

 sagitta is normally the largest, the asteriscus being the 

 otolith found in the lagena of the sacculus, while the 

 third bone is the lapillus. The form of the sagitta has long 

 been known to be more or less constant and characteristic 

 for the different family groups, and the author shows that 

 the same holds good for the asteriscus, of which he claims 

 to be the first to describe and illustrate the details in a 

 number of species. Attention is specially directed to the 

 great development of the asteriscus at the expense of the 

 sagitta — which is reduced to a mihute rod — in the members 

 of the carp family. That this cannot be attributed to a 

 fresh-water life is demonstrated by the fact that in the 

 pike and perch the normal relative proportions of the 

 sagitta and asteriscus are retained, and the reason for the 

 special feature in the carp tribe has therefore still to be 

 sought. As regards the functions of the otoliths, the 



