April 2S, 1910J 



NATURE 



257 



was great, and he continued publishing some of his 

 manurial resuhs even after the celebration of his eightieth 

 birthday on October 23, 1905. 



In Revue des Idees for March M. L. Br^hier, under 

 the title of " Les Origines de I'Art musalman," discuss- 

 ing the recent investigations of MM. H. Saladin and 

 G. Migcon, shows that Mohammedan art is not the result 

 of a " sudden improvisation." It is due to the develop- 

 ment by conquered races, Copts, Syrians, people of 

 Mesopotamia, and Greeks, of ideas surviving from the 

 Chalda?an-.AiSsyrian periods, and, particularly in its re- 

 pulsion against delineation of the human form, was a 

 protest against Hellenism. 



Much work has of late been done on the action of 

 various organic arsenic compounds as trypanocides. Drs. 

 R. P. Campbell and J. L. Todd find that arseno-phenyl- 

 glycin is a more active trypanocide than atoxyl in the 

 treatment of experimental infections of white rats by the 

 Trypanosoma hriicei (Montreal Med. Journ., xxxviii., 

 1909, p. 795). 



Ix the Journal of the Ro\'al Army Medical Corps for 

 August, 1909, Mr. P. D. Strachan and Lieut. -Colonel C. 

 Birt summarise observations on the occurrence of Malta 

 fever in South Africa. The disease has been met with 

 in Orange River Colony, in Hanover, Beaufort West, 

 Kimberley, and Steytlerville, Cape Colony, and in 

 Bechuanaland, and there is a widespread epizootic of Malta 

 fever among the goats of South Africa. 



The Philippine Journal of Science for October last (iv.. 

 No. 5), which has only recently come to hand, contains 

 matter of considerable medical interest. An attempt to 

 extend the cutaneous reaction, which has been much used 

 in tuberculosis, to leprosy, is reported by F. Calderon and 

 V. G. Heiser. Fifty lepers were vaccinates! with a 

 glycerin extract made from excised leprous nodules. In 

 two or three cases there was a doubtful reaction, but 

 otherwise the vaccinations were in all respects like controls 

 done with a glycerin extract of skin from a cholera patient. 

 The filtration of immune sera (anti-tetanic and anti- 

 diphtheritic sera) is the subject of a paper by E. H. 

 Ruediger. The serum was passed through Berkefeld 

 filters, and the filtmte was found to be just as active as 

 the unfiltered serum. 



The issue of the Philippine Journal of Science for 

 November, 1909, vol. iv., No. 6, is entirely devoted to 

 systematic zoology, Mr. A. Seale describing a large number 

 of species of fishes as new, while Mr. C. S. Banks names 

 four new Culicidae and commences a list of the Rhynchota 

 of Palawan, and Mr. L. Griffin communicates a synopsis 

 of the snakes of the same island. 



The April number of the Journal of Conchology con- 

 tains Colonel Godwin-Austen's presidential address to the 

 annual meeting of the Conchoiogical Society in October 

 last, in which emphasis is laid on the importance of a study 

 of the soft-parts of land molluscs as the only means of 

 determining the affinities of the various forms. Some 

 interesting lines of evolution which have been worked out 

 by these means in the Zonitidae are quoted. 



In the Entomologists' Monthly Magazine for June, 1909, 

 Mr. E. A. Newberj- adduces evidence to show that the 

 scolytid beetle described in 1834 by Westwood as Hypo- 

 thenemus eruditus, on the evidence of specimens in an old 

 book-cover, and since then generally included in the 

 NO. 2 113, VOL. 83] 



British list, is really an exotic species, one of the habitats 

 of which is the shells of Brazil nuts, while it has also 

 been observed in book-covers from Java and Singapore .^ 

 It had previously been recorded from tropical America in 

 the " Biologia Centrali-.\mericani." 



The March number of the Museums Journal contains 

 a notice of the collection of Microlepidoptera, with the 

 associated entomological librarj-, recently presented by 

 Lord Walsingham to the Natural Histor>- Branch of the 

 British Museum. The collection, which contains about 

 45,000 species, against some 4000 previously in the 

 museum, has been temporarily deposited in one of the new 

 store-rooms at the base of the building, where it will 

 gradually be arranged in proper order by the additional 

 assistant specially appointed to take charge of it by the 

 trustees. 



Ix addition to an account of the progress of that institu- 

 tion during the year, the Aarsberetning of the Bergen 

 Museum for 1909 contains an illustrated description of the 

 personal relics of Claus Frederik Fastings, which w'ere 

 bequeathed to the museum at his death in 1791. Of the 

 three papers in the third part of the Aarbog of the same 

 museum, by far the longest is one, by Mr. O. J. Lie- 

 Pettersen, on the fresh-water rotifer-fauna of Norway, 

 The author has been collecting material for several years, 

 and records a long list of species ; but, although it is 

 stated that previously verj- little was known on the sub- 

 ject, it is remarkable that not a single one of these is 

 described as new. 



The last number of the Journal of the Marine Biological 

 .Association of the United Kingdom (vol. viii., No. 5)" 

 contains a good example of the admirable work which is 

 being carried on at the association's Plymouth laboratory. 

 The director of the laboratory, Dr. E. J. Allen, and Mr. 

 E. W. Nelson, have been engaged for some years past in 

 experimenting on the cultivation of diatoms as food to be 

 used in the rearing of various types of marine larvae. 

 By the use chieflj' of modifications of Miquel's methods 

 they have been able to make, by the addition of certain 

 substances to sterilised sea-water, nutrient solutions in 

 which it is possible to produce " persistent cultures " of 

 a single species of diatom, or mixed cultures containing 

 several species. In these cultures the diatoms multiply 

 rapidly, and continue to thrive for long periods, sometimes 

 extending over many months. The larvae to be reared 

 are placed after hatching in pure sterile sea-water ; a 

 sufficient amount of the nutrient solution is added, if 

 necessary, and the water is inoculated with a suitable 

 culture of diatoms ; in some cases other unicellular 

 organisms were used. By this means Iar\aE of Echinus 

 were reared until long past the metamorphosis, being fed 

 in the earlier stages upon the actively growing unicellular 

 organisms, and after the metamorphosis on red sea- 

 weed. Larvae of a sea-cucumber (Cucumaria) and a 

 worm (Pomatoceros) were also successfully reared, and the 

 method promises to be of great value to the experimental 

 embryologist. 



The controversy between Dr. Florentino Ameghino and 

 his critics respecting the alleged human origin of the 

 " burnt earths " of Argentina was commented on in 

 Nature, vol. Ixxxi., p. 534. The last paper then noticed 

 was dated February 17, 1909. Since then, Ameghino has 

 issued four others, up to March 19 of the present year ; 

 but it will be well now to await the elaborate memoir 

 which is promised, and in which the evidence of hearths 

 with bones of animals used as food will be set forth. The 



