June 14, 1900] 



NATURE 



159 



being conducted jointly by the Institute and the Faculty of 

 Actuaries, has made material progress under the honorary super- 

 vision of Mr. T. G. Ackland. The volume containing the un- 

 adjusted data of the annuity experience has already been pub- 

 iished. It has been decided to include in one volume the 

 unadjusted data relating to endowment assurances and minor 

 classes of assurance (male and female) ; and the council report 

 that this volume, forming a second of these series, is now com- 

 pleted, and on the eve of publication. The extensive tables 

 comprising the unadjusted data for whole-life assurances (male 

 lives), are in the primer's hands, and will, when ready, form a 

 third volume of the series. These will be followed, so far as the 

 unadjusted data are concerned, by a fourth and final volume, 

 which will contain the experience of whole-life assurances (female 

 lives). The tables to be included in this final volume are finished, 

 and are in course of being copied for the printer. 



We learn from Science that the University of Illinois has 

 fallen heir to the Bolter Collection of Insects. The collection 

 numbers approximately fifteen thousand species, represented by 

 about seventy thousand specimens, besides thirty thousand 

 duplicates not in the systematic collection. This collection, 

 accumulated during the last fifty years by the late Andreas 

 Bolter, is remarkable for the excellence of the material and for 

 the exquisite care with which it has been prepared and arranged. 

 It represents all orders of insects and North America in general, 

 and contains also a considerable amount of exotic material. The 

 gift was made by the executors of Mr. Bolter, in accordance 

 with the terms of his will, conditional upon its maintenance as a 

 unit, under the name of the " Bolter Collection of Insects," in a 

 fire-proof building. 



In the Irish Naturalist for June, Prof. R. J. Anderson 

 endeavours to account for the circumstance that in certain breeds 

 of domesticated fowls the keel of the breastbone is crooked. 

 It is somewhat curious to find that these crooked keels occur 

 only in pure bred birds, the ordinary barndoor fowls having the 

 keel straight. After consulting with a number of poultry 

 breeders, the author comes to the conclusion that in-and-in 

 breeding, the nature of the perches, the season, early hatching, 

 defective food and cold may all contribute to the production of 

 the abnormal condition. 



In the Christiania Nyt Magazin for Naturvidenskaberne, 

 vol. xxxviii. Pt. I, Dr. G. Guldberg publishes some observations 

 on the body-temperature of the Cetacea, in which he shows how 

 extremely imperfect is our knowledge of this subject. As he 

 remarks, it is a matter of extreme difficulty to obtain the tem- 

 perature of living Cetaceans, although this has been taken in the 

 case of a white whale and a dolphin, which some years ago 

 were kept in confinement in a pond in the United States. With 

 the larger whales such a mode of procedure is, however, 

 obviously quite impracticable, and we have accordingly to rely 

 on post-mortem observations. The layer of blubber by which 

 all Cetaceans are protected from cold renders the post-mortem 

 refrigeration of the blood a much slower process than in most 

 mammals, so that such observations have a much higher value 

 than might at first be supposed to be the case. Indeed, the 

 blood-temperature of a specimen of Sibbald's rorqual three days 

 after death still stood at 34^ C. The various observations that 

 have been taken have afforded the following results in individual 

 <:aj-«y.— Sperm-whale, 40^ C. ; Greenland right whale, 38 8° C. ; 

 porpoise, 35 -e' C, liver of a second individual, 37 -8° C; 

 common rorqual, 35 "4° C. ; dolphin, 35 -6" C. The average 

 blood -temperature of man is 37° C, and that of other mammals 

 39' C. ; while that of birds is 42° C. The record of 40° C. in 

 the case of the sperm-whale seems to indicate that at least some 

 Cetaceans have a relatively high temperature, 

 NO. 1598, VOL. 62] 



Prof. F. E. Nipher, in a communication to the Academy 

 of Science of St. Louis, has recently described some experiments 

 that he has made in photographic '* reversal," one of his aims 

 apparently being to find a useful method of manipulating photo- 

 graphic plates without the need for the exclusion of light from 

 them. The advantage of such a method is obvious when the 

 experiments incur the possibility of light being accidentally pro- 

 duced, as in electrical work. He exposes the plates to light for 

 a few days before use—" to the light of an ordinary room." 

 The other descriptions of exposures are also vague, the time 

 being given, for example, of camera exposures, but with no 

 record of the lens aperture or indication of the character of the 

 light. It is, therefore, not possible to follow the experiments 

 described in other than a qualitative way. Prof. Nipher has 

 taken street views, Rcintgen ray photographs, and " electro- 

 graphs," on plates -that have received preliminary exposures, 

 and developed them by the light, for example, of a sixteen 

 candle-power incandescent lamp, at a distance of from about 

 I to 5 feet. The exposure on the object was, in one case, about 

 forty times the exposure that would have been required for 

 making an ordinary negative ; the over-exposed and pre-exposed 

 plate giving, of course, a positive image. A good deal of work 

 has already been done in this direction, but the uncertainty of 

 the reversal, and the great difficulty of getting rid of mixed 

 results of reversal and non-reversal, have so far prevented any 

 practical use being made of the possibilities of these methods. 



Such experiments as Prof. Nipher describes are interesting 

 qualitatively, but before any process of the kind can be safely 

 recommended for general use in cases where it might be advan- 

 tageous, it will be necessary to determine the range of conditions 

 that can be relied on to give simple, that is, unmixed results, 

 and this can never be done by working with such objects and 

 processes as are described in this communication. We would 

 suggest the use of a series of graduated exposures, with a 

 measurement of the opacities produced, and then the ordinary 

 negative image and the reversed image could both be traced. 

 The character of the reversed image could be judged of, and the 

 range of exposures through which its production could be relied 

 upon could be determined. Until some definite information of 

 this kind is available, experiments in reversal will remain more 

 curious than useful. It appears from Prof. Nipher's communi- 

 cation that he is still pursuing the subject, and we hope that he 

 will succeed in placing the method on a firm foundation. 



In a paper in the Berichte of the German Chemical Society, 

 Herr G. Kramer and Herr A. Spilker make the suggestion that 

 an important source of petroleum beds may be the oil which is 

 always diffused through the protoplasm of diatoms. 



The Report of the Botanical Exchange Club of the British 

 Isles for 1898 has just been issued under the editorship of Mr. 

 James Groves. The occurrence of Stachys alpina in Gloucester- 

 shire is regarded as an undoubted addition to the native flora of 

 Great Britain. 



We have received a prospectus of the " Scientific Roll and 

 Magazine of Systematized Notes," to consist of three volumes of 

 about 500 pages each, which will be supplied to subscribers for 

 \os. per volume, at the rate of one volume a year, commencing 

 in September 1900. The first part will be devoted to the 

 literature of the Schizomycetes. The compiler is Mr. A. 

 Ramsay, of 4, Cowper Road, Acton. 



The Annual Report of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Trinidad, 

 for the year 1899, by the superintendent, M. J. H. Hart, gives 

 evidence of work done in the Gardens in connection with the 

 acclimatisation of foreign economical plants, and the study of 

 diseases of fruits and other crops, with the assistance of the Kew 

 establishment. The Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, from 



