.626 



NA TURE 



[October 25, 1900 



able that de Gerlache's portrait is not given in the 

 admirable series showing the officers and scientific staff 

 before and after their experiences. 



The preliminaries of the expedition when one might 

 almost think time was wasted in Tierra del Fuego, are 

 described in considerable detail ; but the interest of the 

 reader will be mainly attracted by the description of the 

 first winter night (a night of seventy days) ever lived 

 through by human beings in the Antarctic regions. It is 

 described with a restrained realism that suggests many 

 thoughts. We do not admire the author's style in such a 

 passage as — " Even the sailors cannot resist the tempta- 

 tion to stand still and drink, with awe-inspiring amaze- 

 ment, the strange wine of action which hangs over the 

 mysterious whiteness of the new world of ice" ; but when 

 he comes to deal with the details of every-day monotony 

 in the narrow limits of the lonely ship, the narrative 

 acquires an intensity of interest which the simplest and 

 most correct expression could hardly increase. The 

 ■efforts of the scientific staff to carry on observations in 

 most unfavourable conditions deserve the greatest praise. 



Dr. Cook attributes the terrible depression of spirits and 

 the circulatory troubles which affected every one on board 

 the Belgica to the absence of sunlight and the monotony 

 of the food. He never mentions scurvy ; but the symptoms 

 described read not unlike the incipient stages of that 

 disease. With regard to food, he raises a strong protest 

 against essences and "artificial" foods of every kind. 

 However nourishing these may be, their softness and 

 want of flavour excite repulsion. Something with a 

 taste, and tough enough for the teeth to have some work, 

 was what the officers of the Belgica sighed for. Of all 

 the foods on board, the Norwegian Fiskeballar^ or 

 " Fiskabolla," as it is written, were the objects of the 

 heartiest detestation. Either the supply must have been 

 -of inferior quality or the abundance produced disgust, for 

 only a few weeks ago we heard a person of intelligence 

 •declare spontaneously, on first tasting this delicacy, that 

 with a supply of fiskelDallar he could face a polar winter 

 with equanimity. Sugar and milk ran short, and their 

 loss was very severely felt. The experience of the Belgica 

 should be very carefully considered by those responsible 

 for victualling the new Antarctic expeditions, and com- 

 pared with that of the Fram. Dr. Cook, by the way, 

 throws doubt on the perfect health and general serenity 

 of Dr. Nansen's expedition ; but it appears possible that 

 with a small company of one nationality, personally 

 selected by the leader, and living together, the chance of 

 harmony is greater than with a larger number divided 

 into cabin and forecastle, composed of five nationalities, 

 and speaking as many languages. 



Both the books which we have brought together in this 

 review are good, splendidly illustrated, and full of interest ; 

 but each would have been better of careful revision. Dr. 

 Cook is unhappy with his proper names ; we note Grand 

 (for Gand), Recluse (for Reclus), Bismark, Monacho, 

 Bellany (for Balleny), Jessup (for Jesup), and there is also 

 •carbon diolide, all of which are wrong. In both works 

 the comparison of temperatures on the centigrade and 

 Fahrenheit scales is sometimes at fault, and in one between 

 the hours of 4 a.m. on Sunday and 8 a.m. on Monday 

 several gentlemen succeeded in obtaining thirty-six hours 

 •of continuous sleep. Hugh ROBERT Mill. 



NOTES. 



Lord Kelvin proposes to give a valedictory address to the 

 London Mathematical Society on November 8. The subject 

 will be " The Transmission of Force through a Solid." 



Things scientific are beginning to move in Egypt a little. 

 A notice has been published in the official journal that on and 

 after September i universal time will be adopted in Egypt, 

 NO. 1617, VOL. 62] 



and the noonday signal given at mean noon of the 30th Meridian 

 East of Greenwich, i.e. East European time. The Ports and 

 Lights Administration have also notified that the time balls at 

 Alexandria and Port Said will on and after October i be 

 dropped according to the same time, and not local time as 

 heretofore. At present these time balls are dropped by local 

 arrangements, but before the end of the year the midday signal 

 ball at each place will be dropped automatically by electric 

 signal from Abbassia Observatory. Regarding meteorology, 

 there are now eight stations between Alexandria and Khartum 

 forwarding daily telegraphic weather reports, and these will be 

 increased shortly. Abbassia has now a complete self-registering 

 equipment, and hourly observations for 1900 will be published. 



Mr. J. S. BUDGETT, of Trinity College, Cambridge, who, it 

 will be remembered, accompanied Mr. Graham Kerr on his 

 journey in search of Lepidostren, and who last year spent several 

 months investigating the zoology of the Gambia region, has just 

 returned to England from a second expedition to that river. 

 Mr. Budgett's main object was to obtain material for studying 

 the development of the Crossopterygian fish Polypteriis. In his 

 first expedition he obtained eggs and larvre which were said to 

 be those of this fish, but which, as it turned out, belonged 

 apparently to a Teleost. Mr. Budgett has in his recent expedi- 

 tion failed to obtain the Polypterus material, but he is to a 

 certain extent compensated for this by having obtained a mass of 

 other embryological material which appears to be of great 

 interest. Amongst this is a practically complete series of eggs 

 and larvae of the Dipnoan Protopterus whose developmental 

 history had hitherto remained quite unknown. It is an interest- 

 ing fact that the developmental stages of all three surviving 

 members of the important group Dipnoi — Ceratodus, Lepido- 

 stren and Protopterus, belonging to Queensland, South America 

 and Africa respectively — owe their discovery and first observa- 

 tion to workers of the Cambridge school of Zoology. 



At the meedng of the Rdntgen Society on November i. Dr. 

 J. B. Macirityre will deliver his presidential address. 



Lieut. C. Lecointe, who was second in command of the 

 Belgian Antarctic Expedition, has been appointed director of 

 the astronomical work at Brussels Observatory, in succession to 

 M. Lagrange, retired. 



AReuter correspondent at Friedrichshafen describes another 

 ascent made with Count Zeppelin's air-ship on October 17. 

 The balloon remained for three-quarters of an hour at an eleva- 

 tion of 600 metres, and, after carrying out a number of successful 

 steering manoeuvres, alighted safely on the lake shortly before 

 6 o'clock, half a mile from Manzell. Herr Eugen Wolf, who 

 took part in the ascent, has given the following account of his 

 experience : — " The trial lasted an hour and twenty minutes. 

 The start upwards was first-rate. The air-ship moved at an 

 almost unvaried height of 300 metres and went against the 

 wind. All the steering tests proved the efficacy of the new 

 gear, and the air-ship satisfactorily answered the movements of 

 the steering apparatus. The horizontal stability of the vessel 

 was wonderful. Any list was easily counteracted by shifting the 

 sliding weight. The speed of the air-ship was such that, when 

 going against the wind, it outstripped the motor boats on the 

 lake. In still air its own speed was at least eight metres per 

 second. We descended at full speed in the direction of the air- 

 ship's shed rather faster than we expected, owing to an as yet 

 unexplained escape of the whole of the gas in one of the 

 balloons in the forward part of the ship. No damage of any 

 importance was sustained in the descent. The King and Queen 

 of Wtirttemberg and Princess Maria Theresa of Bavaria watched 

 the trial on private steamers." 



