232 



NATURE 



[July 9, 1891 



expecting to be absent from i J to 2^ year^. He states that the 

 region about Whale Sound is rich in Arctic plants, Kane having 

 brought over io6 species of Phanerogams and 42 of Crypto- 

 gams, several of which were new, but that very little has been 

 done in its investigation since that time. 



The danger of using arsenical preparations for the poisoning 

 of plants is illustrated by the fact that Dr. B. L. Robinson, 

 assistant in the Gray Herbarium, Cambridge, U.S.A., has 

 been compelled to resign his position owing to ill-health result- 

 ing from this cause. It is stated that the poisoning of plants 

 has now been entirely abandoned in the herbarium ; the tight- 

 ness of the cases, and constant handling of the sheets being 

 relied on to preserve the specimens. 



Mr. Spenser I,e Marchant Moore has been appointed 

 botanist to the Matto Grosso Gold and Explorations Concessions 

 Expedition, which is about to depart for Brazil. 



A NEW botanical journal has just been started, devoted to 

 the diseases of plants, Zeitschrift fiir Pflanzenkrankheitett, 

 edited by Dr. Sorauer, and published at Stuttgart. 



Dr. John Murray contributes to the Journal of Botany 

 for July a very interesting account of the Clyde sea-area, its 

 physical characters, and the chief features of its natural history. 

 This sea-area is a natural system of deep-sea basins or lochs in 

 the west of Scotland, communicating southward with the Irish 

 Channel by a single opening between the Mull of Cantyre and 

 the shores of Wigtown and Ayr. It has a water surface of 

 about 12,000 square miles ; its greatest depth is 107, and its 

 mean depth about 29 fathoms. There is a great variety in the 

 pelagic fauna and flora in the surface and intermediate layers of 

 water, the abundance and the species of organisms varying in 

 the different layers according to the seasons, and even in dif- 

 ferent years. There is likewise a great va-iety in the bottom- 

 living fauna and flora, which varies according to the nature and 

 depth of the bottom in the different parts of the area. In some | 

 of the deeper lochs a few animals are met with which do not 

 usually occur in more open situations around our coasts till a 

 depth of 200 or 300 fathoms is reached. Some of these forms 

 are limited to one loch on the west coast ; for instance, Con- 

 chacia elegans, which is abundant in Loch Etive. This form 

 has never been taken in any of the lochs of the Clyde sea-area, 

 although EiuhcEta norvegica, with which it is associated in Loch 

 Etive, occurs abundantly in Upper Loch Fyne and Loch Goil. 

 Nyctiphanes norvegica and Bcreophausia Raschii, which are 

 abundant in the upper lochs of the Clyde sea-area, do not, on 

 the other hand, occur in Loch Etive. 



The French Minister of Public Works has addressed a cir- 

 cular letter to civil engineers, asking them to use their influence 

 to protect prehistoric monuments from the injury often done by 

 ignorant proprietors. It seems that little respect is shown for 

 such monuments in some parts of France. La Nature speaks 

 of a proprietor who sold **a magnificent dolmen," which was to 

 be transformed into " a tomb in a cemetery." 



In his report, for 1890, to the trustees of the Peabody 

 Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Prof F, W, 

 Putnam, the Curator, records that in no former year had the 

 friends of the Institution been so generous in giving aid. Gifts 

 for current expenses were received which, in the sum total, 

 exceeded the regular income from the funds ; and Mrs. Mary 

 Copley Thaw, of Pittsburg, added no less than 30,000 dollars to 

 the amount held in trust, this sum being set apart as an endow- 

 ment for a fellowship. 



An apparatus has been recently constructed by M. Ducretet, 

 for getting quickly in the laboratory a fall of temperature 70° to 

 NO. I 132, VOL. 44] 



80° C. below zero, by means of the expansion of liquid carbonic 

 acid. The inner of two concentric vessels contains, in alcohol, 

 a serpentine metallic tube communicating through a tube with 

 two stopcocks, with the carbonic acid reservoir outside, and 

 opening below into the annular space round the inner vessel, in 

 which are some pieces of sponge impregnated with alcohol. 

 This two-walled vessel with coil is inclosed in a box. One 

 stopcock being opened wide, the other slightly, the carbonic acid 

 passes through the coil as snow, and turns to gas, with strong 

 cooling effect, and any of it not vaporized in the coil is dis- 

 solved in the alcohol of the sponge. The gas escapes through a 

 tube passing through the outer box. The instrument, called a 

 cryogen, is represented in Cosmos of June 27. 



Experiments have lately been made by Herr Regel {Bot. 

 Centralb.) with reference to the influence of external factors on 

 the smell of plants. In the front rank appears the direct and 

 indirect influence of light on the formation of etheric oils and 

 their evaporation. In the case of strongly fragrant flowers (as 

 Reseda) heat and light intensify the fragrance, which in dark- 

 ness is lessened without quite disappearing. When the whole 

 plant was darkened, those buds only which were before pretty 

 well developed yielded fragrant flowers ; the others were scent- 

 less. If, however, only the flowers were darkened, all were 

 fragrant. Other plants open their flowers and smell only by 

 night (as Nicotiana longijlora and Nycterinia copensis). When 

 these plants were kept continuously in the dark, they, in course 

 of time, lost their scent, as they lost their starch. On being 

 brought into light again, both starch and fragrance returned. 

 Besides light, respiration has a decided influence on the 

 fragrance. Nycterinia, inclosed in a bell jar with oxygen, 

 behaved normally, but with hydrogen the flowers did not open, 

 and had no fragrance. In general, the opening of flowers co- 

 incides with their fragrance, but there is no necessary connection 

 between these phenomena. 



A NEW antiseptic, said to have certain advantages over those 

 hitherto in use, has been brought before the French Academy 

 of Medicine by Prof. Berlioz, of Grenoble : extreme solubility, 

 harmlessness, efficacy, and rapidity of action are claimed for it. 

 It is called microcidine, and is a compoundofnaphtol and soda, 

 is neither poisonous nor irritant, is twenty times as active as 

 boric acid, and much more soluble than thymol, carbolic acid, 

 &c. Microcidine has the form of a greyish-white powder. In 

 a solution of 3 grammes per litre it is very slightly coloured, 

 but it does not stain either the hands or bandages. For family 

 use it is said to be of great service. 



Most Russian geologists are now of opinion that the boulder- 

 clay which covers the whole of Middle Russia is nothing but the 

 bottom moraine of the ice-cap which, during the Glacial epoch, 

 extended from Scandinavia and Finland to the latitude of Kieft 

 and Poltava. A couple of years ago. Prof. Pavloff, while work- 

 ing in connection with the .Geological Survey in Nijni Nov- 

 gorod, indicated some traces of an inter-glacial milder period 

 among the glacial deposits covering the province. Like indica- 

 tions have been noticed in Poltava and Tchernigoff. New data 

 to confirm this view are now given by N. Krischtafovitch in the 

 Bulletin of the Moscow Naturalists (1890, No. 4). After a 

 careful exploration of the Quaternary deposits at Troitzkoye — -a 

 village on the Moskva River, seven miles to the west of Moscow, 

 the diluvial deposits of which have very often been mentioned 

 since Prof. Rouillier's and Murchison's times — the Russian geo- 

 logist came to the conclusion that these deposits are indicative 

 of an inter-glacial period, during which Middle Russia had a 

 flora and fauna much like those which exist now, but with 

 the addition of the Mammoth. The layers describpd by M. 

 Krischtafovitch as inter-glacial are of lacustrine origin ; they 

 are covered with undoubtedly glacial deposits, and they are 



