256 



NATURE 



[July 14, 1892 



upon-Tyne. The writer, Dr. Embleton, gives an excellent 

 account of Hancock's masterly power of mounting animals. 

 He notes also Hancock's remarkably intimate knowledge of the 

 characters and habits of birds. " He could describe and imitate 

 their motions and sounds so vividly, by feature, voice, and 

 posture, as to be most instructive and at the same time amusing, 

 whilst he convinced his auditors of the naturalness of his 

 pantomime." 



A PAPER on the Tertiary Rhynchophora of North America, 

 by Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, has been reprinted from the 

 Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History (Vol. 25). 

 The assortment of the mass of Tertiary insects from American 

 western deposits, upon which Mr. Scudder has been engaged 

 for many years, has brought to light an unexpectedly large 

 nuivber of Rhynchophora, about eight hundred and fifty speci- 

 mens having passed through Mr. Scudder's hands ; of these, 

 however, fully a hundred have proved too imperfect for 

 present use or until other specimens in better condition may 

 show what they are. Seven hundred and fifty-three speci- 

 mens have served as the basis of a Monograph now being 

 printed. More than half (431) of these specimens come from 

 the single locality of Florissant, Colo., and excepting a single 

 specimen from Fossil, Wyo., and another from Scarboro', 

 Ontario, the others are divided between three localities not 

 widely removed : the crest of the Roan Mountains in western 

 Colorado, the buttes on either side of the lower White River 

 near the Colorado-Utah boundary, and the immediate vicinity of 

 Green River City, Wyoming. One hundred and ninety-three 

 species are determined, divided among ninety-five genera, thirty- 

 six tribes or sub-families, and six families, by which it will be 

 seen at once that the fauna is a very varied one. It is richer 

 than that of Europe, where there have been described (or merely 

 indicated) only one hundred and fifty species, of which nine come 

 from the Pleistocene. The older Tertiary rocks of America, 

 therefore, are found to have already yielded nearly twenty- eight 

 per cent, more forms than the corresponding European rocks. 

 Although it is evident to any student of fossil insects that even 

 in Tertiary deposits we possess but a mere fragment of the vast 

 host which must have been entombed in the rocks, Mr. Scudder 

 contends that we have already discovered such a variety and 

 abundance of forms as to make it clear that there has been but 

 little important change in the insect fauna of the world since the 

 beginning of the Tertiary epoch. 



In a paper on artesian water in New South Wales, printed 

 in the current number of the Journal and Proceedings of the 

 Royal Society of that colony, Prof. Edgeworth David says that 

 water rises to the surface in many parts of the east-central por- 

 tions of Australia from mud or mound springs. These occur 

 chiefly in strata of Cretaceous age. The most remarkable groups 

 are perhaps those on the Lower Flinders, which have been de- 

 scribed by Mr. E. Palmer in the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society of Queensland. The springs erupt thin mud and hot 

 water intermittently, and thus gradually build up around their 

 orifices mounds of mud of a rudely crateriform shape. At 

 Mount Browne, on the Lower Flinders, several feet above the 

 general level of the plain, is a mud spring mound covered with 

 gigantic tea-trees {Melaleuca leucodendron), among the matted 

 roots of which the hot water steams in clear shining crystal 

 pools. At the top of the mound is a large basin of hot water, 

 stated to be fathomless. The roots and branches of the tea-trees 

 lying in this water become coated with a soft green vegetable 

 substance, with air bubbles clinging to them. Innumerable 

 small bubbles of carbon-dioxide are continually rising to the sur- 

 face of the basin. The water is too hot for the hand to bear 

 for any length of time, but when cooled it is good for use and 

 always bright and clear, and free from any taste, while that in 

 NO. T185, VOL. 46] 



the adjoining cold springs is extremely disagreeable. The tem- 

 perature of the water in two of the^ hot springs at Mount 

 Browne is 120° F. No change has been observed in the hot 

 springs as regards level or temperature since 1865, when a 

 cattle station was settled there. 



Among the curiosities in the mines and mining building at 

 the Chicago Exhibition will be a solid gold brick, weighing 5CX} 

 pounds, and worth i5o,cx3o dollars. It will be exhibited by a 

 mine owner at Helena, Mon. 



Dr. C. F. MacDonald, who has been present at the seven 

 executions by electricity in New York State, has submitted to 

 the State authorities a report, in which he contends that experi- 

 ence has thoroughly justified the abolition of hanging. When 

 the new method is used, death, he maintains, occurs before any 

 sensation of pain or shock can be conveyed to the brain of the 

 condemned. Dr. MacDonald's conclusions are endorsed by a 

 hundred physicians who have acted as witnesses at different 

 executions. 



The raisin industry is being gradually developed in Victoria, 

 and promises shortly to be sufficient to supply the requirements 

 of the colony. So says Mr. J. Knight, who writes on the sub- 

 ject in the new Bulletin of the Victoria Department of Agricul- 

 ture. Extensive planting, he says, is going on in various parts 

 of the colony, from the extreme west at Mildura along to the 

 east as far as Wangaratta, the largest plantation being in the 

 well-known Goulburn Valley. In this locality not only has the 

 manufacture of raisins received attention during the last six 

 years, but the products of the currant vine also are now being 

 placed on the market. 



The second volume of the Photographic Annual has been 

 issued. It includes a vast number of advertisements, but con- 

 tains also some able articles, among which we may especially 

 note Mr. Albert Taylor's general view of the progress of astro- 

 nomical photography during 189 1. 



In 1891 wide-spread alarm was caused in America by the 

 presence of several species of destructive locusts in different 

 parts of the country, particularly in the Western States. A 

 general summary of these incursions was given in Mr. C. V. 

 Riley's annual report for 1891, and now a Bulletin has been 

 issued by the U S. Department of Agriculture giving the de- 

 tailed reports of the agents who carefully examined the invaded 

 districts. 



A CATALOGUE of the marine shells of Australia and Tasmania, 

 compiled by John Brazier, F.L.S., is being printed by order of 

 the trustees of the Australian Museum, Sydney. The first part, 

 dealing with Cephalopoda, has been issued. The task cannot 

 be accomplished very quickly, as it entails the examination of 

 many thousands of specimens, both dry and in spirits. The 

 catalogue will include not only the species represented in the 

 general Museum collection, but also those in the Hargreave's 

 collection presented to the trustees by the late Mr. Thomas 

 Walker, and those recently purchased from Mr. Brazier. 



Mr. R. Etheridge, Jun., gives, in the latest instalment of 

 the Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria, an interesting 

 account of a fine specimen of an unusually large species of the 

 genus Belonostomus, obtained in 1889 by Mr. George Sweet, of 

 Brunswick, Melbourne, in the Rolling Downs formation (Cre- 

 taceous) of Central Queensland. The fossil exhibits a long, 

 slender fish, with deep, narrow ganoid scales and feeble fins, 

 bent upon itself at about the middle point, and wanting the 

 greater part of the head. Species that are apparently allied 

 have been recorded from the Upper Cretaceous of Western 

 Europe, India, and Brazil, and Mr. Etheridge notes that the 



