September i, 1892] 



NATURE 



421 



winds which blow towards the icontinent of South America. 

 It is a curious fact that it always rains at Trinidad with a high 

 barometer. On June 25 last the observer states that it was not 

 daylight until long past the proper hour, the readings at gh. 

 a.m. having to be taken by candle-light. The rain was heavy 

 and continuous, and was accompanied by the highest barometer 

 readings for the year. 



"Fifty Years of York Meteorology, 1 841 -1890," a paper 

 contributed to the report of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society 

 for 1891, by Mr. J. Edmund Clark, has been issued in pamphlet 

 form. 



Some of the eflfects of the absence of light upon animal life 

 were strikingly revealed, not long ago, on the reopening of an 

 old mine near Bangor, Cal. In a dry slope connecting two 

 shafts, one of the explorers was astonished to find a number of 

 flies that were perfectly white, except the eyes, which were red ; 

 and directly afterwards he killed a pure white rattlesnake. The 

 animals had lived in the dry passages, where they had been 

 supplied with air but not with light. It is supposed that the 

 flies were the offspring of some that had been imprisoned by the 

 partial filling of the mine with water about thirty years ago, and 

 that the snake, when quite young, had been washed down in a 

 rain. A few of the flies were exposed to light in a glass case, 

 and resumed the colours of ordinary house flies within a week. 



A WHALING party is being fitted out in America for the pur- 

 pose of obtaining a live whale for exhibition in the Fisheries 

 department at the World's Fair at Chicago. If captured the 

 whale will be confined in a tank and towed to Chicago by the 

 way of the St. Lawrence river. 



It would appear that naphtha is poisoning the Volga, doing 

 great injury to the fishing industry. Dr. Grimm says (Messager 

 des Pccheries) that the quantity of naphtha conveyed on the river 

 rose from some 32 million kilogrammes in 1887 to nearly 50 

 millions in 1889. Most of this is carried in badly-made wooden 

 barges, and there is a great deal of leakage into the river, about 

 3 per cent, on an average (it is estimated). Thus in the three 

 years, 1887 to 1890, the Volga must have absorbed some three 

 million kilogrammes of naphtha, without reckoning petroleum, 

 of which there is a considerable (though less) leakage. Every- 

 where the fish are decreasing, and they quite disappear at places 

 where boats stop. On the other hand, various fishes— the 

 starlet of Astrachan, e.g. — living in the infected water, get a 

 flavour of naphtha, and are no longer eatable. The naphtha 

 also kills the infusoria, insects, flies, mosquitoes, &c., which serve 

 as food for the fishes. In its spring floods the river spreads 

 naphtha over the meadows, destroying the larvoe of those 

 organisms. The thin layer of naphtha on the water hinders the 

 larvK from breathing. Further, the naphtha injures the vegeta- 

 tion in the meadows. Naphtha is found in such quantities on 

 the land as to suffice for domestic use to the natives, who collect 

 it. Dr. Grimm urges the necessity of taking steps to prevent 

 the ruin of the Volga fisheries. 



Among the most interesting Echinoderms collected by the 

 United States Fish Commission steamer Albatross, on her 

 voyage from New York to San Francisco, was a stalked 

 Crinoid, which is described in No. 2, vol. xvii., of the Memoirs 

 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 

 (January 1892). The material, consisting of portions of three 

 specimens, was dredged in 392 fathoms off" Indefatigable Island, 

 one of the Galapagos group. During the last dredging trip of 

 the Albatross an additional specimen was obtained off Mariato 

 Point, in 782 fathoms. When this last specimen was taken out 

 of the water it was of a brilliant lemon colour, with a greenish 

 tinge on the sides of the arms and along the food furrows of 

 the ventral surface. A coloured sketch of it is given from a 

 NO. II92, VOL. 4.6] 



drawing made on the spot by Mr. Westergren. Its base of 

 attachment came up with a fragment of stem nearly 14 inches 

 long. At the first glance Prof. Agassiz was inclined to regard 

 it as a modern representative of Apiocrinus, but a more careful 

 examination showed so many points of difference that he had 

 to establish the new genus Calamocrinus for its reception, and 

 it stands as C. Diomedce. It is most closely allied to a large 

 group of Mesozoic Crinoids, and it assists in making clear many 

 points in their morphology. This genus has the orals greatly 

 reduced, much as in Bathycrinus. It also possesses heavy peni- 

 somic plates, passing gradually into still stouter so-called inter- 

 radial plates, in Calamocrinus, in no wise to be distinguished 

 from the true interradials of Palaeozoic Crinoids. Another 

 structural feature is the limitation of the articular facet to the 

 middle of the radial. This is an eminently embryonic character, 

 and there are traces of it in some of the forms of Millericrinus 

 deseribed by De Loriol in his Jurassic Crinoids, especially in 

 M. milUri. After a very detailed and masterly description of 

 the stem, calyx, and arms of the species, Prof. Agassiz dis- 

 cusses the subject of the " Apical System of the Echinoderms," 

 and "Of some of the Homologies of the Echinoderms." 

 Thirty-two plates, some coloured, accompany this Memoir, 

 which is inscribed as follows: "From the time the Crinoids 

 which form the subject of this Memoir came into my hands, I 

 have been in constant correspondence with my late friend, 

 Philip Herbert Carpenter, regarding the many points of interest 

 suggested by their discovery. I can now only have the melan- 

 choly satisfaction of inscribing to his memory a Monograph 

 which I had hoped to dedicate to him as an expression of my 

 admiration for his researches in a field where we had long been 

 fellow workers." 



M. DE Lapouge calls attention, in La Nature, to an interest- 

 ing object he has found in one of a number of ancient graves he 

 has been excavating at Gignac ( Herault). It is a finely-carved 

 head of jade, representing a type of the yellow race. It evidently 

 formed part of a statuette of a religious character, and the style 

 shows that it must have come either from China or Japan. M. 

 Sindho is of opinion that the statuette was probably made in 

 Japan a little before the Christian era, from a Hindu or Sin- 

 halese model of Buddha. M. de Milloue thinks the head is that 

 of Kouan Yin, a Chinese divinity, while M. de Rosny and M. 

 Motoyosi attribute it to Mayadevi, the mother of the founder of 

 Buddhism. Whatever the object may be, M. de Lapouge is in- 

 clined to believe that it hung as an amulet around the neck of a 

 Hun or Goth, and that the graves at Gignac belong to a ceme- 

 tery of a West Gothic colony. 



A VALUABLE essay on the Ainos of Yezo, by Mr. Romyn 

 Hitchcock, is included in the report of the U. S. Museum for 

 1890, and has just been issued separately. It is based mainly 

 on the author's personal observations. He has much that is in- 

 teresting to say on the various aspects of the life of the Ainos, 

 and his remarks are admirably illustrated. Mr. Hitchcock notes 

 the remarkable fact that the Ainos have been very little in- 

 fluenced by the civilization of the Japanese, with whom they 

 have so long been in close contiguity. The Aino, he says, has 

 not so much as learned to make a reputable bow and arrow. 

 Unable to affiliate with the Japanese, the Ainos "remain dis- 

 tinct and apart," and for that reason, in Mr. Hitchcock's 

 opinion, are "doomed to extinction from the face of the 

 earth." 



The second volume of Mr. J. Walter Fewkes's "Journal of 

 American Ethnology and Archaeology," has just been issued. 

 The most important article in the first volume was an interesting 

 account, by Mr. Fewkes, of "a few summer ceremonials at 

 Zuiii Pueblo." The greater part of the second volume is devoted 

 to a description, by the same writer of "a few summer cere- 



