November 14, 1895] 



NATURE 



37^ 



iProf. A. Bastian, and thus the journal will appeal to a wider 

 :le of readers, and tend to advance ethnological studies. 

 Vol. III. No. 4 of Contributions from the U.S. National 

 iritim consists of a " Flora of the Sand-hills of Nebraska," 

 Mr. P. A. Rydberg. The district consists almost entirely 

 sand-hills formed by the action of the wind, and still 

 stantly altering their configuration from the same cause, 

 de production of soil is only rendered possible by the holding 

 jether of the sand by the roots of grasses. 

 'Dr. George King, F.R.S., Director of the Botanical Sur- 

 of India, has forwarded his report for the year 1894-95. 

 [uch work has been done during the year in the botanical 

 rvey of Northern India ^ Mr. J. F. Duthie. Mr. G. M. 

 Toodrow has discovered that the tree from which the "date" 

 itting so common in Poona is made, is Phcenix robusta, 

 [00k. f. 



-We have received, from Messrs. Bailliere, Tindall, and Cox, a 

 slender volume, in which is described the Tallerman-Sheffield 

 Hot-Air Bath, with notes on its use in various hospitals. The 

 invention is for the treatment of rheumatism, gout, rheumatic 

 arthritis and similar complaints, by the local application of 

 superheated dry air. 



A PAMPHLET entitled " Clouds and Weather," written by 

 Capt. D. Wilson-Barker, and illustrated from twenty-four photo- 

 graphs of clouds taken by him, has just been published at the 

 office of the Shipping World. The pamphlet has been prepared 

 for navigators, and is intended to show the interdependence of 

 cloud and weather, so that ' ' they who go down to the sea in 

 ships" may know what relations between the two appear 

 generally to hold good. 



Among Mr. Murray's announcements of forthcoming works 

 is one entitled " The Great Rift Valley : an Account of a Journey 

 to Mount Kenya and Lake Baringo," by Dr. J. W. Gregory. 

 It will contain a narrative of the journey, and chapters giving 

 some account of the geology and ethnography of the eastern half 

 of British East Africa, and notes on its flora and fauna. One 

 chapter discusses "The Problems of the Distribution of the 

 East African Flora and Fauna." The work will be illustrated 

 by numerous maps and illustrations. 



The current number of the Journal of the Chemical Society 

 contains an inset with reference to the Collective Index of the 

 Transactions, Abstracts, and Proceedings, which the Society has 

 determined to publish. The Index will be in two volumes, vol. i. 

 extending from 1873 to 1882, and vol. ii. from 1883 to 1892. Both 

 volumes will be sent to those who have been members of the 

 Society since the end of 1882. Vol. ii. will be sent to Fellows 

 who have joined the Society between January I, 1883, and 

 December 31, 1892. Fellows who are ineligible to receive 

 gratis copies, and those who neglect to apply for them before the 

 end of this year (or March i, 1896, for Fellows resident abroad), 

 may obtain them by purchase. 



The ninth edition of MUller-Pouillet's " Lehrbuch der Physik 

 und Meteorologie," enlarged and revised by Dr. L. Pfaundler and 

 Dr. Otto Lummer, is being published in parts by Herren Friedrich 

 \'ieweg und Sohn, Brunswick. We have previously announced 

 the publication of several sections of this elaborate work (which, 

 as a whole, makes three volumes, illustrated by no less than two 

 thousand figures), and now notice the issue of the part of the 

 second volume dealing with spectrum analysis, jwlarisation, 

 double refraction, and the wave-theory of light. The complete 

 second volume will take in both light and heat, but the optical 

 section is itself divided into two parts, published separately, and 

 it is the second of these parts that has just appeared. The treat- 

 ment of the subject is full, and the value of the text is increased 

 NO. 1359, VOL. 53] 



to the student by copious references to optical memoirs, papers, 

 and reports.: 



We have on our table several recently-published volumes re- 

 ferring to the proceedings of different learned societies, but limits 

 of space prevent us from giving more than a passing mention of 

 a few of the papers in them. In vol. xxviii. of the Proceedings 

 of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Prof. Anderson 

 ' Stuart's presidential address, and the communications to the 

 Society in the latter half of last year, are printed. Among the 

 papers we notice : " From Number to Quaternion," in which M. 

 G. Fleuri shows how mathematicians may pass quite naturally ' 

 from the idea of number to that of quaternion ; an account of 

 an aboriginal Bora held at Gundabloui in 1894, by Mr. R. H. 

 Mathews ; Mr. H. A. Hunt's essay on " Southerly Bursters," 

 which gained the Abercromby prize of ;^25 ; the timbers of New 

 South Wales, by Mr. J. V. de Coque ; note on Australasian and 

 other stone implements, by Prof. A. Liversidge ; and an account 

 of the distribution and collection of current-papers sent adrift to 

 indicate the direction of the coastal currents around Australia, 

 Tasmania, and New Zealand, by Mr. H. C. Russell. The 

 volume contains forty-six plates illustrating the papers in it. 



In the Mitteilungen of the Berne Naturforschenden Gesell- 

 schaft for 1894 (Nos. I335-I372), edited by Prof. J. H. Graf, 

 Dr. J. G. Glur has a long paper on the fauna of lake-dwellings ; 

 Prof. G. Huber describes shooting-stars and meteorites, and the 

 part these celestial bodies play in the universe, his paper being 

 a good historical account of what is known about them ; Dr. F. 

 Stahli discusses the foci of cylinders ; Dr. E. Baumberger 

 gives a contribution tp the geology of the Bieler Lake ; and Dr. 

 C. Wagner gives an analysis of Bessel's function of the first 

 order. The volume containing these papers was received 

 through Messrs. Williams and Norgate, who sent at the same 

 time the Compte rendu of the seventy-seventh meeting of the 

 Societe Helvetique des Sciences Naturelles, held at Schaft house 

 last year, and the Verhandlungen containing the reports of com- 

 mittees, and obituary notices of the late Dr. Rudolf Wolf, de 

 Marignac (whose portrait forms a frontispiece), Louis de Coulon 

 and B. Schenk. 



The November number of Science Progress contains several 

 very good articles. Prof. W. Stirling contributes to it a detailed 

 account of the life, personality, and work of the great physio- 

 logist and teacher, Carl Ludwig, and Dr. Sims Woodhead give 

 a similar notice of Pasteur. Mr. F. H. Neville writes on the 

 chemical nature of alloys and Dr. John Beddoe, F. R.S., on 

 anthropometric research in India, his paper chiefly referring to 

 the investigations made by Mr. H. H. Risley, with Govern- 

 mental authority and support, into the anthropometry of the 

 Bengal Presidency. One of the inferences which Mr. Risley 

 drew from his investigation was that the castes in India are really- 

 ethnological, and not merely social divisions. Referring to a 

 comparison of the size of head in the several provinces, Dr. 

 Beddoe remarks : " Here the brachykephals surpass the dolichos, 

 the Aryans the aborigines, the upper surpass the lower castes. 

 But the Brahmans, despite their claims to be considered a kind 

 of intellectual aristocracy, do not seem to surpass other high- 

 caste men, unless it be in the dimensions of the forehead ; and 

 the Kaysaths, or writers, almost all of whom live by their brains 

 and their pens, do not stand very much above the average. The 

 differences are not inconsiderable ; they exceed probably those 

 which obtain between the superior and inferior claases in our 

 own country ; but I do not think they yield any evidence in sup- 

 port of the inheritance of acquired characters." Other papers in 

 our contemporary are : " The Present State of Floral Biology," by 

 Mr. J. C. Willis, and '* Present Knowledge of the Mechanical 

 Testing of Iron and Steel," by Prof. Hudson Beare. 



