422 



NA TURE 



[March 5, 1896 



weather sets in. The malady becomes acute when warm weather 

 occurs after an inundation. During the present century there 

 have been five great epidemics of cholera. In the origin and 

 development of this disease the weather conditions are found to 

 have different effects, according to the locality. In Bombay and 

 Calcutta, for instance, it generally begins before the hot and 

 rainy season, and decreases with increasing temperature and 

 rainfall ; while in other parts, cholera is most frequent towards 

 autumn, and decreases with decreasing temperature. The 

 occurrence of land and sea breezes (including monsoons) in 

 various parts of the globe is discussed at some length. 



The relations of the weather to the spread of disease are 

 still involved in obscurity. Prof. Cleveland Abbe defends the 

 general atmosphere from calumny in this connection in the 

 Monthly Weather Review (vol. xxiii. No. 8, 1895). History 

 records that, in the fifteenth century, a plague epidemic broke 

 out most violently in a Swiss town immediately after a cloud, 

 •coming from an infected but distant region, discharged its rain 

 upon that town. But, as Prof. Abbe points out, without going 

 back to the fifteenth century, there was an excellent opportunity 

 to investigate the subject in 1889-90, when the influenza spread 

 over the whole civilised word. Its progress was so regular that 

 for a long time there was a general belief that the active germs 

 of influenza were carried as dust in the air by the winds, or 

 perhaps by the upper currents. This idea was dissipated by 

 several memoirs that established the fact that the wind and 

 weather were entirely subordinate factors, and that the spread of 

 the disease followed the lines of travel, especially the principal 

 steamboat and railroad routes, and that, therefore, the germs 

 were carried by diseased individuals, or by articles that had been 

 used by or had come in contact with them, and not by the winds. 

 Of course the wind, in the narrow sense, may have carried the 

 germs a few feet or rods from one individual to another, but not 

 for distances of many miles. Several epidemics, such as the 

 yellow fever, small-pox, and cholera, have tjeen traced back to 

 the direct importation of their contagia (whether animate or in- 

 animate) by human agencies. Furthermore, experimental data 

 show that few disease germs can maintain their vitality more 

 than a few hours when freely exposed to the air and sunshine, as 

 would probably be the case if they were carried in the atmo- 

 sphere as minute particles of dust. Therefore Prof. Abbe 

 thinks it probable that the winds and the rain must not be con- 

 sidered as the means by which diseases are spread between 

 places that are any considerable distance apart. 



Prof. Sergi {Centralblatt f. Anth. Eth., &c.) complains that 

 the Indo-Germanic theory of the origin of European peoples has 

 <listracted attention from the Mediterranean peoples. For some 

 time past these latter have been studied by him, of whom he recog- 

 nises four main branches — Lybian, Iberian, Ligurian, and Pelas- 

 gian. The Egyptian monuments state that the ancient Egyptians 

 came from the land of " Punt," and anthropologists admit an 

 African origin for that people. Sergi places Punt in Ethiopia, 

 Somali-land, and part of South Arabia, and he finds the same 

 head-forms amongst the ancient Egyptians and modern Somalis. 

 This stock is known under the term " Hamitic," and it differs 

 /rom the Semitic. Remains of prehistoric men from Spain, 

 France, North Italy, &c. , show a close resemblance with each 

 other and with the early inhabitants of North Africa and the 

 Canary Islands. Sergi asserts that the same people form to-day 

 the bulk of the living populations of Spain, Italy, and Greece. 

 He believes that the Hamites arose in East Africa ; the first 

 migration entered Egypt, then the stream diverged to the east 

 to Syria and Asia Minor, 'and spread westwards as far as the 

 Canary Islands ; the Iberians, Ligurians, and Pelasgians (with 

 the Etruscans) being branches of the main stem. These Medi- 

 terranean folk occupied South Russia, Switzerland, France, and 

 NO. 1375. VOL. 53] 



Great Britain. In Neolithic times they were exterminated in 

 the valley of the Po and in Switzerland, were driven beyond the 

 Loire in France, and to the south and west in Britain by the 

 mighty Celts. He describes the physical features of this 

 Mediterranean group as a whole, and declares it to be the most 

 beautiful of all the varieties of man. 



The part of the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales 

 for December 1895, contains a number of papers on the 

 cultivation of fruits, and other crops, and on the diseases which 

 affect cultivated plants in the colony, showing the valuable 

 results obtained by the establishment of a State Department of 

 Agriculture. 



In the Irish Naturalist for February is a useful paper by one 

 of the editors, Mr. R. L. Praeger, on the botanical subdivision 

 of Ireland, in which the island is parcelled out into forty districts. 

 The geographical county boundaries are to a large extent pre- 

 served, and all the larger counties cut up into several divisions. 

 The paper is accompanied by a map. 



From the Skandinavisk Antiquariat, Copenhagen, has come 

 to us a catalogue of a good collection of ancient and modern 

 works on geography, ethnography, and travels, together with a 

 number of rare maps and prints, offered for sale. A number of 

 treasures to geographical bibliophiles will be found included in 

 the catalogue. 



The 1896 Annuaire of the Observatoire Royal de Belgique 

 has only just come to hand. As in former years (the publication 

 has been issued without interruption since 1834), the contents 

 are composed of ephemerides, containing the principal astro- 

 nomical date for the current year ; geographical, meteorological, 

 and vital statistics ; definitions of physical constants, and short 

 articles, chiefly by M. Folic. 



Dr. G. Eisen reprints, from the Proceedings of the Californian 

 Academy of Sciences, a paper entitled "Biological Studies of 

 Figs, Caprifigs, and Caprification." He gives a history of the 

 methods adopted from the earliest times for artificially pollinat- 

 ing the cultivated fig. While the ordinary -edible figs grown 

 both in Europe and in America, are independent of artificial 

 pollination, the Smyrna fig will not mature without caprifica- 

 tion, since the fig contains no male, but only female flowers. 



We have received a copy of a " Classificatory Chart of the 

 Commoner British Orders of Flowering Plants," by Mr. W. P. 

 Winter. That can hardly be regarded as an ideal selection 

 of the more important orders, which excludes the Solanaceae, 

 Euphorbiaceoe, and Coniferae, and admits the Chenopodiaceae, 

 Alismaceae, and Naiadese. But this is explained by the foot- 

 note that ' ' the orders include those necessary for the Elementary 

 Examination, South Kensington." The characters seem care- 

 fully drawn up, and the chart will be a useful one to students. 



The development of photography, brought about by the 

 discovery of Rontgen, has afforded the photographic journals 

 excellent opportunities for distinguishing tliemselves. The 

 special issue of the Photogram, brought out under the title of 

 " The New Light," has run into a fifth edition ; and the Photo- 

 graphic Review for March, apparently aims at obtaining the same 

 measure of success, for its pages are almost entirely devoted to 

 accounts and illustrations of work done by Mr. A. A. C. Swinton 

 and Dr. Hall Edwards with Rontgen rays. 



We again offer our congratulations to the Wellington College 

 Natural History Society. The twenty-sixth annual report of 

 the Society shows that during 1895 the knowledge of the mem- 

 bers was improved by means of lectures, and the faculties of a 

 few ardent observers were developed. The Pender prize 

 founded in 1879, for the best essay on some scientific subject 



