March 19, 1896] 



NATURE 



473 



divided into three sections, the first being devoted to insects, 

 <S;c., injurious to cultivated plants ; the second to flies injurious 

 to horses, cattle, &c. ; and the third to ticks. In her preface, 

 Miss Ormerod alludes to the fact of the terribly cold weather 

 experienced during January and February, 1895, having had no 

 apparent injurious effect whatever on insect life. She also 

 alludes to the great loss which entomologists have lately suffered 

 by the death of Prof. C. V. Riley. As usual, the report is 

 fully illustrated ; but a new and striking feature is the insertion 

 of two full-page illustrations of the foot of the Forest Fly (highly 

 magnified, of course) the thick curved claws of which, as thus 

 represented, present a curious and by no means remote resem- 

 blance to a pair of cow's horns. The first insect mentioned in 

 the report is the Eyed Hawk-moth, the larva of which seems 

 to be very injurious to apple-trees at times, though often over- 

 looked from its colour resembling that of the leaves of the tree. 

 As- a rule, however, the larger Sphingida are rarely common 

 enough in England to be destructive ; but it is self-evident that 

 no insects which feed on cultivated plants can be harmless, 

 when unusually abundant. We hope to have the pleasure of 

 receiving Miss Ormerod's annual reports for many years to 

 come. The practical usefulness of entomology was formerly 

 held in doubt ; but such reports alone ought to be amply 

 sufficient to remove the last remains of uncertainty on the 

 subject. 



In a paper in the Tratisactiotis of the English Arboricultural 

 Society for 1895, " O" the Effect of Frost on Trees and Shrubs," 

 by Dr. William Somerville, the growth of the Black Austrian 

 Pine is recommended in exposed situations subject to severe cold, 

 that tree having escaped almost entirely unscathed from the 

 effects of the intense frost of the winter of 1894-95. 



We have received the report of the proceedings of the Annual 

 Meeting of the American Microscopical Society, held last year at 

 Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, contained in the Trans- 

 actions of the Society. The address of the President, Mr. S. 

 H. Gage, was on the " Proee.sses of Life revealed by the Micro- 

 scope : a Plea for Physiological Histology." The volume in- 

 cludes also reports of a number of papers in various departments 

 of microscopy and natural history. 



The Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information for February 

 contains an interesting report of the result of an inquiry on a 

 point of some importance to the Excise, the presence of natural 

 sugar in tobacco. It has been established that saccharine matter 

 may be present in unadulterated Virginian tobacco to the extent 

 of 15-2 per cent., and even in tobacco grown in this country to 

 the extent of 9 per cent. Dr. Hugo Mliller is of opinion that 

 the sugar is not in the form of either laevulose or glucose, but 

 that it is composed of at least three different carbohydrates which 

 appear to be new to chemistry. 



Prince Balthasar Boncompagni's heirs have decided to 

 sell his valuable library in the Palais Cenci, Rome. The library 

 comprises more than eleven thousand different works, and will 

 be sold en bloc. The Mathematical Section contains a very rare 

 collection of works on arithmetic ; and there are also numerous 

 works on natural science and archaeology in the library. Appli- 

 cations for catalogues should be sent to M. I'Avv. Francesco 

 Sirani, 14 via del Nazareno, Rome. 



The thirty-third annual issue of that most useful publication, 

 "The Statesman's Year- Book " (Macmillan), edited by Mr. 

 Scott Keltic, with the assistance of Mr. J. P. A. Renwick, has 

 just come to hand. A new feature, which will be much appre- 

 ciated by the numerous people who consult the annual, is the 

 insertion of four coloured maps, to illustrate the Anglo-Russian 

 delimitation of the Pamirs, the Anglo-French arrangement with 



NO. 1377. VOL. 53] 



respect to Siam, the British Guiana and Venezuela boundary 

 dispute, and recent arrangements in Bechuanaland. 



A PAPER on the progress of science in England from the 

 seventh to the thirteenth century inclusive, read before the 

 Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, appears in the 

 number of the Memoirs of the Society just received (vol. x. No. 

 I, 1895-96). Other papers to which attention may well be 

 directed are : " On Helium and its place in the Natural 

 Classification of Elementary Substances," and "The Indefinite 

 Quantitative Relations of the Physical and Chemical Forces," 

 both by Dr. Henry Wilde, F.R.S., and an account of 

 " Experiments on the Latent Heat of Steam," by Dr. J. A. 

 Harker. 



The second volume of "Contributions to Canadian Palicon- 

 tology " (Geol. Surv. Canada) consists of three papers on Arthro- 

 poda, by S. H. Scudder. Of these the most generally interesting 

 one is that describing certain Myriapods and Scorpions from the 

 famous hollow trunks of Sigillarians found in the coalfields of 

 Nova Scotia. Another group of palaeontological papers from 

 the same region come from the Transactions of the Royal 

 Society of Canada. They contain descriptions, by J. F. 

 Whiteaves, of Cretaceous fossils from British Columbia, which 

 afford some confirmation of Dr. Kossmat's views as to the dis- 

 tribution of Cretaceous land and sea, summarised some months 

 back in these columns. 



A DETAILED account of the Upper Pakeozoic (Permian and 

 Carboniferous) formations of Central Kansas, by C. S. Prosser, 

 is to be found in the Journal of Geology, vol. iii. No. 7. The 

 importance of this region in the general correlation of these 

 beds has long been recognised, since here, unlike the Eastern 

 States, coal is rare, and there is an almost unbroken series of 

 marine strata from Carboniferous to Permian. The author 

 shows that the Carboniferous brachiopod fauna does not extend 

 as high as had previously been asserted, and that the higher 

 beds contain a characteristic Permian lamellibranch fauna. He 

 is thus able to draw a fairly definite line between Carboniferous 

 and Permian (or Permo-Carboniferous), which he draws, for 

 convenience of mapping, at the top of certain fossiliferous shales 

 overlying the /^«5«//«a-limestone. According to these views, 

 Waagen, in his correlation of the Upper Paliieozoic strata of India 

 and of other countries, drew the base of the Permo-Carboniferous 

 in the Western States too low ; but this correction does not 

 affect the general value of his correlation. 



A NEW monthly review — the Revue de f University de 

 Bruxelles — has made its appearance, its foundation being a sign 

 of the era of prosperity and expansion inaugurated by the creation 

 of the new institutes with which the " Universite libre" has 

 lately been endowed. The review is not to be the organ of any 

 particular school of thought, but will include within its purview 

 history, philosophy, science, social economy, and all branches of 

 higher education. It is intended to be the focus of all the efforts 

 made in the University world, and particularly in the University 

 libre de Bruxelles, for the advancement of science and study. 

 The first two numbers of the new publication contain articles on 

 penal law ; great biological discoveries made during this century ; 

 the Botanic Garden at Buitenzorg ; constitutional law ; the work 

 of Hittorf, Lenard, Goldstein, and Rontgen ; and the Inter- 

 national University Alliance. 



The twenty-sixth volume of the Proceedings of the London 

 Mathematical Society, containing the papers read before the 

 Society during the session 1894-95, ^^^ come to hand. In Mr. 

 A. B. Kempe's presidential address, with which the volume 

 opens, definitions of mathematics are discussed, and a new one 

 formulated. According to dictionaries, mathematics is " the 



