May, 1904.] 



KiNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



97 



of human beings. The action of the low haroiuetiic 

 pressure appears very similar to that of uarootics, prodiuing 

 at first unusual activity and excitement, follovved l)y sleepiness, 

 iusensibility, aiid, finally, death. 



The Brairv of Man a-nd Apes. 



For many years Professor G. lUliot Smitli, of the Msjyptian 

 Government School of Medicine, has been devotinj; his atten- 

 tion to the study of the brain in man and other mammals. 

 Recently, in the Anntoinischc'r Aiizcirffr Ijcnay, he has pub- 

 lished a preliminary account of what appears to be an exceed- 

 ingly important discovery. The human brain, as known by 

 European specimens, has been supposed to difter from that of 

 apes and monkeys by the absence of the so called simian fold 

 (" Aftenspalte ■') on the posterior portion of the main hemi- 

 spheres. On studying a large series of Itgyptian ,ind Sudani 

 brains. Professor Smith finds, however, that this simian fold, 

 or sulcus, can be distinctly recognised. 



" It is easy," he writes, •' to select examples from the series 

 of Egyptian and Sudanese brains in my possession in which 

 the pattern formed by the occipital sulci on the lateral surface 

 of the hemisphere in individual anthropoid apes is so exactly 

 reproduced that the identity of every snUus is placed beyond 

 reasonable doubt. . . . .\nd if we take individual examples 

 of gorilla brains it becomes still easier to match the occipital 

 pattern of each of them to numerous human brains. . . 

 It is easy to appreciate the difficulties which have beset inves- 

 tigators of European types of brain, and to understand the 

 reasons for the common belief in the .absence of the supposed 

 distinctly simian sulci in the lateral aspect of the occipital 

 region of the human brain." 



Thus disappears one more of the supposed structural dis- 

 tmctions between man and his nearest relatives. 



Zebra Ta-ming at the Zoo. 



AUintere.sted in the progress of the Zoological Society's .Mena- 

 gerie in the Regent's Park, and the attempts now being made 

 to render it more attractive to the general public, will have 

 heard with unfeigned regret of the sudden death of the Grevy 

 zebra stallion shortly after the first trial at breaking it for the 

 saddle. With regard to the experiments made for timing all 

 the specim<?ns of the zebra at present in the collection, it 

 appears that the smallest and quietest of the three mares was 

 some time ago broken in with very little trouble. ( )n March 15, 

 '•Jess," a larg<'r and somewhat less docile mare, was taken in 

 hand, with most successful results; and the same afternoon 

 the third mare was handled with equal success. .All three 

 mares have since been going about quietly in harness, although 

 it was deemed advisable not to take "Jess," as being by far 

 the most powerful, beyond the limits of her paddock. On the 

 following day. March 16, the Grevy stallion was taken in hand, 

 although it was never intended that he .shoidd be employed 

 for riding purposes. Although some temper was displayed by 

 the stallion, he was eventually broken w ith complete success. 

 During the next two days he seemed perfectly well, bat he 

 showed signs of being out of condition on Saturday, and, after 

 refusing to get up on the morning of the Sunday, he died that 

 night. 



The post-mortem examination was made on Wednesday, 

 March 23, by Dr. Salaman, Director of the Pathological Insti- 

 tute at the London Hospital. The immediate cause of death 

 was heart-failure, but Dr. Salaman was unable to find evidence 

 of the actual cause of failure ; the complete absence of signs 

 of injury or disease being similar to the case of a Grant's 

 zebra examined by hiiri at the beginning of March, which 

 had died in the Gardens without having undergone any 

 training or breaking-in. 



Although it is obviously impossible to be certain that the 

 death of the Grevy was unconnected with the breaking-in, it 

 is satisfactory to know that there was no sign of injury to any 

 of the internal organs. The bones were, however, unusually 

 brittle, and the stallion was much older than had been sup- 

 posed. Our readers will be glad to hear that this untoward 

 event is not to be allowed to interfere with the progress of 

 zebra-training. 



The Collections of the "'Discovery." 



According to tln' daily papers, the re>-ults of llie expedition 

 of the " Discovery " to the .\ntarctic do not appear lo havi' 

 ■added anything very striking to our biological knowledge. 

 So far as zoology is concerned, the most important item is, 

 perhaps, the discovery of a " primitive type " of insect. \'alu- 

 .able information with regard to the bird-life is, however, said 

 to have been obt.dned. Most important of .all a]ipe,irs to be 

 the discovery of a number of fossil-plant remains, which are 

 said to confirm the theory of a former land-connection, by 

 wav of " -Vntarctica," of the southern continents and isl.uids. 



BOTANICAL. 



An Abnornnal Fern. 



.[spiiliuiii iiiioiiuihiin is a fern fovmd growing at high eleva- 

 tions in Ceylon. It closely resembles the British A. iiaiU'tiluiii, 

 of which it may be merely a form, and very remarkable on 

 account of the sori being developed on the upper instead of 

 the under side of the fronds, the usual position for them. The 

 plant is now in cultivation in this country, its large liandsome 

 fronds rendering it of consideral)le horticultural merit. The 

 species was first described by Sir William Hooker nearly half- 

 a-century ago under tlie name of i'dlijpotliuni annnuilum, and 

 he regarded it ;is an abnormal form of P. veslitum. He found 

 that the indusium was entirely absent even in the youngest 

 stages of the fructification, while in P. vestituin it was very 

 earlv deciduous. Other ferns are known to occasionally 

 develop a few sori on the upper side of the frond, as in Dcpana 

 Moiiii-i, wh('re they are confined chiefly to the margin, ;uid 

 sometimes in AspU-niiiiii friihuinanes. Sir Willi.iin Hooker 

 refers to a specimen of this species, collected in Italy, in 

 which, in addition to the numerous sori on the under side of 

 the frond, there was one pinna "bearing a solitary sorus on 

 the disc of the upper side." In the specimen from which Aspi- 

 dinni anotnaliim was first d(^scril)ed a few sori were found on 

 the under side of two or three pinnules of a frond. 



A Primitive Food. 



Professor F. W C'oville h.is ju;,! pulilished an interesting 

 paper on a primitive food of the Klamath Indians, produced 

 bv a congener of our yellow water-lily (Niiphar lutcuni), and 

 known under the native name of Wokas. This plant is A'. 

 pulyscpiilum. called by .American botanists N ipupluca polyscpahi, 

 and is found in great abundance in the reservation occupied 

 bv the Klam.ith Indians in the south-western corner of the 

 plateau of eastern Oregon, at the eastern foot of the Cascade 

 Mountains. A huge marsh in this reservation, known as the 

 Klamath M.arsh. contains no less than ten thousand acres of the 

 Wokas, which fiourish to the exclusion of almost every other 

 kind of vegetation. The seeds are subjected to various tedi- 

 ous processes by the natives and ultimately furnish a wholesome 

 farinaceous food, which is regarded as a great delicacy, and 

 which Professor Coville thinks might be successfully brought 

 into commerce as a bn-akfasl food, though he does not con- 

 sider the cultivation of the plant for commercial purposes to 

 be feasible, and the supply of the seeds would be dependent 

 on the wild crops. The order Xympha-^acea; is not impnrtant 

 economically. The seeds of the Victoria rei^ia are eaten by 

 the natives of Guiana and Pirazil, and the stem of the Sacred 

 Lotus (Xiliinihiuni ■ipriiiisuin) "is used as food in India and 

 China, though probably only in times of scarcity." 



PHYSICAL. 



On a Novel FLadiation Phenomenon. 



Mr. J. J. Taidin CHAnoT-- some time ago ascertained whether 

 selenium in its conductive modification, being sensitive to 

 light, may give rise to radio-active phenomena. To this effect 

 he used a selenium cell of the Shelford Hidwell type, the 



* Physihal Zcitschr., No. 4, pp. 103-104, 1904. 



