l82 



KNOWLEDGE cSj SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[August, 1904. 



zone of 3° in width, using the values for each degree 

 of latitude as published by Greenwich Observatory. A 

 ghmce at those curves will show : — 



(ti) that many of them have more than one in- 

 dividual maximum; 



(/') that these individual maxima do not ahvajs re- 

 main from year to year in the same position as re- 

 gards latitude (though sometimes they do maintain 

 the same for two, three, or four years together as 

 can be gathered from the curves in my paper). 

 Ky joining up these maxima from year to year there 

 appears to be a general drift from high to low lati- 

 tudes; that is, the positions of the regions (zones) in 

 which the spotted area is greatest change from year 

 to year in a direction towards the equator. These 

 lines of drift of the individual maxima, or their loci of 

 movement towards the equator, are the ipot-activiiy 

 tracks. They are not tracks on the solar disc as seems 

 to have been inferred. 



.\n argument greatly in favour of this method of 

 treating these multiple points of maxima indi\idually 

 is that we have a needed explanation of the anomalies, 

 pointed out by Spoerer and Hraun, of the mean latitude 

 curves. The accompanying figure (Fig. 2) will give the 

 reader some idea of the distribution of spotted area for 

 several selected years, showing that although the 

 spotted area extends over broad zones there are 

 prominent subsidiary maxima included in those zones 

 wliicli should not be neglected. Against each of these 

 pairs (if ciu'ves the date of the nearest sunspot maxi- 

 mum (ir minimum has been inserted. 



The writer of the note is quite in error when he says 

 that Father Cortie showed " that the limiting latitudes 

 for large sunspots rose from minimum to maximum in- 

 ste;id (if falling in the manner described bv Dr. 

 l.ockyer. " Father Cortie rather corroborated than 

 op[)nsed my result. .-\s a matter of fact I pointed out, 

 as one of the main results of my investigation, that out- 

 bursts of spots in high latitudes are not restricted 

 simply to the epochs at or about a sunspot minimum, 

 lull occur even up to the time of sunspot maximum, 

 and further, that there was a tendency after a sunspot 

 minimum for each successive spot-activity track to 

 make its appearance in latitudes higher than those just 

 preceding it. This result I considered important since 

 it was not in harmony with that which would be ex- 

 pected by Spoerer's Law, i.e., that the highest spot 

 latitudes occur about the time of sunspot minimum 

 when a new cycle is in process of commencement. 



"Notes on the Composition of Scientific Papers " (Macmillan 

 and C'o.i.liy Dr. T. ( litiord .All butt, Ivigius I'rufessor of Physics 

 at Caiiibridt;e, have been compiled in the hope of improving 

 or forming the literary style of scientiiic students. In the 

 course of the year I'rofeasor AUbutt tells us, in his humorous 

 and engaging preface, he has to read some hundred theses 

 for the degrees of M.B. and M.U. — '"in composition a few are 

 good, the greater number are written badly, some very ill 

 indeed," so as " to obscure, to perplex, and even to hide or 

 travesty the sense itself." It is difficult to say how far a sense 

 of style can be imparted, but Professor AUbutt gives sound 

 and excellent advice on the use of words and the construction 

 of sentences, which might with advantage be taken to heart by 

 others than scientific students. 



"The Honey Bee" (Houlston and Sons), by T. W. Cowan, 

 F.L.S., F.G.S., F.R.M.S., the well-known authority on bee- 

 keeping, has reached a second edition. This comprehensive 

 little volume, with its elaborate diagrams and illustrations, is 

 valuable alike to the student and the bee-keeper. 



The Birth of Crystals. 



Tim researches of Dr. Otto \on Schron, Professor of 

 Pathological Anatomy in the University of Naples, ga\ e 

 meaning some ten years ago to the expression " the 

 living crystal." He showed that living matter, largely 

 albuminous in character, takes the crystalline form, 

 and, while still living and crystalline, obeys so many of 

 the laws and manifests so many of the properties of 

 inorganic crystallisation that its crystalline character 

 may be said to be established. F'rom these experi- 

 ments he drew the inference that crystallisation in its 

 terrestrial origin was a manifestation of life — of vital 

 energy. In short, that a crystal grew for the same 

 reasons that a plant grows, or the brain grows, or an 

 amceba grows ; that the vital forces stirring the one 

 are no more than a different form of the forces that 

 develop the other. The "living crystal," the "vital 

 crystal " which, for example, he discovered as one of 

 the products evolved by various of the bacilli that he 



Alum in the Precr>stalline .state, showing appearance of lines 

 of direction marking future axes. Enlargement, 280. 



examined, became thus, in his theory, the bridge be- 

 tween what had heretofore been called living matter — 

 animal and vegetable — and dead matter — mineral. The 

 first crystals which set him on the road to this theory 

 were the crystals of the .Asiatic cholera bacillus, which 

 he examined as long ago as 1886. They were long, 

 needle-shaped prisms. Other bacilli examined exhibited 

 distinct crystals of different forms. The bacillus 

 siihtiln, for instance, formed bayonet rhombs ; the 

 biiallus icimaformis hexagonal prisms ; the tubercle 

 bacillus develops square rhombs ; anthrax, elongated 

 rhombs ; any given bacillus being immediately identi- 

 fied by its crystal, which never varies in the shape 

 assumed in its original formation. These objects are 

 perfect crystals in form ; yet, as anyone may see, they 

 are alive, and their life, their motion, and their repro- 

 duction are as \isible and undoubted as their death 

 when it ensues is undoulited. Their death occurs when 

 all the li\ing matter which originally formed part of the 

 cryst.il has eliminated itself. On death they become 

 the crystals th.it we know, ordinary mineral crystals. 

 .Such were the beliefs and theories, rather freely 

 stated, of Von Schron ; and their interest at the present 

 time lies in the re-statement by MM. F. di Brazza 



