48; 



NA TURE 



[September 13, 1S94 



boltom of the sea. ... All these things have been done in old 

 times and in our times, except the instrument for flying, which 

 I have not seen, and 1 have not known any man who saw it 

 done." 



The portion of Lord Salisbury's address which refers to the 

 periodic law was not delivered in exactly the same form that it 

 wasprinted in the official copy. .\ correspondent of the Chcmua't 

 Nr.vs points out that in the printed report (see Xati-re, August 

 9, p. 340) the following passage occurs: — "In the last few 

 years the same enigma has been approached from another point 

 of view by Prof. Mendelceff. The periodic law which he has 

 discovered reflects on him all the honour that can be earned by 

 ingenious, laborious, and successful research." Before the 

 address was delivered, Lord Salisbury became aware of the 

 claim of Kewlands as the first discoverer of the periodic law, 

 and the words actually spoken in the Sheldonian Theatre 

 were: — "In the last few years the same enigma has been 

 approached from another point of view by our own country- 

 man Newlands and by Prof. Mendeleeft". The periodic law 

 which they have .liscovered, &c." Unfortunately, the address 

 was already printed and distributed to the press before the 

 alteration was made. The claim of Mr. Newlands is secured 

 to him by the award of the Davy Medal in 18S7 by the 

 Council of the Royal Society. 



Writing from Table Cape, Tasmania, Mr. H. S. Dove 

 says that a fine aurora was witnessed there early on the morn- 

 ing of July 21. from about 12.30 until a few minutes after i. 

 The whole of the western, southern, and a good deal of the 

 eastern heavens was illuminated by a strong red glow, paling 

 to i. delicate pink at the edges. The glow was brightest 

 about half-way between the horizon and zenith, but was dis- 

 cernible over the whole space between those two boundaries, 

 and when it paled and faded in the west would spread and 

 become very vivid towards the east. The broad vertical white 

 stripes which usually accompany these aurorx- were also 

 noticeable, but the most uncommon feature of the phenomenon 

 was the presence of brilliant white flashes which shot upwards 

 in rapid succession, spreading out into a fan-shape as they 

 rose, and instantly disappearing. These were principally seen 

 about the Southern Cross, where the vertical stripes were also 

 brightest, the region about that constellation appearing to be 

 the centre of a great electrical disturbance. .\ low bank of 

 clouds lay along the horizon under the aurora, and a stream of 

 white fleecy clouds sailed up from about wcst-north-wcst, but 

 preserved almost a straight line on the edge next the pheno- 

 menon, as if something in the highly electrical state of the 

 atmosphere there prevented their spreading in that direction. 

 A note concerning the same aurora appeared in our issue of 

 August 30. 



A NEW department of the Pasteur Institute in Paris has 

 recently been established, having for its special object the ex- 

 perimental study of means of defence .against destructive 

 insecti. The new section — Station cxpcrimenlale de I'lnstitut 

 Pasteur — as it is called, has (says the l^eviic Scicnliji';u,) been 

 placed under the superintendence of M. MctchnikoflT, with .M. 

 J. Ilanysz as assistant. The department will be concerned with 

 the following points: (i) The collection and cultivation of all the 

 pathogenic microbes of insects and animals <lestructive to crops ; 

 (2) (he study of the conditions of development of these microbes 

 in animals and on various media ; (3) the direction of field- 

 experiments ; (4) the superintendence and control of practical 

 applications of the results of laboratory work. The best means 

 of applying these results will be <li.scussed by a Comiti- d'eltida 

 con!iisting of naturalists, agriculturists, and some specialists in 

 mycology, bacteriology, and agriculture, such .as MM. Brocchi, 

 Costaotin, Grandeau, Millardel, Sauvageot, Schribeaux, A. 

 NO. 1298, VOL. 50] 



Giard, J. Kiinckel d'HercuIis, A. Laboulhene, P. Marchal, and 

 E. L. Ragonot, of the Socicte entomologique of France. A 

 Bulleliii will be published, containing notes and communica- 

 tions to the station and the committee, and the proceedings of 

 I meetings. It is also proposed to give monographs of destructive 

 I insects and pathogenic microbes ; statistics concerning the 

 damage done by harmful anim.als ; and critical notes on all pub- 

 lications referring to these matters. In connection with the 

 Laboratoire de Parasitologie of the Bourse de Commerce and 

 the entomological station of Paris, the new section of the 

 Pasteur Institute will render excellent .service to French 

 agriculture. 



We have received from the Dtutsche Sertoarle its report for 

 the year 1S93 ; it is issued as an appendix to the Annalen litr 

 Hydro^raphie, from which U'seful publicition we have frequently 

 had occasion to quote. The report shows that much good 

 work is being done, but to which we can now only briefly refer. 

 In the department of maritime meterology, great activity is 

 shown in the collection and utilisation of observations m.ide on 

 board sh ips of both services, the number of co-operators during 

 the year amounting to 430 for the mercantile marine alone. 

 The results are published in tables for one-degree squares of the 

 ' North .\llantic, in the daily synoptic charts issued in connection 

 with the Danish Meteorological Institute, and in the prepara- 

 tion of atlases for different ocean?, the one now in hand being 

 for the Pacific. Similar activity is also shown in the depart 

 ment for weather prediction, and the daily weather report- 

 issued by it are among the most complete that are published : 

 theycontain full particulars of the weather twice or thrice daily, 

 at about 100 stations all over Europe, in addition to the usual 

 weather charts and summary of existing conditions. 



I.N a paper read before the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Dr. K. 

 Ilavelock Charles calls attention to the incomparability of nasal 

 indices derived from measurements of the living he.id with those 

 deduced from observation of dry skulls. The author carefully 

 measured the nasal di.ameters of sixty-two " subjects," of various 

 castes, and then having removed the integuments, &c. , ami 

 cleared the nasofrontal suture and anterior nasal aperture, ho 

 again measured the diameters. The results are certainly some- 

 what startling. The height of the nose taken on the undis 

 sected he.id is almost invariably less than the Ipi:^ diameter ol 

 the nose measured on the skull of the same head, the dili'cr- 

 ence amounting, in one case, to as much as 16 mm. The 

 higher the caste the greater the discrepancy, but it may be 

 reckoned to be upon an aver.age about 4 mm. in the 

 higher races. The transverse diameter of the anterior nasal 

 aperture, taken on the skull, is less than the breadth of the nose 

 taken on the head of the same subject. The dilTerence is usually 

 7 mm., and in the lower castes it may be as much as 9 mm. or 

 \ even 1 1 mm. .\lso, other things being equal, the older the 

 individual the greater is the diflerence between these measuret 

 ments. Hence, we see that the nasal index deduced from 

 observations on the skull must always be lower than the indev 

 calculated from measurements taken upon the head ; and, there- 

 fore, the ikull nasal index will place a race upon a higher 

 platform than the head nasal index. 



TilK A'endicoHli drl /\'<ale htiluto Lomhardo contain a paper 



by Profs. Bartoli and .stracciali on the cfl^ect of a thin veil of 



cloud or mist upon the intensity of solar radiation. This eficcl 



was brought out in a striking manner by choosing from amoni; 



( some thousand pyrheliometer observations made at Catania 



I and at Casn del Bosco, on Etna (4725 feet .above sea-level). 



' those which corresponded to the same altitude of the sun ami 



to approximately the same hygrometric state of the atmosphere. 



I It was found that a stratum of cirrus clouds interposed in the 



J path of the sun's rays was capable of intercepting up to 30 per 



