14 



NA TURE 



[November 2, 1893 



others having like valuable experience should follow Dr. Meyer's 

 example, and put down with precision what they know and have 

 accomplished for the benefit of the ordinary museum officer. 



Dr. Karl Dove, in a letter addressed to the President of 

 the Berlin Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde, gives some interesting 

 ])articular3 regarding the climate and vegetation of South 

 Damaraland. The numerous larger rivers, or rather water- 

 cours3S*, of the country contain water almost throughout the 

 year, which in the dry season, however, is found underneath the 

 superficial layer of sand. In August of last year Dr. Dove even 

 found a strongly flowing brook, about ten feet broad, in the hot 

 and dry valley of the lower Swakop. He attributes the per- 

 manence of the rivers to the profusion of strong inclines and the 

 scarcity of purely horizontal plains, which has the effect of 

 diminishing evaporation. The great efficiency of the protection 

 afforded by the soil even in that dry country is shown by the fact 

 that in places where moisture could only be due to rain, traces of 

 it were found in samples a: the depth of three feet after five 

 months of the dry season. The amount of atmospheric precipi- 

 tation was abnormally large during the last rainy season, and 

 the sky was clouded very much like a north European rainy sky. 

 During January over ii S inches were recorded in the vicinity of 

 the higher mountains of Windhoek and the Sheep River. At 

 Windhoek itself the mean rainfall is estimated at 15 "8 inches. 

 The discovery that the rainfall does not show a further increase 

 from lat. S. 22° to 19° is of special importance. 



At a recent meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club, the 

 Hon. Walter Rothschild read some notes on the genus Apteryx, 

 and exhibited a very extraordinary number of living specimens 

 of these "wingless" birds of New Zealand. He recognises the 

 following as a complete list of the species at present known : — 

 A, australis, Shaw, from the South Island ; A. lawryi* sp. nov. 

 from Stewart Island \ A. maiitehi,* Bartl. from North Island ; 

 A. oweni* Gould, the east coast, South Island ; A. oiueni 

 occidentalis* sub-sp. n., the North Island, and west coast, South 

 Island ; A. haasti,* Potts, central South Island and west of the 

 North Island ;and A. tnaxitiius, Verr. (sp. dub.). South Island. 

 Males and females of those marked with an asterisk were ex- 

 hibited, and also a female specimen of the new sub-species. Mr. 

 Rothschild is engaged on a monograph of these strange birds. 



During the construction of the Puy-de-Dome Observatory 

 in 1872, the ruins of a large temple were discovered (says M. 

 Plumandon in La Nature). From a tablet bearing a well- 

 preserved inscription it appeared that the temple was conse- 

 crated to Mercury, and, according to historians, it was destroyed 

 towards the end of the third century. Near the middle of the 

 ruins of the temple, in the part that was originally the most 

 highly decorated, there stands a small vertical wall, about one 

 and a half yards high and rather more than two yards long, 

 built of rectangular blocks of stone four inches high and about 

 six inches in length. The blocks are of two different colours, 

 one kind being of light dolomite, while the other is a black lava. 

 The two colours are alternated in each horizontal row, and the 

 rows are arranged so that the vertical joint between any two 

 blocks falls at the middle points of the blocks above and below 

 it. Proceeding, therefore, from the bottom to the top of the 

 wall, or vice versa, the faces of the blocks of each colour 

 form a zigzag pattern of which the lines are inclined about 

 60" to the horizontal lines separating the successive layers 

 of stone. In fact, the mosaic constitutes a system of parallel 

 lines cut by oblique lines of precisely the same kind as 

 that which is frequently figured in illustration of optical 

 illusions. W'hen the wall is viewed from a short distance the 

 horizontal layers seem to lose their parallelism, and appear to 

 converge towards the interior of the angles formed by two 

 consecutive series of obliques. Zollner first called attention to 

 NO. 1253. VOL. 49] 



the apparent loss of parallelism which truly parallel lines undergo 

 when they are cut by oblique lines, but it is possible that the 

 mosaic was designedly constructed to deceive the eye, and 

 played an important part in the ceremonial of the temple on the 

 Puy-de-Dome one thousand seven hundred years ago. Nihil 

 novum sub sole. 



Mr. E. a. AkoREWS describes in the last (October) number 

 of the Studies from the Biological Laboratory of the yohns Hop- j 

 kins University an undescribed Acraniate, Asytnnietron lucay- \ 

 anujii, found in considerable numbers between North and South 1 

 Bemini, Bahamas, in June and July 1S92. They were taken 

 in the tow-net while swimming at or near the surface, most j 

 abundantly at the early part of the ebb-tide when it had been 

 high tide about nine o'clock in the evening, rarely in the day- 

 time, or late at night, or on the rising tide. They were also 

 obtained buried in the sand flats, but not very abundantly. The 

 specimens taken in June werej larger, often sexually mature, 

 while those taken later were generally immature or larval forms. 

 In captivity their habits were like the European lancelet, the 

 largest was 16 mm. in length and sufficiently translucent to 

 enable one to trace the food or carmine granules to be traced 

 through most of the digestive tracts. The peculiarities of this 

 form, and those which induced the author to venture to refer it to 

 a new genus, are briefly : the gonads being present only on the 

 right, instead of on both sides as in Branchiostoma, the ventral 

 fin having no fin rays, and there being a long caudal process. 



A PAPER was read lately by Mr. H. B. Stocks to the Edin- 

 burgh Royal Society (Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin. p. 70), " On Certain 

 Concretions from the Lower Coal Measures, and the Fossil Plants 

 which they contain." The interest which attaches to these 

 concretions, or " coal-balls," is the remarkably perfect state of 

 preservation of the fossil contents, in many cases fine plant-cells 

 and fibres being preserved even without complete petrifaction. 

 Chemically analysed, the petrified wood yields mainly carbonate 

 of lime and iron pyrites, each in the proportion of 48 per cent. 

 The late Mr. Binney suggested that the carbonate of lime was 

 dissolved from shells in the marine strata overlying the concre- 

 tionary beds and re deposited on the plants, but, as Mr. 

 Stocks points out, this assumes the lapse of a considerable 

 period of time between the beginning of vegetable decay and 

 the process of petrifaction, a period which would be under ordi- 

 nary conditions fatal to the preservation of the delicate vegetable 

 tissues. Mr. Stocks thinks that decay and petrifaction went on 

 simultaneously, and hopes to prove the following explanation o 

 the mode of petrifaction : by the process of osmosis water con 

 taining the usual quantity of carbon sulphate in solution, passes 

 through the vegetable tissues of the plant, and sets up a series 

 of chemical changes resulting in the formation of carbonate of 

 lime and iron pyrites. The sulphuretted hydrogen combines 

 then with more iron. The spheroidal shape of the nodules is, 

 he believes, merely due to the deposition of calcium carbonate 

 from a solution heavily charged with organic matter. 



The October number of the Annali of Scottish Natural His- 

 tory contains several interesting articles, amongst them being 

 one by Mr. Peter >Adair, on the disappearance of the short- 

 tailed field vole {Arvicola agrestis), and on some of the effects 

 of the vole plague. This destructive rodent began to be observed 

 in the infested area a few years before 1S90 ; it multiplied with 

 rapidity until the summer of 1892, when the numbers began to 

 decrease, and by the summer of the present year the pest had 

 disappeared. Mr. Adair finds that the disappearance has been 

 general over the whole infested area. On some farms the 

 normal numbers remain, but on others scarcely a vole is to be 

 seen. Various causes have been suggested to account for the 

 disappearance. The drought of last spring and winter may 

 have had some good eftect, for the animal is partial to damp 



