64 



NATURE 



[November i6, 1893 



museum contains a good collection of stufted birds, the late 

 Prof. Harkness's collection of fossils, and a number of speci- 

 mens of rocks of the English Lake district. 



It is reported that a seam of good coal has been discovered 

 at Port Jackson, at a depth of 3000 feet below the surface. 



At the second meeting of a conference of the General Light- 

 house Authorities of the United Kingdom and their engineers, 

 together with representatives of the Admiralty and Board of 

 Traoe, held at the Trinity House on November 10, it was 

 decided to publish in the ofticial list of lights the candle-power 

 of each light as determined by the engineers. By this means 

 mariners '.vill be informed of the relative illuminating powers 

 of all the principal lights on the coast. 



A CORPORATION has been formed at Chicago for the purpose 

 of creating and sustaining a museum (says the American 

 Naturalist). Prof. F. \V, Putnam has been appointed manag- 

 ing director of the scheme. It is expected that he will organise 

 the museum into departments, and will place over each a com- 

 petent head, who will make it a medium of original research as 

 well as of exhibition. 



At the annual meeting of the New York Mathematical 

 Society, to be held on December 28, Prof. Simon Newcomb 

 will deliver an address on " Modern Mathematical Thoughts." 



The fifth of the Gilchrist Lectures, in connection with the 

 Bethnal Green Free Library, will be given on Thursday, 23rd, 

 in the Great Assembly Hall, Mile End Road, by Dr. R. D. 

 Roberts, his subject being " The Evolution of the British 

 Isles." 



The Christmas course of lectures for juveniles will this year 

 be delivered at the Royal Institution by Prof. Dewar. The 

 subject will be "Air, Gaseous and Liquid," and the first lecture 

 will be delivered on Thursday, December 28. 



The following science lectures will be delivered at the London 

 Institution during the ensuing session: "Birds — Ancient and 

 Modern," by Dr. B. Bowdler Sharpe ; "When and Why an 

 Electric Spark Oscillates," by Prof. C. V. Boys; "Crabs," by 

 Prof. W. F. R. Weldon ; "The Pond and its People," by the 

 Rev. Dr. Dallinger. Mr. Shelford Bidwell will discourse on 

 " Some Optical Phenomena" ; Mr. J. J. H, Teall, on "The 

 Life History of a Mountain Range" ; Dr. Klein, on "Cholera," 

 and Prof. Vivian Lewes, on " The Chemistry of Cleaning." 

 The Christmas course for juveniles will be given by Mr, H. J. 

 Mackinder. 



In an interesting report, presented to the Department of 

 Agriculture of New South Wales, Mr. A. Sidney Oliff, the 

 Government Entomologist, deals with the injuries inflicted on 

 the sugar-cane crops in the Clarence River district by the 

 ravages of insects. He finds the larger part of the injury to be 

 due to the attacks of the larva of a moth, the sugar-cane moth 

 borer, Nonagria exitiosa, but that its increase is kept in check 

 by two minute hymenopterous parasites, both hitherto unde- 

 scribed ; one, Apanteles N'onagriir, belonging to the Ichneu- 

 monidce, the other, Euplectus Howardi, to the Chalcididce. 



Two recent publications of the Board of Agriculture deal with 

 experiments in checking potato disease in the United Kingdom 

 and abroad. The history and cause of the potato disease are first 

 explained, and a great variety of experiments are described in 

 detail. They form a useful manual for agriculturists in their 

 fight against the Peronospora. 



Mr. J. H. Hart, the Superintendent of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens, Trinidad, has recently been successful in transporting 

 to Nicaragua a selection of the best varieties of Trinidad 

 "cacao." Cacao seed soon loses its vitality, and can only be 

 safely transported long distances by placing it in a suitable 



NO. 1255, VOL. 49] 



position to germinate and grow on the voyage. On April 25 

 of this year, Mr. Hart left Trinidad with a number of specially- 

 prepared cases containing plants, and seeds planted on the day 

 of departure. The boxes in which the seeds were sown had not 

 glass roofs, but were strongly latticed and covered with a mov- 

 able sail-cloth cover which could be easily and rapidly fastened or 

 unfastened, to give light, or to protect from wind, rain, and sun. 

 A frame covered with wire-netting was fastened inside each case, 

 so as to press upon the surface of the soil to prevent it shifting 

 and causing the seeds to be disturbed. The seeds germinated 

 ten days after planting, and on June 10, Mr. Hart reached his 

 destination with more than 26,000 healthy plants, which were 

 successfully put out in nurseries, A number of cacao seeds were 

 sown at Nicaragua to develop during the return voyage, and, 

 upon arriving at Trinidad, good healthy plants were obtained 

 fiom ninety-eight per cent, of the seeds planted. These plants " 

 included two species entirely new to Trinidad, and their 

 introduction may eventually prove of great benefit to the 

 colony. 



Dr. Karl A. von Zittel, Professor of Palaeontology in the 

 University of Munich, has at length completed the final volume 

 of his comprehensive " Handbook of Palaeontology." The 

 first three volumes are already familiar to all students of 

 palaeontology, the fourth volume is devoted to the group of 

 Mammalia. In the Geological Magazine for the months of 

 September, October, and November, Dr. G. J. Hinde gives a 

 translation of the concluding chapter, entitled, " On the 

 Geological Development of the Mammalia." The pal^onto- 

 logical record from Triassic to recent time is there summarised 

 for the various continents, and Prof, von Zittel advances many 

 additional data in support of Huxley's opinion that the four 

 zoogeographical kingdoms of A. R. Wallace, the Palasarctic, 

 Nearctic, Ethiopic, and Indian, form in point of fact but one 

 great area of development — the Arctogean. This is the youngest 

 of three areas of mammalian development ; the oldest is the 

 "Australian," which was separated from other continents as 

 early as Mesozoic time, while the "South American" area 

 dates as far back as early Tertiary. 



A paper, by Mr. C. T. Simpson, on some fossil Unios and 

 other fresh-water shells from the drift at Toronto, Canada, is con- 

 tained in the Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum, 

 vol. xvi, Mr. Simpson finds that the Unio fauna of the Missis- 

 sippi Valley is remarkably distinct, being nearly related only to 

 a part of that of North-Eastern Asia. It can be traced back to 

 the Laramie group of the Cretaceous in an almost unbroken 

 line of species. Glacialists vill be interested in the following 

 conclusion : — " The theory founded by Agassiz and elaborated 

 by Dawson, Upham, Gilbert, Tyrrell, and others, that during 

 the glacial period the archcean region of Canada was elevate 

 from 1,000 to 2,000 feet above its present level, and that it 

 was covered with an ice mantle from 3,000 to 6,000 feet thick, 

 a mantle which in the eastern part of the United States ex- 

 tended down to latitude 38° or 40° ; that in the Champlain 

 period which followed there was a subsidence over this area, 

 during which great lakes were formed by the melting ice, whose 

 northern shores were the yet remaining wall of ice, and whose 

 southern borders were the land that sloped northward ; and that 

 they drained into the Mississippi system, is most strongly con- 

 firmed by the evidence of these fossil Unios, and by every fact 

 of the distribution of the Naiades in this general region to-day. 

 It is believed that the entire system of the present Great Lakes 

 was united, and that at one time it covered a considerable part 

 of Lower Michigan, and extended well into Ohio, Indiana, and 

 Illinois." 



The great importance attaching to an accurate knowledge 

 of the precise instant at which an earthquake shock is felt at a 



