December 14, 1893J 



NA TURE 



'59 



The w eather during the past week has been very unsettled 

 ■over the whole of the British Isles, owing to the approach of 

 several large depressions from the Atlantic. On the 6th a large 

 disturbance passed eastwards to the north of Scotland, causing 

 south-westerly gales in the north and west, and during the night 

 of Thursday, the 7th, another deep depression advanced from the 

 south-westward, attended by serious gales in all parts, but of 

 great severity in Scotland and in Scandinavia. The barometer 

 at Stornoway fell to the exceptionally low reading of 27*97 

 inches during the afternoon of the 8ih, giving a dilTerence in 

 the pressure of nearly an inch and a half between the extreme 

 north and south of our islands. Further disturbances arrived 

 from the westward both on Sunday and Tuesday, again causing 

 gales from the south-east and south. The storm on the latter 

 day was chiefly restricted to the southern parts of England and 

 the northern parts of France, and has not been exceeded in 

 violence by any that has visited our southern counties this 

 season. Several places reported force 11 of the Beaufort 

 wind scale. Much rainfall and some sleet accompanied 

 these various disturbances ; in the north of Scotland 

 I "2 inch of rain was measured on the morning of the 

 •9th, and the Meteorological Office Reports for the week ended 

 the 9th inst. sho.v that in that district the rainfall greatly 

 exceeded the average, the total amount being 2 '6 inches, while 

 in most of the English districts the fall was less than the 

 average. 



It is now known that the earthquake which affected 

 Tashkend on November 5, was also felt in other parts of 

 Russian Turkestan. At Samarkand it was felt one minute 

 later than at Tashkend — that is, at 8h. 232T1. a.m., and 

 pretty strong oscillations of the soil lasted for about \\ minutes. 

 Crockery was shattered, and the water in the ponds and irriga- 

 tion canals was set in motion. At Marghelan the strongest 

 shock took place at gh. 35m., and lasted for about five seconds ; 

 it was followed by a feebler o.ie about three minutes later. 



On November 5, the magnetic instruments at Potsdam were 

 disturbed in a manner which showed that a distinct earthquake 

 had reached the observatory. The supposition that such a cause 

 produced the movements of the needles was afterwards confirmed 

 by the record of the seismometer of the geological laboratory of 

 the Faculty of Sciences at Grenoble. From the magnetic curves 

 at Potsdam it appears that the wave reached the observatory at 

 5h. 4m. 503. a.m. (Potsdam mean time), and prodaced the 

 greatest effect at 5h. 8m. 55s., a vibration also being recorded 

 at 5h. 7m. 155.. According to Ct?w//i?i A'^wj'/^i' of November 6, 

 the shock was first felt at Grenoble at 4h. 50m. 35s. (Potsdam 

 time), hence the time taken to travel a distance of about 956 

 kilometres was 8m. 15?. The rate at which the wave was 

 propagated was therefore about i 94 kilometre per second. It 

 is estimated that the time can be read off from the magneto- 

 graph curves with an accuracy of ten seconds. 



A FEW months ago the President of the Alpine Club invited 

 the co-operation of the Government of India in obtaining a 

 record of observations on the movements of glaciers in the Hima- 

 layan Range, to supplement a similar record maintained of the 

 movements of glaciers in Eurjpe. Believing that such a record 

 would prove of importance to geological and meteorological 

 science, the Government have communicated with officials and 

 others who are stationed in or near the snows, or who may visit 

 from time to tine the glacial regions of the Himalayas. Copies 

 of the Alpine Club's memorandum of instruction in glacier 

 observation have been forwarded to the Foreign and Military 

 Departments of the Government of India, the Governments of 

 the Punjab, North-Western Provinces, and Oudh and Bengal, 

 the Meteorological Reporter, and the Director of the Geological 

 NO. 1259, VOL. 49] 



Survey, for distribution to suc'.i officers as may be in a p^sition 

 to supply the requisite information. The energetic action of the 

 Indian Government in the matter deserves high praise, and it 

 will doubtless result in some interesting data being obtained. 



A COPY of the splendid volume published in honour of M. 

 Pasteur's jubilee has been sent to us. It opens with a brief 

 account of the formation of the memorial committee ; this is 

 followed by a reprint of the address delivered by M. C. Dupuy 

 at the jubilee celebration, and of the numerous addresses and 

 telegrams received from ail parts of the world. The volume 

 also includes five beautiful plates, three of which represent 

 medals struck in M. Pasteur's honour, one the invesii^jator 

 himself in his laboratory, and one is a fac-simile of the address 

 presented by the Stockholm School of Medicine. This testimony 

 of the esteem in which Pasteur is held brings to our mind the 

 words, "Wisdom raineth down skill and knowledge of under- 

 standing, and exalteth them to honour that hold her fast." 



At the Adelaide meeting of the Australasian Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, a lecture was given by Mr. C. W. 

 deVis, on the " Diprotodonandits Times." Popular interest has 

 lately been aroused in this subject owing to an important dis- 

 covery of fossil marsupial bones at Lake Mulligan. Mr. de Vis 

 pointed out the mistake of the current idea that the Diprolodon 

 was a gigantic kangaroo, any great resemblance between the two 

 being confined to the teeth. In general build, Dlprotodon was 

 more like a wombat, but the bones of the ^thigh were even 

 longer in proportion to those of the lower leg than is the case 

 in the wombat, hence it might be concluded that the Dlproto- 

 don was less capable of rapid motion than the wombat. The 

 spongy texture of the bones of the skeleton indicates that it 

 frequented lakes and marches. There were two species of 

 Diprotodon found in Central Australia — D. australis. Owen 

 (circa 6 feet high and 10 feet long), and D. ?>iinor, Huxley 

 (circa 5 feet high and 8 feet long). The arid central plains of 

 the present had been occupied in Diprotodon times by vast ex- 

 tents of luxuriant forest and richly vegetated districts, well- 

 watered by wide rivers. The marsupials were even then the 

 dominant type of life in Australia ; lizards were also numerous, 

 and some were of unusually large proportions, e.g. Megalania, 

 an extinct "guana," 18 to 20 feet in length. Extinct forms of 

 alligators and turtles infested the waters, and amongst the fishes 

 was the still existing Ceratodus. The remains of a varied bird 

 fauna have been well preserved in the same deposits. This 

 fauna included some ancestral forms conaecting, on the one 

 hand, the wingless birds of New Zealand with the Australian 

 emu^, and, on ihe other hand, theAustralian birds with the New 

 Zealand Apteryx. ^Ir. de Vis was inclined to attribute the 

 disappearance of so many of these ancient forms of life from 

 Australia quite as much to senile decay as to altered climatic 

 influences. 



The slow ascensional movement of Scandinavia, evidenced 

 by the displacement of tide marks, the peculiarities of Scandma- 

 vian lake fauna, and other geographical and geological 

 phenomena, is subjected to mathematical investigation by M. A. 

 Badonrean, who, in the Comp'cs Rendus of last week, treats 

 the subject from the point of view of thermal expansion. At 

 the time of the last glacial epoch, the Scandinavian ice-sheet 

 covered the greater portion of the peninsula, as well as Finland 

 and the Baltic, the area of this sheet being about 1500 km. in 

 diameter. \Yhere the soil touched and partly liquefied the mass 

 of ice, its temperature must have been o^ C. At the present 

 time, the mean temperature of the soil over the area of the ancient 

 ice-sheet is 3^ C. Taking the coefficient of expansion of the 

 rocks as eight-millionths, the elevation of the centre of the ice- 

 cap is calculated at 229 m., and the isoanabatics, or lines of equal 



