6o6 



NATURE 



[April 26, 1894 



completing the quarterly observations for one year undertaken 

 by the Fishery Board for Scotland, in association with the re- 

 searches simultaneously carried out by Prof Kriimmel of Kiel, 

 and Prof. Pettersson of Stockholm. Mr. H. N. Dickson has 

 had charge of the observations at sea, and will present a com- 

 prehensive report to the Fishery Board in the course of this 

 year. While the trip of August 1893 was very successful, 

 those of November 1893 and February 1894 were unfortu- 

 nate as regards weather, the Jackal encountering the full 

 force of the two most violent storms of the winter on these 

 occasions, and being thus unable to complete the full programme 

 of work. 



In consequence of the break-down of the proposed expedition 

 (under Dr. Stein) to Ellesmere Land, efforts are being made in 

 this country and in Sweden to ensure that an adequate search 

 is made by whalers, or by a special expedition, for the missing 

 Swedish naturalists, Bjorling and Kalstennius, and the New- 

 foundlanders who were in their company. It will be remem- 

 bered that the young Swedes set out from St. John's, in 1892, 

 in a small schooner, the Ripple, the wreck of which was dis- 

 covered last summer on the Carey Islands. The survivors 

 intended to make for the Eskimo settlement on Ellesmere Land, 

 where they hoped to be rescued. It is just possible that they 

 may survive, and prompt action is needed to make up for the 

 time lost in trusting to the intentions of the American expedition. 

 Mr. Clements R. Markham has opened a subscription list at 

 the Royal Geographical Society, i, Savile Row, where a con- 

 siderable sum has already been received. 



The expedition of the German Cameroons Government, 

 under Baron von Uechtritz, to delimit the Hinterland of the 

 Cameroons has, according to a private letter of its scientific 

 member, Dr. Passarge, published in Dr. Danckelman's Mitthei- 

 hmgen, had more than a political object. It proceeded up the 

 Benue to Yola, and after being well received by the Sultan, 

 left for the east, and reached Garua in the autumn of last year, 

 where, in company with the French mission, the boundary line 

 between French and German territory was settled, and access 

 to Lake Chad from the south behind the Cameroons insured to 

 the French Congo territory east of the Shari. Dr. Passarge 

 has made the most complete geological survey of the Benue 

 that has yet been attempted, and his observations throw much 

 light on the geology of the Western Sudan generally. 



The May number of the Geographical Journal announces 

 two new expeditions into Africa of more than ordinary scien- 

 tific interest. Dr. Donaldson Smith, an American traveller 

 who has already had some experience in Somaliland, is to 

 make another effort to force a way from the north coast of 

 Somaliland to the Lake Rudolph region. The expedition will 

 probably start in May. Mr. R. T. Coryndon, well known as 

 a hunter and collector in South Africa, is on his way, via the 

 Cape and Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika, to the eastern edge 

 of the great Congo forest, where he intends to make a per- 

 manent camp, from which natural history collecting may be 

 carried on for a year or more. Both explorers are trained in 

 the use of surveying instruments, and if all goes well, the 

 results obtained cannot fail to be of the greatest interest and 

 value. 



A SERIES of long, nearly parallel lakes, lying in Central New 

 York State, has been investigated by Mr. Ralph S. Tarr {Bull. 

 Geol. Soc. Amer. vol. v. pp. 339-356, 1894). Several of 

 these lakes, known as Finger lakes, and notably lakes Cayuga 

 and Seneca, are extremely long compared with their width. 

 With the exception of one or two minute ones, they all drain 

 northwards and eventually enter Lake Ontario through the 

 Oswego or through the Genesee river. Mr. Tarr gives reasons 

 NO. 1278, VOL. 49] 



for believing that "Lake Cayuga, and presumably other of the 

 Finger lakes, is situated in a rock-basin with a maximum depth 

 of approximately 435 feet. The nature of the proof is that the 

 pre-glacial tributaries to this valley are found to be rock-enclosed, 

 and that their lowest points are above the present lake surface." 

 There appear to be various reasons why a rock-basin should be 

 constructed with comparative ease in the region discussed. Mr, 

 Tarr finds that the course of the pre-glacial Cayuga was north- 

 ward, and probably tributary to a river which drained at least 

 one of the great lakes, Ontario. And as the tributaries of 

 Cayuga river seem to prove the rock-basin origin of Lake 

 Cayuga, it is argued that the Cayuga river tributary to the 

 Ontario stream indicates that Lake Ontario is also a rock-basin. 



Kirchhoff's law connecting the absorptive and emissive 

 powers of substances has been tested for glass by G. B. Rizzo, 

 who has communicated his results to the Accademia di Torino. 

 Kirchhofl's law states that any substance absorbs those rays 

 which it is capable of emitting at the same temperature, and 

 that the emissive and absorptive powers are, under similar con- 

 ditions, numerically proportional. The glass tested had been 

 coloured blue by means of oxide of cobalt. It was heated to a 

 red heat in a Bunsen flame, and placed in front of the slit of a 

 spectroscope in which a bolometer was substituted for the tele- 

 scope. The absorptive power was measured by comparing the 

 intensity of the continuous spectrum given out by an Auer lamp 

 with that of the absorption spectrum due to the glass, and the 

 emissive power was determined by noting the effect of the spec- 

 trum of the hot glass alone upon the bolometer. The results 

 show that while the emissive power decreases nearly uniformly 

 between the wave-lengths 685 and 580, the absorptive power 

 shows decided maxima in the red, yellow, and green, which 

 show no relation whatever to the emissive power. It must 

 therefore be concluded that Kirchhoff's law does not hold good 

 for this and similar cases. 



At a recent meeting of the Accademia dei Lincei, Prof. Ricco 

 drew attention to the difference of time between the seismometer 

 records of Zante and Catania during the first four months of last 

 year, and communica'ed some important conclusions regarding 

 the mode of propagation of earthquake shocks between the two 

 places. The distance between the stations is 515 km. (320 

 miles), and the difference in time between the four earthquake 

 shocks originating at Zante ranged from 4 min. 20 sec. to 7 min. 

 30 sec, and gave a mean velocity of 1439 m. per second. This 

 velocity, curiously enough, nearly coincides with the velocity of 

 sound in water. This means that the shock was not propagated 

 along the bottom of the Ionian Sea — in which case it would have 

 travelled with a speed of something between 2000 and 4000 m. 

 per second — but was transmitted by the water to Sicily. 

 The circumstance that no shock was propagated through the 

 ground, Prof. Ricco attributes to the probability that the ground 

 to the east of the Etna district is discontinuous and much 

 broken up. 



In a paper communicated to the R. Accademia delle Scienze 

 dell'Istituto di Bologna, Prof Augusto Righi gives a de- 

 scription of a very sensitive idiostatic electrometer which he has 

 constructed. The essential part of the instrument consists of a thin 

 aluminium disc about 9 cm. in diameter, having a hole I cm. 

 in diameter at the centre, and also two sector-shaped windows. 

 A light aluminium needle, of the usual shape employed in 

 quadrant electrometers, is suspended above this disc by a bifilar 

 suspension, and carries a thin platinum wire which dips into a 

 vessel containing sulphuric acid. Two metal diics, pierced with 

 central holes, are placed one above the needle, and the other 

 below the disc with the windows. These two discs are generally 

 placed in metallic connection with the conducting case which 

 surrounds the instrument, and they form one plate of a con- 



