September 24, 1903] 



NATURE 



497 



altered its appearance in any appreciable way, I ask whence 

 comes the continuous magnetic supply? 



Again, when a lady has had for a great many years a 

 cedar work-box which has never failed in its characteristic 

 odour, it is a natural question to ask, whence comes the 

 smell ? The statement in books, both of physics and physi- 

 ology, is that something material is given off from the 

 wood which alights on the olfactory membrane of the nose. 

 This is purely gratuitous, as the statement is without a 

 shadow of proof, the box being to all appearances in no 

 way diminished in size or otherwise altered. If the hypo- 

 thesis, for it is nothing more, fails, how does the case differ 

 in principle from that of radium? S. W. 



Normally Unequal Growth as a Possible Cause of 

 Death. 



I HAVE found from a good many years' experience that 

 it is frequently difficult to assign any definite cause of death 

 to the lower Vertebrata which die in the Zoological Society's 

 Gardens from time to time. The examination of a large 

 example of the Japanese salamander {Megalobatrachus 

 japonicus), which lived for a good many (nineteen) years 

 here, and measured some three feet in length, has suggested 

 to me a rather curious and truly " natural " cause of death 

 — if my inferences be correct. The animal showed no 

 obvious signs of disease in any organ. Judging from its 

 length it must have been old, for a specimen three feet 

 long is asserted to have been, at least fifty-two years old 

 {vide Gadow, Cambridge Natural History, " Amphibia and 

 Reptiles," p. 99). Comparing this specimen with one 

 some twenty inches in length I found that the size of the 

 heart, as of the other organs, was, as might be expected, 

 actually larger, but that all the subdivisions of the heart 

 were of the same proportions in the two animals. But in 

 the course of a dissection of the heart it was plain that the 

 two series of valves, which lie respectively at the anterior 

 and at the posterior end of the pylangium, were so small, 

 relatively speaking, that, when forced backwards by the 

 pressure of blood in the entire conus arteriosus, they would 

 not meet in the middle line. On the other hand, in the 

 smaller salamander the three valves in question were in the 

 first place situated closer together than in the large animal, 

 being nearly in actual contact, and in the second place 

 their size was so great in relation to the diameter of the 

 pylangium that they would — or, I should rather say, could 

 — meet after the systole of the ventricle. The fact is that 

 these valves do not appear to grow pari passu with the 

 general increase in size of the heart and the conus 

 arteriosus. My own observations as to the small size of 

 the valves in the large example are quite in accord with 

 those of Hyrtl {Cryptobranchus japonicus, Vindobonae, 

 1865), who dissected an animal two and a half feet in 

 length, and figures the valves, incorrectly as I believe in 

 some particulars, but correctly in representing them to be 

 of small relative size. It might be suggested, therefore, 

 that the imperfection of the circulatory mechanism neces- 

 sarily caused by the condition of the valves would lead to 

 serious disturbances, and perhaps to death. If so the 

 animal has a term put to its life by the mere fact that, 

 while the heart grows with the increase in bodily size, the 

 semilunar valves of the conus arteriosus do not. 



Frank E. Beddard. 



Zoological Society's Gardens, London, N.W. 



Can Carrier-pigeons Cross the Atlantic? 



Could any of your readers give me an answer to this 

 query? It is stated in the London Standard (April 20, 

 circd) that this feat was accomplished in 1886, when three 

 out of nine American carrier-pigeons set free in London 

 returned to their home-huts. I have hitherto been un- 

 successful in getting the authority for this particular ex- 

 periment. From the points of view of bird migration and 

 of seed dispersal, it is a query of considerable importance. 



H. B. Glppy. 



21 Henleaze Gardens, Westbury, Bristol, September 21. 



NO. 1769, VOL 68]' 



A TECHNICAL SCHOOL FOR THE HIGH- 

 i.^ LANDS OF SCOTLAND. 



THE difRciIiTt problem of catering for the educational 

 needs of remote and isolated rural districts has 

 been dealt \Kith practically in this country by such 

 enlightened benefactors as the Countess of Warwick 

 in her school at Bigods, near Dunmow, in Essex, 

 which has been carrying on its useful work for some 

 five years, and which is now about to be made still 

 more strictly into a school of agriculture, so as to bring 

 it into harmony with the requirements of the district 

 and of the counties which it serves. Lady Warwick's 

 sister, the Duchess of Sutherland, has faced the still 

 more difficult problem of providing a technical school 

 for the Highlands of Scotland, and a preliminary 

 account of the first scheme was given in these columns 

 at the time of its inception (N.vruRE, vol. Ixv. p. 106, 

 December 5, 1901). The work thus set going by Her 

 Grace was formally inaugurated on September 8 by 

 Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Secretary for Scotland, at a 

 public ceremony held for the purpose of laying the 

 memorial stone. The building, the design of which is 

 by Mr. Dick Peddie, of Edinburgh, is already several 

 feet above its foundations, and is situated on the pic- 

 turesque slope of a hill overlooking the little town of 

 Golspie, on the shore of Dornoch Firth, and within two 

 miles of the beautiful grounds of Dunrobin Castle, the 

 Scottish home of the Sutherlands. The main features' 

 of the educational scheme, as set forth in the state- 

 ment published in our first notice, have been adhered 

 to, but the details of a curriculum suitable for require- 

 ments of such a very diverse nature as have to be met 

 in this' remote Highland district can only be worked 

 out by actual experience — it will be a case, as Lord 

 Balfour said at the meeting, of solvitur ambulando. 

 How diverse these conditions are will be realised when 

 it is pointed out that the industries which have to be 

 catered for are agriculture, almost entirely of the 

 " crofting " type, textiles and dyeing, small mechanical 

 trades and handicrafts, and fishing. 



The ceremony on September 8, rendered picturesque 

 by the surroundings and by the great gathering of 

 some 2000 people from the neighbourhood and from all 

 the towns and villages served by the Highland Rail- 

 way from Inverness northwards, was opened by the 

 singing of the Hundredth Psalm, and by a prayer for 

 the success of the undertaking by Archdeacon Sinclair. 

 The gathering was in itself a memorable one, the Duke 

 of Sutherland, who presided, being supported by the 

 Di:chess and their family, by the Duke and Duchess 

 of Portland, Mr. Andrew Carnegie and his partner 

 Mr. Henry Phipps, Mr. R. B. Haldane, K.C., M.P., 

 Prof. Meldola, by representatives of nearly all the 

 leading Scottish families, .by Members of Parliament, 

 Provosts and Sheriffs, the Principals of the Scotch 

 universities, the chairman of the governors of the 

 Glasgow and W^est of Scotland Technical College, the 

 conveners of the county councils, and by educationists 

 of every class, including professors and inspectors of 

 schools. Mr. James Macdonald, W.S. of Edinburgh, 

 the hon. secretary of the school committee, had made 

 himself responsible for the organisation of the meet- 

 ing, which was in qvery. way successful. After the 

 laying of the stone, Lord Balfour said in the course 

 of his speech : — , 



" This is to be a sphool for Sutherland and these 

 other counties (Caithness, Ross and Cromarty). It is 

 not only to be accessible to Sutherland and these other 

 counties, as any other school might be, but it is a 

 school expressly designed for the needs and wants of 

 the district in which we are met. Its curriculum will 

 be based on a careful study of the condition of things 

 as they now exist, and will have, as the promoters 



