530 



NATURE 



[October i. 1903 



VvhO has undertaken the sole management of the organisa- 

 tion, which is now recognised as of great national value, 

 directs attention to the power of initiation possessed by the 

 founder, as shown by the fact that the page of '.' British 

 Rainfall " in i860 hardly differed in arrangement from that 

 at the present day, and states that in all essentials the work 

 will be continued in the straight course which its founder 

 impressed upon it. 



In the Physical Review for August, Mr. Edgar Bucking- 

 ham describes a simple mechanical contrivance for tracing 

 the family of curves which represent the adiabatics of a 

 perfect gas. 



Vol. iv. part ii. of the Bibliotheca mathematica con- 

 tains an account of the life and works of the late Prof. 

 P. G. Tait by Mr. Alexander Macfarlane, of South 

 Bethlehem. 



Mr. Franz Kerntler, of Budapest, has published a 

 -short article dealing with the potentials of the forces 

 between elements carrying electric currents, according to 

 Ampere's and allied laws. It is printed by the Pester 

 Lloyd Gesellschaft. 



In the Physical Review for July and August, Messrs. 

 E. F. Nichols and G. F. Hull describe experiments for 

 determining the pressure due to radiation. In order to 

 obtain results free from the effects due to the disturbing 

 -action of gases, (i) use was made of the most perfect re- 

 flecting surfaces to receive the radiation ; (2) the action of 

 a beam of constant intensity was studied in gases at 

 different pressures ; (3) the apparatus was arranged as a 

 torsion balance, in such a way that the disturbing 

 actions could in large measure be reversed ; and (4) ballistic 

 observations were made. It appears that the radiation 

 pressure depends only on the intensity of radiation, and is 

 independent of the wave-length, thus confirming the 

 Maxwell-Bartoli theory within ' the probable errors of 

 observation. 



East African chamgeleons form the subject of an illus- 

 trated article by Mr. J. 'L. Monk in the September number 

 of the Zoologist, to which serial Mr. W. W. Fowler con- 

 tributes a note on what he believes to be an unknown 

 warbler recently observed nesting in Oxfordshire. 



In the August number of the Victorian Naturalist Mr. 

 W. Hopkins raises the question whether eels in Australia 

 do not breed in fresh water. Among other facts, it is 

 stated that in a swamp which had been dry for some months 

 swarms of young eels made their appearance after the first 

 rains. 



In the American Naturalist for July Dr. C. R. Eastman 

 records a lung-fish with a cutting type of dentition from 

 ^he Permian strata of Texas. Possibly the divergence from 

 the normal form may be correlated with a change from 

 marine to brackish water conditions, of which there are 

 indications in the Permian ; but in any case it is very re- 

 markable in view of the singularly uniform type of den- 

 tition presented by the lung-fishes throughout their history. 

 The new species is named Sagenodus pertenuis. 



The Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy for June 

 contain a description of a new species of Pleurotomaria 

 from Japan. The shell resembles that of P. beyrichi in 

 general form and characters, and if perfect .would measure 

 about 3 inches in height. To the same issue Mr. J. P. 

 Moore contributes a long article on polychaetous worms 

 from Japan, Kamchatka, and Bering Sea, in the course 

 of which many new forms are named and described ; while 

 NO. 1770, VOL. 68] 



in the section for July Messrs. Eigenmann and Kennedy 

 have notes on fishes from Paraguay, accompanied by a 

 synopsis of the American representatives of the cichlid 

 group. 



■ One of the most remarkable phenomena connected with 

 Mont PeI6e, in Martinique, is a gigantic plug of solidified 

 lava which has been thrust up from the summit of the 

 new cone of the volcano. This cone has been built up in 

 the ancient crater-basin (the Etang Sec) to a height of 

 1600 feet or more, and it is now dominated by the ascend- 

 ing obelisk of lava, of which, through the courtesy of Prof. 

 Angelo Heilprin, we are able to give a picture. The 

 appearance of this mass of rock (as he tells us) was made 

 known by Prof. Lacroix, and it calls to mind some of the 

 pyramidated summits among the South American volcanoes. 

 When first observed it must have been 1000 feet in height, 

 and where implanted it has a thickness of some 300 to 350 

 feet. The plug has lost 180 feet, but when the photograph 

 was taken (on June 13) it added 800 or 900 feet to the 

 mountain, making the altitude more than 5000 feet. The 

 obelisk terminates in a needle summit, a' true aiguille. It is 



Fig. I.— Ihe Ascending Obelisk of Mont Pelee. Photograph by Prof. 

 Ang=lo Heilprin, June 13, i:)03, taken from the rim of the crater. 



gently curved in the direction of St. Pierre, and on this face 

 it is cavernous and slaggy, giving evidence that explosions 

 have torn away portions of the lava. On the opposite side, 

 the surface is more solid in appearance, and there it is 

 smoothed and even polished, with grooves and striae, like 

 a slickensided surface — the result, evidently, of attrition 

 when the mass was extruded. No doubt the lava was so 

 rapidly solidified that it was unable to flow away, moving 

 upwards, and receiving accretions to its mass from below. 

 Prof. Heilprin observed that the growth during a period 

 of four days measured six metres. Previously a growth of 

 ten metres in eight days had been recorded by M. Giraud. 

 The volcano was too active to permit of a descent into the 

 crater-hollow ; steam and sulphur-puffs were issuing, and 

 avalanches of rock were disrupted from the obelisk. Pel6e. 

 as remarked by Prof. Heilprin {Science, August 7) was still 

 " ugly." 



A NEW map of the world on an equal areai projection has 

 been published by Messrs. Darbishire and Stanford, Ltd., 

 Oxford, price 6d. net. British possessions are coloured red, 



