May II, 19 1 6] 



NATURE 



227 



legists, including his successor. Prof. Charles Barrois. 

 From 1876 onwards he co-operated with the Geological 

 Survey of France, and in 1888 published his classic 

 memoir on the geology of the Ardennes. His work 

 on the Devonian and Carboniferous rocks especially 

 was not only of fundamental scientific value, but also 

 touched many problems of economic geology which 

 were of immediate importance to the community in 

 which he lived. He was an inspiring teacher and 

 an ideal leader of field excursions, and retained his 

 active enthusiasm until the end. On his retirement in 

 1902 his friends and admirers established a Gosselet 

 prize for geology, and placed a bust in the museum 

 he founded at Lille, and the account of the proceedings 

 in the Annales de la Societe Gdologique du Nord (vol. 

 xxxi.) is accompanied by an excellent portrait of the 

 professor. He was a foreign member of the Geo- 

 logical Society of London, and was awarded its 

 Murchison medal in 1882. 



The memorandum advocating the substitution of 

 nitre-cake for sulphuric acid in the manufacture of 

 sulphate of ammonia, recently issued by the Ministry 

 of Munitions, having been severely criticised, the pro- 

 posal has been examined by the Sulphate of Ammonia 

 Association. The latter body recommends makers of 

 sulphate of ammonia to use nitre-cake as a temporary 

 expedient for the duration of the war, subject to the 

 following considerations : — (i) That no attempt be 

 made to produce a salt containing less than 24 per 

 cent, of ammonia unless special forward contracts can 

 be made with manure mixers for lower qualities ; (2) 

 that the nitre-cake used should not contain more than 

 0-05 per cent, of nitric acid ; (3) that the quantity of 

 nitre-cake should not exceed 10 per cent, by weight of 

 the acid used, except in special circumstances. If a 

 larger quantity than 10 per cent, of nitre-cake is 

 employed difficulties arise from two causes : first, 

 from precipitation of sodium sulphate, resulting in the 

 production of an irregular quality of salt ; secondly, 

 from irregular working of the bath owing to the im- 

 possibility of control without frequent titration. 



Some French anthropologists have taken the trouble 

 to examine on scientific principles the character of the 

 remarkable wooden Hindenburg figure which the 

 enthusiastic German loyalists have been invited to 

 decorate with nails of gold and other metals. In 

 L'Anthropologie (vol. xxvii., Nos. 1-2, for January- 

 April) M. R. Yerneau compares them with a collec- 

 tion of remarkable fetishes decorated in the same way 

 by the negroes of equatorial Africa and the adjoining 

 regions, of which he gives a number of excellent illus- 

 trations, both animal and human. He expresses the 

 pious assurance that the German devices will be as use- 

 less as the savage fetishes from Loando, and that it 

 is not by the use of such methods current in the lower 

 culture that the ultimate triumph of civilisation can 

 be prevented. 



In the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries 

 of Ireland for December, 19 15, Mr. J. J. Buckley con- 

 tributes an interesting article on some early orna- 

 mented leather work. Ireland possesses many speci- 

 mens of this class of work, such as the satchel which 

 holds the famous MS., the Book of Armagh, in the 

 library of Trinity College; that associated with the 

 shrine called the Breac Moed6ig in the National 

 Museum ; and a binding of the Life of St. Columba in 

 the Franciscan Library, Dublin. Other satchels of the 

 same type are preserved at Stonyhurst College and at 

 Corpus Christi College, Oxford.' There is good evi- 

 dence that the Irish in very ancient times were ac- 

 quainted with the use of oak bark for tanning^ leather, 

 but whether this process was used in the manufacture 

 of the material of these satchels is uncertain. The 



NO. 2428, VOL. 97] 



date of these specimens still remains a matter of specu- 

 lation. That of the Book of Armagh was obvi- 

 ously not made to protect the MS., and the same 

 appears to be the case with the specimen in the 

 National Museum. But that at Corpus Christi College 

 seems to have been made for the book which it covers. 

 The satchel at Stonyhurst has been attributed to the 

 seventh century, but Count Plunkett places it as late 

 as the beginning of the seventeenth. In any case, 

 the style of ornamentation is early, and it may be 

 hoped that as we now possess in this paper excellent 

 photographs, a further study will decide the date of a 

 class of work which is of interest for the study of 

 Irish art. 



In Nature of December 30, 1915 (vol. xcvi., p. 487), 

 appreciative reference was made to part ii. of the 

 third volume of the monograph by Howard, Dyar, 

 and Knab on the mosquitoes of North and (^entral 

 America and the West Indies. It was remarked in 

 the note that vol. ii., containing the illustrative plates, 

 " has presumably not yet been published, as we are 

 unable to trace its receipt." Dr. L. O. Howard 

 writes to remind us that vol. ii. was issued at the 

 same time as vol. i. (1912), and this fact is mentioned 

 in a long review published in Nature of June 26, 

 1913 (vol. xci., p. 420). 



In the Zoologist for April Capt. Philip Gosse con- 

 tributes a brief but very welcome account of the 

 mammals which he obtained in Flanders during such 

 leisure moments as his duties with a field ambulance 

 allowed him. The list is not a long one, but it con- 

 tains some interesting items, among which figure 

 some noteworthy colour variations of the water shrew 

 (Neomys foidens). The black rat he found to be 

 pretty common in the farm buildings, where it was 

 living in company with the brown rat, a somewhat 

 unusual occurrence. In the trenches, however, it does 

 not seem to have been met with, but the brown rat 

 swarms there. 



Ornithologists owe much to Mr, Edmund Selous 

 for the strenuous efforts he has made to secure pro- 

 tection, during the breeding season, for birds breed- 

 ing in Iceland, the eggs of which are coveted by 

 the egg-collector. In some cases he has only been 

 able to achieve this end by fully compensating the 

 local collectors for the loss of revenue they sustained 

 by leaving the sitting birds unmolested. These efforts 

 he describes incidentally in the Zoologist for April, in 

 the course of his account of his ornithological ob- 

 servations made in Iceland during 1912. His efforts 

 to keep a continuous watch on a pair of nesting 

 eagles were frustrated by the intolerable attacks of 

 swarms of mosquitoes, which here gathered in clouds 

 so dense as to obscure the sun. 



The annual report of the Zoological Society of Lon- 

 don never fails to furnish items of interest. Having 

 regard to the anxious times through which we are 

 passing, the report for 1915, just issued, assumes 

 an enhanced importance, since it affords us an index 

 both of our financial stability and our capacity for 

 study and recreation. Though partly by deaths and 

 partly by resignations the number of fellows of the 

 society has been reduced by nearly a hundred, the 

 number of visitors has been well sustained, so that 

 the society, at the end of the financial year, finds 

 itself in possession of ample funds. The cost of pro- 

 visions has increased materially, and the council has 

 therefore considered it prudent to decrease the stock 

 by disposing of some animals that could easily be 

 replaced. Apart from the cost, there has been no 

 difficulty in obtaining the necessary supplies of food 

 for all the animals in the Gardens, and although 



