August 17, 19 16] 



NATURE 



505 



the gannet, four pairs of which nested on the Noup 

 of Noss, Bressay, Shetland, during this season. Until 

 now all the known nesting-places of this species in our 

 islands, with the exception of the Bass Rock, have 

 been on the west coast. This report is the work of 

 Misses Evelyn Baxter and Leonora Rintoul, and we 

 regret to notice that while showing a determination 

 to be very up-to-date in the matter of nomenclature 

 they have not adopted that laid down by the British 

 Ornithologists' Union, of which they are honorary 

 members. 



In the Irish Naturalist for July Mr. R. A. Phillips 

 describes and figures two species of fossil Pisidium 

 new to Ireland. They were obtained from a deposit 

 in the Suir, near Fiddown, about fifteen miles above 

 Waterford. One of these, P. supinum, was found in 

 association with a thickened, triangular form of P. 

 Casertanuni, which it closely resembled ; the other, 

 P. parvulum, has apparently not previously been 

 recognised as a British species, having been " confused 

 with, and mistaken for," the young of P. supinum. 

 Mr. Phillips, in his paper, gives the distinguishing 

 characters between the two species in tabular form. 

 Many of the shells which he has obtained from the 

 Suir and Shannon have all the appearance of drift- 

 shells only recently killed ; hence it is probable that 

 the species will be found living in both rivers. For 

 similar reasons hfe believes that P. supinum will also 

 be found living in Irish rivers. 



The second volume of " Papers from the Geological 

 Department, Glasgow University" (see N.-ixURE, vol. 

 xcvi., p. 236), bears further testimony to the energy 

 of Prof. J. W. Gregory and his colleagues. One of the 

 most notable contributions is that in which Prof. 

 Gregory records the discovery of pebbles of the Moine 

 Gneiss in Torridon Sandstone, and thus makes a 

 marked advance in the stratigraphy of the Scottish 

 Highlands. His description of " Pseudo-Glacial 

 Features in Dalmatia" contains several illustrations 

 from the karstland that are specially interesting at the 

 present time. 



Dr. H. H. Hayden's "Notes on the Geology of 

 Chitral, Gilgit, and the Pamirs " (Rec. Geol. Surv. 

 India, vol. xlv., pub. 1916, p. 271) need no apology 

 for incompleteness. They were drawn up during 

 steady journeying in a region of rocky and snow- 

 capped heights, of which the photographic illustra- 

 tions give a striking record. Dr. Hayden finds that 

 the trend-lines of the mountains between the Pamirs 

 and Kungur and Mustagh-ata do not present anoma- 

 lies such as Suess and Fiitterer pointed out. Stolic- 

 zka's and Ivanov's observations on the Pamirs, pub- 

 lished in 1878 and 1886, are now for the first time 

 supplemented. 



Dr. W. F. Smeeth's "Outline of the Geological 

 History of Mysore " (Bangalore, price one rupee) is 

 accompanied by a coloured geological map of southern 

 India, on a scale of about one inch to one hundred 

 miles. The references to the banded iron-ores, the 

 quartz-magnetite dykes or tongues in charnockite, 

 and the intrusive character of the " peninsular gneiss," 

 once regarded as " fundamental," are brief, but are 

 suggestive for comparison with other pre-Cambrian 

 regions. The Dharwar schists have affinities with 

 the Keewatin series of North America. 



The remarkable new canal between Aries, on the 

 Rhone, and Marseilles is the subject of an article by 

 Prof. Piero Gribaudi in the Bollettino della Reale 

 Societa Geographica Italiana for July (vol. v., No. 7). 

 The canal, which was opened last May, is carried 

 through the hills north of Marseilles in a tunnel 



NO. 2442, VOL. 97] 



four and a half miles long and 72 ft. wide, with a 

 depth of 10 ft. of water. It will make direct barge 

 traffic possible between Marseilles and the Rhone. 

 Equally important is the construction of a new line 

 of railway from Marseilles to Miramas, where it 

 connects with the Paris-Mediterranean line. This 

 new line leaves Marseilles westward along the coast, 

 and is an alternative to the long Nerte tunnel, which 

 was always the weak link on the old line in case of 

 an accident. 



The Canadian Department of Mines has just pub- 

 i lished a volume (Bulletin No. 11) upon the " Investiga- 

 j tion of the Peat Bogs and Peat Industry of Canada 

 j in 1913-14," by Aleph Anrep, which will be found 

 I interesting to all concerned in the problem of the 

 I utilisation of peat. It may be looked upon as a con- 

 tinuation of the volumes upon peat already issued by 

 the same Department, and brings the information upon 

 this subject well up to date. The first portiorj con- 

 tains detailed descriptions of a number of peat bogs 

 in Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Nova 

 Scotia, and is followed by a particularly well illustrated 

 account of the botany of these bogs. This is followed 

 by a series of notes upon special appliances for the 

 manufacture of peat fuel, and upon the peat production 

 in certain foreign countries, and an appendix contains 

 abstracts of Canadian patents for excavating and 

 handling peat and for the manufacture of peat fuel. 

 This bulletin is a further example of the sedulous 

 care with which the Canadian Government endeavours 

 to foster the development and utilisation of the natural 

 resources of the Dominion ; it is greatly to be desired 

 that the example thus set may be followed in our 

 country, and that we may see before long some Govern- 

 ment department specially charged with the duty of 

 seeing that British natural resources are turned to the 

 best possible account. 



An attempt to gauge the agricultural possibilities 

 of Australia so far as the climatic factor is con- 

 cerned has been made by Mr. Griffith Taylor, and his 

 results are published in Bulletin No. 11 of the 

 Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology. The scops 

 of the inquiry includes the distribution of cattle, 

 sheep, and wheat. Rainfall is the chief control in the 

 case of wheat, and scarcely of less value as regards 

 cattle and sheep. Temperature is an important factor 

 in the case of wheat, and of considerable influence in 

 the distribution of sheep. Cattle, on the other hand, 

 show a wide adaptability to temperature. The author 

 briefly considers the topographic control and the ques- 

 tion of accessibility, but to both these, as well as to 

 the question of soil, more attention would need to 

 be paid to make such a survey complete. These, how- 

 ever, he rules outside the scope of the memoir. From 

 a consideration of the temperature and rainfall in the 

 wheat lands of Texas and northern India, Mr. Taylor 

 concludes that south-eastern Queensland is well suited 

 for wheat grown under the same conditicms. The 

 area at present under wheat in Queensland is small. 

 In these new wheat lands it is suggested that the 

 Indian practice should be followed of planting the 

 wheat towards the end of the summer rains — that is, 

 early in March. The wheat would rif>en in about 

 four months, during which it would receive an 

 additional five inches of rainfall. 



It is, we think, almost an article of faith amongst 

 chemists that the preparation of sodium chloride pure 

 enough for ordinary analytical operations is a com- 

 paratively easy matter. But, according to Mr. Clifford 

 Lohman, who writes from Cornell College in the 

 Chemical News of August 4, this is not the case. 

 Three specimens of sodium chloride (presumably of 



