No. 1070, Vol. 42] 



NATURE 



19 



According to an official estimate, there are 170,000 wolves 

 in Russia; and the loss caused by the destruction of sheep and 

 swine by wolves is so great that it cannot be even approximately 

 estimated. The reward paid for each wolf killed is 10 roubles. 

 Ihe number killed in 1889 in the single government of Wologda 

 was 49,000, and in the government of Kasan 31,000. The 

 number of human beings killed by wolves during the year was 

 203. 



Mr. John Murray has issued an abridged and popular 

 edition of Mr. Paul du Chaillu's " Adventures in the Great 

 Forest of Equatorial Africa and the Country of the Dwarfs." 

 While recognizing the work that has been done by later travel- 

 lers in the regions va ith which his name is associated, Mr. du 

 Chaillu says, in his new preface, that, so far as he is aware, no 

 white man has been able since his time "to penetrate to the 

 haunts of the gorilla and bring home specimens killed by 

 himself." 



Part 19 of Cassell's "New Popular Educator" has been 

 issued. 



I We have received "The Medical Register" and "The 



Dentists' Register" for 1890. Both works are printed and 

 published under the direction of the General Council of Medical 

 Education and Registration of the United Kingdom. 

 " The seventh annual issue of the " Year-book of the Scientific 

 and Learned Societies of Great Britain and Ireland " (C. Griffin 

 and Co.) has been published. It comprises lists of the papers 

 read during 1889 before Societies engaged in fourteen depart- 

 ments of research, with the names of their authors. The work 

 has been compiled from official sources. 



The following note on the words "cold-short" and "red- 

 short " appears in Engineering of the 25th ult. Some of our 

 readers may perhaps be able to throw light on the subject : — 

 The words " cold-short " and "red-short " are so expressive that 

 their etymology would seem at first sight to be entiiely free from 

 difficulty, but such is not the case. The earliest form of " cold- 

 short" occurs in Philemon Holland's translation of Pliny's 

 "Natural History" (1601) where it appears as "colsar." 

 \'ernatt and Whitmore, in their patent for the manufacture of 

 iron granted in 1637, speak of "colshire" and "coleshire" iron, 

 whilst Dud Dudley, in his famous tract " Metallum Martis " 

 (1665), calls it "coldshare" iron. A still further variation 

 appears in the Philosophical Transactions for 1693, in the 

 course of a curious paper, written in 1674, giving an account of 

 the hematite ores of Lancashire, where the writer speaks of 

 "coldshire" and " redshire " iron. Andrew Yarranton, in his 

 "England's Improvement by Land and Sea" {1677), uses the 

 word " coldshore," and in Moxon's " Mechanick Exercises," 

 published in the same year, red-short iron is described as " red- 

 \ sear." The earliest known instance of "cold-short " and " red- 

 ' short " is in a rare folio tract of 4 pages bearing the title 

 "Beware of Bubbles," which, though undated, must, from 

 internal evidence, have been issued in 1730. It forms one of a 

 number of broadsides circulating about the time referring to a 

 patent for the manufacture of iron taken out by Francis Wood, 

 the well-known manufacturer of " Wood's halfpence," so un- 

 mercifully satirized by Swift in the " Drapier Letters." The 

 words " cold short " and " red-short" are at the present moment 

 occupying the attention of the editor of the " New English Dic- 

 tionary on Historical Principles," now in course of publication 

 by the Clarendon Press, and if any of our readers are able to 

 I throw light upon the etymology of "cold-short" and "red- 

 short " their suggestions will be gladly welcomed by the editor, 

 Dr. Murray, Banbury Road, Oxford. 



A new colouring matter from pyrogallol, CgHj(0H)3, and 

 benzotrichloride, CgHr, . CCI3, is described in the current num- 

 ber of Liebigs Anna/en, by Drs. Doebner and Foerster, of the 



University of Halle. When pyrogallol and benzotrichloride are 

 heated to 160° C. in the proportion of two molecules of the 

 former to one of the latter until no more hydrochloric acid is 

 evolved, a fused mas? is obtained which dissolves in alkalies with 

 the production of a fine blue colour. The powdered product ol 

 the fusion is of a dark brown colour with a greenish metallic 

 lustre. It may be obtained pure from solution in hot glacial 

 acetic acid in the form of dark green crystals, which under the 

 microscope appear as bright red transparent plates by transmitted 

 light. The substance is almost insoluble in water, benzene, or 

 carbon bisulphide, but is more soluble in alcohol and ether, and 

 in hot chloroform. It dissolves in a hot solution of sodium 

 acetate with production of a deep red colour. Caustic alkalies 

 readily dissolve the pure crystals with production of the same 

 blue colour as that yielded by the crude product of fusion. When 

 the solution is just neutralized the colour is a bluish-violet, but 

 the least excess of alkali reproduces the magnificent blue colour. 

 Strong sulphuric acid dissolves the crystals with formation of a 

 soluble sulphonic acid of a fine violet tint. Most metallic salt 

 solutions yield with neutral solutions of the ammonium salt pre- 

 cipitates of the nature of "lakes" of varying composition and 

 of various shades of bluish-violet. The colours produced by salts 

 of aluminium and iron are perhaps the most striking. The yield 

 of the new substance is very good, and generally amounts to 

 about sixty grams of pure crystals for every hundred grams of 

 pyrogallol employed. As regards its composition and consritu- 

 tion, its empirical formula is found to be C38H240„. It evidently 

 contains four phenol hydroxyl groups, for it reacts with acid 

 chlorides and anhydrides with production of compounds contain- 

 ing four acid radicals. The acetyl compound, C38H2jOii(C2H30)4, 

 forms bright red crystals, melting at 208° C, which are decom- 

 posed by soda with formation once more of a blue colour. The 

 benzoyl compound, C38H2oOji(C-H50)4, consists of thin red 

 prisms possessing a brilliant green lustre, and melting to a deep 

 red liquid at 251°. The substance also yields a hydro-reduction 

 product with zinc dust and glacial acetic acid of the composition 

 Ci9Hj40g ; this reduction-product forms beautiful long colourless 

 needles of silky lustre, which rapidly reoxidize in air, and 

 especially on heating, to the original compound. Even if the 

 needles are allowed to remain a 'short time in their mother- 

 liquor they gradually become tipped with red, exhibiting an 

 exceptionally pretty effect. The constitution of this hydro-body 



/CeHjCOH)^. 

 is shown to be CgHsCH^ -O, from which, taking 



\C6H,(OH)2-' 

 into account the fact that four phenol hydroxyl groups are shown 

 to be present by the mode of reaction with acid chlorides and 

 anhydrides, the constitution of the new colouring matter is 

 concluded to be as follows : — 



C6Ho(0H), 



CeHaC^ \o 



Hi^^<-Sy 

 HO chZ-O 



CeHsC/ /^ 



\C6H2(OH)2 



The name which the discoverers propose for the compound is 

 pyrogallol-benzein. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Rhesus Monkey {Macacus rhesus 9 ) from 

 India, presented by Mrs. Pendry ; a Brown Bear(6'rj«j arctos 

 i ) from Russia, presented by Miss Evelyn Muir ; a Bateleur 

 Eagle (Helotarsus ecaudatus) from East Africa, presented by Dr. 

 E. J. Baxter ; an Elliot's Pheasant {Phasianus ellioti ? ) from 

 China, a Cape Weaver Bird {Hyphantornis capensis i ) from 

 South Africa, a Red-eyed Ground Yios&{Pipiloerythrophthalmus) 

 from North America, presented by Mr. Wilfred G. Marshall j a 



