136 



NA rURE 



[June 5, 1890 



Mr. L. Fletcher, F.R.S., contributes to the current num- 

 ber of the Mifteralogkal Magazine a vaUiable paper on the 

 meteoric iron of Tucson. The other contents of the number, 

 in addition to abstracts and a review, are : —The hemimorphism 

 of stephanite : the crystalline form of kaolinite, by FI. A. Miers; 

 on zinc oxide from a blast-furnace, by J. Tudor Cundall ; on 

 zinc sulphide replacing stibnite and orpiment — analyses of 

 stephanite and polybasite, by G. T. Prior ; index to mineralogical 

 and petrographical papers, by H. A. Miers. 



The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 

 has issued the third number of its Journal, and we need scarcely 

 say that the papers present a record of much valuable work. The 

 following are the contents : — The Director's Report, No. 3 ; the 

 sense-organs and perceptions of fishes, with remarks on the 

 supply of bait, by W. Bateson (with plate) ; notes on oyster 

 culture, by Dr. G. Herbert Fowler (with plate) ; the generative 

 organs of the oyster, by Dr. P. P. C. Hoek — abstract by G. C. 

 Bourne (with plates) ; letter on oyster culture, by Lord Montagu 

 of Beaulieu ; flora of Plymouth Sound and adjacent waters (pre- 

 liminary paper), by T. Johnson (with a woodcut) ; report of a 

 trawling cruise in PI. M.S. Research off the south-west coast of 

 Ireland, by Gilbert C. Bourne ; notes on the Echinoderms col- 

 lected by Mr. Bourne in deep water off the south-west coast of 

 Ireland in H.M.S. Research, by Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell ; anchovies 

 in the English Channel, by J. T. Cunningham (with an illustra- 

 tion in the text) ; notes and memoranda (with plate) ; and price 

 list of specimens. In his Report, Mr. G. C. Bourne men- 

 tions that Dr. Dohrn, the founder and Director of the Naples 

 Zoological Station, writing to Prof. Ray Lankester about the 

 choice of a site for the laboratory of the Marine Biological 

 Association, said that the source from which the sea-water was 

 derived was not of so much importance as the size of the storage 

 reservoirs, for no water that could b e drawn from the sea would 

 be as suitable for hatching and rearing delicate marine organisms 

 as that which had been for some time in the reservoirs. " Our 

 experience," says Mr. Bourne, "proves the wisdom of Dr. 

 Dohrn 's advice." 



Messrs. Friedlander and Son, Berlin, have issued two 

 numbers of Ahhandlungen und Berichte of the Zoological 

 and Anthropological Museum of Dresden. The first number 

 includes an elaborate report, for the year 1887, of the ornitho- 

 logical stations in the Kingdom of Saxony, by A, B. Meyer and 

 F, Helm ; a paper on Sus celebensis, by A. Nehring ; Lung 

 Ch'iian-Yao, or old Celadon porcelain, by A. B. Meyer ; 

 Coleoptera collected in the years 1868-77 during a journey 

 in South America by A. Stiibel, arranged by T. Kirsch ; and 

 an obituary notice of T. Kirsch, by A. B, Meyer. The second 

 number consists of a monograph, by Dr. K. M, Heller, on "Der 

 Urbiiffel von Celebes : Anoa depressicornis (H, Smith)." Both 

 numbers are admirably printed and illustrated. 



Messrs. William Wesley and Son have issued No. 100 of 

 their " Natural History and Scientific Book Circular." It con- 

 tains a list of works relating to entomology and botany. 



Messrs. Joseph Torrey, Jun., and Edwin H. Barbour, 

 in a letter dated Iowa College, Grinnell, May 9, have sent to 

 Science an account of a remarkable meteor, or meteoric shower, 

 which passed over the State of Iowa on Friday, May 2, at 

 5.40 p.m. In spite of the brightness of the sun, shining at the 

 time in a nearly cloudless sky, the light of the meteor was very 

 noticeable. Its great size, powerful illumination, discharge of 

 sparks, comet-like tail 3° to 5° in length, and the great 

 train of smoke which marked its course for fully ten 

 minutes after its passage, made a strong and lasting impression 

 on the minds of all who saw it. Unfoitunately the clamour over 

 an exciting game of ball prevented the many members of the 

 college who saw it from making as careful observations as they 

 NO. 1075, VOL. 42] 



would otherwise have done ; so it was impossible to tell whether 

 its passage was accompanied by sound or not, but farmers in the 

 neighbourhood report a faint hissing noise. It appeared to 

 enter the atmosphere about 20° to 30° south of the zenith, 

 and descending at an angle of about 50° to 60°, passed 

 below the horizon' north-north-west of Grinnell. By tele- 

 graphing, one small meteorite, weighing one-fifth of a pound, 

 and several fragments from a 70-pound one, were secured, and 

 analyses and microscopic sections at once made. They contain 

 a large amount of metal for the "stone" class of meteorites. 

 The following is the analysis of the matrix of the 7o-pound 

 meteorite: silica, 47-03; iron oxide, 2943; oxide aluminium, 

 294; lime, I7'58; magnesia, 2-96; total, 99*94. 



Mr. George F. Kunz, writing to Science from New 

 York on May 8 about the same meteor, says it was seen 

 over a good part of the State of Iowa at 5.15 p.m., 

 standard western time. According to his account, the pas- 

 sage of the meteor was accompanied by a noise like that 

 of heavy cannonading or thunder ; and many people rushed to 

 the doors, thinking it was the rumbling of an earthquake. The 

 meteor exploded, he says, about eleven miles north of Forest 

 City, Winnebago County, in the centre of the northern part of 

 Iowa, lat. 43° 15', long. 93° 45' west of Greenwich, near the 

 Minnesota State line. The fragments were scattered over a 

 considerable surface of ground, and a part of the main mass was 

 believed to have passed down into Minnesota. Up to the time 

 at which Mr. Kunz wrote his letter, there had been found masses 

 of 104 pounds, 70 pounds, and 10 pounds, and a number of 

 fragments weighing from one to twenty ounces each. The 

 pieces are all angular, with rounded edges. Mr, Kunz 

 says the meteor is apparently of the type of the Parnallite 

 group of Meunier, which fell February 28, 1857, at Par- 

 nallee, India, " The stone is porous, and when it is placed in 

 water to ascertain its specific gravity, there is a considerable 

 ebullition of air. The specific gravity, on a fifteen-gramme 

 piece, was found to be 3*638. The crust is rather thin, opaque 

 black, not shining, and, under the microscope, is very scorious, 

 resembling the Knyahinya (Hungary) and the West Liberty 

 (Iowa) meteoric stones. A broken surface shows the interior 

 colour to be gray, spotted with brown, black, and white ; the 

 latter showing the existence of small specks of meteoric iron 

 from one- tenth to four-tenths of a millimetre across. Troilite is 

 also present in small rounded masses of about the same size. On 

 one broken surface was a very thin seam of a soft black substance, 

 evidently graphite (?), and soft enough to mark white paper ; a 

 felspar (anorthite ?) was also observed, and enstatite was also 

 present." Mr. Kunz points out that this is the fourth meteorite 

 that has been seen to fall in Iowa. The other three falls were as 

 f6llows : at Hartford, Linn County, February 25, 1847 ; at West 

 Liberty, Iowa County, February 12, 1875 5 ^"d the great fall of 

 siderolites at Estherville, Emmet County, May 10, 1879, which 

 fall comprised over two thousand pieces weighing from a tenth 

 of an ounce to 400 i30unds. 



A VALUABLE Contribution to the study of the natural causes 

 which check the tendency of plants and animals to increase in 

 too great numbers appears in a recent issue of the Bulletin of 

 the Moscow Naturalists (1889, No. 3). It is by Mr. Alexander 

 Becker, whose ideas on the subject are based upon direct obser- 

 vation. For several years, various species of grasshoppers ap- 

 peared in great quantities in South-East Russia (about Sarepta), 

 but then came one year of sudden death for most of them : they 

 were seen sitting motionless on the grasses, and dying. A few 

 years ago the butterfly, Melilhira F/icebe, var. (stherea, appeared 

 in immense numbers, and it was expected that in the following 

 year it would be still more numerous, but in reality it became 

 exceedingly rare. The like was true of Zegris eupheme, which 



