Z1^ 



NATURE 



[August 14, 1890 



As to the white jadite in which the dark nephrite is embedded 

 on the Raskem-daria, and which was extracted by the Chinese 

 on the Tunga River, it is like the jade obtained in Burmah 

 on the tributaries of the Irawadi, and described in a recent 

 issue of the Scottish Geographical Magazine. 



Some curious results have appeared in an examination, by 

 Herren Geisler and Ulitzsch, of school children in the (Saxon) 

 Freiberg district, with reference to growth {Huviboldt). 

 Twenty-one thousand children (of both sexes) were measured. 

 The boys, up to the eleventh year, were found to be about 06 

 to o'9 cm. taller than the girls ; but they were then overtaken 

 by the girls ; and this superiority of the girls continued till the 

 sixteenth year, when the boys again grew more than the girls. 

 This is against Quetelet's opinion, that boys are throughout 

 bigger than girls. 



The Liverpool Geological Society has issued Part II. of the 

 sixth volume of its Proceedings. Among the contents is an 

 address by the President, Mr. H. C. Beasley, on the life of 

 the English Trias. Mr. T. Mellard Reade contributes geological 

 notes on an excursion to Anglesey ; a note on a boulder met 

 with in driving a sewer heading in Addison Street, Liverpool ; 

 and a note on some mammalian bones found in the blue clay 

 below the peat-and-forest bed at the Alt mouth. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 

 on June 25, Mr. Fletcher exhibited one living and several 

 spirit specimens of Notaden Bennettii^ Gthr., from three dif- 

 ferent localities — namely, Dandaloo, on the Bogan River 

 (collected by Mr. A. Fletcher), Warren, on the Macquarie 

 (collected by Mr. Thacher), and Narrabri (collected by Mr. 

 Henry Deane). He remarked that though this toad has 

 hitherto been rare in collections, it is at times not uncommon 

 in its native haunts. In two of the localities above named 

 he had been informed that during April and May of this 

 year considerable numbers had appeared, though possibly the 

 recently prevalent floods may have been concerned in bringing 

 them prominently under notice. From what he had seen of 

 living specimens in captivity, the animals were expert burrowers ; 

 and from what he had heard as to their avoidance of water, 

 their comparatively sudden appearance, followed shortly after- 

 wards by a noticeable diminution in numbfts, he was inclined 

 to think that the species perhaps resembled thcAmerican spade- 

 foot toad {Scaphiopus) in keeping generally out of sight except 

 during a short breeding period. Mr. Ogilby remarked that Mr. 

 Helms, who is away on a collecting expedition for the Australian 

 Museum, had recently sent down specimens of the same species 

 from Bourke. 



Some habits of crocodiles have been lately described by M. 

 Voeltzkow. Travelling in Wituland, he obtained in January 

 last 79 new-laid eggs of the animal, from a nest which was five 

 or six paces from the bank of the Wagogona, a tributary of the 

 Ooi. The spot had been cleared of plants in a circle of about 

 six paces diameter ; apparently by the crocodile having wheeled 

 round several times. Here and there a few branches had been 

 laid, but there was no nest-building proper. The so-called nest 

 lay almost quite open to the sun (only a couple of poor bushes at 

 one part). The eggs lay in four pits, dug in the hard, dry 

 ground, about two feet obliquely down. Including eggs broken in 

 digging out, the total seems to have been 85 to 90. According 

 to the natives, the crocodile, having selected and prepared a spot, 

 makes a pit in it that day, and lays about 20 to 25 eggs in it, 

 which it covers with earth. Next day it makes a second pit, and 

 so on. From the commencement it remains in the nest, and it 

 sleeps there till the hatching of the young, which appear in 

 about two months, when the heavy rain period sets in. The 

 egg-laying occurs only once in the year, about the end of 



NO. 1085, VOL. 42] 



January or beginning of February. The animal, which M. 

 Voeltzkow disturbed, and saw drop into the water, seemed to be 

 the Crocodilus vulgaris so common in East Africa. 



In the last official report from Gambia, the Colonial Surgeon 

 has an interesting paragraph on native diseases. The natives 

 of Africa, he says, who are world-renowned for their superstition, 

 attribute all diseases to one of two causes : either they have been 

 "witched," or some enemy has made "greegree" against them. 

 Of the latter there are two forms : (a) the "greegree" that is 

 administered to a person, and most usually consists of an infusion 

 made of roots, leaves, or bark from trees supposed to have the 

 desired properties; (b) the "greegree" that is prepared against 

 a person. This is done with much ceremony, and the process 

 is accompanied by incantations, recalling the scene of the 

 ' ' witches' cauldron " in " Macbeth. " The treatment relied upon 

 for cure, and much practised in the country, is to call in a man 

 who is supposed lo be a "doctor," who, after looking at the 

 patient, sits down at his bedside and writes in Arabic characters on 

 a wooden slate a long rigmarole, generally consisting of extracts 

 from the Koran. The slate is then washed, and the dirty infusion is 

 drunk by the patient. As a result of this state of ignorance and 

 superstition, unqualified practice of every description is openly 

 carried on, and drugs and poisons are daily sold by persons 

 who are wholly ignorant of their properties, but who have 

 acquired sufficient influence over ignorant patients to extort 

 money. 



The Deutsche Seewarte has just published in a tabular form 

 the results of the meteorological observations made on German 

 and Dutch ships for the ten-degree square, lat. 20°-30° N., 

 long. 30°-40° W. , situated in the centre of the North Atlantic. 

 This is, in fact, the eighth such square which has been similarly 

 published in the last few years ; the results for each month are 

 grouped in one-degree squares, of which there are one hundred 

 in each ten-degree square, and the observations for any part of 

 such sub-square are so grouped as to be readily available for 

 combination with the materials collected by other institutions. 

 The winds are recorded under 16 points, with additional columns 

 for variable winds, calms, and storms. Other columns include 

 the means of the various data, the duration of rainfall, and re- 

 marks of special interest extracted from the logs used in the 

 discussion. The volume contains xxvi. + 193 large quarto pages. 



In the third number of the Sammlung von Vortrdgen und 

 Abhandlungen, Prof. Foerster, the Director of the Berlin 

 Observatory, has brought together seven lectures delivered 

 by him in recent years to scientific societies and artisan 

 audiences in Berlin and Hamburg, and various papers re- 

 printed from Himmcl und Erde, the Prussian Normal Kalender, 

 and other sources. Four of the lectures have relation to standard 

 time, the universal meridian, and the Washington Conference; 

 others are included in the prediction of earthquakes and meteoro- 

 logical phenomena, luminous night clouds, the red skies which 

 followed the Krakatab eruption, and Karl Braun's cosmogony. 

 In a paper on the zodiacal light, it is held that, although the 

 constitution of the light is still a matter of doubt, the evidence 

 gained by means of the spectroscope and polariscope indicates 

 that it consists not merely of sunlight reflected from bodies of a 

 meteoritic nature, but also of innate light, due, probably, to 

 electrical effects in a gaseous medium. A paper from the 

 Kalender for 1891 contains an account of recent work done at 

 Potsdam on the motion of stars in the line of sight, the instru- 

 ments employed in the investigation being fully described. 

 Prof. Foerster enjoys some renown in Germany as a popular 

 exponent of scientific questions, and numerous reprints of his 

 papers and discourses have appeared. 



The demand for techical education in New South Wales is 

 rapidly increasing both in Sydney and in the principal centres 





