December 28, 1899] 



NATURE 



207 



other electrolytic products are obtained are briefly described by 

 Dr. Borchers in his interesting paper. 



We have received from Dr. L. Camera, Voluntary Assistant 

 at the Royal Observatory of Turin, a discussion of the amount 

 of bright sunshine recorded at that Observatory, showing inter 

 alia the mean duration of sunshine during the different hours 

 and months of the years 1896-8, together with a comparison 

 with the means obtained in a discussion by Dr. Rizzo of the 

 values of the previous six years. While the variations between 

 the two series show that the period is much too short for the 

 deduction of trustworthy means, the results are valuable owing 

 1 the comparative rarity of this important climatic factor ; for 

 !; hough observations of barometric pressure, temperature, &c., 

 lave been made at that institution for more than a century, a 

 -unshine recorder has only been in use there for the last ten 

 years. In fact, the instrument has only come into general use 

 luring the last twenty years, principally owing to improvements 

 made by Sir G. G. Stokes in a recorder devised some years 

 leviously by the late Mr. J. F. Campbell. 



The Government Astronomer of Western Australia has 

 sent us a copy of the meteorological observations made at 

 the Perth Observatory and other places in that colony during 

 the "year 1898. This is the second of a series of annual 

 publications issued by the Perth Observatory ; annual meteoro- 

 logical reports have been published since 1876, but the new 

 series shows a marked improvement. In past years the ob- 

 servers were dependent solely upon written instructions without 

 inspection, and had to find out how to do their duties as best 

 they could. In addition to the usual observations, a set of four 

 Platinum Resistance thermometers have been sunk to various 

 ^pths at Perth, and daily weather forecasts are now issued, 

 which, on the whole, have been remarkably successful. In the 

 ytear 1898 there were 31 stations provided with barometers and 

 other instruments, and 213 rain-gauge stations, but the monthly 

 charts show that large tracts are still unrepresented. 



The U.S. Government is pushing on its researches of the 

 economical resources of Porto Rico. Bulletin No. 25 of the 

 U.S. Department of Agriculture (Division of Forestry) consists 

 of a report by Mr. Robert F. Hill, of the U.S. Geological 

 Survey, on the forest conditions of the island. He states that 

 the climate [and soil are well adapted to the growth of a large 

 number of trees and shrubs of great economical value, and he 

 advocates a reversal of the deforesting policy pursued by the 

 Spaniards. Besides those valuable for timber and constructing 

 purposes, he names, as specially adapted to the climatal con- 

 ditions, the tamarind, the papaw, the castor-oil plant or " palma 

 Christi," the all-spice, the lime, a large number of edible fruits, 

 as the orange, citron, lemon, guava, anona, mango, banana, 

 and many others whose names are less known in this country. 

 The coffee cultivated is of a superior quality. There are com- 

 paratively few harmful animals or poisonous plants. 



Prof. W. B. Scott ( Tram. Wagner Free Inst, of Science 

 Philadelphia, vol. vi. ) describes and figures a series of Ungulate 

 Mammals from the Uinta. and White River formations (Oligo- 

 cene) of Utah and Colorado in North America. The mammals 

 belong to the sub-order of " Selenodont Artiodactyls," and they 

 include two groups ; the first comprises forms generically identi- 

 cal with, or clearly related to, Old World anthracotheres and 

 true ruminants, which reached the American continent by 

 migration ; the second group includes forms indigenous to 

 America, the successive stages of whose descent may be traced 

 through several of the Tertiary formations. 



The ninth volume of the Iowa Geological Survey (1899) 

 contains the Annual Report for 1898, with accompanying papers. 

 Statistics of mineral productions, including coal, clay, stone, 

 NO. 1574, VOL. 61] 



lead and zinc, are contributed by Mr. S. W. Beyer. There are 

 also reports on the Counties ^ Caroll, Humbolt, Story, Musca- 

 tine, and Scott, accompanied by colour-printed maps, and 

 followed by an account of the Artesian Wells of the Belle Plaine 

 Area. The county reports contain concise accounts of the 

 various formations including Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, 

 Cretaceous, Pliocene, Glacial and more recent deposits, together 

 with notes on their economic products. In Muscatine county 

 the Devonian rocks afford many points of special interest, and 

 they have yielded a number of fossils. 



The Mittheilungen of the Vienna Geographical Society con- 

 tains an excellent abstract of a paper by Dr. Eduard Richter, 

 published by the Swiss Geological Society at the end of last 

 year, on the advance and retreat of the glaciers in the Alps 

 during the Ice Age. Dr. Richter arrives at the important result 

 that the variation of climate was probably much smaller than 

 has been supposed, because the resistance to the outflow of the 

 ice increases Vith its quantity in a rapid ratio, and the level of 

 the snowfields would therefore rise quickly to levels where the 

 temperature was lower. The variations of level due to this 

 cause would themselves give rise to sudden and irregular 

 changes in the glaciers according as the ice-surface rose above, 

 or fell below, the snow-line. They also account for the enor- 

 mous amount of moraine detritus carried by these glaciers ; 

 each was made up of a large number of small ice-streams, and 

 the debris was not carried as a ground moraine, but in the body 

 of the ice. 



The Biologisches Centralbatt for November I contains, an 

 article by Dr. L. Kathariner on the influence of light on .the 

 colours of the pupae of butterflies, in which many interesting 

 points are recorded. 



The following lectures will be delivered at the Royal Victoria 

 Hall, Waterloo Road, S.E., on Tuesday evenings during 

 January -.—January 2 : "Chronicles of a Clay Cliff," by W. H< 

 Shrubsole ; January 9 : "A Peep Behind the Scenes," by Met* 

 calfe Wood; January 16: "Birds at Home and Abroad,'' 

 by Mrs. Lemon ; January 23 : " Plants of Long Ago," by A, 

 C. Seward, Esq., F.R.S. ; January 30: "The Fathers of 

 Geology," by F. W. Rudler. 



The Journal of the Franklin Institute for December cpn,- 

 tains several additional addresses delivered on the occasion ef 

 the recent celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the 

 Institute. Dr. C. F. Himes describes the history of photo- 

 graphic discovery from the time of Daguerre and Niepce ; Mr. 

 C. Kirchhoff surveys the achievements in mining and metal- 

 lurgy during the past three-quarters of a century ; and Mr. J. 

 Fritz gives some reminiscences of the development of iron 

 manufacture in the United States in the same period. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 

 Astronomical Occurrences in January, 1900. 

 January 2-3. Epoch of January meteors (radiant 23o'-i-53'' . 

 3. 4h. Venus in conjunction with the moon (Venus 



6° S.). 

 6. 7h. 12m. to 8h. lom. Occultation of i^Piscium 



(mag. 5 "2) by the moon. 

 8. I7h. 32m. Jupiter's Sat. IV. in conjunction N. 



of planet. 

 10. 7h. im. to 7h. 59m. Occultation of t- Arietis 

 (mag. 5 '2) by the moon. 



10. 7h. 55m. to 9h. im. Occultation of 65 Arietis 



(mag. 5 '6) by the moon. 



11. loh., 27m. to iih. 34m. Occultation of (c^ Tauri 



(mag. 46) by the moon. 

 II. loh. 40m. to iih. 23m. Occultation of k'' Tauri 

 (mag. S'S) by the moon. 



