2:?S 



NATURE 



[January ii, 1900 



under the presidency of Dr. Neumayer, on the subject of the 

 rating and improvement of chronometers ; those of German 

 manufacture were recommended for use, as far as practicable. 



The Rev. John M. Bacon, on the occasion of a night balloon 

 ascent, underwent an enforced detention in the upper regions of 

 the atmosphere exceeding in duration that of any ot|ier English 

 balloon voyage on record, and he made use of the opportunity 

 to study the varying currents blowing at different altitudes. In 

 the January number of The National Review he gives the 

 results of these observations in an article, entitled " The War of 

 Winds," which, together with the facts he has collected, forms 

 an interesting commentary on weather forecasts. 



Dr. Frederick A. Cook's' description of the Belgian Ant- 

 arctic expedition, of which he was a member, contributed to 

 the January number of the Century Magazine^ is accompanied 

 by several exceptionally fine half-tone colour plates representing 

 some of the Antarctic views seen during the journey of the 

 Belgica. How promising the Antarctic is as a field of explora- 

 tion may be judged from the following summary of the geo- 

 graphical results of the expedition :—" The work of the first two 

 weeks when assembled proved the discovery of a highway per- 

 fectly free for navigation during the summer months from Brans- 

 field Strait, two hundred miles south-westerly, through an un- 

 known land to the Pacific. This highway has received the name 

 of our ship, Belgica Strait. To the east of Belgica Strait we 

 discovered a high, continuous country, which connects with the 

 land charted as Graham Land. This has been christened Danco 

 Land, in honour of our companion, Lieutenant Danco, who died 

 on the ship during the long drift in the pack-ice which followed. 

 The land to the west of the strait is cut up into islands by several 

 channels, and was named Palmer Archipelago, in honour of 

 Captain Nathaniel Palmer, the American sealer, who first of all 

 men saw the outer fringe of this land. Scattered about in the 

 waters of Belgica Strait are about one hundred islands and some 

 groups of islands. About fifty of these are of considerable size. 

 The islands, the capes, the bays, the headlands, and the moun- 

 tains will mostly receive the names of Belgian friends of the 

 expedition ; but prominent outside workers have not been for- 

 gotten, as is evidenced by Nansen and Andree Islands, and 

 Neumeyer Channel." 



Mr. Joseph Jacobs, in an article, entitled " The Paths of 

 Glory," in the current number of the Fortnightly Review, 

 subjects the latest issue of "Who's Who" to a rough analysis, 

 with the view of giving some idea of the kind of career which 

 confers distinction on Englishmen. It seems that one English- 

 man out of every fifteen hundred throughout the British Empire 

 attains popularity enough to secure a place in the biographical 

 dictionary referred to. Among the results at which Mr. Jacobs 

 has arrived, it may be noticed that " the comparative importance 

 of politics as a means of figuring prominently in the world's 

 thought " has changed but little during the thirty years since 

 the publication of Mr. Gallon's " Hereditary Genius." A com- 

 parison of the conclusions in this book with the contents of 

 " Who's Who " leads to the remark that " scientific men must 

 have increased more than fourfold in the interval (the last thirty 

 years), yet their proportional parallax has declined from 73 to 

 42. Specialisation, doubtless, advances science and secures a 

 man's position, but it rarely brings him prominently before the 

 public." The argument as to the decline of the " proportional 

 parallax " of men of science is, of course, unsound ; for if " Who's 

 Who " had been edited by some one familiar with the work of 

 scientific men instead of a literary man, many minor writers 

 would have been omitted lr«m it and the names of more in- 

 vestigators well-known in the scientific world would have been 

 included. The data from which Mr. Jacobs determines his 

 ^'proportional parallax" are thus not comparable. 



NO. 1576, VOL. 61] 



For several years Prof. W. O. Atwater has been engaged 

 in investigations to determine whether the energy given off from 

 the body of a man in the form of heat, or of heat and external 

 muscular work, is equal to the potential energy or heat of com- 

 bustion of the material actually burned in the body ; in other 

 words, whether the law of the conservation of energy holds good 

 for the living organism. The lastest number of the Physical 

 Review (vol. ix., No. 4) contains a concluding account, by 

 Prof. Atwater and Mr. E. B. Rosa, of experiments made with 

 the view of testing this point. A slight difference was found 

 between the estimated income and measured outgo of energy 

 in the experiments, and the authors conclude: "In view of 

 defects and sources of error in methods and apparatus, we 

 would, perhaps, be unwarranted in assuming that the experi- 

 ments thus far made completely demonstrate the applicability 

 of the law of the conservation of energy in the human organism. 

 They do, however, seem to us to be reasonably near to such 

 demonstration." The mechanical efficiency of a man was deter- 

 mined by a comparison of the energy used when at rest and 

 when performing muscular work. The work done, divided by 

 the total energy yielded by the body, gave 7 per cent, as the 

 mechanical efficiency. As, however, a large amount of the 

 energy received was used up in the body, only the excess of energy 

 absorbed in the work experiment over that required when the 

 subject was at rest should be charged against the work done. 

 When this was taken into account the mechanical efficiency of 

 man came out at 21 per cent., which equals or exceeds that 

 of the best compound condensing engines with the highest 

 efficiency boilers. 



Two more parts of the zoology of the Norwegian North 

 Atlantic Expedition have recently been issued ; one (No. xxv.), 

 by Hans Kiter, dealing with the Thalamophora (Foraminifera), 

 and the other (No. xxvi.), from the pen of Kristine Bonnevie, 

 treating of the Hydroid Zoophytes. As usual, an English 

 translation is printed in parallel columns with the Norwegian 

 text ; and although this, in the main, is well done, it would 

 have been all the better for revision by an English proof-reader. 

 The Foraminifera indicate that the portion of the Atlantic basin 

 surveyed by the expedition is capable of division into three 

 areas. Firstly, the southern grey clay, including the fjords and 

 banks along the Norwegian coast, about as far as long. 19' E., 

 as well as the similar clay area near Iceland and Jan Mayen. 

 Secondly, the northern grey clay, comprising the fjords and 

 banks along the aforesaid coast to the eastward of long. 19° E., 

 and likewise the vicinity of Bear Island and Spitzbergen, 

 Thirdly, the brown clay, subdivided into the BilocitUna and the 

 transition clay. So greatly does the brown clay differ in its 

 fauna from the grey, that of the species of Foraminifera found 

 on the former, only about two-thirds are common to the latter. 

 It is also noticed that, with the exception of the eastern portion, 

 the grey clay on the Norwegian coast is remarkably rich in these 

 organisms, half of those met with during the expedition being 

 taken there. From the great depths towards ilie coast the 

 Globigerinae gradually diminish in number, until they almost 

 disappear near the coast and in the fjords. 



Modern Medicine states that Dr. A. Campbell White has been 

 experimenting with liquid air on the tissues of the body. The 

 results obtained encourage the belief that it will come into use 

 as a local anaesthetic, and possibly for other medical and surgical 

 purposes. The difference in temperature between liquid air and 

 the human body is so great that it affords a unique means of pro- 

 ducing a sudden and extreme shock to a localised part of the 

 body, without localised destruction of tissue, or without affecting 

 the general system. 



Mr. G. a. Hemsalech, who, in conjunction with Prof. 

 Schuster, recently published an account of their joint researches 



