282 



NA TURE 



[January i8, 1900 



An Earthquake Investigation Committee was instituted by 

 the Japanese Government in 1893, fo'' the collection of facts 

 relating to earthquakes in Japan. The work was at first super- 

 intended by the late Prof. S. Sekiya, and, since his death, in 

 January 1895, has been carried on by Mr. M, Tayama. It is 

 now approaching completion, and, in the meantime. Prof. Omori 

 has issued a catalogue which will serve as an index to the future 

 report of the Committee {Journal of the College of Science, 

 Imperial University, Tokio, vol. xi. Part 4). This has been 

 compiled from 427 different kinds of Japanese histories and 

 chronicles, and gives the dates, districts and intensities of 1898 

 earthquakes between the years 416 and 1867. The catalogue is 

 followed by a most valual^e discussion of its contents by Prof. 

 Omori, in which he considers the distribution of the earthquakes 

 in time and space. The total number of destructive earthquakes 

 is 220, but, as the early annals are incomplete, it seems likely 

 that one part or other of Japan will be visited by a destructive 

 earthquake once in about two-and-a-half years. While they 

 sometimes happen singly, they tend to recur in groups during 

 epochs of maximum frequency, which happen on an average 

 once in every thirteen or fourteen years. If the shocks are 

 counted during consecutive half-centuries, the destructive and 

 the small shocks have their maxima and minima at nearly the 

 same epochs. But when examined in detail this is not the case. 

 For instance, destructive shocks are most numerous during the 

 months of July and August, while the ordinary shocks are least 

 frequent at about the same time. The explanation which Prof. 

 Omori suggests for this reversal is that the constant recurrence 

 of small earthquakes maintains the region concerned in a normal 

 or safe condition, thereby preventing any abnormal accumula- 

 tion of stress in the earth's crust. Again, dividing the destruc- 

 tive earthquakes into local and non-local, according as the 

 damage caused by them was confined to one province or distri- 

 buted over several, it appears that the provinces on the concave 

 or Japan Sea side of the group of islands were disturbed almost 

 wholly by local shocks, while those on the convex or Pacific 

 side were often disturbed by great non-local ones, the origins of 

 which were situated beneath the ocean, and sometimes caused 

 fearful sea- waves. 



. Minute, neatly worked flint implements have recently been 

 found in great numbers in East Lancashire and South York- 

 .shire. Mr. R. A. Gatty describes in The Reliquary and Illus- 

 trated Ai-chaeologist (vol. vi., 1900, p. 15) how he has found 

 many hundreds of these " Pigmy flint implements," as he terms 

 them. Others have been found in various parts of England, 

 but not so abundantly as in Yorkshire ; but that may be owing 

 to their having been overlooked. They appear to be always 

 associated with rough Neolithic implements, but there was a total 

 absence of polished implements. Mr. Gatty figures some of 

 these interesting objects, and places side by side figures of 

 " pigmy flints" from Indian caves and from the surface of the 

 ground at Hoxton Roberts (Yorks.) ; the forms are apparently 

 identical. Similar tools have been met with in France and 

 Belgium. 



Two Neolithic graves in the neighbourhood of Worms are 

 figured in Die Umsckau (Tom. iii., p. 1023). In the man's 

 grave were found stone implements and pottery, the latter is 

 also figured ; and in the woman's grave was a food-pounder. 



Herr E. Lemmermann reprints, from the Proceedings of 

 the Natural History Society of Bremen, an account of the 

 Plankton alga;( including Peridinieae) collected in Prof. Schauins- 

 land's expedition to the Pacific in 1896- 1897. The general 

 features of the Plankton flora of the Pacific Ocean are discussed, 

 and four new genera of Schizophyceae are described — Coelo- 

 sp/iaeriopsts, Chondrocystis, Haliarachne, and Kata^nymene — 

 as well as a number of new species and forms. 

 NO. 1577, VOL. 61] 



Mr. M. a. Carleton publishes, in the form of a report to 

 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Division of Vegetable 

 Physiology and Pathology, Bulletin No. 16), an exhaustive 

 paper on the Cereal Rusts of the United States. He finds six, 

 or probably seven, distinct rusts affecting the cereal crops, of 

 which by far the most destructive are the "black stem rusts" 

 of wheat and oats, Puccinia graminis Tritici and P. graminis 

 Avenae. The injury to the crops by these fungi is on an 

 enormous scale. The report goes into details respecting the 

 varieties of the cereals best able to resist the parasites, and the 

 best means of warding off their attacks. It is illustrated by 

 several very well executed coloured plates. 



With the exception of two papers by Dr. O. Finsch on 

 birds, the latest issue of the Notes from the Leyden Museum is 

 devoted to invertebrates. Perhaps the most generally inter- 

 esting contribution is one by Dr. J, G. de Man on the crabs 

 collected by the Dutch Scientific Expedition to Central Borneo ; 

 the materials obtained showing, as in the case of the crayfish 

 previously described, how extremely imperfect was our know- 

 ledge of the carcinological fauna of the country. Out of a total 

 of fifteen species collected, of which all but one were land or 

 fresh-water forms, no less than eleven or twelve proved to be 

 new to science. And whereas only three fresh-water crabs were 

 previously known to inhabit the island of Borneo, the number is 

 now raised to fifteen. Very noticeable is the discovery of a crab 

 belonging to the genus Menippe, closely allied to the rare M. 

 panope from Tranquebar ; since, with the possible exception of 

 the last-named, all the species of that genus hitherto known, as 

 well as those belonging to the allied Myovienippe, are marine 

 forms. 



Many interesting and instructive articles on diverse scientific 

 subjects are contained in the volume of Knowledge for 1899, 

 a copy of which has been received. The fine collotype illustra- 

 tions distributed through the volume form an attractive 

 characteristic of this monthly magazine of science. 



The fourteenth volume of the new series of The Geographical 

 [ournal, containing the numbers from July to December 1899, 

 has just been published. The papers, articles, monthly biblio- 

 graphy, and numerous maps, combine to make the volume, like 

 preceding ones, a valuable record of the progress of the know- 

 ledge of the earth. 



The genus Cardium, of which the edible cockle is by far the 

 commonest member, forms the second number of the memoirs 

 of the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, the author being 

 Mr. J. Johnstone. A detailed account is given of the anatomy 

 of the cockle as a typical Lamellibranchiate Mollusc, and the 

 economic importance of the cockle, with special reference to the 

 Lancashire Sea-Fisheries district, is described in an appendix. 

 Seven plates illustrate the points dealt with in the memoir. 



The "Annuaire" of the Bureau des Longitudes, for 1900, 

 has been received from Messrs. Gauthier-Villars, Paris. It is note- 

 worthy that all the dates are expressed in Paris Mean Civil Time, 

 commencing at midnight and reckoning from o to 24 hours, 

 instead of dividing the day into two parts of twelve hours each 

 as heretofore. As usual, the volume is filled with information 

 of interest and value to all observers of the heavens, and also to 

 other students of science, for the tables of constants contained 

 in it cover a wide range of scientific work. The subjects of the 

 special articles are machines for generating electric currents, by 

 Prof. Cornu ; the new gases in the atmosphere, by Prof. 

 Lippmann ; and work done at the Mont Blanc Observatory, 

 by Dr. Janssen, who also writes on the application of aeronautics 

 to the observation of certain astronomical phenomena. 



