February 15, 1900] 



NA TURE 



1^7 



upon the drink problem that one based upon the consumption 

 of liquor would have, but perhaps is not entirely without value. 

 It certainly is not if it tends in the slightest way to throw the 

 temperance problem into the hands of social reformers. Better 

 heated tenements, warmer overcoats, and more nourishing food 

 may have more to do with it than we think. 



Edwin G. Dexter. 



Ii- the writer of the notice, by any remarks of his, has given 

 annoyance to Prof. Dexter, whose industry and careful com- 

 pilation of facts have never been called into question, he would 

 greatly regret it. But in so far as that notice has been the 

 means of procuring from the author a most interesting letter, 

 he can only congratulate himself. 



One might call attention to many significant conclusions that 

 could be drawn from Prof. Dexter's curves ; but perhaps the 

 most prominent is that, apparently, the greatest number of 

 assaults are committed when the populace is the most sober. 

 This is an entirely unexpected conclusion. In this country, we 

 have been repeatedly told that drunkenness is the main cause 

 of crime, especially of crimes directed against the person ; and 

 yet a careful elaboration of statistics, compiled by an eminent 

 authority, completely demonstrates the fallacy of such an argu- 

 ment when applied to the City of New York. 



Thk Wriikr of the Notice. 



Deceptive Bibliographic Indications. 



Authors' reprints of scientific papers are indeed a boon to 

 the worker in science, especially to him who is distant from a 

 large library. But their usefulness to the recipient who is him- 

 self a writer of woiks, and not a reader only, depends to a large 

 extent on whether the reprints are or are not provided with 

 correct and complete bibliographical indications of their origin. 

 Occasionally one gets a reprint without date, with no reference 

 (u the original volume, page, and plate numbers, and even it 

 may be without the name of the periodical from which it is an 

 extract. But in the majority of reprints distributed nowadays, 

 an attempt has been made to give the requisite information. 

 Success is not often attained, it is true ; still one is grateful for 

 the good intention. 



The imperfections hitherto mentioned are only too easily 

 observed, and the task of making them good, though weari- 

 some, is not impossible if one lives long enough. But among 

 the reprints sent to me during the last two months are numerous 

 instances of an error more difjicult to detect, and more annoying 

 in its results. To all appearance the reprints in question give 

 <he requisite bibliographic indications, their paging seems to be 

 that of the original, and the type shows no signs of having been 

 disturbed. But in each case one or more of these appearances 

 is a specious falsehood. Here are some of the misstatements 

 observed. A reprint paged 141-147 originally appeared on 

 pp. 142-148. A paper that occurs on pp. 170-175 of the pub- 

 lishing society's Bulletin has had the type spaced out so that 

 the pagination of the reprint is 170-176. A reprint has the 

 original pagination carefully given in [ ] on each page, and 

 runs from 367 to 370; the original pages were 367-371, and 

 half of every page has been shifted to the preceding. Sometimes 

 the wrapper of the reprint gives one set of numbers, while the 

 pages themselves bear another set, each purporting to be the 

 original. 



The last case is not so objectionable, since it is clear there is 

 I mistake somewhere. But in the other cases it is only by 

 < hance that one detects the error. Each seems trivial in itself, 

 and a single instance hailing from some petty local club would 

 be passed over with a laugh and a grumble. But examples 

 have come to me alone, during a few weeks, from the publica- 

 tions of the German Geological Society, the Zoological Society 

 of France, the Natural History Museum of Paris, the Inter- 

 national "Congress of Zoology," the Geological Survey of 

 Canada, and the Geolof^ical Magazine. 



This contempt for veracity is chargeable to the printer, not 

 the authors; and the remedy lies in the hands of the editor. 

 If the editors of our scientific publications would but realise the 

 crpetual inconvenience that is caused by a little want of 

 bought, and would but give clear and definite instructions to 

 I heir printers to place the required bibliographic indications at 

 (he head of each reprint, to retain original pagination, and 

 never to shift the type without duly stating the fact— then the 



NO. 1581, VOL. 6)1 



amount of time saved by the n^meroi^ workers who have 

 to rely upon authors' copies would be Tar greater than most 

 people have any idea of. F. A. Bather. 



January 31. 



Specific Heat of Marble. 



Ix 1898 we published, in the Proceedings of the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences, a paper containing a discussion 

 of certain mathematical problems arising in the study of the 

 flow of heat in prisms, together with an account of an investi- 

 gation of the conductivities of a number of specimens of glass 

 and of marble. 



In this paper we called attention to two groups of fine- 

 grained marbles, which have conductivities (nearly independent 

 of the temperature within wide limits) of O"oo68 and 0"0076 

 respectively, while Carrara Statuary marble and many of the 

 British marbles— as Messrs. Herschel, Lebour and Dunn have 

 shown— have conductivities of only 0'005i. 



Within a few weeks we have found time to determine the 

 specific heats of all our marble blocks, and have obtained the 

 results given in the table which follows. 



These specimens, each of which is described in our former 

 paper, had been lying untouched in the warmed laboratory 

 for about ten months, and were, thecefore, neither abnormally 

 moist nor abnormally dry. 



The results of twenty-two determinations made between 

 different temperature limits with a number of pieces of Carrara 

 Statuary marble artificially dried at a temperature a little above 

 100° C. are well represented by the following formula 



Q = o-i848(/-25)-fo-oooi9(i'-25)2, 

 in which Q represents the amount of heat in calories required 

 to raise one gramme of this dry marble from 25° C. to the 

 temperature t. 



Jefferson Physical Laboratorj', B. O, Peirce. 



Harvard University, U.S.A. Robert W. Wii.i.son. 



The Coccidae of New Zealand. 

 Mr. H. Farquhar, in your issue of January 11, p. 247, has 

 some interesting remarks on the Coccida; of New Zealand, 

 which, however, need to be slightly modified in the light pf 

 recent researches. The genera of Coccidie peculiar to New 

 Zealand are as follows : — 



(1) Phenacoleachia, Ckll. (type Leachic? tealandica, Maskell). 

 One species. This is an extremely distinct genus, and may be 

 regarded as the type of a distinct subfamily (Phenacoleachiinae), 

 differing from the Coccinre by the compound eyes of the male, 

 wherein it is allied to the Ortheziin.-e. 



(2) Coelostomidia, new name {Coelostoina, Maskell, not of 

 Brulle, 1835, nor Coelostonius, McLeay, 1825). F'ive species. 

 All the sui)pose<l species of Coelostomidia ^found in Australia 

 belong to Callipappus. 



