February' 15, 1900] 



NA TURE 



373 



another, in the statement that the recent decrease in some of the 

 Lancashire cockle-beds is directly attributable to the increase in 

 r-ea-gulls due to the operation of the Sea-Birds Preservation 

 Act. The enormous commercial value of the Lancashire cockle- 

 fishery will probably come as a revelation to the majority of our 

 readers. It is stated that 2s. per cwt. is a low estimate of the 

 value of the molluscs to the fishermen, since a certain quantity 

 are hawked in the district ; but, supposing the greater amount 

 to be sent to market by rail, about ds. per cwt. will represent 

 fairly the price paid by the consumer. In the year May 1899, 

 the total weight of cockles taken in Lancashire was 6685 tons, 

 of which the money value at 2/. per ton is 13,370/., and at 6/. 

 per ton 40,110/. 



Mr. H F. Witherby has sent us an interesting little 

 frockure, entitled " Two Months on the Guadalquiver," being 

 a reprint of articles contributed to Knowledge. The author 

 made his trip for the purpose of studying the abundant bird- 

 life of the valley. Some of his most interesting experiences 

 were those connected with the Great Bustard. These noble 

 birds were observed among long grass and corn ; and from 

 his observations Mr. Witherby was led to conclude that the 

 inly season when they c >uld be coursed by dogs would be 

 the period of the moulting of the old quills and the sprouting 

 of the new, since at other times Bustards take at once to their 

 wings and fly strongly. 



Mr. J. J. Sederholm, director of the Geological Survey of 

 Finland, has been engaged for several years in the exploration 

 of the Archaean rocks of his mother-country. His exhaustive 

 work on this subject, " Ueber eine archaische Sediment-Form- 

 \tion in Siid-westlichen Finland," accompanied by an excellent 

 .geological " Uebersichtskarte " of Finland (1:2,500,000), 

 another of the Tammerfors region on a larger scale, and 

 numerous engravings, was published, in German, in the Bulletin 

 of the Finnish Geological Survey, No. 6, in February last. Mr. 

 Sederholm, using a quotation from Prof. Lapworth's introduc- 

 tion to his memoir, places himself explicitly under the banner 

 of English actualism, and he endeavours to show that the pre- 

 sumption of the followers of Lyell and Darwin in favour of the 

 •existence of an immense thickness of pre-Cambrian sediments 

 is fully verified by a detailed study of the pre-Cambrian rocks 

 in Northern Europe. He describes in great detail a typical area 

 of Archaean crystalline schists, which are so slightly metamorphic 

 that their original clastic character can almost everywhere be 

 detected, as also their gradual change into gneiss-like rocks, 

 mainly through the intervention of granite veins. Shortly 

 describing next the Archaean sediments of Eastern Finland, and 

 referting to the former observations of Archaean clastic and 

 effusive-eruptive rocks by Swedish geologists and by himself, 

 the author concludes that his ideas can be generalised so as to 

 hold good for the whole of the pre-Cambrian region of Northern 

 Europe, and thus have a bearing upon the solution of the 

 Archaean problem altogether. 



Messrs. H. Sotheran and Co. have just issued a 

 catalogue of superior second-hand books in natural history 

 which they are oflfering for sale. 



The current number of the Geological Magazine contains a 

 notice of the life and work of the Rev. Osmond Fisher, the well- 

 known author of the "Physics of the Earth's Crust." The 

 memoir, which is illustrated by a copy of a recent photograph, 

 forms one of the series of " Eminent Living Geologists." 



The " Anales de la Oficina Meteorologica Argentina" 

 (Tomo xii.), edited by Mr. G. G. Davis, contains a discussion 

 of the meteorological observations made at Asuncion, the 

 capital of Paraguay, and Rosario, in Santa Fe. The volume 

 is the second part of a work on the climate of these places. 

 NO. 1581, VOL. 61J 



A SECOND edition of Prof. E. Mach's " Principien der 

 Warmelehre" has just been pulilished by J. A. Barth, of 

 Leipzig. The original work was reviewed in Nature in April 

 1896 (vol. 55, p. 529), and few alterations other than necessary 

 corrections have been made. The full page portraits of 

 physicists are better than they were in the first edition. 



The first part of "The Birds of Eastern North America." 

 dealing with water birds, by Mr. C. B. Cory, was noticed in our 

 issue of February i (p. 323). The second part, in which the land 

 birds of the same region are described, has since been received, 

 and is similar in character to the previous volume, and of 

 equal importance. 



With regard to a remark made in the notice of Kdlliker's 

 " Gewebelehre," Bd. iii. i Hiilfte, in Nature of February i, as 

 to the absence of an index, we have been informed by the 

 publishers that their intention is to provide an index on the 

 comjUetion of the whole work, which they anticipate will be in 

 about a year from the present time. It may, however, be 

 pointed out that as each part is practically a monograph upon 

 its special department of histology, and as eleven years has 

 elapsed since the appearance of the first part, the absence of an 

 index to each part is a practical inconvenience which it would 

 have been worth a little extra cost to remedy. 



The latest number of the Bulletin oi Ih^ Liverpool Museums, 

 edited by Dr. H. O. Forbes, is a most creditable publication, 

 profusely illustrated and full of scientific contributions of prime 

 importance. Dr. Forbes is sole or joint author of three articles 

 of the four which make up the Bulletin. He describes in detail 

 a collection of stone implements in the Mayer Museum, made by 

 Mr. H. W. Seton-Karr, in mines of the ancient Egyptians dis- 

 covered on the plateaux of the Nile Valley. Numerous excel- 

 lent illustrations ot the implements and the workings where they 

 were discovered, by Mr. Seton-Karr, accompany the article. As 

 further evidence of the noteworthy character of the Bulletin, 

 we may remark that there are described in it fourteen new 

 species of birds, one new genus and six new species of reptiles, 

 eight new species of molluscs, one new genus and thirty-three 

 new species of insects, and eleven new species of arthropoda, 

 many of them representing the results of the expedition to 

 Sokotra, organised conjointly by the British Museum and the 

 Liverpool Museum. A special volume on the expedition will 

 shortly be issued, and, judging from the present preliminary 

 contribution, it will be a very valuable addition to science. 



The true molecular weight of sulphur in the gaseous states 

 has been made the subject of numerous researches. In the 

 current number of the Berichte, O. Bleier and L. Kohn give an 

 account of their work on the density of sulphur vapour at very 

 low pressures. They hoped to be able to make determinations 

 at such a low pressure that there would be no dissociation, but 

 even for a pressure of 2'l mm. of mercury the found molecular 

 weight was 251 instead of 256, corresponding to Sg. The results 

 obtained, plotted in the form of a curve, were quite sufficient, 

 however, to show that the true molecular formula of gaseous 

 sulphur, undissociated, is Ss, a value, it is interesting to note, 

 which is in agreement with the conclusions previously arrived 

 at by the application of the freezing-point and boiling-point 

 methods to sulphur solutions. 



Recent discoveries in the space isomerism of nitrogen com- 

 pounds have led to attempts to resolve into active constituents 

 compounds containing asymmetric sulphur atoms. Two papers 

 bearing on this subject have recently been read before the 

 Chemical Society, by S. Smiles, and W. J. Pope and S. J. 

 Peachey, respectively. In both cases methyl-ethyl-thetine was 

 the starting-point, Smiles attempting, unsuccessfully, to prepare 



