452 



NA TURE 



[March 8. 1900 



this animal turns white in winter ; in the north temperate 

 regions the reddish-brown of the upper parts is permanently 

 retained, although the under surface is pure white ; but as we 

 proceed further south, we find weasels with the under parts 

 more and more suffused with yellow, till in parts of the 

 Mediterranean area the colour is buff or orange. Such increased 

 richness of coloration in the southern part of the habitat of the 

 weasel is paralleled among many birds. 



On the delivery of the Hunterian collections into the custody 

 ^f the Royal College of Surgeons, by Government, at the begin- 

 ning of the century, it was stipulated that lectures illustrative of 

 the series should be annually delivered in the theatre. Accord- 

 ing to a list prepared by the Librarian, the lectures commenced 

 in 1810, when those on comparative anatomy were delivered by 

 Sir Everard (then Mr.) Home, and those on pathology by Sir 

 William Blizzard. Since that date they have been continued 

 almost without intermission ; the roll of lecturers including the 

 names of many of the most eminent comparative anatomists and 

 surgeons. 



We have received from the author. Monsieur H. de Varigny, 

 a paper published in the Jubilee volume of the Societe de 

 Biologic, entitled " Sur le Notion Physiologico-Chimique de 

 I'Espece," which contains much curious speculation. 



From Prof. R. Collett we have received the second part of 

 his contributions to the natural history of those small blenny- 

 like fishes known as Ly codes, published in the Vid.-Selsk. 

 Skrifter Christiania, 1899, Ni. 6. He there describes the life- 

 history of L. gracilis from an early period till it is capable of 

 propagation. The question is, however, mooted whether we 

 yet know the fully adult stage of this little fish, which may pos- 

 sibly reveal itself in some familiar type of which the youthful 

 condition is unknown. 



Dr. Hermann von Schrenk has made a minute investi- 

 gation of a wide-spread disease, known as peckiness and pin- 

 rot, affecting the heart wood of the bald cypress and the incense 

 cedar, and his observations are contained in a thesis published 

 in the eleventh annual report of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 

 of which Mr. W. Trelease is the director. Both these trees 

 are representatives of a race of trees the majority of which are 

 extinct, and in both a fungus mycelium occurs with strongly 

 marked characteristics. The peculiar decay to which the two 

 kinds of trees are subject appears to be caused by this fungus, 

 the fruiting form of which has not yet been found. Dr. Schrenk 

 has examined logs of the cypress dug up from various points in 

 the Mississippi valley, several miles from the river, and at an 

 average depth of ten feet below Gulf level, and he has found 

 unmistakable evidence of the disease, which is prevalent 

 wherever cypress grows in abundance at the present day. It 

 therefore seems that the disease is one which has extended back 

 for some thousand years at least, and probably further. As few 

 fungi are known in the fossil condition, the observations are of 

 particular interest, for they suggest that this peculiar fungus 

 disease of the cypress and cedar has come down with its host 

 from geologic times. 



" Eine Landschaft der Steinkohlen Zeit " is the title of an 

 explanatory pamphlet accompanying Dr. H. Potonie's recently 

 issued wall-diagram to illustrate the leading features of the 

 Coal-Measure flora. A reduced facsimile of the diagram itself, 

 with an accompanying outline key-plate, forms a suitable 

 frontispiece, and the forty pages of the pamphlet are further 

 enriched by numerous excellently reproduced figures in illus- 

 tration of the structural and morphological details briefly 

 referred to in the text. In accordance with the author's view, 

 which supposes an autochthonous origin for coal, the restor- 

 NO. 1584, VOL. 61J 



ation here put forward represents a rich assemblage of typical 

 coal plants growing upon a perfectly flat and more or less 

 marshy surface. It is claimed that the reconstruction of the 

 types here depicted is in all cases founded upon the soundest 

 evidence as regards the actual relationship of parts. 



In the first instalment of a work on the geolr^y of the oil- 

 bearing strata of Galicia (" Geologic der Erdol-Ablagerungen in 

 den galizischen Karpathen." Lemberg, 1899), Prof. Rudolf 

 Zuber deals with the stratigraphy of the Galician Carpathians. 

 Of importance, as regards the yield of petroleum, is that group 

 of beds known as the " Ropianka-Schichten," concerning the 

 age of which, however, there has been considerable controversy. 

 Classed originally as Tertiary, these beds, by the discovery of 

 unmistakable though somewhat scanty palceontological 

 evidence, were subsequently recognised as Cretaceous, but 

 their position in the Cretaceous System has long remained a 

 matter for dispute. In the present paper the author, after 

 reviewing the results of previous writers, brings forward his 

 reasons for considering these Ropianka-beds as the undoubted, 

 equivalents of the Neocomian stage in Silesia. The Tertiary 

 rocks are well represented in Galicia, and include oil-bearing 

 strata at several horizons. The Eocene System, which shows a 

 locally developed nummulitic facies, comprises the most 

 important petroleum-yielding beds. Oil occurs also at horizons 

 of Oligocene and Miocene age. 



A PAPER upon " Life under other conditions " is contributed 

 by Mr. GeoffreyjMartin to A-^V^c^ Gossip iox M&tch. The subject 

 is one which has been recently worked out by Dr. F. J. Allen ; 

 and Mr. Martin's general conclusions seem to agree up to a 

 certain point with Mr. Allen's, at any rate in the view that vital 

 processes depend on the existence of an element, the compounds 

 of which are in a c mdition of critical equilibrium at the tem- 

 peratures at which life exists. But Mr. Martin appears to re- 

 gard carbon as the substance which acts the role of the funda- 

 mental element in the animal organism ; while, according to- 

 Dr. Allen, nitrogen plays an all-important part in determining 

 vital phenomena. Mr. Martin suggests that at the higher tem- 

 peratures which may exist on other celestial bodies, or which 

 may have existed at one time on our earth, silicon may give 

 rise to a series of compounds analogous in their complexity 

 and instability to our "organic" carbon compounds, and under 

 such conditions what we may call "silicon life" may exist. 

 In connection with this view it is somewhat interesting to 

 notice that the power of secreting silica is now possessed by 

 what we may regard as among the lowest types of vegetable 

 and animal life, diatoms and sponges. But of course there is a 

 wide difference between the temperatures required for carbor> 

 life, or, as Dr. Allen calls it, nitrogen life, and Mr. Martin's 

 hypothetical silicon life. 



The Oxford University Junior Scientific Club has just issued 

 its Transactions for the Summer and Michaelmas Terms of 1899, 

 containing papers by Mr. H. E. Stapleton, on " An Extension 

 of Dulong and Petit's Law," and by Mr. A. Gibson, on "The 

 Retention of Plant-food in the Soil." 



The latest report of the U.S. National Museum is a volume 

 of 1021 pages. One quarter of the volume deals with the condi- 

 tion and progress of the Museum during the year ending with 

 June 1897 ; the remaining three quarters consists of seven 

 elaborate papers describing collections in the Museum, and 

 illustrated with the liberality and excellence which distinguishes 

 the publications of the Smithsonian Institution and of the 

 various official Bureaux of the United States. Dr. J. M. Flint 

 describes the specimens of foraminifera obtained during the 

 dredging operations of the U.S. Fish Commission steamer 

 Albatross ; and his paper is illustrated by no less than eighty 



