514 
At the conclusion of an article on the African 
element in the fresh-water fauna of India, published 
in the report of section 4 of the Compte rendu of the 
ninth International Zoological Congress, held at 
Monaco in 1913, Dr. Annandale remarks that the 
existence of this African element is more pronounced 
among lower invertebrates than in other groups. 
Admitting the existence in late Cretaceous and perhaps 
early Tertiary time of a land-bridge between the Mala- 
bar coast of India and East Africa, and of a second 
connecting Africa with South America, he argues that 
at this period India, Africa, and South America doubt- 
less possessed a very similar fresh-water fauna, of 
which Africa formed the central area. Any land- 
passages from India to South America must almost 
certainly have included Africa; and the occurrence of 
similar generic types only in the two former areas 
must be explained by their dying-out in the third. 
Madagascar, if ever united with the tri-continental 
tract, must have been separated at an earlier date 
than the other constituents. 
For some years past Mr. Roy Andrews has been 
engaged in investigating the whale and whale-fisheries 
of the North Pacific; and it has been decided to pub- 
lish the results of these investigations in a series of 
monographs in the Memoirs of the American Museum 
of Natural History. In the first of these (ser. 2, 
vol. i., part 5) the author deals with the grey whale 
(Rhachianectes glaucus), of the Californian and 
Japanese seas, which is the sole representative of its 
genus, and is now shown to be the most archaic type 
of whalebone-whale in existence. Its most strikingly 
primitive features include the presence of scattered 
hairs over the whole head, the small number, short- 
ness, thickness, and wide separation of the plates of 
whalebone, the persistence of a wide strip of the 
frontal bones on the vertex of the skull, and the 
length of the nasals, the retention of stout neural 
arches by the first two cervical vertebrae, which, like © 
the other five, are completely free, the length and 
straightness of the humerus, and the large size of the 
remnants of the pelvis. In several of these respects 
the genus, which Mr. Andrews considers should repre- 
sent a family by itself, approximates to Plesiocetus of 
the European Pliocene. 
To the April number of the American Museum 
Journal Prof. H. F. Osborn communicates a note on 
the collection of Permian South African reptiles just 
acquired by the museum from Dr. R. Broom. The 
author remarks that these reptiles represent the climax 
of development of the amphibian stock, and the first 
attempts at progression on land. Reptiles of this 
early type are common to South Africa, Texas and 
New Mexico, and part of Russia, those from the first 
and last localities being much more nearly related 
than are those from America to either. ‘The 
Texan reptiles continued to crawl close to the ground, 
but in South Africa we find that in many of the 
groups, through a powerful development of the limbs, 
the body is raised well off the ground—a distinct 
advantage which gave the start that resulted in the 
development of mammals.’’ In the course of a letter 
in the same issue on the werk: of field-collectors, Col. 
NO; #2333. .viOl. 93) 
NATURE 
[JuLy 16, 1974 
Theodore Roosevelt remarks that he particularly 
wishes ‘“‘to avoid seeing growing up in the United 
States the type of scientist who merely supplies the 
nomenclature and technical descriptions for specimens 
furnished him by field-observers.’” No mention is 
made of the sportsmen, who, on the strength of the 
merest smattering of zoological knowledge, nowadays 
feel themselves qualified to discuss the affinities and 
nomenclature of game animals. 
Tue importance to science of accurately expressed 
terms and definitions could scarcely be enforced more 
clearly than in the case of seismology. Mallet, for 
instance, bequeathed to us the term seismic focus. 
Later writers have used the word hypocentre as an 
equivalent term, and epicentre for the projection of 
the hypocentre on the surface. All three terms imply 
that the region within which an earthquake originates 
is a point, or practically a point. Yet Mallet himself 
did not hold this view, for he regarded the focus of 
the Neapolitan earthquake of 1857 as a vertical frac- 
ture several miles long in both directions. The sub- 
ject has lately been discussed by Dr. G. Martinelli 
in an interesting paper (Mem. della Pont. Accad. Rom. 
dei Nuovi Lincei, vol. xxxi., 1913). Dr. Martinelli 
also considers some recent inquiries as to the form 
of the hypocentre, and concludes that the ‘ Herd- 
linien’’ of Harboe and the ‘‘seismotectonic lines” of 
Hobbs have little, if any, physical meaning. He is in 
favour, however, of retaining the term hypocentre as 
denoting the limited region within which the initial 
disturbance takes place. 
Tue Director-General. of Observatories (India) has 
issued a memorandum (dated Simla, June 8) on the 
meteorological conditions prevailing before the advance 
of the south-west monsoon. Records of the past show 
that the monsoon rainfall of India is affected by pre- 
vious conditions over various parts of the earth, e.g. 
high barometric pressure during March—May in Argen- 
tina and Chile, and low pressure in May in the Indian 
Ocean are favourable conditions, while high pressure 
in India in May is advantageous for Malabar, and 
possibly Mysore, but unfavourable for other parts. 
Among the inferences drawn from available data are: 
(1) that, on the whole, the total monsoon rainfall this 
year will probably be somewhat less abundant than 
usual, at any rate in the earlier part of the season; 
(2) as regards geographical distribution, during the 
first half of the monsoon period, while local conditions 
are favourable for the Malabar coast, they are some- 
what unfavourable for several other parts. 
WE have received from Prof. A. McAdie, director 
of the Blue Hill Observatory (Massachusetts), an 
appreciative review of the scientific work of the late 
Prof. A. L. Rotch, published (apparently) in the Annals 
of Harvard College. Many of the facts referred to 
are already known to our readers; Prof. Rotch was 
the founder, and for more than twenty-seven years 
director, of the observatory. The upper-air records 
obtained by him have been of great service in the study 
of various meteorological problems, and a list of 183 
of his principal articles and memoirs are given in Prof. 
McAdie’s notice. 
