November 24, 1904] 



NATURE 



87 



isation of physical education on the lines of the Royal 

 Central Institute of Sweden, which she described. Sir W. 

 Church, president of the Royal College of Physicians, moved 

 a resolution to the effect that it is desirable that a national 

 system of physical education should be established in the 

 United Kingdom. This was seconded by Sir Lauder 

 Brunton, and supported by other speakers, including Lord 

 Londonderry and Sir W. Broadbent. The Times of 

 November 17, in a leading article on the subject of the 

 conference, while acknowledging our supineness in ihis re- 

 spect in the past, rightly deprecates any hasty action in 

 the matter, and remarks that while Swedish and other 

 systems have their merits, what we want here is not a 

 system borrowed from Sweden, Denmark, or Japan, but a 

 British system growing out of the British character, and 

 suited, as no borrowed system can ever be, to British needs, 

 and considers that we must begin with the children in our 

 elementary schools. 



In the Times of November 17 appeared a letter stating 

 that skulls and limb-bones of horses of known pedigree, no 

 matter what their breed, are required by the natural history 

 branch of the British Museum, and the cooperation of 

 horse-owners is invited in the endeavour to bring together 

 a large series of such specimens. No mention is made in 

 the letter of the special purpose for which a collection of 

 this nature is required. Those who have kept abreast of 

 zoological literature for the last year or two will, however, 

 have scarcely failed to notice how much attention has been 

 directed by naturalists to the problem of the origin of the 

 various breeds of domesticated horses, and especially to the 

 idea that thoroughbreds and Arabs have a different 

 parentage from the " cold-blooded " horses of western 

 Europe. The circumstance that some horses of eastern 

 origin show a vestige of the cavity for the " tear-gland " 

 of "the hipparions has been recently brought to notice 

 as an important factor in the problem. To ascer- 

 tain the frequency of this feature is probably one of the 

 objects of making the collection, while a second may be 

 to ascertain the constancy of certain proportionate relations 

 between the limb-bones of racers and cart-horses. The 

 museum already possesses the skeleton of "Stockwell," 

 from whom are descended most of our best thoroughbreds, 

 and likewise the skull of " Bend Or," presented by the 

 Duke of Westminster, and Mr. W. S. Blunt has promised 

 a skull of one of his famous Arabs. 



We have received from Messrs. Friedlander, Berlin, a 

 catalogue of books on comparative anatomy, which is 

 divided into three sections, the first dealing with verte- 

 brates and the second with invertebrates, while the third 

 is devoted to comparative embryology and morphology. 



No. q of vol. .\xxi. of the Proceedings of the Boston 

 Natural History Society is devoted to the North American 

 parasitic funguses of the group Ustilagineae. These 

 organisms, which have been hitherto very imperfectly 

 known, infest various parts of herbaceous flowering plants, 

 and are represented by twenty-four genera included in two 

 families. Much still remains to be done in determining 

 their distribution, and some of the hosts of certain species 

 are given on the authority of observers other than the 

 author of this paper, Mr. G. P. Clinton. 



.An account of the method of preparing clayed cocoa 

 appears in the Bulletin of the Trinidad Botanical Depart- 

 ment for July. The cocoa-beans, after being fermented and 

 dried, are collected in heaps, upon which men are set to 

 dance, while others replace the beans as they scatter. 

 Meantime the heaps are dusted over with powdered clay 



NO. 1830, VOL. 71I 



which adheres to the gummy surface of the beans and acts 

 as a polish, so that finally the beans assume the appearance 

 and colour of polished mahogany ; careful drying completes 

 the process, which results in the beans carrying and keep- 

 ing better on account of the protective covering formed. 



The Cosmo Melvill herbarium, now the property of 

 Owens College, Manchester, is estimated by the donor to 

 contain five thousand genera, or two-thirds of the total 

 number recorded in the " Genera Plantarum," exclusive of 

 others since instituted, and the phanerogams alone amount 

 to 36,000 different species. From a geographical point of 

 view nearly every country appears to have furnished a quota. 

 Among-.! the more important collections mention should 

 be made of Sir Joseph Hooker and Dr. Thomson's Indian 

 plants. Dr. Henry's Chinese collections, Mr. C. G. Pringle's 

 Mexican plants, and the specimens collected by Dr. Nuttall 

 in North America. 



The Deutsche Seewarte has added another to its many 

 useful publications, Tabellarische Rcischcrichte, a collec- 

 tion of tabular reports of the meteorological logs received 

 during the year 1903 from observers on ships. It has several 

 times been suggested that observations made at sea should 

 be published in a tabular form, similarly to those made at 

 land stations ; the late Admiral Makarolif was the last to 

 urge the importance of doing so, but the question of expense 

 has always stood in the way. The work in question does 

 not attempt such a regular tabulation of observations, but 

 gives a useful summary of some of the principal phenomena 

 recorded on each voyage, e.g. the limits of the trade winds 

 and monsoons, the force of wind, the storms experienced 

 and the behaviour of the barometer during their occurrence, 

 noteworthy currents, sudden changes of sea temperature, 

 &c. Each report also gives the length and nature of 

 the voyage, so that any person interested in the meteorology 

 of any particular part of the ocean can determine approxi- 

 mately the amount of materials available. It is proposed 

 to issue a similar volume for each year. 



Dr. H. Hergesell, president of the International Aero- 

 nautical Committee, has contributed to Beitriige zur Physik 

 dcr freien Atmosphdre an interesting account of his kite 

 observations on the Lake of Constance. The ascents were 

 first made in the year 1900, and subsequently in the years 

 1902 and 1903, on both occasions with the assistance of 

 Count Zeppelin, who lent his motor-boat for the purpose. 

 It is understood that such observations are somewhat difficult 

 at an inland station, as the wind velocity necessary for 

 raising the kite (about 8 metres per second, or 18 miles 

 per hour) is not always available without the artificial wind 

 produced by the motion of a boat. Dr. Hergesell's experi- 

 ments clearly show that, frequently, inversions of tempera- 

 ture and humidity occur at certain levels, which are not 

 exhibited by observations made on mountain peaks, and the 

 opinion is expressed both by Prof. Mascart (president of the 

 International Meteorological Committee) and by himself that 

 however useful in various ways, observations on mountain 

 stations have not led to the results that were expected from 

 them. He is of opinion that if any improvement is to be 

 made in what he terms the present stagnant condition of 

 meteorological science, it will be by the investigation of the 

 upper strata of free air rather than by piling up observ- 

 ations made at ordinary meteorological stations — in other 

 words, by making meteorology a study of the physics of the 

 atmosphere. 



In a communication to the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers Mr. R. M. Neilson discusses the possibilities 

 of gas turbines from a scientific standpoint, a region of 



