28o 



NATURE 



[January 19, 1905 



author proceeds to point out how much we know with 

 regard to the nature of the soft-parts and the life-history 

 of the fish-lizards. We are aware, for instance, that they 

 had a dorsal and a caudal fin, a naked scaleless skin, and 

 a spiral valve to the intestine, similar to that of sharks ; 

 while, from the inclusion of skeletons of foetuses within the 

 ribs of full-grown individuals, we also know that they 

 produced living young. This viviparous condition is, of 

 course, an adaptive modification, similar to that which 

 occurs in the sea-snakes of to-day, rendered necessary by 

 the pelagic habits of these reptiles. The similarity in 

 bodily form existing between sharks, dolphins, and fish- 

 lizards is referred to as another instance of such an 

 adaptive modification. Excellent illustrations — one show- 

 ing a female ichthyosaur and her progeny — accompany 

 the paper. .'Apparently the author is unaware that the 

 name Shastasaurus, proposed for a Triassic American 

 ichthyosaur, has been changed, on account of pre-occupa- 

 tion, to Merriamia. 



A PAPER upon Mendel's discoveries in heredity, read by 

 Mr. C. C. Hurst before the Leicester Literary and Philo- 

 sophical Society, gives a succinct account of Mendel's ex- 

 periments, and the rules which he evolved therefrom ; also 

 it contains a list of the chief experiments with different 

 plants and animals which have been carried out subse- 

 quently. The paper is published in the TransacUons of 

 the society, vol. viii. (June, 1904), and in the same part 

 will be found a useful summary prepared by Mr. H. St. J. 

 Donisthorpe of additions to British Coleoptera during the 

 last ten years. 



In the Comptcs rendus, vol. xxxv. , No. 6, of the 

 Imperial Society of Naturalists of St. Petersburg, lists of 

 new plants for the Crimea are given by Mr. K. Golde 

 and Mr. A. Youngh^. Two of the most striking mentioned 

 by Mr. Youngh^ are Cratnbe juncea, a Persian plant, 

 which grows to the height of a man, and Lythrum nanum, 

 a dwarf Siberian plant. Both botanists make a special 

 reference to the freshwater plants, which include species 

 so familiar to us as Zannichellia pedicellata, CEnanthe 

 Phellandrium, and species of Potamogeton. 



The first appendix to the Kew Bulletin for 1905, 

 enumerating the hardy shrubs, trees, and herbaceous 

 plants of which seed is available, has been received. 



In our issue of January 12 (p. 255) we referred to the 

 prominent part taken by M. Leon Teisserenc de Bort in 

 the establishment of a Scandinavian station for the explor- 

 ation of the upper air by means of kites and unmanned 

 balloons. The first results of this important enterprise 

 have been published in a work entitled " Travaux de la 

 Station Franco-Scandinave de Sondages a^riens a Hald, 

 1902-1903," a large quarto volume of 160 pages. The 

 station is situated on an extensive open domain belonging 

 to M. Krabbe. near Viborg, in Jutland, and is due to the 

 exertions of MM. Hildebrandsson. Paulsen, and Mascart, the 

 official meteorological representatives of Sweden (Upsala), 

 Denmark, and France. The necessary subscriptions for 

 carrying out the experiments have been chiefly contributed 

 by private persons — in Sweden, by an anonymous donor, 

 28,000 francs ; in Denmark, 245,000 francs (including a 

 grant of 10,000 francs by the Danish Government) ; in 

 France, 66,100 francs (of which M. Teisserenc de Bort 

 contributed 50,000 francs, and a further loan of material 

 from Trappes valued at about 12,000 francs). The Danish 

 Government also lent two gunboats for kite experiments ; 

 the value of kite ascents from steamers at sea has been 

 NO. 1838, VOL. 71] 



more than ever fully established by the results obtained, 

 some of the kites reaching altitudes varying from 3000 

 to 5900 metres. The difficulty of reaching such heights is 

 well known to persons who have undertaken similar 

 experiments. 



Prof. Dr. C. Uhlig contributes some notes of a journey 

 from Kilimandjaro to Mweru to Nos. 9 and 10 of the 

 Zeitschrift of the Berlin Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde. The 

 paper is illustrated by a number of excellent photographs. 



The last issue of the Mitteilungen aus den deutschen 

 Schutzgebieten is entirely devoted to the region of the 

 Pacific. Dr. Born records some observations on the ethno- 

 graphy of the Oleai Islands, Herr Senfft describes a visit 

 to some of the West Caroline Islands, and there are 

 abstracts of meteorological observations for 1903, and maps 

 based on recent surveys. 



The last number of the Deutsche geographische Blatter 

 contains reports of two lectures delivered to the 

 Vereinigung fiir staatswissenschaftliche Fortbildung at its 

 meeting at Bremen in November last. Dr. Tetens dis- 

 cussed the importance of Bremen as a centre of trade, and 

 gave an exhaustive statistical account of its development 

 and a comparison with other seaports ; his paper is illus- 

 trated by nineteen sheets of diagrams, and should be of 

 great value to students and teachers of commercial geo- 

 graphy. Dr. W. Hochstetter lectured on the history of 

 the North German Lloyd. 



The Royal Geographical Society has issued, as an extra 

 publication, a paper on recent contributions to our know- 

 ledge of the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean, by Sir 

 John Murray and Mr. R. E. Peake. The new material 

 dealt with consists chiefly of soundings from the telegraph 

 ships Minia and Faraday, but the chart accompanying the 

 paper has been fully brought up to date, and new measure- 

 ments of areas at different depths have been made. An 

 interesting correspondence with the United States Hydro- 

 graphic Office about the origin of the term " telegraphic 

 plateau " appears in the introduction. 



The first place in the January number of the Geo- 

 graphical Journal is given to a striking address delivered 

 to the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at St. 

 Louis in September last by Dr. H. R. Mill. Dr. Mill's 

 address is entitled " The Present Problems of Geography," 

 by which the author means not " the whole penumbra of 

 our ignorance, but those problems the solution of which 

 at the present time is most urgent and appears most 

 promising." Many of his conclusions concerning the 

 scope and methods of geography are of profound signifi- 

 cance. It seems specially appropriate that the address 

 should immediately precede a paper on geography and 

 education in the same number, in which the recent articles 

 and correspondence in the newspapers are summarised and 

 discussed. Dr. Mill puts his finger on many points which 

 have formed real obstacles to the development of geo- 

 graphical teaching in schools and elsewhere. 



A CORRESPONDENT of the Physikalische Zeitschrift in- 

 quires whether any experimental or other information 

 e.Kists regarding the heeling over of a ship on one side 

 caused by the turning moment on the screw shaft. 



Prof. R. W. Wood describes in the Physikalische Zeit- 

 scrift a simple experiment for showing the pressure due 

 to sound waves. The waves are made to converge to a 

 focus by reflection, and close to this point is placed a 



