March 9, 1905] 



NA TURE 



447 



appendage is usually carried beneath the body, in Natterer's 

 bat, despite the fact of its being: used as a pouch to contain 

 the insect-food, it is borne extended in the line of the body. 



To the complex subject of nuclear changes is devoted 

 the greater portion of the February issue of the Quarterly 

 Journal of Microscopical Science, Messrs. Farmer and Moore 

 discussing the " maiotic " phase (reduction divisions) in 

 animals and plants in the first article, while in the second 

 Prof. Farmer and Miss Shove describe the structure and 

 development of the somatic and heterotype chromosomes of 

 Tradescantia. The term " maiotic " phase is a new one, 

 proposed to cover the whole series of changes formerly 

 known as heterotype and homotype ; as being derived from 

 fi.fiaia-15 (reduction) its orthography should apparently be 

 " miotic." 'Of the other two articles, one, by Messrs. Moore 

 and Robinson, describes the behaviour of the nucleolus in 

 the spermatogenesis of Periplaneta, while the other, by 

 Mr. G. \\'agner, is devoted to certain movements and 

 reactions of Hydra. 



From a letter which Mr. P. Olsson-Seffer has written to 

 Science, we learn that a Danish botanist, Mr. M. P. Porsild, 

 has sought the help of his Government in founding an 

 Arctic laboratory, which it is proposed to establish near 

 Godhavn (lat. 6q° 15' N.), on Disko Island, North Green- 

 land. Such a laboratory would be the first institution of 

 its kind for investigating Arctic problems, and would form 

 a counterpart in the cold regions to the tropical stations at 

 Buitenzorg and Ceylon. The power of plants to withstand 

 intense cold, and their nutrition under the peculiar conditions 

 of light, will probably be among the earliest researches. 



Mr. J. H. Maiden has contributed to the Proceedings of 

 the Linnean Society of New South Wales (August, 1904) an 

 account of the plants collected by Mrs. David on Funafuti, 

 one of the Ellice group of coral islands. The list agrees very 

 closely with those of collections made on similar islands, 

 notably Samoa, Fiji and Keeling Islands, and consists of 

 fifty flowering plants representing thirty-three orders. The 

 native names are very similar to the Samoan. .Although the 

 plants include various edible products, such as the almonds 

 of Terminalia Catappa, the sword-bean, and fruits of Pan- 

 ■danus, the islanders subsist chiefly on taro and bananas. 



The second part of Prof. E. C. Jeffery's treatise on the 

 comparative anatomy and phylogeny of the Coniferales claims 

 attention not only for the facts which he has observed in 

 examining various genera of the Abietinere, but more 

 especially on account of the deductions which, evolved from 

 the consideration of certain formulated canons of comparative 

 anatomy, by their evident consistency go far to establish 

 the validity of these canons. It is possible to trace in the 

 Abietineas a sequence from forms such as Tsuga and 

 Cedrus, in which resin-canals are absent from the wood of 

 all normal stem parts, through certain species of Abies, in 

 which the resin-canals occur only in the wood of the re- 

 productive axis, to Picea, Lari.x, and Pinus, where they are 

 formed normally in the wood of the vegetative axis. Among 

 the former, resin-canals are freely produced in the vegetative 

 ■shoots as a result of injury. From these and other facts 

 Prof. Jeffery concludes that the Abietinea; are a very ancient 

 order, older than the Cupressinese, and by the possession 

 ■of a double leaf-trace are allied to the Cordaitales. The 

 treatise forms the first number of vol. vi. of the Memoirs of 

 ■the Boston Society of Natural History. 



We have received the report of the Meteorological Com- 

 mission of Cape Colony for the year 1903. A comparison of 

 the number of ordinary stations shows a fair increase over 



that for 1902, except in the case of purely rainfall stations, 

 where there is a decrease of 3 1 . This is partly due to the 

 fact that owing to severe drought many farmers have had 

 to trek with the remains of their cattle to adjoining terri- 

 tories, leaving their homesteads entirely unoccupied. The 

 report contains useful monthly and yearly average rainfall 

 data, for districts, over Cape Colony for the ten-year period 

 I 894- I 903. 



Prof. H. Hergesell. president of the International .\ero- 

 nautical Committee, has favoured us with a summary of the 

 monthlv ascents made during the last six months of the 

 year 1904 for the exploration of the upper air by means of 

 manned and unmanned balloons and kites. The average 

 number of ascents per month was eighteen, and some re- 

 markable altitudes were attained by the unmanned balloons, 

 seven of them exceeding 15,000 metres, and eighteen exceed- 

 ing 10,000 metres, the extremes being 24,070 metres, at 

 Strassburg, and 19,750 metres, at Pavlovsk, both in the 

 month of September. Special mention may be made of some 

 important kite ascents from the yacht of the Prince of 

 Monaco last autumn, during which a height of 4510 metres 

 was attained to the north-west of the Canary Islands, and 

 4360 metres south of the Azores. We hope shortly to refer 

 to some valuable results obtained from the discussion of 

 these observations in the region of the trade winds. 



We have received a copy of the fifth edition of Jelinek's 

 excellent " Instructions for taking Meteorological Observa- 

 tions," issued under the superintendence of Dr. J. M. 

 Pernter, the present able director of the .Austrian Meteor- 

 ological Service. The first two editions (1869 and 1876) were 

 written by Dr. Jelinek, the third and fourth (i8?4 and 1893) 

 were revised by Dr. J. Hann, who is justly recognised as 

 the foremost of living meteorologists. Not forgetting the e.x- 

 cellent meteorological instructions issued in Russia by the late 

 Dr. H. Wild, in France by M. Angot, and in Germany by Dr. 

 van Bebber, nor the useful handbooks of smaller pretensions 

 by Dr. Scott (late of the Meteorological Office) and Mr. 

 Marriott (Royal Meteorological Society), we can have no 

 hesitation in asserting that the work now under notice is 

 second to none among works of a similar kind. It is 

 thoroughlv up-to-date, and contains all that is necessary to 

 be known in connection with the recent considerable ad- 

 vances made by the introduction and more general use of 

 various self-recording instruments, and with the more 

 systematic observations of clouds. It contains good repre- 

 sentations of eight of the principal forms of clouds, repro- 

 duced from the International Cloud Atlas, and 37 other 

 illustrations, with sound advice in the choice of necessary 

 instruments and the establishment of stations of all classes, 

 whether first-order observatories or stations intended to 

 record merely rainfall and temperature. Any observers in 

 our own country who may be conversant with the German 

 language would, we think, be much interested by a careful 

 perusal of this very instructive work. 



The current number of the Fortiughlly Review contains 

 an article by M. .A. Santos-Dumont on " The Future of 

 Air-Ships." The difficulties against which the nagivator 

 of the air has to contend are explained, and the means 

 adopted by various aeronauts to overcome these obstacles 

 are described. The two great obstacles to ballooning, M. 

 Santos-Dumont points out, are contraction and expansion. 

 To counteract contraction ballast must be thrown out, to 

 compensate for expansion, gas must be allowed to escape. 

 The skill of the aeronaut of a spherical balloon consists in 

 maintaining his desired altitude with the greatest economy 

 of gas and ballast. But in any case repeated contractions 



NO. 1845, VOL. 71] 



