206 
NADEOTAZ 
{ DECEMBER 27, 1906 
in mining and metallurgy, mechanics, geology, botany and 
zoology, and the Solar Physics Observatory was thrown 
open for inspection. Prof. W. Gowland gave an illustrated 
lecture on ‘‘ Stonehenge,’’ and two lantern lectures were 
given by Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer on “ The Photography of 
Clouds and Lightning.” 
A TELEGRAPHIC message in 
announces that Prof. Koch, who has for some time been 
engaged in investigating the causes of sleeping sickness 
British East Africa, has that 
atoxyl is an effectual remedy against the disease. The 
treatment is reported to have been successful in all cases 
which have so far been dealt with, and it now only re- 
mains to test the permanence of the cures effected. If 
this news proves to be true, Prof. Koch is to be congratu- 
lated on finding a cure for this deadly disease, which has 
already spread over the Congo Free State, has depopulated 
some of the most fertile districts of Uganda, and is 
threatening the Sudan on the north and Rhodesia on the 
south. 
the Times of December 17 
in German and proved 
It is, however, probably somewhat premature to 
speak of cures in a chronic disease such as this, which 
may run without treatment for several years. Nagana, 
which is closely related to sleeping sickness, is an acute 
disease in horses, killing them in three or four weeks. By 
giving the animals arsenic, however, they may be kept 
alive for a year or more. If one must wait a year to test 
the permanence of a cure by arsenic in an acute disease 
such as nagana, how much longer must one wait in such 
a slow, chronic disease as sleeping sickness, which may 
have a natural duration of years instead of weeks? Prof. 
Koch’s preliminary report will be awaited with interest. 
Tue annual meeting of the Association of Economic 
Biologists will be held at Cambridge on January 9, 10, 
and 11. The laboratories in the pathological department 
of the University and the zoological laboratory will be 
thrown open for the occasion. On January 9 the president, 
Mr. F. V. Theobald, will deliver an address on sea 
fisheries. The following papers will be read during the 
meeting :—Red-water fever and allied diseases, Prof. 
Nuttall, F.R.S.; cereal breeding, H. R. Biffen; new hemi- 
pterous fruit pests in Britain, F. V. Theobald; Intorno 
agli esperimenti contro la Mosca delle olive (Dacus oleae, 
Rossi), Prof. A. Berlese; on the American gooseberry- 
mildew, an epidemic fungus disease now invading Europe, 
E. S. Salmon; the successful extermination of the black 
currant gall-mite, W. E. Collinge; the geographical dis- 
tribution, natural and artificial, of the principal rubber 
plants, W. G. Freeman; notes on insect pests in the 
British East African Protectorate, F. V. Theobald; the 
spruce-gall and larch-blight diseases caused by ‘‘ Chermes ”’ 
and suggestions for their prevention, E. R. Burdon; a 
description of an infectious disease occurring in hares, 
T. Strangeways; the blood changes in man caused by the 
presence of metazoan parasites, and their aid in diagnosis, 
E. G. Fearnsides; on the use of an economic museum in 
the teaching of geography, W. G. Freeman. 
A Birt has been deposited in Parliament to incorporate 
the Channel Tunnel Company, and to authorise the con- 
struction of works which shall form part of the scheme 
intended to connect England and France by means of a 
railway in tunnel under the English Channel. 
mated that the scheme will involve a total outlay of 
16,000,0001. Half that amount is to be raised in this 
country, and the remainder is promised in France as soon 
as the scheme shall have received Parliamentary sanction 
in England. 
It is esti- 
NO. 1939, VOL. 75 | 
tunnels, the total length of which under the sea is to be 
twenty-four miles, and with the land approaches on either 
side thirty miles. The tunnels, each 18 feet in internal 
diameter, are to be driven from Dover to Sangatte through- 
out the whole distance in the grey Rouen chalk. Power 
for the electric motors which are to be employed in the 
tunnel traffic is to be obtained from large generating 
stations, which are likewise to supply the current required 
for lighting and the compressed air necessary for the pur- 
poses of ventilation. 
No. 7 of vol. xvi. of the Proceedings of the Royal 
Physical Society of Edinburgh is devoted to the second 
part of Dr. T. Scott’s catalogue of the crustaceans inhabit- 
ing the basin and estuary of the Forth, this portion dealing 
with the ostracods, copepods, and cirripedes. 
To the November number of the American Naturalist 
Prof. H. F. Osborn contributes the first portion of an 
article on the causes of extinction of species in mammals, 
more especially the larger kinds. After referring to the 
views of Darwin, Wallace, and Lyell, the author discusses 
in turn the influence of changes in the shape of land- 
masses and their connections; of climatic changes, especi- 
ally increasing cold and varying degrees of humidity; of 
changes in the flora of countries brought about by climatic 
alterations; and, finally, the effects of insect-life. The 
concluding portion of the paper must be awaited before a 
summary of the author’s views can be given. In another 
article Dr. Raymond Pearl discusses variation in the 
number of seeds in the lotus, Nelumbium luteum, while 
in a third Messrs. J. A. Cushman and W. P. Henderson 
give the results of a preliminary study of the finer struc- 
ture of the ‘‘ test ’’ of the fresh-water rhizopod Arcella. 
In the November issue of the Quarterly Journal of 
Microscopical Science Dr. Georgina Sweet continues her 
account of the anatomy of the marsupial mole (Notoryctes 
typhlops), dealing in this instance with the vestigial eye. 
This organ, despite the fact that its owner spends much 
of its time on or near the surface of the ground, is much 
more completely atrophied than in the mole, the optic 
nerve and lens being wanting, while the other structures 
connected with vision are degenerated in a greater or less 
degree. The eye itself has sunk deep beneath the skin, 
which passes over it unaltered except for the presence of 
sensory (? tactile) organs developed from the lachrymo- 
nasal glands and ducts. This complete degeneration of the 
eye may be attributed to the irritating effects of the par- 
ticles of heated sand amid which the creature dwells, the 
development of the glandular structures into sense-organs 
being in all probability a compensation for the loss of 
vision. 
AmonG other articles in the November issue of the 
Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, one, by Mr. 
F. A. Potts, is devoted to the modification in the sexual 
characters of hermit-crabs induced by the parasitic cirri- 
pede Peltogaster. Two articles, one by Mr. E. Potts, of 
Philadelphia, and the other by Mr. E. A. Browne, of Uni- 
versity College, London, treat specially of the meduse of 
the American fresh-water polyp Microhydra, with notes 
on the two other known forms of medusa-producing 
polyps. In a fourth article Mr. C. Shearer de- 
scribes the structure of the nephridea of the annelid Dino- 
philus, which proved to be closed internally by ‘‘ flame- 
cells,’’ or ‘‘ solenocytes,’’ similar to those of certain poly- 
chzete annelids, the lancelet, and one form of the Phoronis 
larva. The two remaining articles deal respectively with 
the canker of apple trees and Dr. R. Goldschmidt’s recent 
It. is proposed to construct two parallel +} monograph on the lancelets of the genus Amphioxides. 
