“APRIL 4, 1907 | 
NATURE 
541 
the boiler, he found the sludge to be almost pure anhydrite vigorous and healthy.’’ It is a pity to use expressions of 
in fine crystals, and was confirmed in his observation by 
Dr. Gerald T. Moody, to whom part of the sample was 
sent. 
ARE there any instances of church bells having been 
cracked by sound waves produced in air by explosions or 
heavy firing? A note in the West Sussex Gazette of 
March 28 suggests that this happened recently in the 
village of Appledram, Sussex. Three volleys were fired by 
a naval party of twenty-four men over the grave of a sea- 
man buried in the churchyard. On the evening of the 
same day one of the church bells, nearly six hundred 
vears old, was found to be cracked. The firing party was 
only about a dozen yards from the belfry, and it is believed 
that the vibration caused by the three intense sound waves 
in ‘rapid’succession cracked ‘the bell. It is well known 
that explosions and heavy firing have often broken 
windows, but we do not remember any case of a_ bell 
being damaged in this way. No windows were broken in 
the Appledram church, so apparently the effect was not 
due simply to compression waves. It would be interesting 
to know whether there are other cases of bells having 
been cracked in the way that glass globes are said to have 
been broken when set in violent vibration by sound waves. 
On January § Prof. Willis L. Moore, chief of the 
U.S. Weather Bureau, was asked by a committee on 
agriculture of the House of Representatives at Washing- 
ton certain questions in regard to rainfall and change of 
climate in the United States. The actual questions and 
answers have been reprinted in pamphlet form, and the 
information given by Prof. Moore is to the effect that 
the climate has in no way changed during recent years. 
With regard to the rainfall in Kansas, Nebraska, and other 
States, a table giving the means for thirty years, in 
periods of ten years, clearly shows that the aggregate 
amounts have neither increased nor diminished to any 
extent worthy of consideration. The first and last ten 
years were periods of fairly abundant rainfall, while in the 
middle ten vears there was a deficiency. During the last 
few years there has certainly been an excess of rainfall in 
some districts, but Prof. Moore pointed out that as long 
a period of drought may be looked for later on. This 
very natural and valuable opinion appears to have given 
offence to some newspapers in Kansas as being injurious 
to the States in question, and likely to prevent the sale 
of land. Time will show that the attack they have made 
upon Prof. Moore is both unwise and unwarranted. His 
evidence is at least the outcome of knowledge obtained 
from a study of the best materials available to the Weather 
Bureau. 
INTEREST in natural history is encouraged by a series of 
articles on the country month by month which is appearing 
in Pearson’s Magazine. In addition to an illustrated article 
on the nature-story of April, with notes on the birds and 
flowers of the month and a calendar of the chief natural 
history events, the current number contains a contribution 
on the fertilisation of clover. This article gives an in- 
structive account, with several striking photographs, of 
cross-fertilisation of white Dutch clover by bees, but the 
remark that clover plants are ‘‘ wise in their day and 
Seneration’’’ because their structure favours this process 
is, to say the least, misleading. Human attributes are 
implied even more definitely in the remark, ‘‘ One cannot 
fail to admire the clover for its broad-mindedness in not 
only thinking of. its own immediate well-being, but working 
and arranging for the future, that its progeny should be 
NO. 1953, VOL. 75] 
this kind when referring to the functions of flowers. A 
story entitled “‘ A Message from the Moon” describes how 
an advertisement was projected by a parabolic reflector 
from the earth to the unilluminated part of the moon’s 
surface. The idea is ingenious enough, but unfortunately 
the author and his illustrator make the usual mistakes 
about the crescent moon. The pictures show the advertise- 
ment on the dark part of an old crescent moon setting in 
a night scene, whereas such a crescent can, of course, only 
be seen shortly before sunrise. The author takes the same 
liberties with the moon’s motions by describing the moon 
as rising at New York at night in crescent form with the 
advertisement visible upon it for “‘ upwards of three hours 
and a-half, that is, until the moon was well overhead.”’ 
We advise the author and the artist to make a few observ- 
ations of the rising and setting crescent moons, and they 
will soon learn that the positions in which they place our 
satellite can never be realised in nature. 
We have to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of a 
‘“Catalogue of British Orthoptera, Neuroptera, and 
Trichoptera ’’ (fifteen pages), by the late C. W. Dale, 
published by Messrs. Harwood, of Colchester. 
Museum News (Brooklyn, N.Y.) for March records the 
bequest, by Mrs. C. H. Polhemus, to the museum of a 
number of pictures, bronzes, &c., of the estimated value 
of Soool., together with a sum of money for the preserva- 
tion and increase of the collection. 
From the British Museum (Natural History) we have 
received a copy of a “‘List of British Seed-plants and 
Ferns,”’ price 4d. The list, which has been drawn up by 
Dr. Rendle and Mr. Britten, excludes some introduced and 
all exterminated plants, as well as many of the phases of 
Rubus, Salix, &c., together with the Channel Islands flora. 
Plants which, although introduced,/appear to have become 
naturalised, are indicated by italic type. 
A copy of the second edition of the illustrated penny 
guide to the Hull Municipal Museum, compiled by Mr. T. 
Sheppard, the curator, has been received. The collections 
date from the year 1823, and include, among other valu- 
able specimens, the type-skeleton of Sibbald’s rorqual 
(Balaenoptera sibbaldi), prepared from a carcase stranded 
at Spurn in 1836, and named by Gray in 1847. A photo- 
graph of this skeleton forms one of the illustrations. 
Tue histology and development of the divided eyes of 
certain insects form the subject of a paper by Mr. Gab: 
Shafer in the Proceedings of the Washington Academy 
of Sciences (vol. viii, pp. 459-486). The first part is 
devoted to the histology of the compound eyes of such 
forms as Sympetrum, the dragon-flies of the genus Anax, 
and the midges of the genus Callibztis, which are divided 
by a curved line into an upper light-coloured and a lower 
dark moiety; while in the second the author discusses the 
development of the large-facetted area of the eye of the 
first and third of these groups. In the case of the 
‘“‘turban-eye ’’ of Callibzetis, the formation of a super- 
position image on the proximal and an apposition image 
on the distal retinulz enables the eye with the superposition 
image to see, although perhaps indistinctly, in dim light 
where the small-facetted, deeply pigmented eye would be 
useless. As these turban-eyes are restricted to the males 
of these may-flies, which seek the females during flight in 
the gloaming, their use is obvious. 
‘‘ Mertstic Homologies in Vertebrates ’’ is the title of 
a thoughtful article by Mr. J. S. Kingsley in the February 
number of the American Naturalist. As one of the difficul- 
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