594 
reached a height of more than 8000 metres (five miles). 
Two of them had travelled at a rate of 100 miles per 
hour. The maximum height reached was 17,037 metres, 
or nearly eleven miles, and the lowest temperature re- 
corded was —79° C., at a height of 14,800 metres. 
While Mr. Clayton was crossing the Atlantic to Gibraltar 
to join M. Teisserenc de Bort and M. Maurice on the 
cruise of the Otaria, he executed six kite flights, and on 
the cruise nineteen flights were made. From the Azores, 
Madeira, and Canary and Cape Verde Islands twelve 
balloons were sent up, and records were obtained of the 
wind velocity and direction up to altitudes of 13,600 metres. 
It was demonstrated that the upper return trade winds 
in the northern hemisphere blow generally from the south, 
and that the chief features of the vertical distribution of 
temperature and humidity were the differences between 
the east and west sides of the permanent anticyclone and 
the stratification of the atmosphere in the region of the 
trades and the doldrums (see Nature, November 16, 1905, 
and March 8, 1906). These investigations are to be con- 
tinued to see if the proximity of land influences the upper- 
air currents over the ocean. 
In the tables giving the records obtained by the flights 
in 1903 and 1904 at Blue Hill, the reading corresponding 
with the different altitudes of the kites, are all compared 
with simultaneous readings made in the observatory, and 
the initial and final readings on the meteorographs are 
compared also with those at the station at the base of 
the hill. The height of the kite was determined from its 
angular height and the length of the wire, with a correc- 
tion for sag. When the kite was not visible, its height 
was determined from the corrected readings of the baro- 
graph it carried. 
In order to eliminate the effect of sluggishness of the 
instruments, the temperature readings were taken from 
the records at points which coincided with stationary points 
in the flight. Humidity was recorded by means of a hair 
hygrometer, which had been standardised by comparison 
with a psychrometer before and after the flight. The 
direction of the current in which the kite was flying was 
determined by the azimuth of the kite from the reel. 
During 1902 and 1903 a long series of observations was 
made to study the effect of meteorological conditions on 
atmospheric refraction. From Blue Hill, Boston Light- 
house can be seen more than fourteen miles away, and 
the difference between the geodetic and observed dip of 
the line of sight observed three times a day. W. M. 
SCIENTIFIC. WORK IN. THE STRAITS 
SETTLEMENTS AND CEYLON. 
HE last number of the Journal of the Straits Branch of 
the Royal Asiatic Society is full of matter interesting 
to various classes of readers:—for botanists, Mr. H. N. 
Ridley’s studies on the grasses, sedges, Scitaminez, and 
Begonias of Borneo; for zoologists, Mr. P. Cameron’s 
account of the Hymenoptera of Sarawak; for anthro- 
pologists, Mrs. Bland’s description of the curious Anyam 
Gila basketry of Malacca, and Mr. Howell’s Dyak cere- 
monies in pregnancy and childbirth, with a list of remark- 
able taboos imposed upon the woman before and _ after 
delivery ; and, lastly, for folklorists, several tales collected 
by Messrs. Maxwell and Laidlaw. The most important 
contribution to the number is Mr. Ridley’s article on the 
menagerie at the Botanic Gardens, Singapore. This was 
started by a local society in 1859, taken over by the 
Government in 1874, and, finally, the valuable collection 
was dispersed in 1903 on the ground that the authorities 
could not afford funds for buildings and a modest annual 
grant for maintenance. It is certainly a misfortune that 
this institution should have met such a fate. As Mr. 
Ridley points out, there are few places in the world better 
suited for a zoological garden than Singapore. Mainten- 
ance charges are low, and the vicinity of the source of 
supply renders it possible to procure specimens at a small 
cost. Mr. Ridley gives valuable notes on the various 
genera, and supplies useful hints on the methods of keep- 
ing animals in captivity, He lays down as a maxim that 
“the only way of knowing what an animal thinks is 
NO. 1955, VOL. 75] 
NATURE 
[Apri 18, 1907 
comfortable and snug is to keep it and observe its ways. 
It will soon let you know what it likes, which probably 
does not at all fall in with your ideas of what it ought 
to like.’’ His notes on the habits of the larger Quadru- 
mana are based on first-hand knowledge. A pair of 
Indian jackals, he tells us, bred in the gardens, which is, 
to say the least, unusual. The Malay tapir (Tapirus 
indicus) displayed remarkable cryptic characters. When 
in its young pelage it hid in a palm bush, ‘‘ and when I 
went to fetch it, on opening the bush and looking down, 
I could not see it. I seemed to be looking on the dark 
brown ground with spots of sunlight through the leaves. 
The little animal lay in such a position that the yellow 
spots were exactly where the vertical sun rays would 
fall, the yellow streaks resembling the slanting streaks 
of light from the side. It was for a few minutes quite 
invisible, though I was looking down on it.”? No. 47 of 
the journal of the same branch of the society is devoted 
completely to a Malay manuscript entitled ‘‘ Hikaiat 
Shamsu’l Bahrain,’’ which, however, has no claims to 
special interest, being of a common type. 
The address delivered by the Hon. J. Ferguson, presi- 
dent of the Ceylon branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 
gives an interesting sketch of past and present scientific 
work in the island. In natural science the most valuable 
recent publication is that of Prof. Herdman, on the 
pearl oyster fisheries, with supplementary reports on the 
marine biology by other naturalists. The mineralogical 
survey has led to the discovery of many novelties, in- 
cluding thorianite, the only thorium-bearing substance to 
be found in any British possession. It is much to be re- 
gretted that the local government has been unable to 
provide funds for the establishment of an observatory, the 
want of which is much felt by the shipping trade, and was 
obliged to decline the offer of Mr. A. R. Brown, one of 
the Cambridge school of anthropologists, to undertake a 
survey of the Veddas. The suggestion made by Sir H. A. 
Blake, on native authority, that the connection between 
mosquitoes and malaria was known to Susruta, a Hindu 
writer of the fourth century a.p., has been examined by 
Prof. Jolly, with the result that the term Masaka cannot 
be confined to the mosquito, but includes various other 
insects popularly believed to cause disease. In regard to 
membership, the society is in a sound position. In spite, 
however, of the president’s optimism, we gather that the 
supply of papers is not so large as might be desired, and 
that some of the enthusiasm which has revived the sister 
society at Calcutta is needed at Colombo. 
AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS. 
LV ISCONSIN Experiment Station Twenty-second Annual 
Report.—From the time of Thomas Andrew Knight 
onwards, horticulturists have remarked the effects of an 
excessive food supply on variability in cultivated plants, 
but one seldom hears of a case in which such pronounced 
results have followed excessive feeding as those wnich 
occurred in an experiment described by Mr. E. P. Sandsten 
in the fwenty-second annual report of the Agricultural 
Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin. To 
a batch of tomato seedlings growing in a greenhouse a 
mixed manure consisting of 800 lb. nitrate of soda, 600 lb. 
sulphate of potash, and 1000 lb. bone per acre was 
applied. The seedlings soon began to vary, with the result 
that out of ninety-six plants scarcely any two were alike. 
Some plants were dwarfed, others developed internodes of 
abnormal length; the leaves varied in size and shape; the 
blossoms were abnormal in form; the stamens were much 
modified, and in one case became ‘‘ almost aborted ’’; the 
pistils, on the other hand, were greatly overgrown, and 
some of the plants produced seedless fruits. Two seedless 
types, a large- and small-fruited, were specially noticeable, 
and cuttings of these and of some of the other marked 
variations were made. These were subsequently grown in 
an ordinary soil, and produced plants which retained all 
their abnormal characters. 
Variation in the Composition of Milk.—In Bulletin 
No. 11 of the Edinburgh and East of Scotland Agricultural 
College, Dr. Alex. Lauder gives some interesting par- 
ae 
