Jan. 25, 1872] 



NATURE 



249 



The figure here inserted of the skeleton of the horse 

 (Fig. 7) is a very good example of the wood engraving, 

 in which, notwithstanding the small scale, there is re- 

 markable clearness of detail ; and the succeeding figures, 

 representing several details of the osteology of the same 

 animal, are all to be commended for beauty and delicacy 

 of execution. 



The illustration given in Fig. 6 is one in explanation 

 of the structure of the stomach of the ruminant, in con- 

 nection with which the following statement of recently- 

 established points regarding rumination may be quoted 

 (p. 381):- 



" I. Rumination is altogether prevented by paralysis of 

 the abdominal muscles, and it is a good deal impeded by 

 any interference with the free action of the diaphragm. 



" 1. Neither the paunch nor the reticulum ever becomes 

 completely emptied by the process of regurgitation. The 

 paunch is found half full of sodden fodder, even in animals 

 which have perished by starvation. 



" 3. When solid substances are swallowed, they pass 

 indifferently into the rumen or reticulum, and are con- 

 stantly driven backwards and forwards, from the one to 

 the other, by peristaltic actions of the walls of the stomach. 



"4. Fluids may pass either into the paunch and the 

 reticulum, or into the psalterium, and thence at once into 

 the fourth stomach, according to circumstances. 



" 5, Rumination is perfectly well effected after the lips 

 of the cesophageal groove have been closely united by wire 

 sutures. 



"It would appear, therefore, that the cropped grass 

 passes into the reticulum and rumen, and is macerated in 

 them. But there is no reason to believe that the reticu- 

 lum lakes any special share in modelling the boluses 

 which have to be returned into the mouth. More pro- 

 bably, a sudden and simultaneous contraction of the dia- 

 phragm and of the abdominal muscles compresses the 

 contents of the rumen and reticulum, and drives the 

 sodden fodder against the cardiac aperture of the 

 stomach. This opens, and then the cardiac end of the 

 cesophagus, becoming passively dilated, receives as much 

 of the fodder as it will contain. The cardiac aperture 

 now becoming closed, the bolus thus shut off is propelled 

 by the reversed peristaltic action of the muscular walls of 

 the cesophagus into the mouth, where it undergoes the 

 thorough mastication which has been described." 



In connection with this it may be remarked that fuller 

 illustration by figures of the organs of digestion, circula- 

 tion, and respiration in different animals seems desirable 

 in the Manual. 



Of the no woodcuts contained in the Manual, two- 

 thirds are original, while the remaining third (37) are 

 borrowed from other authors, whose names are mentioned 

 in the preface. 



For so complex a subject as the osteology of the skull, 

 as well as perhaps in several other parts, some extended 

 table of the bones, with the letters of reference employed 

 throughout the work, would afford considerable assistance 

 to the student. 



It might also be advantageous in an elementary work 

 of this kind to have added select references to works for 

 fuller study, and a glossary of (at least unusual) terms. 



In concluding this notice we repeat that the Manual is 

 in every way worthy of its learned author, and calculated 

 to be extremely useful in promoting the study of Com- 

 parative Anatomy and Zoology on sound principles. 

 The work cannot fail soon to go to a second edition, when 

 the author will have considered the expediency of such 

 additions as we have ventured to suggest, or of others of 

 which he approves, and which he has doubtless been 

 deterred from including in the present work from the 

 desire to bring it within as narrow a compass as possible. 

 Wemayalso express the hopethatthepublishers havemade 

 arrangements for the speedy publication of a similar 

 Manual of the Anatomy of the Invertebrate Animals. 

 Allen Thomson 



NOTES 



M. Janssen has addressed to the French Academy of Sciences 

 the following letter, on the principal consequences to be drawn 

 from his observations on the solar eclipse of 12th December 

 last; it is dated Sholoor, December 19, 1871 : — "I had the 

 honour,'' he says, "of sending you on the very day of the eclipse 

 a few lines to inform the Academy that I had observed the eclipse 

 under an exceptional sky, and that my observations led me to 

 assume a solar origin for the Corona (see Nature, vol. v. p. 190). 

 Immediately after the eclipse I was obliged to busy myself with 

 the personal and material arrangements for my expedition into 

 the mouniains, and hence I have been unable to complete any 

 detailed account, but I take advantage of the departure of this 

 courier to give some indispensable details as to the announced 

 results. Without entering into a discussion, which will form part 

 of my narrative, I shall say, in the first place, that the magnifi- 

 cent Corona observed at Sholoor showed itself under such an 

 aspect that it seemed to me impossible to accept for it any cause 

 of the nature of the phenomena of diffraction or reflection upon 

 the globe of the moon, or of simple illumination of the terrestrial 

 atmosphere. But the arguments which militate in favour of an 

 objective and circumsolar cause, acquire invincible force when 

 we inquire into the luminous elements of the phenomenon. In 

 fact, the spectrum of the Corona appeared in my telescope, not 

 continuous, as it had previously been found, but remarkably 

 complex. I detected in it, though much weaker, the brilliant 

 lines of hydrogen gas, which foims the principal element of 

 the protuberances and chromosphere ; the brilliant line which 

 has already been indicated during the eclipses of 1869 and 

 1870, and some other fainter ones ; obscure lines of the or- 

 dinary solar spectrum, especially that of sodium (D) ; these 

 lines are much more difficult to perceive. These facts 

 prove the existence of matter in the vicinity of the sun ; 

 matter which manifests itself in total eclipses by pheno- 

 mena of emission, absorption, and polarisation. But the dis- 

 cussion of the facts leads us still further. Besides the cosmical 

 matter independent of the sun which must exist in its neigh- 

 bourhood, the observations demonstrate the existence of 

 an excessively rare atmosphere, with a base of hydrogen, ex- 

 tending far beyond the chromosphere and protuberances, and 

 deriving its supplies from the very matter of the latter — matter 

 which is projected with so much violence, as we may ascertain 

 every day. The rarity of this atmosphere at a certain distance 

 from the chromosphere must be excessive ; its existence, there- 

 fore, is not in disagreement with the observations of some 

 passages of comets close to the sun." 



We earnestly call the attention of all men of science who may 

 have influence with the French Government, to the letter on be- 

 half of Elisee Reclus by Mr. H. Woodward, which will be found 

 in another column. 



We have to record the death of the Rev. Canon Moseley, 

 F.R.S., on Saturday last in his 71st year. Born in iSoi, he went 

 to St. John's CoUege, Cambridge, where he graduated seventh 

 wrangler in 1826. He was for a time Professor of Natural 

 Philosophy and Astronomy at King's College, London, and was 

 afterwards appointed one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, 

 and was a member of the Ordnance Select Committee. Canon 

 Moseley was well known for his writings on various physical 

 subjects, in particular on the phenomena connected with the 

 freezing of water, and the molecular constitution of glacial ice. 



The Photographic News notices the death of one of the most 

 eminent continental photographers, Johannes Grasshoff, of Ber- 

 lin, at the early age of thirty-sLx. At the recent exhibition of 

 the Photographic Society in Conduit Street, his studies were 

 among those most admired in the whole collection, and not least 

 his group of thirty different pictures from one and the same 



