1 66 



JVA TURE 



[June 13, 1901 



The function is considered to be of considerable importance. 

 It has been found that the same side of the organism is always 

 directed towards the outer side of the spiral. In the case of 

 spherical organisms like volvox the spiral movement probably 

 serves merely to correct any accidental deviations from a straight 

 course ; but without this device many creaiures would be quite 

 unable to steer straight, and many of them would merely de- 

 scribe circles without making any forward progress at all. " The 

 simple device of revolving in the axis of progression is sur- 

 prisingly effective, in that it compensates with absolute precision 

 for any tendency, or combination of tendencies, to deviate from 

 a straight course in any direction." 



We have received three specimen numbers of a popular 

 Danish illustrated weekly magazine called Frem (Forwards), and 

 devoted to ancient and modern history, archaeology, literature 

 and science. The outer portions of the paper are in quarto, but 

 the inner portion, when cut up, consists of an octavo sheet, 



Contorled Beds al Jangye-Ryn, Gunwall^ 



containing four pages each of various independent works. 

 The parts before us, published in September and October, 

 1900, include parts of a novel ; a translation of Shake- 

 speare's " Henry IV. " ; a work on ancient history by Johan 

 Ottosen, with illustrations of buildings, a cross, &c. ; and a work 

 by Levyson on the human body, with numerous text illustrations, 

 and coloured diagrams of the organs of the upper part of the 

 body and of the heart. The quarto contents of the parts are 

 equally varied, and among them we notice articles and illustrations 

 relating to the tortoises of the Orinoco, a Khirghis mother and 

 children, edible and poisonous fungi, runes, old buildings, gout, 

 the Moloch lizard, the Franco-German war, China, and the 

 Transvaal, &c. It is one of the most miscellaneous publications 

 which have come under our notice, in some respects resembling 

 the old Penny jl/'Z^ac/wd of sixty years ago. Apropos of Shake- 

 speare, we may mention that the plays are being translated into 

 NO. 1650, VOL. 64] 



Finnish ; and seventeen have already been published by the 

 Finnish Literary Society at Helsingfors. 



TuK Journal of Bo/any iox ]nne gives the more interesting 

 notes contained in the Botanical Exchange Club Report for 1899, 

 which is now edited by the Rev. W. R. Linton. 



Mr. F. N. Williams has issued a specimen of a " Prodro- 

 mus Florae Britannic;!;," in which an attempt is made to epitom- 

 ise the distinguishing characters of all British species and 

 subspecies of plants, the descriptions being given in Latin, 

 " the nominative absolute style with separate sentences." 



The Royal Geological Society of Cornwall has lately issued 

 its eighty-seventh Annual Report, together with the papers read 

 during the .session 1SS9-1S90 {Transactions, vol. xii. part 6). 

 Mr. J. B. Hill, who is engaged on the Geological Survey, has 

 brought the experience which he gained in Argyllshire to bear 

 on the slaty rocks of Cornwall. He finds the structures there 

 to be identical with those of crystalline schists, but the mineral- 

 isation is wanting. In 

 the Falmouth district the 

 strata have been thrown 

 into a series of isoclinal 

 folds accompanied by 

 small faults, and further 

 minor structures have 

 been set up until the 

 mass has become full of 

 minute folds and thrusts- 

 These disturbances have 

 in some cases caused, 

 not only severing and 

 brecciation of the 

 bands, but also the round- 

 ing of fragments so as to 

 produce ' 'crush-conglom- 

 erates." The author re- 

 marks that had the rocks 

 been subjected to these 

 stresses at a greater depth 

 and below the zone of 

 fracture, where they 

 would not have been so 

 free to move, they would 

 have been converted into 

 true schists. Mr. Howard 

 Fox givesa brief descrip- 

 tion of the remarkable 

 contorted beds of Gun- 

 w alloc, in the Lizard 

 district near Helston, 

 togetherwith an excellent 

 photographic plate (which we reproduce by permission of the 

 Society). The thick pale bands are grits, the thin dark bands are 

 much squeezed shales, and there are numerous quartz and calcite 

 veins. The beds appear to belong to the same group as the Or- 

 dovician cherts of MuUion Island. In an article on the sequence 

 of the Lizard Rocks, Mr. Harford J. Lowe brings forward 

 evidence to show that the granulitic series is later than, and 

 instrusive in, the serpentine. 



We have received the first number of a new botanical journal, 

 to be issued at irregular inter\als, Billmore Bolanical Studies, 

 embracing papers by the director and associates of the Biltmore 

 Herbarium, North Carolina. The present number is occupied 

 by five papers on descriptive phanerogamic botany. 



In a new edition of " Mudern Cremation," which has just 

 been published by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., Sir Henry 



