May 26, 1904] 



NATURE 



85 



mineralog'y in the Royal School of Mines (afterwards 

 merged in the Royal College of Science). A few years ago 

 he was stricken down with paralysis, and was forced to 

 retire from the public service ; but he laboured on as far as 

 his strength permitted with wonderful patience and interest, 

 animated by a cheery nature, and he was able to accomplish 

 much useful work untii within about tw^o years of his 

 decease. 



We are glad to find that the study of the meteorological 

 conditions of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony has 

 been taken up seriously by the respective Governments. 

 With regard to the service in the Transvaal, we find some 

 interesting particulars given in Symons's Meteorological 

 Magazine for May. The director of the service is Mr. 

 R. T. A. Innes, and the central observatory, which is three 

 miles north-east of Johannesburg, stands at a height of 

 about 5900 feet above sea-level. The grounds cover loj 

 acres, and were obtained partlv by purchase and partly by 

 gift of a Dutch family named Bezuidenhout. There are 

 already 200 rainfall stations in operation, in addition to 

 about 30 stations of the second and third orders. All the 

 rainfall observers have come forward voluntarily, many of 

 them being farmers and school teachers in thinly populated 

 districts. A w'eather report is already issued daily, based 

 on observations received by telegraph, and self-recording 

 instruments are on the way to South Africa, and will prob- 

 ably be in working order by the beginning of July. 



Messrs. D. Schulte and Co. have submitted a sample 

 of their self-lighting Bunsen burner, in which the well 

 known property of finely divided platinum igniting under 

 the influence of a stream of hydrogen is employed. The 

 burner proper is of the usual type, but is furnished with 

 a byepass tube at the side, controlled by a cross stopcock. 

 .At the top of the byepass, close to the open end of the 

 burner, there is fitted a small bracket holding the bundle 

 of several fine platinum filaments, so constructed that the 

 thin stream of gas from the byepass tube impinges on the 

 stretched wires. .\ movable metal hood fits over the 

 lighter to direct the pilot flame produced by the action of 

 the platinum to the Bunsen tube, and on turning the stop- 

 cock to give full supply, the burner is lighted. The 

 arrangement works very readily, and if the old difficulties 

 with regard to the durability of the delicate portions can 

 be surmounted, the apparatus should be of considerable 

 convenience to laboratory workers. 



Is the Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital for March 

 (vol. XV., No. 156), Dr. Eugene Opie writes on the relation 

 of leucocytes with eosinophile granulation to bacterial in- 

 fection, finding that they are attracted from the blood to 

 the site of the bacterial invasion. Dr. Thomas McCrae 

 gives an interesting biographical notice of George Cheyne, 

 an old London and Bath physician of the seventeenth 

 century. The other papers are of purely medical interest. 



The report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the 

 Model Course of Physical E.xercises has recently been pub- 

 lished. The committee was instructed " to examine the 

 model course now in use, to judge how far it should be 

 modified or supplemented, and to consider what principles 

 should be followed, in order to render a model course, or 

 courses, adaptable for the different ages and sexes of the 

 children in public elementary schools." The conclusion 

 arrived at is that the " model course " as at present in 

 use is not completely satisfactory. .An elaborate scheme 

 of exercises, no less than 109 in number, has therefore been 

 drafted, and shojid prove of considerable service to teachers 

 and others. 



NO. 1804, VOL. 70I 



Two papers on invertebrates have just been received. 

 In the first Miss H. Richardson {Proceedings U.S. Nat. 

 Mus., No. 1369) describes numerous new types of isopod 

 crustaceans collected in Alaska and Hawaii. In the second, 

 which is extracted from the Mark Anniversary Volume, Mr. 

 J. H. Gerould discusses certain features in the embryology 

 of the sipunculid annelids, dealing more especially with 

 the structure and homology of the peculiar embryonal 

 env'elope and its amniotic cavities. 



The Leishman-Donovan body or parasite has been the 

 subject of a research by Lieut. Christophers {Sc. Mem. of 

 the Gov. of India, No. 8). It is met with in India in 

 patients suffering from chronic fever, cachexia, and en- 

 larged spleen. It occurs as a small round or ovoid body 

 1-5 to 3-5;* in diameter, free or contained within the leuco- 

 cytes in the liver and spleen and bone-marrow, but not in 

 the muscles or in the peripheral blood. Christophers 

 observed the parasites also in the arachnoid and in ulcers 

 of the large intestine. He agrees with other British 

 observers that the organism is not a piroplasma, as stated by 

 Laveran. 



I.s' the April number of the Journal of the Ouekett Micro- 

 scopical Club (ix., No. 54), Mr. Julius Rheinberg directs 

 attention to a point concerning the resolving power of a 

 microscopical objective that has been overlooked. As is 

 well known, the numerical aperture of an objective must be 

 of a certain degree in order to resolve a number of equi- 

 distant points or lines, and it has been tacitly assumed that 

 the same numerical aperture is required w'hether the number 

 of lines be two, four, six, or a large number. If, however, 

 there be only two lines, it will be found that they can be 

 resolved with a numerical aperture sensibly less than that 

 required to resolve a large number. The mathematical ex- 

 planation has been given by Dr. Johnstone Stoney and by 

 Lord Rayleigh. 



Two Bulletins have been received from the Experiment 

 Station of the Colorado Agricultural College. In the first 

 Mr. Paddock deals with "crown gall," the name applied 

 to irregular outgrowths which are formed just below the 

 ground at the base of trees, principally fruit trees. It has 

 been referred to the irritation set up by a slime-fungus, 

 and Prof. Toumey has succeeded in developing galls by 

 inoculation. The pamphlet by Mr. Blinn directs attention 

 to the importance of careful selection of seed as illustrated 

 in the case of the Canteloupe. 



The movements of the stomata of leaves is a subject of 

 which Mr. F. Darwin, F.R.S., has made a special study, 

 and the latest paper published in the Botanical Gazette 

 furnishes an account of observations made with a Callendar 

 recorder, which is a form of resistance thermometer. 

 Platinum wires are arranged in a zig-zag on plates of talc, 

 and two of these act as " bulbs " against which the leaves 

 are pressed. In general, a withered leaf is used as a 

 control. The results agree with those obtained with the 

 horn hygroscope, and, to quote one instance, the curve 

 produced by severing a leaf shows very clearly the pre- 

 liminary opening followed by a gradual closing of the 

 stomata. 



" Insect.s Injurious to Fruits in Michigan " is the title 

 of an illustrated Bulletin issued by the .Agricultural College 

 of that State. 



In the course of a paper on metabolism and division in 

 the Protozoa, published in the Proceedings of the American 

 Academy, Mr. .A. W. Peters points out the important in- 



