NA TURE 



[June i6, 1904 



A SECOND revised edition of " An Elementary Geography 

 of India, Burma, and Ceylon," by Mr. Henry F. Blanford, 

 F.R.S., has been published by Messrs. Macmillan and Co., 

 Ltd. The important changes which have been made in 

 Indian geography since the appearance of the first edition of 

 the book have caused the author to re-write several 

 portions, and to add new chapters on the North-west 

 Frontier Province and on the Laccadive and Maldive 

 Islands. 



We have received from the \\ entworth Publishing Co., 

 of Surrey Street, W.C., a copy of their new " Seaside and 

 Inland A.B.C. Holiday Guide." The book runs to 311 

 pages, and contains concise descriptions of all health and 

 pleasure resorts and places of interest in the United 

 Kingdom. Lists of all the golf links throughout the 

 kingdom, of all British spas, of the principal angling 

 stations, and of the coaching centres are also provided. 

 This useful guide costs one shilling net. 



According to a communication of J. Knett which appears 

 in the Sitsungsberichte (No. 11) of the Vienna Academy 

 of Sciences, the thermal springs of Karlsbad deposit small 

 yellow tabular crystals of barium sulphate which are dis- 

 tinctly radio-active, and show all the phenomena character- 

 istic of the presence of an active element. 



The May number of the Physical Review contains interest- 

 ing papers on " Potential Phenomena in Vacuum Tubes 

 during the Production and Interruption of Electrical Dis- 

 charge," by S. N. Taylor, and " Observations on the 

 Radiation produced in an Alternating Condenser Field," by 

 F. Sanford. 



The investigation of certain complex cerium compounds 

 ]iy Prof. B. Brauner, an account of which appears in the 

 current volume. No. 39, p. 261, of the Zeitschrift fiir 

 anorganische Chemic, throws considerable light on the 

 nature of certain cerium compounds which have been the 

 subject of discussion for several decades. The red coloured 

 salt which separates from the solution obtained by the 

 action of water and sulphuric acid on oxide of cerium is 

 shown to be the acid cerous salt of the complex cerisulphuric 

 acid, and is represented by the formula 



Ce''(SO,,),Ce"'H.i2H.O. 

 Perfectly similar compounds, in which the trivalent cerium 

 is replaced by lanthanum, neodymium and praseodymium, 

 have also been obtained. 



So.ME interesting facts relating to the influence of the 

 application of potash salts on the agricultural production 

 of Prussia are contained in a recent address by Dr. 

 Carl Ochsenius to the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. 

 In 1893 the consumption of potash in German agri- 

 culture was 60,000 tons, in 1903 it was 150,000 tons. 

 The following numbers give the yields per hectare in kilo- 

 grams of different kinds of produce for the two years in 

 question : — 



1893 

 1903 



1477 

 2304 



rye barley "-""'" Lucerne 



872 1517 1067 2249 



1023 19SS 1S37 5250 



2275 

 4056 



The existence of a urea-forming enzyme has recently been 

 demonstrated by Kossel and Dakin {Zcit. physiol. Chcin., 

 xli., 321, &c.). The enzyme occurs principally in the liver, 

 but is also present in the thymus gland, mucous membrane 

 of small intestine, kidney and lymphatic glands. It 

 possesses the property of causing the rapid decomposition 

 of arginine (5-guanido-o-amidovaIeric acid), which is one 

 of the end products of tryptic digestion, into ornithine 

 NO. 1807, "^'OL 70] 



(a5-diamidovaleric acid) and urea. The enzyme may be 

 roughly isolated by precipitation of extracts of liver with 

 alcohol and ether, or with ammonium sulphate, and may 

 be preserved in the solid form for many months with but 

 little change. The conversion of arginine into urea and 

 ornithine illustrates a new type of enzyme reactign. The 

 enzyme has been named " arginase, " and is the first re- 

 presentative of the class of urea-forming enzymes capable 

 of being isolated and of acting outside the body. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



Comet 1904 a. — A new set of elements and an ephemeris 

 for this comet are published in No. 3947 of the Astro- 

 nomische Nachrichten by Prof. Stromgren. These vary but 

 slightly from those previously published by Herr Ebert. 

 Observations made on May 19 gave corrections of —41s. 

 in R.A. and -h2'-2 in declination to the positions, for that 

 date, derived from Prof. Stromgren 's elements, thereby 

 showing the latter to be fairly correct. From this fact it 

 follows that the object which appeared on the Harvard 

 photographs of March 1 1 and 15, which was thought to be 

 this comet, must have been some other body, for its position 

 is about 6° from the comet's position on that date as de- 

 duced from these elements. 



The comet's orbit is probably parabolic, and is note- 

 worthy for its large perihelion distance, somewhat similar 

 to that of Giacobini's comet of 1902-3 (the Observatory, 

 No- 345)- 



Duration of the Perseid Shower. — In a letter to the 

 Observatory (June), Mr. Denning directs attention to the 

 long duration of the annual shower of Perseids. He states 

 that the shower is certainly active by July 19, and that it 

 has not entirely ceased on August 16 ; there is some evidence 

 that traces of it have been observed as early as July 7 

 and as late as .\ugust 25, a period of fifty nights. 



Mr. Denning also gives a list of radiants for various 

 stages of the shower, derived from the collected observ- 

 ations made during the period 1877-1903 inclusive. 



Moonlight will not interfere with the observation of either 

 the earlier stages (July 8-ig) or the maximum and latest 

 phases (August 6-19) of this year's shower. 



Foundation of a New Astrophvsical Observatory. — 

 A letter from Dr. C. Nordmann to the Revue gdnirale des 

 Sciences (No. 10, May 30) describes the aims and equip- 

 ment of a new astrophvsical observatory which has just 

 been built near to Tortosa, in Spain, in latitude 40° 48' N. 

 and longitude 1° 47' E. of Paris. 



The general idea of the work to be prosecuted is to obtain 

 information regarding the relations between solar and 

 terrestrial phenomena, relations the existence of which 

 has of late years been abundantly confirmed by all workers 

 in solar physics. 



Two magnetic houses have been equipped, the one for 

 absolute measures of terrestrial magnetism, the other for 

 obtaining records of the regular variations in the elements 

 and of the extraordinary disturbances which appear to 

 coincide, in point of time, with solar disturbances. 



The observatory is also to be furnished with an equatorial 

 for observing sun-spots, an Evershed photo-spectrohelio- 

 graph, and an instrument for determining the radial veloci- 

 ties of solar prominence eruptions. 



Another building has been set apart for meteorological 

 observations and the study of atmospheric optics, and 

 seismological observations have also been provided for. 



The Total Solar Eclipse of 1905. — In an article pub- 

 lished in the Popular Science Mo}ithly for June, Prof. 

 W. W. Campbell gives an interesting rcsiirat' of what has 

 already been achieved by eclipse expeditions, and indicates 

 the present state of our knowledge regarding eclipse pheno- 

 mena. He then suggests a number of observations which 

 might be profitably made during the eclipse of May, 1905. 

 -Amongst these he considers the search for an intra- 

 mercurial planet to be of prime importance. The observ- 

 ations of Perrine in 1900 seemed to negative the idea of 

 such a planet's existence, but no definite conclusions could 

 be formed owirg to the intermittently cloudy state of the 



