July 14. 1904] 



NA TURE 



255 



The June number of the Xational Geographic Magazine 

 contains a speculative article of considerable interest by 

 Mr. R. A. Harris, in which the author discusses the in- 

 <lications of the existence of land in the vicinity of the 

 North Pole, which are afforded by the known set of the 

 •currents in the Arctic Ocean and from observations of the 

 tides. It is argued that a tract of land may exist extending 

 from near the north-west corner of Banks Land, or from 

 Piince Patrick Island, to a point north of New Siberia. 



The first place in the June number of Peiermaitn's 

 Mitteilungen is given to a short article on the geography 

 ■of Tibet by Dr. E. Schlagintweit, accompanying an e.xcel- 

 lent map of central southern Tibet by Herr C. Schmidt. 

 The map, which is on a scale of i : 2,000,000, is compiled 

 from the most recent authoritative data, and the route of 

 the British expedition to Gyangtse is shown. Another 

 valuable paper on Tibet is Herr Richard Tronnier's study 

 •of the lives and journeyings of the Jesuit Fathers Johannes 

 Grueber and -Albert de Dorville, who crossed Tibet in 1661. 

 This appears in the Zeitschrift of the Berlin Gesellschaft 

 fiir Erdkunde. 



Dr. W. Koert, of the Prussian Geological Survey, pub- 

 lishes in the Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift for May 

 an illustrated article on his observations of marine deposits 

 and coast-erosion in many portions of the world. Among 

 other interesting results of mineral and organic associations, 

 he notes the formation of structureless calcareous concre- 

 tions in the modern sand of Dar-es-salam, on the coast of 

 German East Africa. These masses he compares with the 

 " kankar " of Indian geologists. 



The fourth number of the Boleiin del Cuerpo de Ingenieros 

 de Minas del Parti contains an admirably illustrated 

 account of artesian wells established at Callao. A venture 

 started in looi was on the eve of being abandoned, when a 

 copious supply of water was struck at a depth of 46 metres. 

 Other wells have since proved equally successful, and 

 Senor Guillet, the author of this memoir, sounds a note of 

 hope for other areas, when he points out that there were 

 no special geological indications to encourage hydraulic 

 enterprise in the subsoils around Lima. 



According to the report in a local paper of a meeting 

 recently held at Johannesburg, when Mr. W. L. Sclater, 

 of the Cape Town Museum, occupied the chair, a South 

 African Ornithological Union has been established. The 

 new body has a strong and representative committee, with 

 Mr. Sclater as president, and it is hoped that means will 

 be found for publishing a journal. 



We have received from the United States two pamphlets 

 connected with entomology, the one on some results of 

 the work of the entomological division of the Department 

 of Agriculture {Bulletin No. 44), and the other notes by 

 Dr. A. S. Packard on the life-history of the silk-producing 

 moths of the family Saturniidae, forming No. 22 of vol. 

 xxxix. of the Proceedings of the American Academy. 

 Several articles in the former are devoted respectively to 

 aphides affecting grain and grass, and to chestnut and other 

 nut-feeding weevils. 



Prof. Hubrecht, of Utrecht, has favoured us with a 

 copy of an article by himself from the Jenaischen Zeitschrift 

 for 1904, dealing with the origin of annelids and chordates, 

 and the systematic position of the ctenophora and platy- 

 helminthes. Numerous debatable points^especially some 

 connected with the " coelosome " — are discussed in con- 

 VO. 18 II. VOL. 70I 



siderable detail, but it must suffice to mention that the 

 author regards ctenophora and platyhelminthes as specialised 

 side-groups, and that in his opinion the fcetal envelopes 

 of mammals are directly derived from invertebrate ancestors, 

 and not from those of birds and reptiles. 



In the American Naturalist for April, Dr. Shufeldt com- 

 pares the various schemes of classification of birds which 

 have been proposed during the last quarter of a century 

 or so, and inquires why these are so different. The answer 

 to the latter question is to be found, he thinks, partly in 

 the homogeneous character of birds in general, and partly 

 in the attempts to classify them in the same manner as other 

 and less homogeneous groups. In this respect all classifi- 

 cations are more or less unsatisfactory, and it is no 

 justification to plead that an " order " of birds has not 

 the same systematic value as a division bearing the same 

 name in mammals. Naturalists must malie up their minds 

 what characters are of generic and what of higher value, 

 and then formulate a scheme which can be correlated with 

 the classification of other groups. In another article in 

 the same journal Mr. H. B. Bigelow records the results of 

 certain experiments on goldfish which, in his opinion, prove 

 that these fishes are endowed with the power of hearing. 



We have received Messrs. Merck's annual report on 

 advancements in pharmaceutical chemistry and therapeutics. 

 All the newer preparations and drugs receive notice, and 

 the work contains useful bibliographical and authors' 

 indexes and indications for treatment. No medical man or 

 pharmacist who desires to learn the latest additions to the 

 list of drugs can do without this report. 



The action of snake venom on cold-blooded animals has 

 been tested by Dr. Noguchi in a long series of experiments 

 (Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication No. 12). 

 Three venoms were employed, viz. those of the cobra, water 

 moccasin, and rattlesnake. Snakes and frogs succumb 

 easily to cobra venom, but are relatively insusceptible to the 

 other venoms ; turtles are more susceptible to all venoms 

 than the foregoing, and fish are still more so. The grass- 

 hopper and some crabs are almost insusceptible, while the 

 lobster is only moderately resistant. Excepting the earth- 

 worm, all the worms showed a low degree of susceptibility. 

 The venoms have little effect on the Echinodermata ; sea- 

 urchins succumbed, however, but starfish and sea-cucumbers 

 were not perceptibly affected. 



" SiLAjiT. " an ancient Eastern medicine, forms the sub- 

 ject of a paper by Mr. David Hooper (Jotirn. Asiatic Society 

 of Bengal, vol. Ix.xii., part ii., No. 3, 1903). There seem 

 to be three substances known under this name; one appears 

 as an exudation on the rocks in certain districts of the 

 Himalayas, and consists largely of aluminium sulphate ; 

 a second, the black and probably true silajit, is said to form 

 an exudation on rocks in Nepal, and consists mainly of 

 alkalies and alkaline earths in combination with an organic 

 acid related to humic acid ; and a third, or white silajit, 

 is apparently of animal origin. The substance is said to be 

 a cure for most disorders. Mr. Hooper desires to direct 

 the attention of other observers to this strange product, as 

 it is possible that it has been met with in other parts of 

 the world. 



We have received the " Year Book " of Livingstone 

 College, of which Dr. Harford is the principal. This useful 

 institution is designed to give to missionaries and others 

 whose life-work may lie in the tropics a training in the 

 elements of medicine, surgery, and hygiene such as may 



