NATURE 



[OCTOISKR IO, igi 8 



Donations should be sen! to Lord Glenconner, the 

 honorary tn surei of the fund, at I nivi rsiti I 

 . W.C.i, 



to record the death oi thi Rev. I dward 

 Frank Sampson, student of Christ Church, Oxford, 

 which took place at Clifton on Octobei 1. Mr. 

 ■■■ as boi n .11 Bristol in 1848, and edui ated, 

 he late Di . ( !aldei ott, at the Bi istol < m ammar 

 School, whence he proceeded in 1865 to St. John's Col- 

 lege, Oxford, having been ' Bristol scholar- 

 ship in mathematics. He had a verj successful careei 

 as an undergraduate, taking first classes in Mathe- 

 matical Moderations and thi two Final Schools of 

 Mathematics and Natural Scieno ; and in 1869 he was 

 elected to a clerical senioi studentship at Christ 

 Church, being appoint in mathematics in 

 1S70 and a tutoi ot the house in 1*74- He was a 

 good and sound, though not a brilliant, mathematician, 



and a painstakinj , cientious, and efficient teacher, 



many of his pupil owing him deep gratitude for the 

 unstinted help, pecuniary and other, that he gave 

 them. But his chief interest did not lie in mathe- 

 matics and its developments. 1 1 < was an adminis- 

 trate] and reformer, with a very deep sense of the 

 duty he owed to undergraduates both as tutor and 

 cleric. He was a man of great energy and tenacity, 

 and his position as one of the censors of the house 

 to which office he was appointed in 1877, greatly 

 helped in the promotion of necessary reforms. Ill- 

 health caused Mr. Sampson to resign the censorship 

 in 1894, and in [900 h tetired from active college 

 w .11 k. 



The University 01 Pennsylvania is devoting special 

 attention to a scientific analysis of North American 

 Indian dialects. The last contribution on this subject 

 is an elaborate monograph by Dr. Fran,: Ho. is on 

 the language of the Tlinqit Indians, published in 

 vol. viii.. No. 1, of the University Anthropological 

 Publications. The material has been collected by Mr. 

 Louis Shotridgc, a full-blood Chilkat Indian, and it 

 has been arranged by Dr. Boas, the leading expert in 

 this branch of philology. The difficulty of reproducing 

 in type the complicated system of transliteration neces- 

 sary to represent the sound-forms has been skilfully 

 surmounted. 



A very able account of the habits of the sparrow- 

 hawk during the nesting period, by Mr. J. H. Owen, 

 appears in British Birds for September. Among other 

 things, Mr. Owen comments upon the very long time 

 takes to hatch after the embryo has chipped, the 

 shell. Out of eleven eggs kept under observation, six 

 took two days to hatch. In another case the hen was 

 seen to assist the chick to emerge by breaking away the 

 Though the author believes that the cock deter- 

 mines the site of the nest, he seems never to take any 

 part in incubation, but during this time he hunts 

 for the hen, bringing her food to the vicinity of the 

 nest. Though more than three hundred victims have 

 been more certainly identified at such nests, 



only two birds; one of these was a nestling 



red-legged | ,. other a pheasant, also in 



down. Alth ird chicks were abundant in 



the neighbourhood of the nests under observation, 

 none wore ever 1. ' ,. birds, and this is a 



point worth noting. Kinally, Mr. Owen remarks 

 striking difference , of sparrow-hawks 



when disturbed at I 1 'ling off silently, 



others leaving with m ., the male also 



taking part in such protests. 



In the current issue of the Q Journal of 



opii al Si ir)i, e (vol. Ixiii I I'.i mite 



;ives .1 ven useful sun im mi know- 



NO. 2554, VOL. I02] 



ledge oi thi remarkable phenomenon of polv- 

 embryonj .1- met with iri the parasitic Hymenoptera. 

 Mam, "i thi ects, ax i s well known, deposit their 



within ib eggs of other insects, the young para- 

 site following uut iis own development in the body of 

 the larval host. This development is often of a very 

 singulai character, for from a single egg a large 

 number of. individuals max be formed by a process 

 of embryonic budding. Not less interesting is the 

 manner in which enveloping membranes are formed 

 around the di eloping mass. In the first plai 

 nutrient envelope; the tropho-amnion, is derived from 

 the polar bodies of the parasitic egg, the nuclei of 

 which divide F01 the purpose, while an outer covering, 

 of an epithelial character, is formed from certain cells 

 of the host. The larval parasites feed upon the internal 

 organs of the larval host, apparently taking care not 

 to injure it vitally until they no longer require it, 

 when they pupate, either inside or outside the dead 

 larva. 



In the Proceedings ol the Geologists' Association 

 (vol. xxix., p. 46, 1918), Mr. Arthur L. Leach brings 

 forward very interesting evidenci ol the occupation 

 of the submerged forest-lands off the coast of Pem- 

 brokeshire by flint-chipping man before the full growth 

 of the forest-trees. Thi- occupation maj dale from 

 earl) Neolithic times, and a minimum coastal sub- 

 sid of 30 li . has since occuri ed. 



Mr. Edwin Kirk i lwzer. Journ. s .i., vol. xlvi., 

 p. 511, 1918) records successive epochs of glaciation 

 in Alaska in past geological times, includi lg what is 

 believed to be the first record of Silurian "tillite." 

 The conglomerates on the Alaskan border, previously 

 described by Cairnes (1914) as probably of Permo- 

 Carboniferous age, are shown to be paralleled bj 

 others that lie between high Carboniferous and 

 Triassic horizons. 



An important contribution to our knowledge of the 

 1 11 1. 11 ecus strata of the southern hemisphere is made 

 by Sr. Anselmo Windhausen in the Boletin dc la 

 Accidentia Vacional de Ciencias in Cordoba [Argen- 

 tina) (\nl. xxiii., p. 07, 1918). Under the name 

 " Neocomiano " the whole Lower Cretaceous sequence 

 in the Argentine Cordillera' is reviewed, and the free 

 interchange of marine forms between this region and 

 the Himalayas is pointed out in its geographical signi- 

 ficance. 



During the summer Dr. Arnold Romberg has 

 m. nil some interesting seismometric experiments at 

 the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (Weekly Bulletin, 

 vol. vi., 1918, pp. 87-1)2). A new upright pendulum 

 has been built for determining the direction from 

 which local earth-waves proceed. A short-period, 

 highly damped horizontal pendulum with heavy mass 

 has beiii arranged, recording optically on bromide 

 paper running at high speed. By closing up the Uni- 

 on the drum, this can be done without much addi- 

 tional expense. This instrument has already gi\- 

 clear, open record of a local earthquake. Another 

 change promises to reduce the friction of the pointer 

 in the smoked-paper mode of registration. A new 

 st\ his has been made, consisting of a lever of an 

 extremely light and fine glass lube with a minutl 



sharp-edged watchwork win. 1 rotating at the end in 

 a glas- bearing, the wheel itself being the writing-pen. 



Tin: report on the mineral resources of the 

 Philippine Islands for the year 1916 has just been 

 issued by tin- Division <>l Mine- of the Government of 

 the Philippine Islands. The only product of any 

 import Id, the output of which is valued at 



307,450! - ached. It is in- 



