'So 



NATURE 



[November 28. 1918 



rhimm \ through two upright cylinders, standing one 

 on each side of the fireplace, each cylinder surround- 

 ing a concentric pipe which is open above and below. 

 [Tie Rue-gases pass through the annular space thus 

 formed on their way to the chimney, heating the inner 

 tube .-iiul causing a current of warm aii to be dis- 

 charged into the room; also the surrounding aii is 

 warmed by contact with the exterior of the flue-gas 

 chambers. The fire remains visible and radiates as 

 usual. Ii is admitted that such a device is not alto- 

 gether ornamental, bui people may !» willing to accept 

 this disadvantage in view of the advantage of added 

 warmth fur a given consumption of fuel. 



The death is recorded in Science cd Prof. W. L. 

 Hooper, head of the department of electrical engineer- 

 ing at Tufts College, Mass. Prof. Hooper had been 

 a member of the faculty at Tufts for thirty-five years, 

 and was acting president in 1012 and [913. 



The death is announced, in his seventy-fourth year, 

 of Prof. William Main, formerly professor of chemistry 

 in the University of North Carolina. Prof. Main 

 was one of the pioneers in copper and lead mining 

 in the United States. He invented the lead-zinc 

 storage battery, and is said to have been the first 

 to apply the storage battery commercially to the pro- 

 pulsion of street-cars. In recent years he had been 

 chiefly employed as an expert in technical cases before 

 the courts. 



Lt.-Coi.. Llewellyn Longstaff, whose death at 

 the age of seventy-seven is announced by the Times, 

 was known to geographers chiefly for his generous 

 support of Antarctic exploration. The funds for the 

 projected national expedition were growing so slowly 

 that there seemed little hope of enough being col- 

 lected to equip even a modest expedition when in 

 March, 1899, Col. Longstaff sent a contribution of 

 25,000/., which, with contributions already in hand, 

 guaranteed the sailing of the ship. Two years later 

 the expedition sailed in the Discovery under Capt . 

 Scott. Col. Longstaff also contributed to Capt. Scott's 

 last expedition. Most of his life he devoted to busi- 

 ness, and he was keenly interested in volunteering. For 

 more than forty years he had been a fellow of the 

 Royal Geographical Society, and served for some time 

 on its council. His eldest son, Capt. T. G. Long- 

 staff, is well known for his travels and explorations 

 in the Caucasus, Himalayas, and Tibet. 



The success of the British Scientific Products Ex- 

 hibition, held at King's College, London, during the 

 past summer, has led the British Science Guild to 

 decide to organise another exhibition next year. The 

 main object of the new exhibition will be to stimulate 

 national enterprise by a display of the year's pro- 

 gress in British science, invention, and industry. 

 Further particulars will be available in due coins,. 

 A large part of the recent exhibition has been trans- 

 ferred to Manchester, where it will be on view at the 

 Municipal College of Technology in a few weeks' 

 time. 



The Cecil medal and prize of 10/. of the Dorset 

 Field Club will be awarded in May next for the best 

 essav on "explosives used in warfare from the time of 

 the Crusades to the present war, giving details (un- 

 objectionable from a military point of view) of each 

 invention, and the chemical proportions of the sub- 

 stances used in each case, commencing with gun- 

 powder and Greek fire." The competition is open 

 to persons between the ages of seventeen and thirty- 

 five on May 1, 10.19. either born in Dorset or resident 

 not less than a vear between May 1, 1017, and May 1, 

 1019. Particulars are obtainable from Mr. 11. Pouncv, 

 Midland Ban 1 .; Chambers, Dorchester. 

 NO. 2561, VOL. I02] 



I in. Museum Journal, published bj the University 

 of Pennsylvania (vol. ix., part _>, June, [918), is largely 

 devoted to a studj of works ,,f art from th< Far and 

 Nearei East. In primitive Chinese ritual bronze 

 vessels were used to hold the fond and drink offered 

 to the spirits of the earth and air and the manes of 

 departed ancestors. Two valuable specimens ol ibis 

 class of vessel, one belonging in all probability to a 

 period well back in the firsl millennium before our 

 era, the other dated during the twelfth or eleventh 

 century B.C., are described. Of these the orna- 

 mentation, though bizarre, is singularly elleitive 

 in conforming to the exigencies of the space to be 

 covered. The Bronze age in China is believed to have 



drawn to a close about the middle of the first mil- 

 lennium before our era. For religious purposes, how- 

 ever, bronze continued to hold its own, and it was not 

 for another millennium, or until the sixth or seventh 

 century A.D., that the art of the bronze-worker may 

 be said to have attained its apogee with the casting 

 of those wonderful gigantic statues which characterised 

 the religious enthusiasm prevailing in China of the 

 Northern Wei (a.d. 386-535) and T'ang (a.D. 618-907) 

 dynasties, of which the sole remaining example- in the 

 world to-day is the great Daibutsu al Nara, the 

 ancient capital of Japan. 



Further light on the respiration of larval dragon- 

 flies is afforded by Mr. Joseph H. Bodine in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia (vol. Ixx., part 1). The author shows that 

 these larvae breathe bv means of the rectum from the 

 lime of hatching until transformation. The so-called 

 tracheal "gills" serve but as rudders during locomo- 

 tion, and take no pari in respiration, as is shown by 

 the fact that they may be removed with impunity. 

 'lb. 11 respiration takes place through the skin of the 

 larva he regards as improbable, since any oxygen 

 thus absorbed would be quite insufficient for respira- 

 tory purposes. 



Tin significance of specific structural characters as 

 between nearly related species is varioush interpreted 

 bv evolutionists, who are prone, in discussing this 

 theme, to neglect the work of the systematists who 

 are providing an immense store of material for 

 analysis Larval characters are especially inten sting 

 in this regard, as will be manifest on a careful 

 examination of the- enlarged figures of the mouth- 

 parts 1 d tadpoles uiven bv Dr. N. Annandale in his 



papers on Some Cndescribed Tadpoles from the Hills 

 of Southern India" and on "The Tadpoles of the 

 Families Randidae and Bufpnidae Found in the Plains 

 of India" in the Records of the Indian Museum 

 (vol. xv., part 1). 



As is well known, surgeons inserl grafts of living 

 bone- to suppl) defects caused b\ destructive injuries, 

 but there is a difference of opinion as to the fate of 

 such bone grafts. The opinion most usually held is 

 that they always die, and that they merely help re- 

 covery by supplving a framework which is invaded bj 

 neighbouring living-bone cells. The view that grafts 

 are purely passive in their action is supported by 

 experiments reported by MM. J. Nageotte and L. 

 Sencert (Comptes rendus, October 21). So far as all 



forms of connective tissue arc- concerned, tin- authors 

 find that grafts which have been preserved in formalin 

 or alcohol for a month or more serve all the purposes 

 of a living graft. The dead fibre- of the graft unites 

 with the living fibre of the host, so that the point of 

 union cannot be detected. The authors excised from 

 the common extensor tendon of a dog's foot a piece 

 2-5 cm. long, and stitched in its place a corresponding 

 piece of tendon which had been kept in alcohol for 



