2 86 



NA TURE 



[July 19, 1883 



and a^ being therefore the rudiment of a primitive renal organ, 1 

 which opened by lateral ducts upon the side wall of the body ; 

 while the connection of the pituitary body with the stomodceurn 

 in embryo vertebrates is regarded as being not its original and 

 proper duct, but a secondary connection, which has been formed 

 with a lost sense-organ placed at, or in front of, the anterior end 

 of the pharynx, and homologous with the dorsal tubercle in the 

 Tunicata. 



Ussow and Julin have conclusively shown that the dorsal 

 tubercle is not merely a sense-organ. The complex structure 

 which the tubercle usually presents seems to indicate that it is 

 not merely the aperture of a duct. Whether, as 1 suggest, it 

 may be a sense-organ into which the duct has come t} open can 

 scarcely be determined on the evidence at present in our hands. 

 The lines of investigation which may be reasonably expected to 

 throw additi >nal light upon the matter are : ( I) the exact course 

 of development or the 1 eural gland and the dorsal tubercle, 

 and farther information as to the pituitary body; and (2) the 

 examination of the condition of the glind and its ducts through- 

 out the Tunicata, and especially in a large number of specimens 

 of AsciJia mammillata, a species in which these organs appear to 

 be in a variable and highly interesting condition. 



YV. A. Herdman 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



Cambridge?. — Mr. YV. H. Caldwell, B.A., Fellow of Caius 

 College, has been selected to proceed to Australia to endeavour to 

 solve the important questions connected with the reproduction 

 and the embryology of the Monotremata, w Inch have so long 

 baffled inquiry. 



Mr. S. F. Harmer, B.A., of King's College, 1st Class in the 

 Natural Sciences Tripos 1S83, has been appointed Demonstrator 

 of Comparative Anatomy, in the vacancy caused by Mr. Cald- 

 well's resignation. 



Mr. W. F. R. YVeldon, B.A., of St. John's College, has been 

 appointed Prosector to tbe Zoological Society. 

 ?■ Mr. J. Bateson, B.A., of St. John's Colle.e, i- proceeding to 

 North America to study the life-history of Halanoglossus. 



Mr. J. Roberts, B.A., of St. John's College, has been ap- 

 pointed assistant to the Woodwardian Professor. 



Prof. Macalister will hold a class in Osteology in the long 

 vacation. 



Dr. Humphry has been elected Professor of Surgery. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



The Atmrican Journal of Science, July. — On the genesis of 

 metalliferous veil s, by Joseph Le Conte. From his study of the 

 phenomena of metalliferous deposit by solfataric action at 

 Sulphur Bank and Steamboat Spring, the author argues against 

 Dr. F. Sandberger (" Untersuchungen iiber Erzgange," Wies- 

 baden, 1882) that all lodes have been formed by deposit from 

 solutions. In this important paper the conditions under which 

 the deposits take place and the character of the solvents are fully 

 discussed. Besides simple water, whose solubility is greatly 

 increased by super-heat and pressure, the most active agency 

 appears to be alkali in the form of alkaline carbonates or alka- 

 line sulphides, or both. Such alkaline carbonate waters, 

 ascending slowly towards the surface through underground 

 fissures, gradually lose much of their solvent power both by 

 cooling and by relief of pressure, and must of necessity deposit 

 in their courses, and form metalliferous veins. In this way even 

 cinnabar and gold may be precipitated. Other powerful agencies 

 may be organic matter of universal occurrence in subterranean 

 waters, and known to be potent in reducing metallic oxides and 

 metallic salts. Mainly by these methods it is argued that alka- 

 line waters at various temperatures, but mostly hot, circulating 

 in all directions, but mainly up-coming, and in any kind of 

 water- way, bu; mainly in open fissures, form by deposit mineral 

 veins. Amongst the many subjects incidentally treated are : 

 Association with metamorphism, variation in vein contents ; 

 variation of richness with depth ; origin of alkaline and 

 metallic sulphides ; occurrence of gold ; irregular, brecciated, 

 contact, and other kinds of lodes. — Evolution of the American 



1 Not the pronephros, since that is found along with the pituitary body in 

 many vertebrates, but possibly more ancestral. Might it not be the homo- 

 l"gue of the provisional trochosphere excretory organs described by 

 Hatscht-k and others in Polygordius and some Mollusca? 



trotting horse, by Francis E. Nipher. By an ingenious process 

 of calculation the author arrives at the conclusion that the 

 maximum speed to which the American trotting horse will con- 

 stantly approximate without ever reaching it is a mile in ninety- 

 two seconds. — The burning of lignite in situ, by Charles A. 

 White. The ignition of the lignite beds still burning in Mon- 

 tana, and of others long extinct in Colorado, Wyoming, Dakota, 

 and elsewhere, is attributed mainly, if not altogether, to spon- 

 taneous combustion, according as the deposits become by erosion 

 successively exposed to atmospheric inlluence. — On the pare- 

 morphic origin of the hornblende of the crystalline rocks of the 

 North-western Slates, by K. D. Irving. An examination of 

 about iooo sections representing the crystalline schists, and 

 eruptives and Uasic eruptives of a region 400 miles by 300, and 

 of three distinct geological systems, showed the occurrence of no 

 hornblende not clearly or very probably secondary to augite. — 

 On the c inatituents of the meteorites winch fell at Bishopsville, 

 South Carolina, in March, 1843, and at Waterville, Maine, in 

 September, 1826, by M. E. Wadswortb. — A simple method of 

 correcting the weight of a body for the buoyancy of the atmo- 

 sphere when the volume is unknown, by Jo iah Parsons Cook. — 

 Recent investigations concerning the southern boundaries of the 

 glaciated area of Ohio, by G. F. Wright. The limit is deter- 

 mined by an irregular line running from Aurora near New- 

 Richmond, in a north-easterly direction through Chillicothe, 

 Newark, Dunville, and Canton, to New Lisbon, near the l'enn- 

 sylvanian frontier. — On the variation of the specific heat of water, 

 by G. A. Liclii ;, 



Bulletins de la Sociiti J' Anthropologic de Paris, torn. v. 

 fasc. v. 1S82. — On the tribes of Terra del Fuego, by M. O. 

 Beauregard. — A paper by M. G. de Rialle on M. O. Beaure- 

 gard's views regarding the origin of the Dardou-, communicated 

 to the Society in April, 1882, in which M. de Kialle contests the 

 opinion that the Thibetan races are Mongols. He considers that 

 the monosyllabic charcter of their language is a distinct proof 

 of their non-Mongolian origin, the Mongol being an agglutinated 

 form of speech belonging to the Altaic linguistic families. In 

 reply ;o his objections At. O. Beauregard read a voluminous 

 paper at a subsequent meeting, on the ancient and modern 

 ethnography of Cashmere and Thibet, which is mainly based on 

 Stanislas, Julien, Deguignes, and other older French authorities, 

 and on modern English writers, more especially Major Biddulph, 

 to whose important labours and accuracy M. Ujfalvy bore testi 

 mony in his defence of M de Kialle's views. — Observations by 

 M. Hamy on the anthropology of the Comalis of the East 

 African coast. — Exposition, by M. de Nadaillac, of the scope 

 and character of his work, "L'Amerique Prehistorique," pre- 

 sented by him to the Society. — Zoological observations in Equa- 

 torial Africa during M. de Brazza's expediti in, by M. Cornevin, 

 derived from the notes of the naturalist, M. Michaud. From 

 these it would appear that in the valley of the Ogoone the climate 

 is constant, the temperature standing generally at about 90° 

 Fahr. Maize, manioc, and tobacco are grown. The people are 

 courageous but peaceable. The sheep have no wool and only 

 little hair. A dark, fierce race of cattle, feared by the natives, 

 abounds in the forests, but there are no indigenous horses. — Ob- 

 servations on the Galibis, by M. Dally. — On the anthropological 

 distinctions between the two races confounded under the common 

 name of Kabyles. by M. Sabatier. — On the flint instruments, 

 including a lasso of the Quaternary period, found in the gravel 

 beds of Sarlieve, by Dr. Pommerol. — On the horse of prehistoric 

 and historic times, by M. Pietrement. — On the dental mutila- 

 tions of the ancient inhabitants of Mexico and Yucatan, by M. 

 Hamy. — On social instinct, by Madame Clemence Koyer. This 

 paper, intended to supplement the writer's larger work, "I.'Ori- 

 gine dei'Homme et des Societes" (published in 1870), considers 

 social instinct in relation to plants as well as to animals generally. 

 — Craniological observations on a series of the crania of assassins, 

 by M. Orchanski, considered specially with reference to the rela- 

 tion between the skull and the face. The author's determina- 

 minations are in close accord with those of MM. Ten-Kate and 

 Bordier. — On the existence of a rudimentary csecal appendage in 

 some of the Pithed, by M. Herve. — Remarks on certain differ- 

 ences between Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, as to the rela- 

 tions among them of deaths and births, byM. G. Lagneau. The 

 author finds that the Catholics generally, with a somewhat higher 

 natality, have a considerable infantile mortality, resulting in a 

 correspondingly feeble increase of population, while among 

 Protestants this increase is often much higher, notwithstanding a 

 somewhat smaller natality, which, however, is corrected by a 



