4H 



NATURE 



{August 30, 18S3 



I had just risen to speak to him, but before I could do so, a 

 loud ruuibling sound seemed to come on my right hand (or from 

 the direction of the Kulu Valley). 



One of the party called out thttn — we had had a thunderstorm 

 the day before — but changed the word to earthquake. For a 

 second or two I held my breath — I felt rooted to the spot ; then 

 the permanent wooden balcony over my heal began to creak and 

 groan most violently, and I distinctly saw the front wall of the 

 hou-e advance toward* me, and recede from me, three or four 

 tiu.es. 



Alter the motion had ceased, the rumbling sound, which at 

 its greatest intensity seemed beneath our feet, died away in the 

 opposite direction (or towards Simla). I made many inquiries 

 afterwards, but was unable to ascertain whether any shocks of 

 earthquake had been experienced on these dates either in Kulu 

 in 1S7S or in Lahoul or at Simla in 1881. 



The recent catastrophe in the Island of Ischia has called the 

 attention of those who make a study of such disturbances of the 

 earih's suface to the simultaneous occurrei.ee of earthquakes in 

 various parts of the world, which induces me to send you the^e 

 facts, in the hope that they may interest some of your readers 

 and lead them to form some conjecture as to the possible centre 

 of the earthquakes in the Himalayas. 



I am not aware to what extent the geological formation of the 

 Himalayas has been investigated, but (speaking as a non-profes- 

 sional) during three long tours in various parts of the;e moun- 

 tains I have never observed any traces of extinct volcanoes. I 

 ought, however, to mention, perhaps, that there are hot springs 

 at Beshist on the left bank of the Beas River, about four miles 

 from Maiiali, and also at Manikern, in the Parbuti valley, which 

 debouches from the Kulu valley, about thirty miles lower down, 

 also on the left bank of the river. Manikern is a great pi ce of 

 resort for Hindu pilgrims, who consider these hot springs 

 miraculous ; it is also occasionally visited by Europeans who 

 have found these waters efficacious in rheumatic affections. 

 Earthquakes do not seem to be uncommon in these valleys, bat 

 it ha. been remarked that they generally, if not always, occur in 

 the autumn, just when the rainy season is at an end. 



Cosmopolitan 



Lime and Bones 



The observation of your correspondent in Nature, vol. 

 xxvni. p. 329, regarding the effect of lime in strengthening the 

 bones of children, induces me to communicate certain facts 

 which I observed during a recent tour of two months in 

 Norway. 



We travelled by land from Christiania to Throndbjeai, thence 

 by sea to the North Cape and back, and made expeditions into 

 the interi r at different points on our downward journey. 



I noticed everywhere an extraordinary number of weak- 

 boned, crippled, and bandy legged children, also a great number 

 of men and women with weak bones and distorted limbs. 



Almost the whole of Norway is a network of mountains com- 

 posed of various forms of primitive and metamorphic rock, and 

 thou/h marble exists in this country I saw none in the districts 

 through which we passed. Cosmopolitan 



Christiania, August 1 1 



Copper and Cholera 



Referring to the parer read before the French Academy 

 (as reported in your last issue) on copper as a preservative 

 agoimt cholera, it may lie worth while to state that when visiting 

 the great copper mines at Fahlun in Sweden (probably the olde^ 

 and largest in the world) I was informed that cholera had never 

 appeared there, and that so well was the fact known that on the 

 last visitation of cholera in Sweden some members of the Royal 

 family took up their abode in Fahlun to escape the disease. 

 The atmosphere was there loaded with copper fumes to such an 

 extent that not a trace of vegetation was visible on the hills sur- 

 rounding the town ; so that this really seems to confirm by 

 ■experience on a large scale the theory alluded to. 



Walter R. Browne 



Sulphur in Bitumen 



From the abstract of the meeting of the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences in your last number (vol. xxviii. p. 40S), M. B. Dela- 

 chanal appears to consider that the presence of sulphur is 



peculiar to the bitumen of the Dead Sea, and from this he de- 

 duces a theory as to its inorganic origin. 



In some experiments which I -had occasion to make this 

 summer on the bitumen of the Great Pitch Lake of Trinidad I 

 found that this substance contained a very considerable quantity 

 of sulphur. Several per cents, of the volume of the gas ob- 

 tained by its destructive distillation consisted of hydrogen 

 sulphide. The origin of this asphalt is generally considered to 

 be organic, but I am not aware whether the entire absence of 

 calcium salts from its ash, a fact which was proved nearly a 

 century ago, and has since been confirmed, has been explained 

 on this theory. Hugh Robert Mill 



Edinburgh, August 27 



Thunderstorms and Aurorae 



A connection between these phenomena has been repeatedly 

 suggested. J. W. Rilter has articles on the subject in Gilbert's 

 Anialen (1803 and 1S04), and Kupffer has a long one in 1827. 

 Other writers who have dealt with it or with the connection 

 between aurora? and atmospheric electricity generally are Schiible 

 (1817), R. Phillips (1854), F. Dellmann (i860), E. Loomis 

 (1S60, 1861, and 1862), A. Poey (1861), A. De la Rive, F. 

 Abbott (1863), E. Edlund ; and in Nature, vol. xii. p. 127, 

 there is a summary of the observations by Herr von Bezold. 

 This may serve as a pariial answer at the end of Mr. Cbad- 

 bourn's letter. A. Ramsay 



4, Cowper Road, Acton, W., August 27 



The Meteor of August 19 



The details of this meteor in the letter of your correspondent 

 Mr. Mott and my own are for the most part in such close ac- 

 cordance that one might suppose we had been comparing notes. 

 There is, however, one particular in which our respective ac- 

 counts differ so widely that one feels inclined to ask whether 

 there were two meteors or whether one of your correspondents 

 has made a mistake as to the direction of the course of the 

 meteor. 



First let me correct an error of my own. I find now I v as 

 wrong in giving the point of starting a- a few degrees eastward 

 of the north star. I am somewhat of a stranger at the place 

 where I saw it, and I now find that the point from which it 

 started was as nearly a- possible north-east, and about 65" or 70° 

 above the horizon. 



I am quite clear as to the path being downwards in an almost 

 peiq endicular direction inclining a little to the left. Mr. Mott, on 

 the other hand, describes it as " nearly horizontal, inclined a little 

 downwards about 10° or 12° above the horizon, apparently much 

 foreshortened." It appears to me — perhaps owing to a want of 

 scientific knowledge — quite impossible that a meteor visible a 

 few miles south-west of London, falling as I have described, 

 could be identical with one seen two hundred miles north-west 

 of London travelling in the direction described by Mr. Mott. 

 I of course lay the stress on the direction of the meteor and not 

 the distances of the observers from London. 



A. Trevor Crispin 



Lan-downe Road, Wimbledon, S.W., August 27 



It may be of interest to some of your readers to know that 

 the meteor mentioned in Nature as seen on Sunday evening, 

 August 19, was al-o seen here, timed by me at 10. 1 p.m. The 

 compass bearings were from south-east past east to east-east- 

 north, about 35° from horizon ; colour, yellow orange ; first seen 

 coming from behind a cloud ; divided due east, one part falling 

 considerably. W. M. FOOLEY 



Bath Road, Cheltenham, August 26 



Stachys palustris as Food 



I SHOULD be much obliged if any of your readers could give 

 me any information as to whether the rhizomes of Staehyt 

 palustris, I.., are used by the country people either in Great 

 Britain or elsewhere for food. I believe the English name of 

 the plant is llase Horehound, and that in the last cen'ury it was 

 so used. A. Wentz'i 



K'asnicza Wola, Grodzisk, near Warsaw, August 18 



