624 



NATURE 



[Oct. 25, 188; 



rom the south impracticable ; but he has succeeded in ascending 

 another mountain 24,000 feet high. 



The Sanitary Engineer, which has for some time been pub- 

 ished in New York, is now to be published simultaneously in 



England and America. 



Dr. King's annual report on the Government Cinchona Plan- 

 tations in Bengal for the year 188283, which is dated May 11 

 last, is a review of the work in the planta'ions down to March 

 31. The planting operations of the year show a grand total of 

 cinchona trees on the Government estate at the last-mentioned 

 date of 4,71 1, 168 of all sorts ; this is a decrease, we are told, of 

 about 50,000 on the leturns of the previous year, the falling-off 

 being due to the uprootal of 20,000 hybrids, and 43,697 Calisayas, 

 which were shown on analysis to have bark of rather poor 

 quality. Dr. King says : " The removal of these inferior trees is 

 in conformity with the policy which has been followed for some 

 years of raising the standard of the produce of these estates by 

 cultivating only tbe finest kinds of quinine cyielders. In con- 

 formity with the same policy 160,085 re d bark trees, which had 

 t o be uprooted in the ordinary rotation followed on the planta- 

 tion, were replaced, not by red barks, but by yellow barks and 

 hybrids. Ground was, towards the end of the year, broken at 

 Kunjung, in the new cinchona reserve across the Tiesta. A 

 European assistant has been located there, and prelimi- 

 nary measures have been taken for planting out there, 

 during the year now entered upon, a number of the best 

 kinds of Ledgeriana and hybrid cinchonas." Regarding the 

 crop of bark harvested during the year, Dr. King says 

 it was the largest ever obtained from the plantations, and 

 amounted to 396,980 lbs. of dry tark, 38,880 lbs. of which were 

 collected on the young plantation at Sittong, and the remainder 

 on the old plantation. The total crop was divided as follows : 

 372,610 lbs. of Succirubra, 22,120 lbs. of Calisaya and Ledgeri- 

 ana, and 2250 lbs. of hybrid bark. The bulk of the crop was 

 made over to the factory for conversion into cinchona febrifuge, 

 41,800 lbs. being sent home by order of the Secretary of State 

 to be converted, it is understood, into various forms of cinchona 

 febrifuge in this country for trial by the medical department. It 

 seems that the plants yielding Carthagena bark have not thriven, 

 only three plants being alive at the end of. the year, and this 

 notwithstanding every care that could possibly be given to them. 

 The quinologist's report for the same period as the preceding is 

 appended to it, and it shows that the net result of the manufacture 

 of febrifuge for the year was 10,363^ lbs. of ordinary and 300 

 lbs. of crystalline febrifuge, the cost price of which was lower 

 than in any previous year. It appears that the year's working 

 resulted in a profit of Rs. 66,284.9.5, which, it is stated, is equal 

 to a dividend of 6J per cent, on the capital, and may be cou- 

 s idered satisfactory. On this point Dr. King says : " The 

 quantity of febrifuge supplied to Government departments during 

 the year was 4180^ lbs., and the cost was Rs. 68,988.8, an equal 

 quantity of quinine at Rs. 96 per lb. would have cost Rs. 4,01,328. 

 The saving to the State effected by substituting febrifuge of 

 Government manufacture for Tnglish-made quinine was therefore 

 Rs. 3,32,340." 



Mr. Charles F. Parker, the curator in charge of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, died September 7, 

 after an illness of several months. Mr. Parker had paid special 

 attention to the botany of New Jersey, and, both in the com- 

 pleteness of his herbarium and the accuracy of his knowledge of 

 it, he had few, if any, equals. 



Mr. F. E. Sawyer sends us reports of two papers in which 

 he gives the results of his investigations on the folk-lore and 

 superstitions of Sussex. There is also a paper by him in Part vii. 

 of the Folk-lore Journal on St. S within and the rain water. 

 The same number contains part 6 of Mr. Sibree's valuable 



collections on " The Oratory, Songs, Legends, and Folk-tales 

 of the Malagasy." 



At the Upsala University a young lady, only seventeen years 

 of age, has just taken the first degree of examination. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include two Bonnet Monkeys (Macacus sinicus i 9 ) 

 from India, presented by Mr. John Verinder ; a Macaque 

 Monkey (Macacus cynomolgus) from India, presented by Mr. 

 W. H. B. Morris ; a Bonnet Monkey (Macacus sinicus) from 

 India, presented by Miss Stokes ; a Geoffroy's Cat (Fclis 

 geoffroii), a Chilian Sea Eagle (Geranocetus melanoleucus) from 

 Uruguay, presented by Mr. Charles S. Barnes ; a Crested Por- 

 cupine (Hystrix cristata) from Africa, presented by the Earl de 

 Grey ; a Purple Gallinule (Porphyrio caruleus), European, pre- 

 sented by Mr. Robert Dowling ; a Golden-headed Conure 

 (Conurus auricapillus) from South America, presented by Mrs. 

 Robins; a Smojth Snake (Coronella lavis), British, presented 

 by Mr. W. H. Pain ; an .Esculapian Snake (Coluber asculapii), 

 European, two Redshanks ( Tetanus calidris), British, a Yellow 

 Baboon (Cynocephalus babouin), a Gambian Pouched Rat (Crice- 

 tomys gambianus), a Slaty Egret (Ardea gularis) from West 

 Africa, a Little Egret (Ardea garzetta), European, a Very Black 

 Lemur (Lemur nigerrimus 6 ) from Madagascar, purchased ; a 

 Brown Bear (Ursus arctos), North European, a Puma (Felu con- 

 color) from America, a Patas Monkey (Cercopithecus patas) from 

 West Africa, two Black-footed Penguins (Splicniscus demersus) 

 from South Africa, a Cocteau's Skink (Macrocincus cocteauii) 

 from the Cape Verde Islands, deposited. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 



Pons' Comet. — Several observers have drawn attention to a 

 remarkable fluctuation in the brightness of this comet in Sep- 

 tember. M. Bigourdan of the Paris Observatory says that on 

 the 5th of that month it appeared as a faint nebulosity about 

 equal in brightness to a star of the twelfth magnitude, and 

 nearly round. On the 9th, with a power of 500, there w as a 

 small nucleus, ill defined but sufficiently distinct from the sur- 

 rounding nebulosity ; the comet's light had increa-ed since the 

 5th. Moonlight and clouds interfered with observation till the 

 23rd, when the brightness was much increased, and in a small 

 telescope was equal to that of a star of the eighth magnitude. 

 On the following night, in a fine sky, the comet' ^ aspect was 

 still the same, and its diameter was nearly 2'. On the 271I1 a 

 considerable change had taken place ; the nebulosity was much 

 fainter, and the nucleus distinct from it was from 10-iim. 

 After that date the nucleus further diminished, and on October 6 

 was only of 12m., though the comet as a whole was more easily 

 seen than at the beginning of September. Thus on September 

 24 the comet was of 8m., while it. brightness, calculated from 

 that of September 5, would have assigned it only 1 1-12 jj. It 

 therefore had, as M. Bigourdan remarks, for some time a bright- 

 ness thirty to forty times that given by theory, which, he .'ays, 

 it is difficult to reconcile with the opinion that comets have not 

 a light of their own. 



Herr Ruruker, observing at Hamburg, noticed similar varia- 

 tion. On September 23 he had ;een the comet as " ein sehr 

 helles Object mit einer glanzenden Verdichtung." On Septem- 

 ber 27 and following nights, "glich der Comet einem sehr 

 blassen, unregelniassigen, ziemlich grossen Nebel mit einem 

 Kleinen kaum sichtbaren condensations-centrum." The con- 

 trast, he says, was so striking that on September 27 he at first 

 doubted if he had the comet in the field. 



Baron von Engelhardt found the comet fainter on October 1 

 than on September 28, but on the latter night it was much 

 better seen with a 5-inch comet-seeker than with a power of 140 

 on the equatoreal. 



The Great Comet of 1882. — The weather during the last 

 moonless period appears to have been very unfavourable, at 

 least in this country, and there was no opportunity for satisfac- 

 tory examination of the position of the great comet of 1882, on 

 the chance of glimp>ing it with our larger instruments a the 

 earth somewhat overtook it on its course. The theoretical in- 





