M4 
NATURE 
| NovEMBER 5, 1896 
came to the hut where Nansen and Johansen passed the winter. 
With the spring, a few days after the sun had appeared above 
the horizon, a flock of little auks was seen sailing past along the 
mountains to the north, and soon the mountains swarmed with 
them. The whole of that part of Franz Josef Land traversed 
by the two explorers consisted of basalt, and once formed a 
continuous basaltic land, which is now, however, cut up into 
small islands. On the south side of the country a deep stratum 
of Jurassic clay occurs beneath the basalt, and in it was found 
numerous ammonites and belemnites. The proprietors of the 
Daily Chronicle deserve every credit for their enterprise in 
arranging to pay Dr. Nansen so much as 1500/. for the tele- 
graphic account of his expedition, and 4000/. for the articles 
just published. 
WE are pleased to be able to report that Prof. W. J. Sollas 
returned to Dublin, in the best of health, on October 28, from his 
travels in the Pacific. It will be remembered that the Royal 
Society gave a grant to a Committee to investigate a coral reef 
by boring, sounding and other methods, and the island of 
Funafuti, in the Ellice Group, West Pacific, was selected as 
being a promising atoll. We have already (NATURE, vol. liv. 
p- 517) noted that the boring was unsatisfactory ; but the other 
portion of the programme was successfully carried out, and large 
collections of the land and marine fauna were severally made 
by Prof. Sollas, Mr. C. Hedley, of the Australian Museum, 
Sydney, and Mr. Stanley Gardiner. The party also collected 
plants and all the objects of ethnographical interest on the 
island. Dr. Collingwood made measurements of the natives, 
and other observations on their physical anthropology. Prof. 
Sollas carefully studied the physiography and geology of the 
island, and kept daily records of the maximum and minimum 
temperatures. The soundings made by the Pevgwzz, under 
Captain Field, were so complete that an accurate contour map 
can be made of the submarine slope ; probably in no case has a 
coral island been so accurately surveyed. Numerous photo- 
graphs were taken by Prof. Sollas and Dr. Collingwood. The 
expedition was eleven weeks on the island. Prof. Sollas then 
proceeded to Fiji, where he stayed about a month and made a 
special geological tour in the interior, accompanied by the Hon. | 
We understand that | 
Dr. Corney and the Hon. Mr. Udal. 
results of some importance will follow from this journey. After 
calling at Samoa, Prof. Sollas went to Honolulu and made some 
geological observations in the islands of Oahu and Hawaii. 
Mr. Hedley returned with his collections to Sydney, where he is 
working out his results. Mr. Gardiner is now in Rotumah. 
We hope that it will be possible to include a// the results of this 
expedition in a single publication, instead of their being published 
in scattered papers. If this were done, we should have such an 
account of the physical structure, flora, fauna, and anthropology 
of a single coral island as has never yet been brought together 
in one volume. The scientific men associated on the expedition 
are now so widely scattered, that no time should be lost if their 
various observations are to be collected and coordinated. 
THE committee appointed by the Entomological Society, for 
the protection of British Lepidoptera in danger of extermina- 
tion, held a meeting on October 14; Prof. Meldola, President 
of the Society, being in the chair. Letters from the City of 
London Entomological and Natural History Society, the North 
London Natural History Society, and the Leicester Literary 
and Philosophical Society, expressing warm sympathy with the 
object of the committee, were read. After discussion of the 
best methods of securing the object of the committee, it was 
resolved to invite information as to species in special danger of 
extermination, with a view to future action, 
HE is a bad workman who grumbles at his tools, and the 
student of science who neglects research because he does not 
NO. I410, VOL. 55] 
| increase. 
possess apparatus ready-made and varnished by the instrument- 
maker, lacks the spirit of the investigator. Test the efficiency 
of the things at your disposal is good advice, for the knowledge 
and experience gained by direct communion with nature, even 
through the roughest apparatus, is a very valuable educational 
training. Because this is so, and because we hold our highest 
function to be the encouragement of research, we have pleasure in 
noting that ‘a Yorkshirelad,” Mr. G. W.Watson, of Keighley, has 
obtained some wonderfully good Réntgen photographs by using 
an old home-made Wimshurst machine to illuminate a Crookes’ 
tube. The machine gave a spark about 1 inches in length, and 
was without condensers. With this primitive equipment, good 
radiographs of the bones of the hand were obtained in twenty 
minutes. One of these pictures, and also a radiograph of an 
abnormally developed elbow, have been submitted to us; and both 
are very creditable productions. The definition is unusually 
clear, and the hollow structure of the bones is distinctly visible. 
Mr. Watson’s success may induce others to see what they can 
do with simple means. 
WHILE the bison of North America is on the point of ex- 
tinction, the European bison, which is still found in Russia and 
the Caucasus, is sensibly decreasing in numbers, in spite of the 
efforts made for its protection by the Imperial Government. 
Herr Buchener (says the Zooogést), in a memoir on the subject 
recently presented to the Imperial Academy of Sciences at 
St. Petersburg, regards it as likely soon to share the fate of its 
American In the forest of Bialowicksa, in the 
province of Lithuania, a herd of these fine animals has long 
been preserved, and forty years ago, namely in 1856, numbered 
about 1900, but of late years this has dwindled down to less 
than 500, and there is no encouraging sign of any material 
Our contemporary points out that if the Russian 
Government would only give instructions to have some of the 
Caucasian bison captured alive and transported to Lithuania for 
the purpose of resuscitating the herd there, no doubt in a few 
years a marked improvement might be effected. The enter- 
prise would necessarily be attended with considerable difficulty 
and great expense, but in view of the scientific importance 
which would attach to the result of the experiment, it would be 
well worth undertaking. 
relative. 
THE renowned “* Bourbon” sugar-cane is so subject to diseases, 
particularly toattacks of Rind fungus, that the question of the most 
profitable variety of cane for cultivation in the Leeward Islands 
is of much interest and importance to the colony. Some facts 
are brought to bear upon this question in a report by Mr. F. 
Watts and Mr. F. R. Shepherd, published as a supplement to 
the Leeward Islands Gazette, detailing the results of experi- 
ments on the cultivation of different varieties of sugar-cane with 
the view of ascertaining which varieties are best able to resist 
disease. The results of their observations show that the best 
canes for planting in Antigua are those designated White Trans- 
parent, Naga B, Red Ribbon, Caledonian Queen, and Queensland 
Creole. These varieties held their own under different condi- 
tions of drought and infection ; they were free from Rind fungus, , 
and yielded juices of high purity and great saccharine richness. 
The Keni Keni cane, which, when it was first introduced into 
the colony, gave the best yield of any, has now fallen prac- 
tically to the bottom of the list. It is an ally of the Bourbon, 
and is badly attacked by the Rind fungus. A curious fact is 
that both the Bourbon and Keni Keni canes should deteriorate 
in this manner, though the latter seems to have changed for the 
worse much more rapidly than the former. Further observation 
on this point would be of considerable interest in connection 
with the stability of varieties in relation to disease. 
Nor so very long ago, the proposal to raise sugar-canes from 
the seeds would have been treated with ridicule, but, thanks to 
the work at Demerara and Barbados, and the experiments at the 
