592 
To the June issue of the Bull. Ac. Sci. Cracovie for 
1913, Pp. 335-412, Mr. Jan Nowak contributes the 
third part of his illustrated memoir on the ammonites 
and other cephalopods of the Upper Tertiary of 
Poland, with descriptions of several new species. 
AccorDINnG to the Zoological Society Bulletin (New 
York) for November, the longest, although by no 
means the heaviest, lobster on record was received at 
the New York Aquarium in September. It measured 
38 in. in length, and weighed 21 Ib.; in 1887 the 
aquarium received a specimen measuring 24 in. in 
length, and weighing 34 lb., this, so far as known, 
being the record for weight. 
Tue affinity between the Tertiary mammalian faunas 
of eastern Europe and North America indicated by 
the occurrence of Titanotherium in the former area 
is strengthened, if the generic determination be cor- 
rect, by Mr. Niezabitowski’s reference (Bull. Ac. Sci. 
Cracovie, 1913, pp. 223-25), of an imperfect rhino- 
ceros skull from the Pliocene of Odessa to the North 
American Tertiary genus, Teleoceras, under the name 
of T. ponticus. Although the upper teeth present 
considerable resemblance to those of Aceratherium 
schlosseri from Samos and A. blanfordi of Baluchis- 
tan, they are stated to come still closer to those of the 
American genus. 
Tue exchange of plants between botanical gardens 
in various parts of the world is well known to have 
a considerable influence upon the geographical distri- 
bution of invertebrate animals. A classical example 
of this is the occurrence, first made known in 1880, 
of the fresh-water medusa, Limnocodium sowerbyi, in 
the Victoria regia tanks of the Royal Botanical Society 
in Regent’s Park. In 1892 a remarkable fresh-water 
Oligochete was discovered by Beddard in the same 
situation, and named by him Branchiura sowerbyi, 
one of its most interesting features being the posses- 
sion of branchial appendages on the hinder. part of 
the body. Otherwise the worm closely resembles the 
common European Tubifex. Branchiura has _ since 
been found in India, which is now believed to be its 
native habitat. It has also appeared in several places 
in Europe, and in a recently published memoir (Zeit- 
schrift ftir wissenschaftliche Zoologie, Bd. cvii., 
p- 199) Friedrich Keyl makes some contributions to 
our knowledge of the anatomy of this remarkable 
worm, and summarises our knowledge of its distri- 
bution. It occurs in large numbers in the Victoria 
Regia house at Gottingen, and has been found in 
similar situations at Hamburg, Frankfurt a.M. and 
Dublin, while in the mild climate of Tournon, in the 
south of France, it has naturalised itself in the Rhone. 
Such facts as these clearly demonstrate the necessity 
of a thorough investigation of the terrestrial inverte 
brate fauna of the earth before the problems of geo- 
graphical distribution have become more seriously com- 
plicated by human agency. 
J. van BareEN, in a paper published, with a German 
summary, by E. J. Brill, of Leyden, emphasises the 
existence of an older and a younger series of dunes, 
separated by a peat layer, on the northern part of the 
coast of Holland, .and attributes the break between 
NO. 2308, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
[JANUARY 22, 1914 
them to an elevation of the land. Subsidence in the 
Christian era has given us the outlying islands and 
the straight west coast of the country, on which 
marine denudation is at work. 
Tue Canadian Department of Mines has issued the 
first Bulletin of the Victoria Memorial Museum in 
Ottawa, an institution which, in its new and’ handsome 
building, was obviously fated to have a journal of its 
own. -Palzontology is naturally prominent, since the 
museum is under the care of the Geological Survey; 
but it may be hoped that this connection will lead to 
the establishment of a natural history survey for the 
Dominion, based on the explorations which are due to 
the energetic geological branch. . 
Dr. G. Linck’s Fortschritte der Mineralogie Kris- 
tallographie, und Petrographie, which is the organ 
of the German Mineralogical Society, continues to 
justify its existence by the publication of authoritative 
essays on the progress of the sciences concerned. In 
vol. iii. for 1913 (price 10 marks) R. Mare discusses 
the mineralogical significance of the chemistry 
of colloids, and F. Rinne has an important paper, with 
a bibliography, on the decomposition of zeolites. 
Mr. S. Fuyiwnara has recently published an im- 
portant memoir on the abnormal propagation of 
sound-waves in the atmosphere (Bull. of the Centr. 
Meteor. Obs. of Japan, vol. ii., pp. 1-143). The 
observations on which his work is based are chiefly 
those of the sound-waves due to the eruptions of 
Asama (Central Japan) from 1909 to 1912 (see NaTURE, 
vol. Ixxxix., pp. 487-8). The principal facts to be 
explained are the great extension of the region of 
audibility in a special direction, as a rule easterly, 
from the source of sound, the division of the sound- 
area into two parts, with an intervening silent region, 
and the repetition of the sounds with intervals of a 
few seconds in certain districts. Mr. Fujiwhara’s 
investigation, which is mainly mathematical, leads 
him to the conclusion that variations of the wind- 
velocity are chiefly responsible for the anomalous pro- 
pagation of the sound-waves. He shows that, when 
the eruptions occur under normal weather conditions, 
with the velocity of the wind increasing with the 
height above the ground, then the anti-trade winds 
and monsoons would assist the easterly propagation 
of the sound-waves, and there would be no silent 
regions and no repetition of the sound. But if, as 
one example, the velocity of the wind should increase 
with the height up to a certain altitude and then 
decrease, a silent region should exist within certain 
limits, and the sound should be heard twice or thrice 
in others owing to the sound-rays following different 
paths from the source to the multiple-sound area. 
In Science Progress for January Sir Oliver Lodge’s 
presidential address to the British Association is dis- 
cussed from two points of view by Dr. F. C. S. 
Schiller (“The Logic of Science”’), and by Mr. H. S. 
Shelton (‘The Philosophy of Science”). Dr. F. W. 
Mott’s third Chadwick lecture on the influence of 
nutrition and of education in mental development 
occupies some twenty pages, and Prof. Priestley pub- 
lishes a second instalment of his article on enzymes 
