i6 



NA TURE 



\Nov. 6, i J 



There is no truth in the statement which is being repeated so 

 often that Baron Nordenskjold intends to lead an expedition 

 into the Antarctic regions. 



In a letter from the Sagastyr Meteorological Station on the 

 Lena, dated March 20, and appearing in the last issue of the 

 Izvestia, M. Yurgens informs the Russian Geographical Society 

 that twenty-six years ago a mammoth was discovered in the delta 

 of the Lena, twenty-three miles from the station. Its head and 

 tusks had already been taken away by a Russian merchant at the 

 time of the discovery of the body, and the Yakuts of the neigh- 

 bouring settlement have taken a leg, several ribs for making 

 spoons, as also parts of its skin for straps, and fat for painting 

 their sledges. The body is lying on the right side in the lower 

 part of a crag of alluvial deposits thirty feet high. The interior 

 is said to be quite safe. Dr. Bunge went to the place pointed 

 out by the Yakuts, and undertook regular excavations for a 

 distanceof 350 feet, the expedition not being sure that the Yakuts 

 have shown the right place : they consider it a sin to take from 

 the earth what it does not give itself. The work is very hard, 

 the excavations being made in a frozen mass of snow, " as hard 

 as sugar," M. Yurgens says. While the work was at a lull, 

 news was received of another mammoth's body discovered only 

 six years ago on the Moloda River, left bank tributary of the 

 Lena, joining it thirty-five miles above Siktyakh, which has 

 remained still untouched. If the news is confirmed, M. Yurgens 

 will make an excursion to discover it. 



In a subsequent letter, dated April 16, M. Yurgens writes 

 that M. Eigner has made magnetic measurements to the east 

 of the station as far as Ust-Yansk. Full measurements were 

 made at ten places, notwithstanding frosts of - 30 to -40° C. 

 Mr. Yurgens will make the same measurements to the west of 

 the station. Preparations are already made for the return 

 journey. Several magnetic instruments had to be packed at 

 the end of April and sent on sledges to Bulun. M. Eigner 

 proposed to leave the station at the same time, while MM. 

 Bunge and Yurgens intended to stay at Sagastyr until June 15. 



The following papers were entered to be read, Science states, at 

 the Newport meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, Oct. 

 14 to 16 : — On the columella auris of the Pelycosauria, E. D. 

 Cope ; the brain of Asellus and the eyeless form of Cecidota;a, A. 

 S. Packard; on the theory of atomic volumes, Wolcott Gibbs ; 

 on the complex inorganic acids, Wolcott Gibbs ; notice of Muy- 

 bridge's experiments on the motions of animals by instantaneous 

 photography, Fairman Rogers ; notice of Grant's difference- 

 engine, Fairman Rogers ; on the thinolite of Lake Lahontan, 

 E. S. Dana ; on the Mesozoic coals of the North-West, R. 

 Pumpelly ; on the work of the Northern Trans-Continental 

 Survey, R. Pumpelly ; the grasses mechanically injurious to 

 live-stock, William H. Brewe ; on gravitation survey, C, S. 

 Peirce ; on minimum differences of sensibility, C. S. Peirce and J. 

 Jastrow ; researches on Ptolemy's star-catalogue, C. H. F. Peters ; 

 on the operations of the U.S. Geological Survey, J. W. Powell ; 

 the motion of Hyperion, Asaph Hall ; remarks on the civilisa- 

 tion of the native peoples of America, E. B. Tylor ; some- 

 results of the exploration of the deep sea beneath the Gulf 

 Stream by the U.S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross during 

 the past summer, A. E. Verrill ; recent progress in explosives, 

 H. L. Abbot ; on an experimental composite photograph of the 

 members of the Academy, R. Pumpelly ; report on meridian 

 work at Carlsruhe, W. Yalentiner ; on the algebra of logic, C. 

 S. Peirce. 



The meeting of the Cambridge Philosophical Society next 

 Monday at 3 p.m. will be marked by the number and import- 

 ance of the biological papers communicated. One will be by a 

 lady, Miss F. Eves, Lecturer at Newnham College, on some 



experiments on the liver ferment. Mr. W. F. R. Weldon will 

 contribute a paper on the supra-renal bodies, on which he has 

 previously made valuable contributions. The remarkable recent 

 development of the study of vegetable morphology and physio- 

 logy under Dr. Vines will be further evidenced by Mr. Walter 

 Gardiner's paper on the supposed presence of protoplasm in the 

 intercellular spaces, and Mr. J. R. Green's, on a proteid occur- 

 ring in plants. Prof. Michael Foster is the new President of 

 the Society ; Mr. Trotter, Mr. Glazebrook, and Dr. Vines are 

 the Secretaries ; and Prof. Cayley, Prof. Macalister, and Mr. 

 Glaisher are the new Members of Council. 



The Statistical Society has issued in one handsome quarto a 

 Catalogue of their most useful collection of books. The Cata- 

 logue has been compiled with great care, and on a simple and 

 intelligible plan. The library is deemed to be a class library, 

 and no classification therefore is attempted, the books being 

 arranged in alphabetical order, with reference to size, under 

 their authors' names or otherwise, as described in the preface. 

 Secondly, their are no " blind entries," i.e. each entry, including 

 cross-references, gives sufficient particulars, including size, to 

 enable any person to recognise the book he is looking for, if 

 there, and at the same time indicate to the attendant, without 

 further reference to the Catalogue, where the book is to be 

 found. Such features are a great comfort to the student. 



Michigan, like most other States, is going in for economic 

 entomology. We have received a pamphlet of 31 pages on 

 Injurious Insects, emanating from the Entomological Laboratory 

 of the Michigan Agricultural College, in which Prof. A. J. Cook 

 and Mr. Clarence M. Weed are the principal writers. Several 

 of the usual American pests are noticed, and some are figured. 

 We are sorry to say the figures are original, for although the 

 practice of borrowing clichis has extended in the States to a 

 degree that is almost nauseating, the results are usually satis- 

 factory, and had the practice been followed in this instance it 

 would have been to the advantage of this Michigan College. 

 Probably for the first time in America the ubiquitous "Painted 

 Lady" {Vanessa cardui) is stigmatised as "injurious"; it is 

 accused of devouring hollyhock, centaurea, and borage. The 

 same insect in Europe, a few years ago, was driven to extremes 

 in order to find anything that would agree with it, and nearly 

 caused a panic with the worshippers of " absinthe," by destroy- 

 ing the wormwood crop in the Canton of Neufchatel (Switzer- 

 land). There are some very useful and suggestive statistics (by 

 Mr. Weed) on the food relations of birds, frogs, and toads (the 

 paper being a " Thesis for the degree of Master of Science "). 

 The first part deals with the food of young birds, in which the 

 American robin (a thrush, and not to be confounded with our 

 redbreast) figures largely, as do also the "blue bird " and others. 

 Lepidopterous larva; are the main food, but apologies have to be 

 made (especially in the case of the blue-bird) for the number of 

 spiders destroyed. In the case of young "robins" the mol- 

 luscous element is small ; probably it would be equally small in 

 this country with regard to young thrushes or blackbirds, their 

 beaks not being sufficiently strong to enable them to do the shell- 

 breaking. The statistics with regard to frogs and toads do not 

 appear to be of importance one way or the other. Frogs and 

 toads destroy insects (or " Arthropods " in the broad sense), but 

 we fancy the particular food depends upon the conditions under 

 which the individual Batrachian finds itself. 



We have much pleasure in calling attention to the issue, from 

 the Breslau house of Eduard Trewendt, of four new numbers 

 of that comprehensive work, the " Encyclopaedia of Natural 

 Sciences " — the 3Sth number of the first, and the 23rd to the 

 25th numbers of the second division. The 3Sth number of the 

 first division brings the ' ' Dictionary of Zoology, Anthro- 

 pology, and Ethnology " as far as Gewbhnung (Habitua- 



