Jan. 29, 1885] 



NA TURE 



-89 



(.)n the 8th the sun appeared as usual. They did not notice 

 the red glares until some days after. 



;'s Island is in lat. 5° 20' N., long. 163° 10' E. Their 

 7th is our 6th, one day later than the tremendous display of 

 colours in the Honolulu skies on September 5. 



Dr. Pease reports a considerable drift of pumice-stone landed 

 for several months past upon the -west shore of Kusaie. Many 

 pieces are from twelve to sixteen inches thick, and loaded 

 with barnacles. I have now before me a piece of pumice 

 presented by Dr. Pease, with small barnacles attached. Dr. 

 Pease also reports many large trees landed there of late. They 

 are up to five feet in diameter, with huge buttressing roots, much 

 pumice jammed in the roots, their wood as light as cork. This 

 species of tree is unknown in Micronesia. Are these corky 

 trees, as well as the pumice, part of the wreckage of Krakatoa ? 

 Dr. Pease states that this year, as happened once before, the 

 prevailing westerly current has been exchanged for one running 

 easterly. Drift-logs of redwood from California frequently land 

 on Kusaie, as they do here. 



On the passage hither between Kusaie and Jaluit Dr. Pease 

 saw large tracts of floating pumice in a comminuted state. The 

 Rev. E. T. Doane of Ponape (lat. 6' 47' N., long. 158° 20' E.) 

 writes me that large quantities of pumice are floating around that 

 island. Capt. Holland, of the Jennie Walker, states that all the 

 way between Jaluit and Ruk or Hogolen, some 1500 miles, he 

 encountered vast tracts of pumice. Many pieces were as large 

 as hats. He met five or six large trees in the same regions. 

 ( )ne with its branches was mistaken for a boat. This associa- 

 tion of floating trees with pumice seems very suggestive of 

 Krakatoa, especially as all have been long floating in the sea. 



I send herewith a small slab of the pumice from Strong's 

 Island, hoping that you will have it compared with known 

 Krakatoa ejecta. 



I uring the past month of December the sky-glows have 

 doubled in brightness. A like augmentation of brilliancy took 

 place at the same period in 1SS3, as reported by me in your 

 columns. Permit the suggestion that the winter cold enlarges 

 the concretions of ice around the dust-nuclei in the upper atmo- 

 sphere, thereby multiplying their reflecting power. I see no 

 1 believe that any addition has been made to the 

 illusion of dust from Krakatoa. The whitish corona 

 which first appeared around the sun in September, 1883, has always 

 and continuously been conspicuous since that time. It is one 

 and the same continuous phenomenon which began here with 

 that tremendous dust-cloud of September 5, 1883. 



S. E. Bishop 



Hawaiian Government Survey, Honolulu, Dec. 29, 1S84 



Recent Earthquakes 



En relation possible, mais non probable, avec les tremblements 

 de terre d I spagne j'ai a vous signaler les secousses suivantes 

 observees en Suisse : — 



25 decembre, 1SS4 — a Zernetz, Engadine, secousses a 8h. 17' S., 

 et Iih. S., heure de Berne. 



(8h. 17' heure de Berne correspond a 7I1. 32' heure de Madrid. 

 La premiere de ces secousses a done eu lieu 20m. avant la 

 grande secousse de ( irenade du 25 dec. a 8h. 52' soir.) 



1 Janvier, 1885 — 2h. matin, legere secousse, signalee a Lau- 

 sanne par un seul observateur. 



21 Janvier, 1885 — Entre oh. et ih. matin, secousse a Ennenda, 

 canton de Glarus. 



Dans les Alpes francaises. 



le 5 Janvier, 1SS5, a 3h. matin a Chambery (Savoie). 



j, ,, a 5h. 50' matin a Embrun (Hautes Alpes). 



Agreez. Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments tres dis- 

 tingues. p". A. FOREL 



Morges, 24 Janvier 



On Thursday evening last, at a time which is variously stated 

 from 8.30 p.m. to shortly before 9, a rumbling noise, accom- 

 n,ible trembling of the earth, and in some 

 instances by a slight "rocking" of cottages, was heard and felt 

 over several parishes in this neighbourhood. I have already had 

 independent testimony of it from West Buckland, Bradford, 

 Nymhead, and I.angford, in a line from north-west to south-east 

 across the upper part of the Vale of Taunton. Some observers 

 state that the noise and motion seemed to come from the north- 

 west. There can be but little doubt but that this was a slight 



shock of an earthquake. It would be interesting to know 

 whether anything of the same kind had been observed elsewhere 

 at the same time. \V. A. Sanford 



Nymhead Court, Wellington, Somerset, January 24 



The Lexden Earthquake 



The earthquake alleged to have taken place near Colchester on 

 Sunday night, Jan. 18, and mentioned in the "Notes "of Nature 

 last week, on the authority of the Standard newspaper, turns 

 out on inquiry to have been reported on very doubtful authority. 

 The place referred to as " Leden " is evidently meant for 

 Lexden, which is really a suburb of Colchester. Immediately 

 after seeing the new-paper paragraph I communicated with some 

 of the residents, asking them to obtain particulars forme, as the 

 occurrence of another shock so near the district which was 

 skaken in April of last year, would have been of considerable 

 interest in connection with the report upon this last earthquake, 

 which I am about to present to the Essex Field Club. It seems, 

 however, according to the results of these inquiries, confirmed 

 by a paragraph in the Colchester Gazette of January 21, that the 

 shock was said to have been felt by one person only, the post- 

 man, and nobody el-e in the place heard or felt anything, nor 

 was any crockery shaken or any vibration experienced in 'any 

 other house. One gentleman, who was out of doors at the time 

 mentioned (midnight), states that he heard a peal of thunder, 

 but felt no shock, and he suggests that this might have awakened 

 the postman, upon whose authority the newspaper paragraph 

 appears to have been founded. 



The statement that the shock was felt at Aldeburgh rests also 

 on the authority of one person only, and it shows with what 

 caution such statements should be received in the absence of 

 instrumental records. R. MELDOLA 



21, John Street, Bedford Row, January 24 



Barrenness of the Pampas 



Mr. Edwin Clark overlooks, I think, an important factor 

 in the present treeless condition of the Pampas (of the La Plata, 

 so far as my own knowledge extends only), and of the difficulty 

 of establishing trees on those plains. North of Monte Video, 

 for some hundreds of miles, the leaf-eating ant is omnipresent. 

 I have seen streams of them running along the beaten paths to 

 their nests, each ant carrying the yellow petals of some plant 

 similar to the buttercup. When I first noticed, from my horse, 

 this procession of golden leaves, I was greatly astonished. 

 Familiarity, however, soon dispelled this. The opima spolia 

 was being carried to their nests and taken under ground, no 

 doubt as a provision for the winter. The ants were about a 

 quarter of an inch in length, and of a beautiful steel-blue colour. 

 Those I picked up for examination demonstrated their powers 

 by shearing off the hard cuticle of my thumb or fore-finger with 

 their mandibles. Subsequently, I made the acquaintance of a 

 gentleman, well known in the Banda Oriental, the owner of the 

 " E tancia Sherenden." He showed me a splendid grove of 

 about two acres of Eucalypti of several species — the "blue" 

 and "red" gum chiefly. These he had reared from seed, their 

 enemies being these ants. As soon as the first leaves of his 

 cherished plants appeared, the ants cut them off. He then got 

 a drum of gas-tar sent up from town, and made a circle round 

 each plant. The ants objected to this, and all the trees made 

 a start. For three years in succession he carefully painted the 

 stems with tar, and eventually they got so far away as to be able 

 to supply the wants of their foes and still flourish. When I saw 

 these trees they bore finer foliage than I ever met with in the 

 Australian bush during four years' experience. They were then 

 eight years old. Many were forty feet high, and thirty-six inches 

 round at some three feet from the earth. 



I think none of the animals mentioned by Mr. Clarke, cer- 

 tainly nst any of the rodents in his list, would be likely to 

 touch gum trees, and the repugnance to them of sheep, oxen, 

 and horses in Australia is well known. 



Maize grows freely in the Banda, but it grows too fast for 

 these ants to destroy it. The attacks of those from nests within 

 marching distance are powerless on an acre of Indian corn. 



When I examined the Eucalypti at " Sherenden," many ants 

 were coming down the trees with cuttings of the leaves in their 

 mandibles. 



If you will allow me a word of suggestion in addition, I 

 would say to every one who establishes trees on the Pampas 



