276 



NA TURE 



[January 18, 1906 



must have been experienced in getting the camera into 

 position, and in some instances the whole side of a tree- 

 stem has been cut away in order to show the eggs. 

 Indian ceremonies form the subject of several articles at 

 the close of the volume. 



In the course of an account of the Hastings Museum, 

 Worcester, published in the December (1905) issue of the 

 Museums Journal, the curator, Mr. W. H. Edwards, takes 

 occasion to emphasise the extreme importance of the de- 

 velopment of local collections. " If there are among my 

 hearers," he observes, " any who are in the happy position 

 0! having charge of a newly started museum may I strongly 

 urge them to make their local, or county collections, in 

 all branches, as complete as possible, as no opportunity 

 should be lost in acquiring specimens which have any 

 bearing on the past history of a district." These views 

 accord with those that have on more than one occasion 

 been advanced in our columns. In a second article in the 

 same issue it is somewhat amusing to find an author 

 urging that a proposed new institution should be, as re- 

 gards the exhibited series, " unlike ordinary museums, 

 where, as far as possible, every species, and even varieties, 

 are represented." In how many museums, "ordinary" 

 or otherwise, is such a series displayed, and where is there 

 one which would hold it? 



The whole of parts iii. and iv. of vol. xxxiv. of Gegen- 

 baur's Morphol. Jahrbuch are occupied by a long essay 

 on the tympanic region of the mammalian skull, by 

 Dr. P. N. van Kampen, of Amsterdam. The article 

 is an expansion of an address delivered by the author 

 in Amsterdam in 1904. Within the space of a 

 brief paragraph it is quite impossible to do justice to 

 its contents, and it must in the main suffice to direct 

 the attention of those interested in the subject to the 

 mine of information it contains. It is interesting, how- 

 ever, to note that the author regards the primitive con- 

 dition of the mammalian tympanum as consisting of a 

 small and often incomplete ring, with, at most, an imper- 

 fect ventral wall to the tympanic cavity, and that a close 

 approximation to this condition is presented by Ornitho- 

 rhynchus. The tympano-hynt is the characteristic mam- 

 malian element in this region, but the ento-tympanic is 

 also regarded as peculiar to the group, and unrepresented 

 among the lower classes. As regards the tympanum itself, 

 the author considers it to be a special development from 

 one of the elements — probably the supra-angular — of the 

 reptilian compound low'er jaw. The features presented by 

 the region are held to be of considerable value in classifi- 

 cation. 



The Carnegie Institution of Washington has published 

 a volume of 193 pages, by Profs. W. O. Atwater ami 

 F. G. Benedict, giving a description of a respiration calori- 

 meter with appliances lor the direct determination of 

 oxygen. The apparatus has been in process of develop- 

 ment for twelve years, and has been designed with a view 

 to a proper understanding of the metabolism or transform- 

 ations of matter and energy in the body, by obtaining a 

 knowledge of both total income and total outgo. After 

 describing the calorimeter and the methods adopted for the 

 calculation of results, tin- experiments with man are con- 

 sidered. Since the completion of the new apparatus, 

 twenty-two experiments with five different subjects, cover- 

 ing a total of sixty days, have been conducted. These 

 experiments lasted from one to thirteen days, during 

 which time the subject remained enclosed in the calori- 

 meter chamber. In general, each experiment was pre- 



ceded by a preliminary period outside the chamber, 

 during which the subject was given the special diet to be 

 tested, and his habits of life were so modified as to 

 conform with those to be followed in the chamber. The 

 following determinations of intake and output of material 

 were made in the experiments : — The intake consists of 

 food, drink, and oxygen from respired air. The amounts 

 .in' determined by weighing. The output of material 

 consists of products of respiration and perspiration, urine, 

 and faeces. In the measurement of intake and output of 

 energy the intake is derived from the potential energy, 

 i.e. heats of combustion of the food. The output consists 

 of sensible heat given off from the body, the latent heat of 

 the water vapourised, and the potential energy, i.e. heat 

 of combustion of the unoxidised portions of the dry matter 

 of urine and fa;ccs. In certain cases, e.g. work experi- 

 ments, a portion of the output is in the heat equivalent of 

 external muscular work. 



In the Bulletin du Jardin impirial botanique of St. 

 Petersburg, vol. v., part iv., .Mr. X. Busch describes a new 

 Aconite, section Napellus, and a new Delphinium. Both 

 plants were grown in the garden from seed collected in 

 Tibet by Mr. W. T. Ladygin. A list of the known species 

 of Iris from Turkestan is contributed by Mr. and Mrs. B. 

 Fedtchenko, including several new species all belonging 

 to the section Juno. 



Dr. B. M. Dugc.ar, formerly a member of the scientific 

 staff of the United States Department of Agriculture, has 

 fur some years been experimenting on better methods of 

 propagation of mushrooms than the present chance method 

 depending upon natural virgin spawn. His latest results 

 are published in Bulletin No. 85 of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry. No more certain method for germinating the 

 spores has been devised than that discovered by Dr. 

 Margaret Ferguson of adding a portion of mycelium to 

 the culture ; but the latest experiments proceed on a new 

 line of producing virgin spawn from pure cultures. A por- 

 tion of the inner tissue of a young selected mushroom is 

 transferred to a sterilised compost in tubes, and the 

 mycelium produced in this way under pure culture con- 

 ditions is sown on bricks of manure. 



Two recent numbers of the Transactions of the Academy 

 of Science of St. Louis deal with botanical subjects. In 

 vol. xiv., No. 7, Mr. B. F. Bush presents a summary of 

 the species of Tradescantia from Texas, in which he adopts 

 the view that certain forms referred to Tradescantia 

 virginiana, notably Tradescantia reflexa, should rank as 

 independent species. In vol. xv., No. 1, Dr. L. Wittmack 

 writes on our present knowledge of ancient plants. He 

 mentions that some of the wheat found in Egyptian 

 sarcophagi and in Asia Minor shows the characters of the 

 wild grain, and that the barley is of the variety 

 hexastrichum, having six rows in the ear. From Peruvian 

 sepulchres two kinds of bean have been identified as the 

 Lima bean, Phaseolus lunatus, and the French or haricot 

 bean, Phaseolus vulgaris. The author pronounces in favour 

 of American origin for the latter. 



It will be known to readers of Nature that one of the 

 principal objects before the botanical congress held in 

 Vienna last June was to formulate satisfactory laws for 

 regulating systematic botanical nomenclature. A concise 

 account of the main questions under dispute, and of the 

 alternative suggestions put forward, is given by Dr. H. 

 Harms in Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift, December 

 10, 1905. There were three principal points of contention, 



NO. 189O, VOL. 73] 



