596 
NATURE 
[OcToBER 19, 1899 
from one human being to another; the infection is especially 
maintained and propagated by the relapsing cases which 
continue all the year round and form the link between one 
fever season and the next, so that the mosquitoes in the begin- 
ning of summer always find germs. If no relapse occurred in 
any of the cases of malaria in any given district the mosquitoes 
would find no germs in the beginning of summer, and malaria 
would become extinct there. Prof. Koch succeeded in recog- 
nising certain species of mosquitoes in the dwellings of the 
population ; this was the more important, as the mosquitoes of 
this district did not usually bite during the day but only during 
the night. The inhabitants therefore became infected at night 
within their dwellings. In seven cases parasites of malaria 
were discovered in insects, especially in dropheles maculipennis. 
In many dwellings, however, where patients had contracted 
malaria, anopheles was not present, but another insect, Czex 
pipiens, was hardly ever absent. Prof. Koch ascertained that 
the so-called estivo-autumnal fevers were identical with tropical 
malaria. 
Industries and Tron gives particulars of an electric fog-alarm 
which, it is reported, has been invented by a Canadian electrical 
engineer. The description is as follows:—A naphtha engine 
supplies the motive power to a dynamo that furnishes the 
electric current, by means of which three pairs of electromagnets 
operate half a dozen clappers that strike against a large gong 
with a frequency of about 36,000 strokes a minute, producing 
an almost continuous sound. Its effectiveness is enhanced by a 
mechanism somewhat on the principle of a megaphone, by 
means of which the sound is not only intensified but thrown in 
the required direction. A model of this fog-alarm was not long 
ago tested at Ottawa, and although it was comparatively a small 
affair, its sound was easily heard a distance of two miles. The 
sound of the completed machine will be (it is thought) dis- 
tinguishable at a distance of fifteen miles. 
As an example of the interest that is taken in anthropology on 
the continent, we call attention to the publication of the free 
courses of lectures delivered by Prof. E. Morselli at Turin and 
Genoa. The title of the publication is ‘‘ Antropologia Generale : 
Lezioni su Uomo secondo la Teoria dell’ Evoluzione.” When 
will it be possible for the English public to hear systematic 
lectures on anthropology of any kind, free or otherwise? Prof. 
Morselli puts his subject clearly, judging from the portions only 
of the two lectures that we have received. 
ANTHROPOLOGISTS who more particularly study European 
ethnology should be very grateful to Dr. William Z. Ripley, of 
Boston, for the ‘‘ Selected Bibliography of the Anthropology 
and Ethnology of Europe” that has just been issued by the 
Trustees of the Public Library of Boston, Mass. The list con- 
tains nearly two thousand titles in nearly all the languages of 
Europe ; the Slavic writers are very well represented. The 
authors are arranged in alphabetical order, and their several 
publications are cited chronologically ; this is followed by a 
subject-index. The labour of compiling this bibliography must 
have been immense, but Dr. ‘Ripley will have the satisfaction 
of feeling that he has supplied his colleagues with a valuable 
and indispensable tool. 
AMONG the most useful instruments employed in Italy for 
the registration of earthquake movements are the microseismo- 
graphs, designed by Prof. Vicentini and modified by Dr. 
Pacher, which have been erected in the Physical Institute of 
the University of Padua. Hitherto the records have been pub- 
lished at irregular intervals in the A¢¢z of the R. Istituto 
Veneto di Scienze, &c., but it is now arranged that they shall 
appear systematically and ultimately form an appendix to the 
yearly volume. The first number, recently issued, contains the 
register from January 1 to March 12 of the present year, and 
NO. 1564, VOL. 60] 
also notes with regard to the arrangement of the different 
. . 
instruments, 
THE tin trade of prehistoric Europe is a subject of consider- 
able interest and importance. Very recently Salomon Reinach 
(7 Anthropologie, x., 1899, p. 397) has again attacked the 
problem and has arrived at the following conclusions. A 
thousand years B.C. there was an almost exclusively overland 
trade between the British Islands and Thrace and Macedonia. 
The relations between Britain, Northern Europe and Western 
Asia have been proved by archzology, by the diffusion of tin, 
amber, spiral ornaments and the types of bronze arms and 
utensils. Thus it is not surprising that Homeric Greece about 
800 B.c. knew not only the Celtic name of the Cassiterides, but 
the phenomenon of the short nights of the north of Britain. 
The overland tin was brought to the gean, if not by Greeks, 
then by Barbarians. These Barbarians, accurately knowing the 
country from which the tin came, sought a marine route in order 
to retain this precious trade in their own hands. This was 
rendered more feasible by the invention of the anchor by the 
legendary Midas of Phrygia, for then ships could ride with 
safety in the open. Reinach considers that it was he who first 
brought tin and lead to Greece by sea by the north-west route, 
and it was only later that the Pheenicians got the tin trade into 
their hands, The English Leake, Hamilton and Ramsay have 
rediscovered Phrygia, but twenty-seven centuries ago the 
Phrygians discovered England. 
THE Bulletin de la Société Astronomigue de France for 
October contains several interesting meteorological articles. 
M. E. Touchet contributes an illustrated articleon the storms 
of August and September 1899, showing some excellent light- 
ning pictures. He gives special attention to the type of 
lightning which is apparently unaccompanied by thunder. M. A. 
Souleyre, writing on the ‘‘distribution of rain on the earth,” 
summarises the interaction of the various air-currents and the 
barometric variations connected with rainfall. MM. V. Farquon 
and F. A. Mavrogordato give short accounts of their observ- 
ations of the ‘‘green ray” on the Alps and at Smyrna 
respectively. 
THE October number of the /Jows7al of Conchology contains 
an interesting paper by Messrs. Melvill and Standen on the 
cowries of the capzt-serpentes group. In that group are included 
not only species with a dark peripheral area and a spotted 
centre, like the typical Cypraea caput-serpentis, C. mauritiana, 
and C. arabica, but likewise the ring cowry (C. avzulus) and 
the familiar money cowry (C. monefa). The two latter, as 
many of our readers are aware, are white; the yellow ring from 
which the second of the two derives its name marking the line ~ 
of division between the spotted central and the dark peripheral 
area of the serpent-head cowry (C. caput-serpentis). If proof 
were necessary to demonstrate that this is the true explanation 
of the coloration of the two species, it is afforded by the dis- 
covery of a white example of a variety of capzt-serpentis, in 
which the dorsal spots are still faintly visible. It has been 
recently stated by another writer that ‘‘from the ring cowry 
may easily be derived the money cowry, in which the ring has 
all but disappeared, while the marginal area has developed a 
series of rugosities, apparently connected with the filaments on 
the margins of the mantle lobes.” And Messrs. Melville and 
Standen now come to the conclusion that these two cowries are 
really nothing more than races of a single species, for which the 
name C. woveta should be retained. 
Tue last number of the 7yvazsactzons of the Norfolk and 
Norwich Naturalists’ Society bears ample testimony to the 
maintenance of the taste for natural history and botany which 
has always been so characteristic of that favoured county. As 
is only proper, the great bulk of the papers refer to local 
