TE a pe he te ia ‘ 
ay Lars Sm Se * 
- March 30, 1882] NATURE 505 
pS Stas T, on for the history of a whale(Balena biscayensis), which, if not quite 
Ke ie 
This inequality of attractive moments must determine motion 
toward the sun in favour of oe and this condition holding good 
= ie 
for any value of ¢ and A, it follows that the polar inflow and 
equatorial outflow must take place, provided only that space is 
not empty, as supposed by La Place, but filled with either an 
elastic or non-elastic fluid, 
To put it in another way, Mr. Archibald imagines that in 
order to determine an outflow from the sun it is necessary for the 
centrifugal moment 77. ¢v to exceed the moment of gravita- 
é m : : 
tion © =» whereas according to my view, the value of the former 
determines only the rate of outflow, but is immaterial as regards 
the principle of action. The projection of dust is entirely depen- 
dent upon the outflowing current. I leave it for Mr. Archibald 
to determine for himself the velocity of current necessary to move 
a particle of dust of given size and weight away from the sun in 
opposition to its force of gravity, which I am well aware is 
twenty-seven times that of the earth on its surface. 
_The gaseous current is of course produced at the expense of 
solar rotation, but this expenditure of energy is relatively much 
smaller than that lost to our earth through tidal action, and may 
be neglected for our present purposes. It is moreover counter- 
balanced by solar shrinkage as explained in my paper. 
C. WM. SIEMENS 
Review of ‘‘ Aristotle on the Parts of Animals ”— 
A Correction “7, 
SINCE the publication of my review of ‘‘ Aristotle on the 
Parts of Animals,” a correspondent has called my attention to 
an article by Prof. Huxley, ‘‘On Certain Errors respecting the 
Structure of the Heart attributed to Aristotle” (see NATURE, 
November 6, 1879), in which the Professor corrects the common 
error, attributed to Aristotle, of describing the heart of the 
higher animals as possessing three cavities only. In ignorance 
of this fact I assigned the merit of originally detecting the error, 
so long attributed to Aristotle, to Dr, Ogle, who tenders, I have 
no doubt quite independently, the same defence of the matter. 
I now write to give the priority of the detection of the error to 
Prof. Huxley, and to thank my correspondent for having afforded 
me an opportunity of s'udying a most original and instructive 
essay. BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON 
25, Manchester Square, March 27 
Deep-Sea Exploration in the Mediterranean 
I sHALL be obliged if you will kindly announce in NATURE 
that, taking into consideration the vote expressed at one of the 
plenary meetings by the Third International Geographical Con- 
gress at Venice, the Italian Government has decided that the 
deep-sea exploration in the Mediterranean be continued during 
the forthcoming summer; and towards the end of July or be- 
ginning of August next I am to embark on board the surveying 
steamer Washington, Royal Italian Navy. About one month 
will be devoted to deep-sea exploration under the able direction 
of Capt. G. B. Magnaghi, R.N. 
_ The study of the animals collected during last year’s cruise 
will be completed with that of those we hope to collect next 
summer. Since presenting my Preliminary Report to the Geo- 
graphical Congress, I have looked more carefully into the fishes 
collected last year ; amongst them are two specimens of the rare 
Malacocephalus levis, Lowe, dredged in 508 metres off the south 
coast of Sardinia, and in $23 metres off Mauritius (Egadi, Sicily) ; 
and two specimens of the still rarer Coryphenoides serratus, Lowe, 
new to the Mediterranean fauna, dredged from depths of 2805 
and 2904 metres off the west coast of Sardinia, 
Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys was here a short time ago, and has 
examined the mollusca, on which he will report. 
Henry HILLYER GIGLIOLI 
R. Istituto di Studi Superiori in Firenze, March 23 
The Basque Whale in the Mediterranean 
I wAs very much interested in Mr. Clement R. Markhain’s 
most important communication on the ‘‘ Whale Fishery ” in the 
Basque provinces of Spain, produced in NATURE (vol, xxv. p. 
365). Mr. Markham has carefully collected imporant materials 
extinct, appears to have become so, to all intents and purposes, 
in a region where it was once so common as to have given rise to 
an important industry, and to have had a powerful influence on 
the habits of the Basque people along the northern coast of 
Spain. Mr. Markham gives solitary instances of the appear- 
ance of the whale off the Basque coasts, up to a very recent 
period, and says that the last instance of its occurrence which 
came to his knowledge, was on February 11, 1878, whena whale 
was sighted off Guetaria, and successfully harpooned. This bit 
of news must have interested all cetologists, and I hope that 
it may interest Mr. Markham and the readers of NaTuRE to 
know that a fine, nearly adult female of Balena biscayensis was 
captured just one year before, in the Mediterranean, viz. on 
February 9, 1877, at Taranto. It was ably and fully described 
by Prof. F. Gasco (dem. R. Acad. Scienze di Napoli, vii. 1878) ; 
the entire skeleton is in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy- 
in the University, Naples, in the Central Collection of the 
Italian Vertebrata at Florence. I preserve a portion of the skin 
of the snout, with short hairs, and a model of the entire creature, . 
reduced to one-twelfth, carefully executed from drawings and 
measurements taken from the whale immediately after death. I 
know of no other recorded instance of the capture of a true- 
whale in the Mediterranean. Henry HILLYER GIGLIOLI 
R. Istituto di Studi Superiori in Firenze 
Wind Measurements 
AFTER reading the interesting article in NATURE, vol. xxv. 
p. 486, on wind measurements, the reader cannot but revert to 
the very unsatisfactory state of anemometry as it now exists. 
This is only too apparent from the reports which appear in the 
papers after a gale, and in which are generally detailed the esti- 
mated pressures and velocities of the wind as recorded by the 
anemometers at the principal meteoroloyical stations. Thus 
during the gale of the 13th-14th of October last we were told 
that a pressure of 53 lbs. per square foot was recorded at Green- 
wich, and at the Bidston Observatory, Birkenhead, the pressure 
reached the alarming figure of 79 lbs. Now it may be readily 
shown without much calculation, that such pressures as these few 
buildings could withstand that were not of more than ordinary 
stability, not to mention the destruction of tall factory chimneys, 
which, when of the usual dimensions, will not stand a pressure 
of 30 lbs. per square foot. Yet no such-destruction took place. 
1 think, then, we must confess with T. Hawksley, F.R.S. (vide 
paper read before Section of British Association meeting, York, 
1881, on Pressure of Wind on a Fixed Plane Surface), that our 
present anemometrical instruments are little better than philo- 
sophical toys. -C. H. RoMANES 
Worthing, March 27 
In the account of D’Ons en Bray’s anemometer, which I 
printed to accompany a drawing of that instrument at the Meteo- 
rological Scciety’s Exhibition the other day, I stated that it was 
probably the earliest registering anemometer. I now find that 
I am mistaken, but as I erred in company with the President of 
the Society, I feel that I may well be excused. Until a still 
earlier instrument turns up, the idea of a registering anemometer 
must be ascribed to Sir Christopher Wren. In 1663 (see 
Birch’s ‘* History,” i. 341, plate iii.), he laid before the Royal 
Society an account of his ‘weather clock,” which is in fact a 
recording anemometer, but for direction ov/y, together with an 
instrument for ‘‘showing degrees of weather,” probably a self- 
recording barometer, but the description is not clear. The 
spindle which drives the hour-hand of the clock carries a pinion 
which moves a rack, long enough to pass out clear of the 
case on each side. At the end of the rack there is a pencil, 
which bears upon a disc keyed on to the spindle of the direction- 
vane. The disc carries a printed diagram, a series of radial 
lines indicating direction, the time being shown by a number of 
concentric circles. The irregular line drawn by the pencil 
records the direction of the wind. A fresh paper is placed on 
the instrument every twelve hours. 
Whilst upon this subject, perhaps I may be allowed to call 
attention to a paper by Richard Lovell Edgeworth, on wind 
pressure, in the PAzl. 7rans. for 1783, p. 136. It contains the 
results of a series of experiments undertaken to determine the 
variations in the pressure of the wind upon surfaces of equal 
| area, but of different forms. This is, no doubt, the paper re- 
! ferred to by Robinson, as the source whence he derived the 
