Aprils, 1875] 



NATURE 



447 



point is of paramount importance, especially since tem- 

 perature observations are not merely the most important 

 popularly, but they form besides the very groundwork of 

 meteorology. 



It is a remarkable circumstance that no country in 

 Western Europe could be named, with perhaps the single 

 exception of Ireland, of the meteorology of which so little 

 is known as of England. The meteorological institutes 

 and societies of Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Italy, 

 Austria, Holland, Belgium, &c., have published discus- 

 sions of atmospheric pressure, temperature, rain, and 

 other of the meteorological elements based on the obser- 

 vations of many years, but we look in vain through the 

 pages of the Journal of the English Society for the dis- 

 cussion of a single one of these elements for England. 

 For any information which is to be had on these matters 

 we must have recourse to the Journal of the Scottish 

 Meteorological Society, in which the barometric and 

 thermometric observations for England have been partly 

 discussed. It is scarcely necessary to say that this essen- 

 tial part of the work of a meteorological society can only 

 be properly performed by its paid officials. Viewed in 

 this connection, it may be worth the consideration of the 

 Council of the Society whether the tendency of the 

 arrangement entered into with the Meteorological Office 

 to supply that office with copies of observations, thus 

 constantly throwing on their officials an enormous amount 

 of -mere copying, be not to preclude the Society from 

 properly discharging this part of its work and taking a 

 position among kindred societies which it ought to 

 occupy. 



We dissent from the position assumed by Dr. Mann 

 when he states that " the practical outcome of the 

 recent Conference of Meteorologists at Leipsig, of the 

 Meteorological Congress at Vienna, and of the Maritime 

 Conference in London, is an unmistakable and most 

 satisfactory movement on the part of the leading authori- 

 ties of meteorological science towards concerted and 

 uniform action in the prosecution of their favourite pur- 

 suit." We have already stated (vol. x. p. 56) that the 

 Vienna Congress did good work in the treatment of cer- 

 tain details which lie on the outskirts of meteorology, 

 but it would be a mistake to suppose that at these inter- 

 national assemblies of meteorologists anv concerted action 

 was taken which would lead to uniformity of observation 

 of atmospheric temperature, pressure, humidity, or rain- 

 fall — anything, in short, that would place the observation 

 of these phenomena on an international basis for the 

 subservience of international objects ; in truth, the Con- 

 gress can scarcely be said to have got the length even of 

 attempting any concerted action towards uniformity of 

 observation of these elements which are the very life- 

 blood of the science. 



DR. BECCARVS DISCOVERIES IN 

 HERPETOLOGY* 



NOT long ago v/e called the attention of our readers 

 to the herpctological discoveries of a German natu- 

 ralist and traveller in New Guinea and the adjoining 

 islands. We are now indebted to the Marchese G. 

 Doria, of Genoa, for an account of the investigations 

 of an Italian explorer, Dr. O. Beccari, in the same 

 countries, although not quite iu the same localities. The 

 memoir before us treats of a collection of Reptiles and 

 Batrachians. made by Dr. Beccari in Amboyna, the Aru 

 Islands, and the Ki5 Islands, in 1S72 and 1873, which 

 contained altogether 670 exainples referable to fifty-three 

 species. As regards Amboyna, not much novelty could 

 be expected, this island having been thoroughly explored 

 years ago by the Dutch naturalists. But the two other 

 groups of Papuan islands to which Dr. Beccari devoted 



* " Enumer.-izione del ReUili raccolti dal DoU. O. Beccni-i in Amboina, 

 alle Isole Aru eJ al!e Isole Kei durante gli anni 1872-73," per G. Doria. 

 Estratto dagli Ann. del Mus. Ctv. di St. Nat. di Genova. Vol. vi. 1874. 



his attention were almost ieira iiicoguiUs as regards 

 herpetology ; Mr. Wallace, their previous explorer, having 

 devoted himself mainly to birds and insects. Here 

 therefore, Dr. Ceccari's collections prove to have con- 

 tained much interesting material, of which our author 

 gives us an excellent account, illustrated by some care- 

 fully executed plafes. 



The species actually new to science in Dr. Beccari's 

 collection are not numerous, but it is of interest to find 

 that the general character of the reptilian fauna of the 

 Aru and Kef Islands is, like that of their birds, essentially 

 Papuan. In the latter group, ho lyever, there is rather a 

 stronger infusion of Indo-Malayan forms. In the Kd 

 Islands the Australian Death-adder, Acanthophis anUvc- 

 ticus, which spreads over the whole of the Papuan region, 

 is very abundant. In Aru the Saurians are more nume- 

 rous in species than the Ophidians, tint in the Kc Islands 

 the contrary is the case. No Batrachian was met with 

 by Dr. Beccari in the latter group of islands, whereas 

 three were found in Wokan, the northernmost of the Aru 

 group, one of which was the widely-spread Pclodryas 

 ccenilcus of Australia. 



This memoir forms part of the sixth volume of the 

 " Annals " of that young and flourishing institution, the 

 Museo Civico of Genoa, of which its author is the origi- 

 nator and director ; and, like most of the papers published 

 in the five preceding volumes, contains much matter that 

 is interesting to the naturalist. 



ARCTIC GEOLOGY 

 'IP HE following notes on this subject will be of some 

 -'- interest at the present time. 



Greenland.— Glacial Phenomena. — An examination of 

 the Chart of the North Polar Sea lately issued by 

 the Government,* shows that Cape Bismarck, the most 

 northern point reached by the German Expedition 

 of 1870, on the east coast of Greenland, is in 77" 

 N. lat., and about 2° south of land seen in 1690. On 

 the west coast, the results of the American Expeditions, 

 1859—73. prove the continuation of Smith's Sound, 

 through Kennedy Channel, Hall Basin, Robeson Channel, 

 into Lincoln Sea, the broken and indented coasts of which 

 in 84° N. lat. are only 40 degrees north-west of the land 

 seen on the east coast in i6go, giving evidence of a series of 

 islets forming the northern frontier ot Greenland ; the 

 entire western coast is surrounded by a circlet of bare 

 bleak islets 2,000 feet in height, separated from each other 

 by fjords, through which passes the overflow of the great 

 iner de ^lace\^\i\dcL covers the country to an unknown depth, 

 and covers up all sight of the rocks of the inland districts. 

 Here and there this "' inlands iis " of the Danes reaches 

 the sea, and terminates in a steep cliff, Sennik Soak (ice- 

 wall), of the Esquimaux,reaching 3,000 feet in height, where 

 deep glens and fjords penetrate into the country. From 

 the top of these ice-streams Dr. Rink found the surface 

 rising by a series of steps, to the general level of the ice-field, 

 which Dr. Kane describes as the " escaladed structure" 

 of the Greenland Glacier. Once on the ice-field, and leaving 

 the coast, the effect has been described as being similar 

 to that of the land fading away when sailing out to sea — 

 the ice rises gently and almost imperceptibly inland ; 

 PrDf. Nordenskjold, who travelled thirty miles inland, 

 found its surface there to be 2,000 feet above the sea. 

 Thus the surface of Greenland beneath the ice must be 

 considerably lower than the islands surrounding it, 

 between which and the ice-wall is the narrow strip of 

 ground on v/hich, and on the islands, the Danish settle- 

 inents are situated. In summer the snow which covers 

 the great ice-desert melts, and rivers of icy-cold water 

 flow over the surface and fall into the crevasses of un- 

 known depth. These are exceedingly numerous, and 

 apparently increase in number, on penetrating into the 



* Chart to accompany Paper and Concspondence relating to the equip- 

 ment and fitting om of the Arctic E.xpedition of 1875. 



