498 
NATURE 
[FEBRUARY 22, 1917 
nn ————————————— 
Prof. H. F. Osborn in the Museum’s Bulletin (vol, 
xxxv., art. xliii., January, 1917). Instead of being a 
raptorial carnivore, as at first seemed probable, it 
proves to be one of the strangest and most unex- » 
pected of dinosaurs, and represents an entirely new 
group. The jaws are toothless and must have been 
sheathed in narrow, horny beaks, much like those of 
an ostrich; but the quadrate and other bones of the 
skull preserved are distinctly dinosaurian, Compared 
with the trunk, the head is remarkably small, for 
although the skull is only one-third longer than that 
of an ordinary ostrich, it is attached to a backbone 
more than 13 ft. in length. The long and powerful 
neck must have been as flexible as in a bird. The 
small fore limb is long and slender, with three clawed 
fingers closely pressed together and of nearly equal 
length. On the whole, it suggests functions like those 
of the fore-limb of a sloth. The reptile could ob- 
viously run rapidly on its three-toed hind-limbs, with 
the raised forequarters balanced by the long tail. 
Its habits are very difficult to determine, but Prof. 
Osborn thinks that it lived much like an ostrich, on 
a mixed diet, with little power of grasping living or 
actively moving prey. This conclusion is interesting, 
for Struthiomimus and Ornithomimus bear many close 
resemblances to the typical carnivorous dinosaurs, 
with which they must have had a common ancestry. 
A ‘“CaraLoGcuE of the Collection of Meteorites’’ in 
the Field Museum of Natural History at Chicago 
is given by the curator, Dr. O, C. farrington, in 
Publication 188 of that museum (Chicago, 1916, Geol. 
Ser., vol. iii,, pp. 231-312). It is interesting to recall 
that two other catalogues of meteorite collections, 
namely, those at Washington and Calcutta, were also 
published during the latter part of last year. The 
Chicago collection was greatly augmented in 1912 by 
the purchase of the famous Ward-Coonley collection, 
which had already absorbed the large private collec- 
tions of Mr. J. R. Gregory, of London, and of Count 
Simashko, of Petrograd; and since the last catalogue 
of 1903 it has been almost trebled in size, Containing 
representatives of 657 falls and a total weight of 
7566 kilograms (about 73 tons) of meteoritic material, 
it now ranks as the foremost collection in the world. 
The present catalogue gives particulars of the indi- 
vidual specimens, arranged alphabetically under the 
geographical names of the falls. A few general notes 
pointing out prominent features of the collection are 
also given. The largest mass is the Quinn Canon 
(Nevada) iron of 1450 kg, The Canon Diablo (Arizona) 
iron is represented by 122 individuals, the largest 
weighing 460 kg., and the total weight being 2306 kg. 
The Forest City (Iowa) shower of stones is repre- 
sented by 722 complete individuals, ranging in weight 
from 3 to 4308 grams. There are some inconsistencies 
in the transliteration of Russian geographical 
names, Germanised forms of which seem difficult to 
eliminate. For example, Government Saratov ap- 
pears correctly on p. 295, but on p. 288 as Saratowsk, 
the latter being the German rendering of the Russian 
adjectival form. 
Tue Paris correspondent of the Times, in the issue 
for February 10, describes what France has achieved 
in ‘‘ war chemistry.’ Before the war France obtained 
her coal-tar products—benzene, toluene, xylene, naph- 
thalene, anthracene, phenol, ete.—from Germany, and 
there was only one factory in the country capable of 
producing certain colouring matters. Since the latter 
and explosives have the same starting point, viz. the 
nitration of hydrocarbons, the position was extremely 
grave. As quickly as possible nitration plant was laid 
down in many new works, both private and belonging 
to the State, arrangements were made for the supply 
NO. 2469, VoL. 98] 
of enormous quantities of benzene and toluene, an 
shells were soon being manufactured in ever-increas- 
ing numbers. France's position as regards sulphuric 
acid will be excellent; in faet, there may be a diffi- 
culty in utilising all that produced. From the product 
of the phosphate mines of Tunisia and Algeria, to- — 
gether with the superabundant sulphuric acid, it will 
be possible to supply French farmers with cheap super- 
phosphate, and also to compete in the foreign 
markets. The Germans probably knew, when in May, 
1915, they first made use of asphyxiating gases as a 
weapon of war, that liquid chlorine was not produced 
in France. But within a year several works had 
commenced liquefying the gas. After the war these 
works will be established, and can be employed for the 
manufacture of bleaching powder, certain colouring 
matters, and various pharmaceutical products which 
France has hitherto had to import. 
Aw article appears in the Quarterly Review for 
January, under the title ‘Aircraft Politics in War 
Time,” which gives an exceedingly clear account of the 
causes and results of the attack on Government-designed 
aeroplanes which was started by Mr. Pemberton Billing 
in July, 1916. The writer traces the real cause of 
this attack to the position in which manufacturers 
were placed by the rapid changes in the type of 
machines required. These changes were directly con- 
sequent upon the experimental work done at the Royal 
Aircraft Factory and at the National Physical Labora- 
tory, and prevented the “trade” from making 
arrangements for repetition work in quantity, thus 
reducing efficiency from the commercial point of view. 
The article in question gives strong support to the 
excellence of the machines designed at the R.A.F., 
‘and quotes the case of the ‘‘ Fokker’ to show how 
easily wrong conclusions as to a machine’s perform- 
ance can be drawn in a moment of excitement. The 
“Foklxer,”? when captured and tested by our own men, 
proved inferior to our own machines of similar type 
in all particulars, and was found to be thoroughly 
unstable. This is not surprising, since it is well 
known that the question of aeroplane stability was 
not understood in Germany. as it was in this country 
at the time war broke out. The progress that has 
been ‘made since the war started, in regard both to 
stability and to general aerodynamics, has been truly 
astonishing, and this scientific progress has had much 
to do with the altered relations between the ‘trade ”’ 
and the Government designers which now exist. Far 
from discrediting experimental work in aeronautics 
in favour of the ‘‘rule of thumb” method, the private 
firms are now only too eager to obtain the results of 
such research and to use them to the utmost in their 
new designs. 
amount of space to the purely commercial relations 
between the private manufacturer and the Govern- 
ment, but it is, nevertheless, well werth reading by 
those interested in the scientific development of aero- 
nautics, 
OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 
THe SPECTRA OF CEPHEID VARIABLES.—The detailed 
results of an extensive series of spectroscopic observa- 
tions of twentv Cepheid variables have been published 
by Dr. Shapley (Astrophysical Journal, xliv., 273). 
The data indicate that regular changes in spectral 
type accompany the periodic variations in light, and 
constitute one of the general and fundamental proper- 
ties of variable stars of this class. It is somewhat 
disconcerting to read that, in spite of the great number 
of observations of the magnitudes of such stars, no 
really precise information as to maximum magnitude 
land range of variation is yet available. The data, 
The article devotes a considerable ~ 
