64 



NATURE 



[November 17, 1S98 



to the reducer, and it continued to circulate between the re- 

 ducing and the volatilising stages for a period which varied 

 between seven days and fifteen days, until about 60 per cent, 

 of the amount of nickel had been removed as nickel carbonyl. 

 The residue from this operation, amounting to about one-third 

 of the original calcined matte, and not differing much from it 

 in composition, was returned to the first operation and naturally 

 followed the same course as before. The nickel carbonyl pro- 

 duced in the fourth operation passed to a decomposer, which 

 consisted either of a tower or a horizontal retort heated to a 

 temperature of 180° C, so as to decompose the nickel carbonyl 

 and release the nickel in the metallic form, either on thin sheets 

 of iron or, preferably, on granules of ordinary commercial 

 nickel. Carbon-monoxide was in turn also released, and was 

 returned to the volatiliser for taking up a fresh charge of nickel. 

 When the operation was in progress, the gaseous carbon- 

 monoxide and the partially reduced oxide of nickel and copper 

 continuously revolved in two separate circuits, which joined and 

 crossed each other in the volatiliser. The commercial product 

 contained 99'S per cent, of nickel. 



The author proceeded to a description of the working as he 

 saw it in full operation in Smethwick a few months ago. The 

 plant had been working for some time, and about So tons of 

 nickel had already been extracted from different kinds of 

 matte. The results were quite satisfactory, and pointed to the 

 conclusion that the process was well able to compete with any 

 other process in use for the production of metallic nickel. 



The process would always occupy a prominent position in 

 chemical history, and there appeared to be no reason why it 

 should not play an important part in metallurgical practice. 

 Its application in Canada to the great nickeliferous district of 

 Sudbury would probably contribute to the development of the 

 resources of the great Dominion. 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTES FROM 

 YUNNAN.^ 

 T LEFT Mengtze in the end of January with a caravan of mules, 

 ■*■ some forty, carrying stores, Oi:c. I had three mule-loads, 

 i.^., of silver. The journey here took eighteen days, rather 

 easy stages. The country passed through was very varied. I 

 was in good spirits, rode nearly all the way, and enjoyed the 

 trip very much. I crossed three large rivers en route by pontoon 

 and suspension bridges ; the latter very well made, of iron rods 

 joined by rings at the ends, the best specimens I have seen of 

 Chinese blacksmith's work. At these river crossings we reached 

 low levels, about 1800 feet above the sea, and came into tropical 

 vegetation, which I never find at all interesting. -At Yuenchiang, 

 on the Red River, the ugly-looking shrub Calotropis gigantca 

 was in flower, and there was a great display of the tree-cotton, 

 Bomhax, in flower, without any leaves, looking like an artificial 

 candelabrum affair more than a living tree. These and some 

 Araa palms were the only things of note. At the higher levels 

 vegetation was at a dead point and I collected very little, one 

 or two species of Clematis, two Rhododendrons : the very curious 

 Scolofendriiitn Delavayi, which I had never seen before, I found 

 one day on a shady bank where I stopped for tiffin. I also 

 found, at the same place, two plants of Ahiitilon sineitse, which 

 had been sent by me from Ichang, and an Anlrophyiim, which 

 may be new. I also came across Lonieera Bournei'm flower ; it 

 is of no value as an ornamental plant. There was very little 

 forest until after Talang, when we passed one or two days 

 through almost continuous pine forest, varied here and there by 

 little woods of evergreen oaks. Here, rather to my surprise, I 

 learned that the peacock exists in the wild state, and it is quite 

 common in the forest south of Szemao. These pine forests had 

 not a plant in flower amongst ihem. I noticed, however, two 

 little woods made up of an Abies, new to me, but I only found 

 one cone. However, I am not pretending now to give any 

 account of the trip botanically, as it would require too much 

 time lo get my notes in order at the moment. On the eighteen 

 days I may have collected about thirty plants in flower. Atone 

 or two places I might have done a lot of collecting if I could 

 have stayed for a day or two, but I was travelling on official 

 business, and could not tarry. 



The main interest of the route w.is the aborigines, or non- 

 Chinese races. Chinese here and there dwell on the little tracts 

 of good land which are found in the high-lying valleys and plains 



* Abridged from a letter to Mr. Thiselton-Dycr, from Dr. Augustuv 

 Henry, published in the Kcw Bulletin for November (No. 143). 



NO. 1516, VOL. 59] 



of the plateau, and I passed through five or six largish towns 

 mainly peopled by Chinese. But the larger part of the popula- 

 tion was made up of aborigines. Whether the ethnology of this 

 part of the world w ill ever be satisfactorily explained is doubtful. 

 There seems to be the same variety in the human being as 

 exists in the vegetable world in the same region, and there is a 

 strange blending of races of Chinese, Malay, Negrito, perhaps 

 even Caucasian here. 



The greatly increased interest in China at home will, I hope, 

 give a stimulus to the study of the history of the social evolution 

 of the Chinese, which is calculated 10 bring out many important 

 lessons for ourselves. There have been, as it were, two jiarallel 

 developments of the human race, one on the west of Europe- 

 Asia, the other on the east side, very little dependent on each 

 other. At the start, the Chinese seem to have been fairly equal 

 to the Westerners ; and even in the middle ages, judging from 

 the way in which mediaeval travellers wrote, Chinese civilisation 

 was quite as good as that of Europe. The decay uf manly 

 spirit, brought about by the idea that war is immoral, the low 

 position of woman, the absence of an hereditary aristocracy 

 holding up ideas of honour and probity and constantly acting 

 as a check on philistinism, the government by officials selected 

 by competitive examination in ancient classics and trivialities 

 akin to Latin verse, all these causes must have been acting 

 disastrously to have brought an intelligent race into such a low 

 position. 



There is a good deal of wooded country at no great distance 

 from Szemao, and the mountains run up to nearly 6coo feet, 

 but there is an absence of the sharp and precipitous kind • i 

 mountain and valley, and the flora in consequence is ver 

 uniform and not nearly so interesting as Mengize nor so rich in 

 species. Hills clad with pine and oak are almost barren ii> 

 interesting plants, and I haven't come on any of those dark 

 ravines and steep wooded cliffs which are the joy of the botanical 

 collector. There is a great absence (perhaps the autumn will 

 make a better show) so far of ferns and herbaceous plants. 

 What one collects is mainly trees and shrubs and climbers. 

 There is a fair number of epijihytic orchids. The comm' 

 plants are not the common plants of Mengtze, in fact the t« 

 floras are very different. Szemao will possibly turn out vci 

 like the Shan country where Sir Henry CoUett collected, ar 

 Indian forms not hitherto recorded from China are frequc: 

 enough. One curious thing occurs here as well as at Mengtzi 

 i.e. the occurrence of two or three species of the same genus i'^ 

 precisely the same locality and often flowering at the same timi;. 



The woods near Szemao are full of birds, and the notes are 

 exquisite, and to be heard in perfection in these days • 1 

 showery weather, for the rainy season has begun. When th 

 sun gets out the cicadas start such a racket that one can he;ii 

 nothing else. I have not told you of the jungle-fowl : this i 

 I believe. Callus baii/civa, the original form of the farmyai 

 fowl. They are very common in the forests and woods her 

 and are simply gorgeous. They are glorified bantams, th 

 colours having a brilliancy that seems abated in the doinesticati i 

 kind. They crow and cackle and behave in the woods just as . 

 farmyard fowl would do, only they are a little shyer of man. 

 Occasionally one sees a flying-squirrel, a big black one. sailing 

 in the air from tree to tree, and I saw the other day what I 

 thought was a calf ; it turned out to be a red-coloured deei 

 which speedily bolted with an upturned tail, white beneath lik 

 a rabbit's. It is very hard to believe that this p.arlicular deti 

 which only occurs, so far as I know, one or two together, nevt -. 

 a herd, derives much ad\-antage in life from this white-sign, i 

 tail. 



In many of the Mengize and Szemao trees and shrubs th 

 flowers occur on the branches below the leaves, and not on th 

 peripheral surface of the tree, as in ordinary cases. Man. 

 lianas have this peculiarity. These are all forest plants, and 1 

 think the explanation is that in forests there are two surface* 

 open to insect-visitors, the top of the forest and the bottom. 

 Some trees and shrubs and climbers cannot get to the 

 top, so they have their flowers at the bottom. But of I 

 course this explanation is only a guess. There is no time 

 for me to make any observations of the kind necessary ; if 

 one could spend six months on end in a forest, one coul 1 

 observe, measure, i.\:c. The Mucuna semferfirens of Ichar ; 

 was a splendid example of this peculiarity. There w,« in on ■ 

 specimen a dense wall of foliage climbing over trees, interlace 1 1 

 with them, iVc, nearly 200 feel by too feel, while the maini 

 trunk of the climber close to the ground was covered witi»( 



