February 2, i 



NA TURE 



327 



" During the sixty days which are to pass before the coming of 

 cold and darkness we hope to drag more than a hundred miles 

 to the northward sufficient fo<id and fuel to carry us through the 

 long winter, with the aid of bear meat, while we hibernate, like 

 bears, in a hole in the ground. In February, before the sun 

 shall have returned, if all goes well, we shall set out upon a 

 five-hundred-mile journey back again to the winter lair, and a 

 two-hundred-mile journey after that to reach the ship which is 

 to come out for us next year [1899]." 



In' reporting upon the work at the Marine Biological Station 

 at Port Erin during 1898, Prof. W. A. Herdman, F R..S., 

 points to the necessity for further exploration in the North 

 Atlantic. Attention has repeatedly been drawn of late years to 

 tlie importance, both from the purely scientific and the industrial 

 points of view, of the problems involved. The Scandinavians 

 (Petterssen, Ekman, Iljort, and others) have succeeded in un- 

 ravelling some of the interlacing belts of water from Arctic, 

 Baltic, North Sea, and Atlantic sources which sweep past their 

 coast, and affect the movements of migratory fish. It is only by 

 such work that the mysterious movements of the herring — 

 perhaps the most important food fish on our coast — can be 

 rationally explained. Prof. Herdman states that it was 

 formerly supposed that when the herrings left our shores in 

 autumn they retired to the far north, and next season staried 

 from the Arctic regions on their annual migration, led by one 

 large old fish —the "King of the Herrings." It is now 

 believed that breeding and feeding are the two impulses that 

 govern the movements of a fish. The herring comes into 

 shallow water on our coast to spawn, and when it migrates in 

 search of food from the Atlantic to the North Sea, or from our 

 west coast out into deep water, there is reason to believe tlial it 

 is following those minute organisms which form the plankton 

 carried along in particular currents of water, characteri.sed by 

 the temperature, the salinity, and the microscopic fauna. It is 

 possible by these characters to recognise (he currents, to trace 

 their variations from year to j'ear, and so to some extent to 

 determine and predict the movements of the shoals of fish. It 

 follows, then, as Prof. Herdman remarks, that one of the most 

 important things the biologist can do to add to our knowledge of 

 life in the sea is to make a survey of the microscopic floating and 

 drifting life of the sea, and its relation on the one hand to the 

 physical conditions at the time (especially the temperature and 

 salinity of the water), and on the other to the food materials 

 found in the stomachs of the fish. 



Mr. H. C. Russei.l has sent us an interesting paper on 

 waterspouts, read before the Royal Society of New South Wales 

 in August last. He states that this phenomenon is frequent 

 on the coast of New South Wales, the spouts often occurring 

 in groups of three or four ; but on May 16, 1898, an unusual 

 display occurred at Eden. In the early forenoon, during a 

 light north-west wind, with fine weather and smooth sea, a 

 heavy bank of cloud rose above the eastern horizon, and there 

 was a flickering as if electrical discharges were going on between 

 the cloud and sea, but nothing to indicate what was to follow. 

 During the morning there were fourteen clear and distinct 

 waterspouts, reaching from clouds to sea. The process of form- 

 ation was — a rotary motion of the waves, large quantities of 

 broken water being raised up gradually as a white misty-topped 

 column, the misty part preceding the denser part by 100 to 

 150 feet. This went on for three or four minutes, during which 

 time the clouds had formed an inverted cone, which seemed 

 to be alternately dipping down and receding, with an interval 

 of about thirty seconds between the dips, until the two cones 

 met, and all the misty matter was absorbed. The column then 

 remained unchanged for some minutes, the overhanging cloud 

 getting denser, and moving slowly until the spout got out of 

 NO. 1527, VOL. 59] 



the perpendicular and divided in the middle, the top part rising, 

 while the lower half sank to the ocean. The paper is accom- 

 panied by nine plates, showing specimens of waterspouts ob- 

 served at various times. 



The index number of The Physical Review (vol. vii. ) contains 

 an account of the determination of the electro-chemical equiva- 

 lent of silver, recently undertaken by Messrs. Patterson and 

 Guthe, together with a description of the experiments of Messrs. 

 Eddy, Morley, and Miller on the velocity of light in the mag- 

 netic field, and a paper by Mr. Ferry on a photometric study of 

 the spectra of mixtures of gases at low pressures. The first 

 article calls attention to the recent work of Kahle, who for a 

 number of years has been engaged at the Imperial Institute at 

 Berlin using HelmhoUz's current-balance for investigations on 

 electro-chemical equivalents. Kahle discriminates between 

 "old" and "new" solutions; thus an "old" solution of 

 argentic nitrate is one originally neutral, which has become acid 

 by successive use in voltameters. For a given quantity of 

 electricity, larger deposits are obtained with this than with 

 "fresh" solution ; the difference often exceeds one part in one 

 thousand — this must be regarded as a very important observ- 

 ation. Kahle's work is referred to in Zschr. f. Jnstruni., 17, 

 144, 1897, and 18, 141, 1898; also August and September 

 1898. The authors describe their own experiments in which 

 the c.c.e. is measured independently of g and H, by balancing 

 the moment due to the electro dynamic action of the two coils 

 of an absolute electro-dynamometer, against the torsional 

 moment of a wire with very small elastic fatigue. 



For a long time past the City of Manchester has been in 

 difficulty as to the disposal of its sewage, and at the present 

 time an order obtained by the Mersey and Irwell Board for 

 stopping the pollution of the Ship Canal by the eflluent from the 

 existing tanks, carrying a penalty of 50/. a day, is only in abey- 

 ance pending the result of the works now proposed to be carried 

 out. A scheme for the construction of a culvert to carry the 

 sewage to the estuary of the Mersey, at a cost of 258,000/., was 

 rejected by the ratepayers. It is now proposed to treat the 

 sewage on the septic principle, which has been found successful 

 at Exeter and other places, and to enlist the services of bacteria 

 for the purpose of the sewage disposal ; or, as the plan was 

 described at the inquiry of the Local Government Board, 

 recently held, "as the domestication of bacteria for the pur- 

 poses of sewage disposal." The mineral matter arising from 

 mud detritus is first to be separated by the sewage passing 

 through catch-pits, and it is then to pass over coke-filters, which 

 will cover fifty acres, and in these the " tame microbes" are to 

 be turned on to resolve the impure sewage into water of 

 sufficient purity to be discharged into the Ship Canal. The 

 quantity of sewage to be dealt with is 20,000,000 gallons a 

 day, and this is now treated %vith chemicals at an annual cost of 

 17,000/. a year, at least half of which is to be saved by the action 

 of the microbes, and it is anticipated that an effluent will be 

 produced that will be satisfactory to the Mersey and Irwell 

 Committee. The Manchester sewage is of an exceptional 

 character, as it contains much trade refuse ; but experiments, 

 which have for some time past been conducted by Prof. Frank- 

 land, have proved that by means of "double contact beds" the 

 bacteria soon get accustomed to take this sewage, and it has been 

 shown that by this means the whole sewage of the city can be 

 successfully dealt with. 



Thk international quarterly journal hitherto published under 

 the title Terrestrial li/agiietism will in future bear the n.\me 

 Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity. With the 

 forthcoming (March) number this periodical, which is devoted 

 exclusively to terrestrial magnetism, and atmospheric electricity 

 — such as earth currents, auroras, &c. — will enter on its fourth 



