March 4, 1886J 



NA rURE 



425 



We referred in a previous number to ova having been arti- 

 ficially spawned from sea-trout, 6'. trutla, at the South Ken- 

 sington Aquarium, which had been retained in captivity for 

 three years, and had therefore not visited the sea. The ova 

 liave since become incubated, and the fry, which are hybrids, 

 appear to be in a healthy state. The mortality amongst them 

 is heavier than with those produced from ordinary fish, espe- 

 cially at the period when emerging from their shell. There is 

 an abnormal number of monstrosities amongst them, which never 

 live beyond a few days. The ova produced from fish in cap- 

 tivity occupy a longer time in hatching out than those spawned 

 from wild fisli. Owing to the severity of the weather this sea- 

 son, hatching operations have been greatly retarded, but the fry 

 seem to be more vigorous and healthy in consequence. 



To show the value attached to the 6". fontinalis^ or brook- 

 trout of America, when first introduced into this country some 

 few years since, it may be mentioned that, ace irding to the 

 price-lists issued by pisciculturists at the time, loo/. per thousand 

 was charged for them. The same amount was mentioned for 

 vvhitefish, which, until last year, were not successfully acclima- 

 tised to our waters. The pric ; charged at the present day for 

 the same fish is about 2l. per thousand. 



Dr. J. P. LiCHERDOPOL writes under d.ate February 23 from 

 Bucharest (Roumania) : — " Yesterday at 3.40 p.m. aslight shock 

 of earthquake was noticed here, followed by two others strong 

 enough to make objects hung on the walls move. Atmosphere 

 calm, but covered with fog. No damage." 



The telephone system of Stockholm is developing rapidly: 

 on January 15 it had 3164 subscribers, against 2335 in the 

 beginning of 1S85, and 865 in the previous year. Last year 

 there were over 4J million communications, of which 85,000 were 

 by night. The subscription is about 7/. a year. Stockhojm is 

 connected by telephone with several neighbouring towns, the 

 furthest being Trosa, 50 miles distant. 



At a recent meeting of the Paris Medico- Psychological 

 Society, M. Rey (who was intrusted with documents, &c., left 

 by Broca) gave the results of 347 observations by that eminent 

 man on the weight of the three cerebral regions [a] the frontal 

 lobes, (h) the occipital lobes ^ncl (<) t'lc parietal regions. In 

 men the ratio of these parts to the brain is {a] i :2'33, 

 (b) I : io'66, (f) I : 2'I2. In females (a) i : 2-32, {6) i : 9-88, 

 (r) I : 2' 13. In men the left frontal lobe has more weight than 

 the right ; but the difference between the two diminishes with 

 the weight of the whole organ. In the case of the occipital 

 lobes and the temporal regions the right side preponderates over 

 the left. In old men the loss of weight in the parieto-frontal 

 regions is more sensible than that in the frontal and occipital 

 lobes. It is still more pronounced in women ; so that, while in 

 adult age men have proportionally more in the frontal lobes, 

 this proportion is reached by women in old age. In men the 

 frontal lobes only attain their greatest weight at 35 years of age ; 

 l)Ut at 25 the parieto-temporal regions have their maximum 

 weight. In women, with regard to the anterior lobes, there is 

 little difference between 25 and 35 years of age. 



Mr. Van Voorst has in the press and will very soon publish 

 a new and enlarged edition of Prof. Mills' " Manualette " of the 

 destructive distillation of petroleum, rosin oil, coal-tar, and 

 kindred industries, with illustrations of shale retorts. 



The February number of Pderinann' s Mittheilutigen contains 

 a paper by Dr. Andries on the causes of the increasing number 

 of accidents by lightning. ' As to the fact of the increase itself, 

 he shows from statistics that this has, in the last fifty years, 

 been three- to five-fold. In Bavaria the proportion is I to 5, 

 and betwesn 1854 and 1877 it has risen from i to 275 for all 

 Germany. The question now is : Whence arises this striking 

 increase ? Various hypotheses have been advanced to accoun 



for it. Bezold refers it to varying maximum and minimum 

 periods, the present being one of the former ; Karsten attributes 

 it to the decrease of forests, which made houses more and more 

 the prominent points of a neighbourhood ; others again allege 

 the increase of lofty buildings, factories, and such like as the 

 cause. Dr. Andries observes that altliough these may account 

 for some of the increase, they cannot do so for all. Nor do they 

 adequately explain the enormous and sudden increase in such a 

 short period. He states the problem thus: "How can the 

 electrical tension during thunderstorms be so increased that a 

 greater number of bolts strike the earth than formerly ? For it 

 is not so much the increasing number of storms as their in- 

 creased violence that causes the accidents by lightning." The 

 main cause is said by him to be the enormous increase in the last 

 half century in manufactories, locomotives, &c., filling the air with 

 smoke, steam, and particles of dust of all kinds, the increase of 

 population adding likewise to the impurity of the atmosphere. 

 Having arrived at this point, viz. the enormous increase of 

 foreign particles in the atmosphere, and their wide distribution 

 by various currents of air, Dr. Andries describes at some length 

 experiments made by himself and others on the subject, which 

 showed that all the electrical phenomena of the air increased in 

 intensity with the increase of dust in it, and to the same cause he 

 attributes the increased appearances of the aurora borealis. 

 Accidents by lightning in the southern half of the globe should, 

 if this he correct, be much less frequent than in the other half; 

 and this, he says, really appears to be the case. At any rate, 

 he thinks, the southern lights are not visible nearly so frequently 

 as those of the north. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include eight Viscachas {Li!;oslomus trichodaclylus) 

 from Buenos Ayres, presented by Mr. E. Vere Dashwood ; four 

 .•\merican Hares (Lepus aiiierkanus] from North America, pre- 

 sented by Mr. F. J. Thompson ; six Tuatera Lizards {Sphenodon 

 piinclatiis) from New Zealand, presented by the Hon. Sir Julius 

 V^ogel, K.C.^LG. ; a Macaque Monkey (Alacacus cyiwmolgus) 

 from' India, fifteen Tuatera Lizards {Sphenodon punctatus) from 

 New Zealand, deposited ; two Yucatan Blue Jays (Cyanocilla 

 yticcitanica) from Yucatan, two Great Barbets (^/(gafe/K(7 viruu) 

 from the Himalayas, purchased ; a Red Kangaroo (Macropus 

 rii/us), born in the Gardens. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 

 The Binary Start Coron.-e Australis. — Mr. J. E. Gore 

 has recently computed elements of the orbit of this binary, fixing 

 the periastron passage at 1885-53 and the period at 8178 years. 

 These elements differ widely from those deduced three or four 

 years ago by Mr. Downing, who, by determining corrections to 

 Prof. Schiaparelli's orbit, from a considerably larger number of 

 observations than have been utilised by Mr. Gore, found the 

 epoch of periastron passage to be i883'203 with a period of 

 54'985 years. The position-angles computed from these two sets 

 of elements now differ enormously, as is seen from the following 

 tabular statement : — 





Distance Caiiputi 



Downing 



I8S6-0 ... 51-3 ... 1-28 1 



1886-5-, ... 48-5 ... 1-441 



18S6-0 ... 200-7 ... I '20 I Gore 



1886-53 ... 1967 - i-i3» 

 We venture to express the hope that those astronomers who can 

 observe this object will not fail to do so in the present interesting 

 stage of its physical history. 



The Nebula round Maia.— Prof. E. C. Pickering states, 

 in the Aslron. Nach., No. 2712, that the announcement of the 

 discovery of the nebula near Maia by means of photography 

 recalled to him the circumstance that certain peculiarities had 

 been noticed in a photograph of the Pleiades taken at Har- 

 vard College Observatory on November 3, 1S85. These were 

 supposed at the time to be merely photographic defects, but it 



