114 
NATURE 
[May 29, 1902 
albuminoids in the nutrition of animals or plants, the organisa- 
tion and development of a Phoronis, and the relations between 
this genus and Rhabdopleura and Cephalodiscus and the group 
of Enteropneustes, a description of the elements and their 
sulphides and binary compounds occurring in Belgian soils, 
new researches on the different strata included between the 
‘* Bruxellian” and ‘‘ Tongrian’’ in Brabant, and a determina- 
tion of the geological age of certain deposits of sand, plastic clay 
and quartz pebbles in the Oligocene formations the positions of 
which are indicated by reference to the geological maps. The 
values of these prizes range from 600 to 1000 francs. 
In addition to the above prizes, a prize of 1400 francs asso- 
ciated with the name of Charles Lemaire is offered for questions 
relating to public works. A prize, named the Edouard Mailly 
prize, of 1000 francs is offered to the Belgian or naturalised 
subject who makes the greatest advance in promoting the study 
of astronomy in Belgium, a Louis Melsens prize is offered for 
work on chemistry or applied physics and a Charles Lagrange 
prize for a mathematical or experimental investigation relating 
to our mathematical knowledge of the earth, the word 
mathematical in this sense excluding purely statistical measure- 
ments unless associated with the investigation of some new law. 
Finally, a prize founded by Baron Selys Longchamps is offered 
for the best original work dealing with the whole or part of the 
Belgian, fauna, not necessarily the recent fauna. 
HAVING regard to the wide reputation which the Malays have 
earned for themselves as a maritime people in Eastern seas, it is 
at first sight not a little remarkable that, so far as the Malay 
Peninsula is concerned, they have developed no really able type 
of sea-going boat. Three main factors have been at work in- 
fluencing the development of boats, and tending to produce the 
characteristic shallow draft, lack of beam, and a consequent 
want of stability and weather lines. (1) The rivers are protected 
by very shallow bars of sand or mud, which make it impossible 
for a deep-bodied boat to obtain shelter within them. (2) The 
variable character of the light breezes prevailing in the Straits 
of Malacca. (3) The great strength of the tides. The lot of the 
sailing vessel is thus precarious ; racing tides and baffling winds 
and calms make progress very slow. Hence propulsion by oars 
or paddles was the first necessity of the old-time Malay seaman 
in the Straits ; sails were merely an occasional convenience. 
The Malay boat, however large and with its quantity of top- 
hamper, always remains essentially a canoe. Those who are 
interested in the subject of transport by water will find an im- 
portant paper on boats and boat-building in the Malay 
Peninsula, by Mr. H. Warington Smyth, in the /ozsnalZ of the 
Society of Arts, vol. 1. p. 570. 
In Symons's Meteorological Magazine for May, attention is 
drawn to the use of the rainfall tables published each month. 
The British rainfall organisation established by the late Mr. 
Symons has been very successful in obtaining the voluntary as- 
sistance of some thousands of observers, and it is well known 
that the resultsare very carefully collated and published in an 
annual volume, ‘‘ British Rainfall.” It is, perhaps, not so 
generally known that in the monthly magazine the rainfall values 
for some 156 stations are regularly published, so as to give 
prompt and accurate information as to the state of the British 
Islands as regards rainfall in the previous month. For forty-five 
of the stations the departures from the averages for the ten years 
1890-99 and also the number of rainy days are shown. In the 
current issue a table is given showing the aggregate rainfall of 
the first four months of this year and the averages of the same 
period, for ten years, at more than fifty stations distributed as 
uniformly as possible over the country. A glance at this table 
shows that the south-eastern portion of England has been very 
NO. 1700, VOL. 66] 
dry ; within a radius of fifty miles from London the fall has only 
exceeded two-thirds of the average at London itself. With 
regard to large districts, the actual state is perhaps more readily 
seen from the Weekly Weather Report of the Meteorological 
Office, which shows that for the four months in question the 
rainfall has only exceeded the average in the north of Scotland 
and the north of Ireland; in the east of Scotland, and the east 
and south of England, the deficiency exceeded two inches, while 
in the south-west of England it exceeded three and a half 
inches. 
THE Meteorological Office pilot chart of the North Atlantic 
and Mediterranean for June shows that down to the middle of 
May no reports of ice about the Newfcundland banks had been 
received, a newspaper report of a berg having been seen in a 
locality much frequented by shipping not being confirmed. Of 
interest in connection with the exceptionally prolonged spell of 
cold weather over the British Isles is the statement that during 
April there was much Polar ice blocking the north and east 
coasts of Iceland, the region from which the prevailing winds 
have recently been drawn. In a note on sandstorms it is sug- 
gested that the dust which fell in the south-west of England and 
South Wales late in January last may have come from a sand- 
storm which had been observed at Ouargla, in the Sahara, on 
the 16th of the month, falls of sand being reported on succeeding 
days about the Canaries, Madeira, Portugal, the north-west of 
France, and finally on our side of the Channel on the 22nd and 
23rd. Curiously enough, on the 17th and 18th, when brisk 
easterly winds were carrying dust from Africa to the Canaries, a 
westerly wind, strong to a gale, was driving clouds of sand 
across the Gulf of Suez and the upper part of the Red Sea. 
From a total of 3200 observations of the temperature of the 
North Atlantic during the month of March, it is found that, 
compared with February, the changes were very irregular, the 
mean values in several localities, chiefly between 30° and 4o” N., 
showing a decline. 
ward from the extremity of the Newfoundland bank down to the 
forty-first parallel, several records being as low as 32° to 35. 
To the south-westward of the British Isles the mean values 
differed but slightly from the average, while the air over the 
land showed an excess of 2° or 3°. 
Tue third and last part of the sale catalogue of the library of 
the late Prof. A. Milne-Edwards, of which a copy has been sent 
us, contains the works on invertebrates. The total number of 
lots catalogued in the three parts is 288r. 
ACCORDING to its report for the year 1901, the Rugby School 
Natural History Society is in an unusually flourishing condition. 
A large collection of invertebrates has been purchased, and the 
museum has been added to and improved in other ways. A 
satisfactory feature is the attention devoted to agricultural 
science, the attendance at the meetings of that section exceeding 
all the rest in numbers. 
IN the course of an article on animal sense perceptions, in 
which special attention is directed to nauseous or offensive 
odours as a means of protection, the editor of Zhe Zoologést, in 
the May issue, warns his readers against regarding animal etiology 
too much from the human standpoint. Because animals cannot 
speak, we must not assume that they have no modes of com- 
munication ; it is byno means certain that the ordinary explana- 
tion of ‘‘ warning colours” is the true one, while the evil smell 
of the durian fruit does not render it distasteful either to the 
orang or to man himself. To the same journal Mr. G. Renshaw 
contributes an interesting article on mammals in captivity. 
THE auditory organs of the so-called ‘ waltzing mice” of 
Japan and China form the subject of a paper by Dr. K. Kishi 
in part iii. of vol. Ixxi. of Zedéschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie. 
A strip of very cold water extended south-— 
