232 NATURE 
o 
collections of the Museum. We have previously drawn attention 
to this excellent series of museum publications, which is due to 
the energy of the curator, Mr. T, Sheppard. 
THE sixth annual report of the New York Zoological Society 
gives a very favourable account of the progress of the 
“*zoological park” now established on the northern confines 
of New York, so far as the plans of the Society have yet been 
carried out. 
the association were the creation of a zoological garden with a 
special view to the preservation of the larger native animals of 
North America (now, alas! fast becoming extinct) and the 
Fic. 1.—Primates’ House. 
general promotion of the science of zoology. Although the 
Society is of a private nature, its relations to the city authorities 
are of the closest kind, and are pronounced in the report on the 
whole to be in an extremely satisfactory condition. The various 
buildings in the park are making good progress. One of the 
chief of them, the ‘‘ Primates’ house,” was completed and 
opened in December last with a series of 114 living specimens 
of the order Quadrumana, amongst which were two large 
examples of the rare Gelada baboon of Abyssinia, besides 
orangs, chimpanzees and gibbons. Of the collections of bears 
and the herds of prongbucks and other animals, good reports are 
. . | 
also given, but as the new “ park” contains an area of some | 
260 acres, it will take some time to fill it. 
We are glad to see 
= 
Pog a 
=. aa naarnd) es 
eng gee or atmo hie? ADA el 
Fic, 2.—Prong-horned Antelope Herd in 1902. 
that the scientific element is well represented on the council of 
of the Society, as is testified by the names of Dr. Allen and 
Mr. Chapman, of the American Museum of Natural History, 
and of Mr. H. F. Osborn, of Columbia University. Besides 
these authorities, the director, Mr. W. T. Hornaday, is well 
known in zoological circles. The report is illustrated by a front 
view of the new Primates’ house (Fig. 1), a sketch of the herd 
of prongbucks (Fig. 2) and other good plates. The present 
number of members of the Zoological Society of New York is 
stated to be 1182, which in such a populous and wealthy city 
might well, we think, be considerably increased if such a 
valuable institution were supported as it ought to be. 
NO. 1705, VOL. 66] 
The objects in contemplation by the founders of | 
| JuLy 3, 1902 
THE harpoon is the most complicated of the devices invented 
by uncivilised peoples. The harpoon is the climax of piercing 
inventions, and may be held in the hand or hurled from it with 
or without the aid of devices for propulsion. It has no limits 
in its application, being equally efficient on the land, in the air, 
in the water or through the ice, at long range or short range, 
with short shaft or long shaft, some examples being known in 
which the shaft is 100 feet inlength. The simplest forms have 
three rude parts; the most highly developed have a score or 
more, With characteristic detailed description and wealth of 
| illustration, Dr. Otis T. Mason has published a monograph on 
| ‘‘ Aboriginal American Harpoons: a Study of Ethnic Distri- 
bution and Invention,” in the Report of -the U.S. National 
Museum for 1900 (1902, p. 189). As the old whaleship has 
been replaced by the ship driven by steara, so the Eskimo at 
present kills the seal, the walrus, the whale and the Arctic land 
mammals with a rifle and explosive bullets instead of the 
ancient harpoon, Should the Eskimo use his great weapon at 
all it will be to retrieve his game on the edge of the ice after it 
is shot, and not as a killing device. 
AN industry that promises to make progress in Russia 
consists in the manufacture of oil cakes from the seeds of the 
sun-flower, and (says the Zzgzzeer, June 20) good results have 
already been obtained. The seed with a proper crushing and 
treatment yields, roughly, 23 per cent. oil, 40 per cent. oil cake 
and 37 percent. stalk ; the stalk is also used for driving the 
machinery of the mill, and the ash by being further treated 
produces 25 to 30 per cent. of potash. 
“THE Niagara Falls Power Plant as a Factor in Engineering 
Development” forms the subject of an instructive and im- 
pressive article in the editorial columns of the ZAvgzneer 
(Cleveland, June 2). The power of the Falls is practically 
unlimited, for the amount of falling water has been estimated 
by Prof. Unwin at 300,000 cubic feet per second, and this 
amount at a head of 165 feet would generate 10,000,000 horse- 
power. The plant as put down eleven years ago consisted of 
two-phase alternating current dynamos of 5000 horse-power 
(250 revolutions per minute), with a voltage of 2200 and a 
“*frequency ’’ of 25 cycles per second; these were coupled to 
vertical turbines placed in the wheel pit by shafting 136 feet 
long. The turbines were of double design, whereby at normal 
load the lifting action of the escaping water would balance the 
weight of the revolving parts of the machine. This plant, alter 
eleven years’ running, is about to be enlarged and a considerable 
increase of power derived from the falling waters, and thus we 
find record again broken at Niagara, where three generators 
(each of 10,000 horse-power) will be placed in the power house 
on the Canadian side and will form the nucleus of a plant with 
a 100,000 horse-power capacity. These generators will be 
double the size of the old ones and three phase instead of two 
phase, with a voltage of 12,000 as against the 2200 used before, 
and the ‘‘frequency” and speed will be the same, namely, 
| 25 cycles per second of the former and 250 revolutions per 
minute of the latter. The transmission voltage in all probability 
will be fixed at 60,000, which, if adopted, will be 10,000 volts 
higher than that used in California by the Standard Electric 
Company on their famous long-distance line. 
BoTANIsTs who are desirous of filling gaps in their herbaria 
of cryptogamic plants will be interested to know that Mr. J. 
Brunnthalers of Johann Straussgasse, Vienna, has published a list 
of these plants which are for exchange or for sale. The 
series of Pteridophyta is exceedingly meagre, but the remaining 
groups are fairly well represented. 
A BIBLIOGRAPHY of the analytical chemistry of manganese 
| from 1785 to 1900 has just been published by Messrs. H. P. — 
