AUuGUST 21, 1902] 
NATURE 
399 
WE have received vol. xliii. part 2 of the Amma/s of the 
Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, containing 
observations and investigations made at the Blue Hill Meteor- 
ological Observatory at Massachusetts in the years 1899 and 
1900 under the direction of Dr. A. Lawrence Rotch. The 
first five tables include the observations made twice daily, 
together with summaries of them both at the base and valley 
stations, and a summary of visibility of objects in different azi- 
muths ; all these refer to the year 1899, while similar inforina- 
tion is brought together in tables vi. to x. for the year 1900. 
Tables xi. to xiii. give general summaries for the lustrum 1896— 
1900, and table xiv. is devoted to phenomena which show the 
advance of the seasons for the 15 years 1886-1900. Appendix 
A. contains a very interesting study of the visibility of distant 
objects 18 to 40 miles away in different azimuths, based on 
observations made during the years 1896-1900. A very valu- 
able series (1851-1900) of temperature observations made at 
Milton is discussed in Appendix B. 
In No. 3 of vol. ii. of the Journal of Hygiene, Dr. Ritchie 
continues his interesting xéswmé of ‘‘Current Theories on Im- 
munity.” Mr. Irons discusses the value of neutral-red in water- 
examination, and concludes that used alone this method is likely 
to give misleading results. Dr. Savage, in an interesting paper on 
the presence of the Bacz//us cold in drinking waters, gives some 
useful data for estimating the significance to be attached to this 
organism. Post-scarlatinal diphtheria is dealt with by Dr. 
Pugh in an exhaustive paper; vital statistics are represented by 
Dr. Hayward, who writes on the construction and use of life- 
tables ; and the diseases of tropical countries are dealt with by 
Major Aldridge, R.A.M.C., and Dr. Stanley, who contribute 
papers on ‘‘ Enteric Fever and Sewage Disposal ” and on ‘‘ Beri- 
Beri ” respectively, and the number concludes with an obituary 
notice on Dr. Thurburn Manson. Every number of this com- 
paratively young journal hitherto published covers a wide field 
and contains many valuable contributions. 
HAVING regard to the varied opinions that have been 
expressed relative to the thermal death point of the tubercle 
bacillus in milk (see NATURE, vol. Ixiii. pp. 166, 205 and 353), 
a paper by Mr. H. L. Russell ( PAz/ad. Med. Journ., November 
16, 1901) on bovine tuberculosis and milk supplies is worthy of 
note. Milk was infected with tubercle bacilli from cultures and 
was then pasteurised in a rotating commercial pasteuriser, and 
after treatment the milk was tested by inoculation. It was found 
that even a ten-minutes’ exposure at 60° C. was sufficient to 
destroy the vitality of the tubercle bacillus so thoroughly that no 
trace of disease developed in the inoculated animals. In an 
open vessel, however, a fifteen minutes’ exposure had no effect. 
This difference seems to be due to the film which is formed 
when milk is heated in an open vessel. Provided the pasteuriser 
be closed so that no film forms, a temperature of 60° C. acting 
for not less than ten minutes, preferably for 20-30 minutes, is 
sufficient to destroy the infective properties of tuberculous milk, 
while such treatment hardly alters the flavour and nutritive 
qualities. 
THE voluminous reports annually issued by the various 
experimental stations as well as by the central Government are 
proofs of the fostering care exercised by the State for agricul- 
ture in the United States. In an excerpt from the ‘‘ Eighteenth 
Annual Report of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experimental 
Station,” 1901, which has recently reached us, among other 
valuable papers is one by Messrs. Babcock and Russell upon the 
““ Causes Operative in the Formation of Silage,” and the view 
is expressed that the changes which lead to silage production 
are hardly explicable on the theory that these are caused by the 
growth of micro-organisms, but rather that the internal processes 
NO. 1712, VOL. 66] 
of the living plant cells themselves are the factors which 
inaugurate the series of changes that result in the formation of 
typical silage. 
To the July number of the Mew Phytologist, Prof. F. W. 
Oliver contributes an article on ‘‘ Gymnospermous Seeds,” in 
which he traces a suggestive connection, possibly phylogenetic, 
between the fossil types Lagenostoma and Pachytesta and the 
existing genus Torreya. The examination of rhizomic material 
of the unique fern Matonia fectinata collected by Mr. Tansley 
on Mount Ophir forms the subject of some notes by Miss G. 
Wigglesworth. The arrangement of concentric steles differs in 
some respects from the specimen collected in Borneo and de- 
scribed by Mr. Seward. The notice by Mr. V. H. Blackman of 
a recently published monograph, by Mr. H. Lohmann, on 
Coccoliths will be useful to those botanists to whom the original 
memoir is not available. The revised classification of the green 
Algze undertaken by Mr. F. F. Blackman and the editor is 
continued. It was the expressed desire of the editor that the 
correspondence columns should form a medium for the com- 
munication and discussion of educational matters. The attention 
of teachers may well be directed to the account of a trial of the 
heuristic method in a secondary school, as well as to a letter 
which points out the adaptability of systematic botany to meet 
the requirements of instruction for children. 
WE regret that in our last week’s issue the name of the fossil 
Austrian rhinoceros described by Prof. Toula was given as 
Rhinoceros sumatrensis instead of R. hundshetmensts. 
WE have received a useful paper on American insects in- 
jurious to agriculture and horticulture and insecticides, by Mr. 
C. P. Gillette, forming Bzdletex No. 71 of the experiment 
station of the Agricultural College of Colorado. 
Ina paper published in the AZemorze of the Royal Institute of 
Lombardy (vol. xix. part 7) Dr. A. Negri claims to have dis- 
covered in the red blood-corpuscles of mammals a_ special 
substance which is abundant during foetal life and gradually 
diminishes with advancing age. 
THOsE remarkable horned ungulates the titanotheres, of the 
Oligocene of North America and Eastern Europe, are shown by 
Prof. Osborn (Bul/. Amer. Mus., vol. xvi. art. 81) to be 
divisible into four branches, or ‘‘ phyla,” characterised by the 
proportion of the length to the breadth of the skull, and in some 
cases by the relative length of the limbs. In this respect they 
resemble the rhinoceroses, the various ‘‘ phyla,” as in the case 
of the latter, being regarded by the author as representing as 
many genera. 
Pror. Osporn’s studies of the groups just referred to have 
led him to take into consideration (Bu//. Amer. Mus., vol. xvi. 
art. 7) the morphological importance of length or shortness in the 
skulls of mammals—dolichocephalism and brachycephalism— 
and he concludes that both these features are characteristic of 
specialised types, the former condition being (as in the horse) 
often, although not invariably, connected with length of limb 
and neck, and adaptation to speed, while brachycephalism may 
be correlated with short limbs and an abbreviated neck. Excep- 
tions to this rule, as exemplified by the cats, are due to special 
adaptive causes. It may be added that, in a paper published in 
the Comptes rendus of the late Geological Congress at Paris, 
Prof. Osborn figures a restoration of an American ancestral form 
of the horse nearly related to the English Eocene Hyraco- 
therium ; the animal is represented as fully striped. 
In their recently issued Report the Royal Commissioners 
strongly urge the necessity for a central authority to have con- 
trol of the whole of the salmon fisheries of Great Britain, or 
even of the United Kingdom. As a temporary measure a 
