January i6, 1908] 



NA TURE 



255 



Lpmoine's laboratory. Mr. Jackson himself compounded 

 the substances, put them into a crucible, and sealed it up. 

 M. Lemoine then ran the crucible into an electric furnace, 

 and after about twenty-five minutes he drew the crucible 

 out. Mr. Jackson opened it, and found in it twenty-five 

 little diamonds. \\. another time they obtained thirty. 

 He offered the diamonds to a London jeweller, who found 

 I hem very fine, and an expert to whom he showed them 

 thought they came from Jagersfontein." A representative 

 of the Daily Chronicle has had an interview with Lord 

 Armstrong, who was present at one of the demonstrations, 

 and afllrms that diamonds were really produced. Lord 

 .Armstrong is reported to have said : — " M. Lemoine 

 handed me a powder, which, in order to convince myself, 

 I worked up with my fingers. It was nothing but a 

 powder. I myself put this powder into an empty crucible, 

 which I closed again, and I personally put the crucible 

 into the furnace. When, under the instruction of M. 

 Lemoine, who stood some distance from me, and could in 

 no way interfere in the operation, I withdrew the crucible 

 I found in it an agglomerated mass, which I allowed to 

 cool before my eyes. I myself broke this shapeless mass, 

 which presented the appearance of carbonised matter, and 

 there I found these pure diamonds and these other 

 diamonds less perfect." As the case has not yet been 

 decided, it is undesirable to comment upon it at this 

 stage. So far as we have seen the evidence, nothing 

 is added to what has been known by chemists since 

 Prof. Moissan found that diamonds could be produced 

 bv allowing carbon to crystallise from solution in molten 

 iron or silver. Prof. Moissan used pure sugar charcoal to 

 obtain his artificial diamonds. This carbon was com- 

 pressed in a plugged cylinder of soft iron which was placed 

 in a crucible containing iron rendered molten by an electric 

 furnace. The best crystals were obtained when the crucible 

 was afterwards cooled rapidly by immersion in molten lead. 

 .As these particulars have been matters of scientific know- 

 ledge for the past fourteen years, the Reuter telegram from 

 Paris that the substance of the formula contained in the 

 sealed envelope is as follows, is amusing reading i — " Take 

 carbon of sugar, place it in a crucible, and heat to the 

 requisite temperature. The result will be diamonds." 



\A'f. have to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of No. i8 

 of the Bulletin of the Imperial .Academy of Sciences of 

 St. Petersburg for 1907, which contains, among other 

 articles, an account by Dr. W. Salensky of the interesting 

 actvlous turbellarian worm Haplodiscus ussowii, a species 

 named in 1896. 



The fifth number of vol. ii. of the Philippine Journal 

 of Science is almost exclusively devoted to ornithology, no 

 fewer than fourteen out of fifteen articles dealing with this 

 subject. A number of new species (one referable to a new 

 genus) are described, but perhaps the most generally 

 interesting article is one on the rare monkey-eating eagle 

 (Pithecophaga jefferyi) from Mindanao and Luzon. None 

 of the specimens was perfect, and no additional informa- 

 tion appears to have been ascertained with regard to the 

 habits of this remarkable species. 



I.v Rrilish Birds for January, Messrs. Benthani and 

 Mourllz record the breeding of the hen-harrier and the 

 hobby in Surrey in 1907. .A nest of the former was dis- 

 covered in May, originally containing four eggs, out of 

 which two were hatched, and in due course the young 

 took wing. Sad to relate, both parents were shot by a 

 gamekeeper, and there is some doubt whether the young 

 birds survived. In the same issue Mr. J. B. Nichols 

 records a specimen of the grey-backed warbler {Aedon 



NO. 1994, VOL. yy] 



familiaris) shot at Hythe, Kent, in July, 1907, this being 

 the first occurrence of the species in Britain. It breeds^ 

 in Asia Minor, Turkey, Greece, and further eastwards. 

 The allied rufous warbler (.1. galaetodes) has occurred' 

 thrice in England and once in Ireland. 



Whether or no they agree with all the opinions ex- 

 pressed, readers of the January number of the Fortnightly^ 

 Review will unite in welcoming an article on " Evolutioir 

 and Character " by the veteran evolutionist Dr. Alfred 

 Russel Wallace. Despite the absence of any advance in 

 human character during the whole period of whicFi we 

 have any definite ken, such an advance will, in the author's 

 opinion, make itself apparent in the not distant future. 

 It is added, however, that " our imperfect human nature 

 . . . can only make a systematic advance through the 

 thoroughly sympathetic and ethical training of every child 

 from infancy upwards, combined with that perfect freedom 

 of choice in marriage which will only be possible when all 

 are economically equal, and no question of social rank 

 or material advantage can have the slightest influence in. 

 determining that choice." 



According to the latest report of the Liverpool Marine 

 Biology Committee, the Marine Biological Station at Port 

 Erin, Isle of Man, has had a most successful year's work, 

 this being especially the case at sea, where greater activity 

 in submarine exploration than in any previous season was 

 rendered possible by means of a steam-yacht. This yacht, 

 although small, has been fitted with apparatus for dredg- 

 ing, tow-netting, and various other purposes in the com- 

 paratively deep water outside the bay, and it is hoped that 

 she may be available for much further exploration in the 

 Irish Sea. The aquarium, to which nearly sixteen- 

 thousand visitors were admitted during tlie summer, con- 

 tinues to be a great success. As regards the economic 

 side of the work, the number of plaice larva; hatched was 

 considerably below the average, a large percentage of the 

 eggs being infertile. Lobster-culture, on the other hand, 

 made steady progress, although it was found that the 

 experiment of placing the " berried " lobsters in one of 

 the ponds did not prove a success. 



.A FE«" weeks ago we referred to a paper by Mr. 

 Graham Renshaw on the Californian condor (Gymnogyps 

 calif ornianus). In the Century Illustrated Magazine for 

 January appears an article by Mr. W. L. Finley based or* 

 several visits to the actual haunts of the bird, and illus- 

 trated with photographs of the egg, young, and adults 

 taken at close quarters. The interviews took place high up' 

 in the San Bernadino Range of southern California, and 

 one of the most remarkable events was the near approach 

 the writer and his companion were able to make to the- 

 old birds without any manifestations of alarm or fierce- 

 ness on the part of the latter. These birds, it appears, 

 lay only a single egg in a season, and the young is of 

 remarkably slow development, the black quill-feathers not 

 showing until the nestling is more than two months old. 

 It has been ascertained that there are only forty-one eggs 

 of the species in collections (against about seventy of the 

 great auk), and the number of adult birds in captivity is 

 half a dozen. The photographs obtained during these 

 trips — which include several of the young at different 

 stages of development — arc claimed to be absolutely unique. 



.An example of a plant which sheds its leaves in sttmmcr 

 is afforded by Euphorbia dendroides. The large yellow 

 bushes which in winter time adorn the Jurassic limestone 

 rocks on the northern shores of the Mediterranean are- 

 represented in .August by a network of bare brown ramify- 



