December 12, 1901] 



NA TURE 



'6/ 



come. And whenever any people forgets the source from which 

 these great things have come, and allows engineering to supplant 

 science, that people is on the way to the civilisation of China." 



Messrs. Marion and Co. have just commenced the publi- 

 cation of reproductions of a fine series of photographs of "The 

 Empire : its Cities, Palaces and Buildings." The views can be 

 obtained in half-tone process prints or reproduced by collotype 

 process. In the collection of pictures of "Famous Buildings of 

 London," which forms one number of the series, we notice views 

 of the Imperial Institute and the British Museum. The Natural 

 History Museum deserves to be included, but there are few 

 other fine buildings devoted to scientific research and education 

 in London. Fine buildings do not necessarily make fine work, 

 but they facilitate it and show in what regard the nation holds 

 those who contribute to its scientific and industrial progress. 



Abstracts of the papers read before the Royal Society of 

 New South Wales appear regularly among our reports of societies 

 and academics. The volume of Proceedings containing the 

 complete papers read before the Society in 1900 has now been 

 received, and calls for a note of admiration. Among the subjects 

 dealt with are the sun's motion in space, and the volumes of 

 solids as related to transverse sections, by Mr. G. H. Knibbs ; 

 several papers on eucalyptus oils, by Mr. H. G.Smith; customs of 

 Australian aborigines, by Mr. R. H. Mathews, Mr. W. J. Enright 

 and Miss M. M. Everitt ; the crystalline structure of some gold, 

 silver and copper nuggets, by Prof. A. Liversidge, F. R. S. ; 

 and an experimental investigation of the strength of brickwork 

 when subjected to compressive and transverse stresses, by Prof. 

 W. H. Warren and Mr. S. H. Barraclough. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a South Albemarle Tortoise (Teslndo vicina) 

 from the Galapagos Islands, a Conical Ery.K (Eryx conicus) from 

 India, deposited ; a Shag (Phalacrocorax graculus), European, 

 purchased ; an Axis Deer (Cerviis axis), born in the Gardens. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



New Variable Stars — The following newly-detected 

 variables are announced in the Astronomische Nachrichten (Bd. 

 157, No. 3751):— 

 94, 1901, Cygni.— 



A.G. Bonn (B. D. -^4I°•4I 14) 

 R.A. =2lh. 17m. 42s. "I 

 Uecl. = 4-41" 5i'-8 / 

 Herr Fr. DeichmuUer states that there is a variation of about 

 half a magnitude ; the times are not sufficiently continuous to 

 deduce a value of the period. 



95> 'QO'i Pegaii. — Dr. T. D. Anderson announces variability 

 in the star B.D. -t- 24 •451.62, whose position is 



R.A. =2ih. 37m. S6s.-ol, „ , 

 Decl. = -^24°2o'-6 /U»55o) 



The star is sometimes about 10 magnitude, but at intervals 

 becomes much fainter. 



96, 1 901, Cygni. — Mr. Stanley Williams finds from photo- 

 graphs taken with a 4-4-inch portrait lens that variability exists 

 in the star B.D. -f 29°'423I. 



R.A. =20h. 49m. 2s. -I 1 ,,s,,., 

 Decl.= -^29°SI'■8 |<'855o). 



The following variations are recorded : — 



1901 Sept. 21 ... lo-Si mag. | 1901 Nov. 



(1875-0) 



Oct. 



9-88 mag. 

 10-47 „ 



7 ... 10-26 



>. '4 ... 9"79 ,. I 



These indicate a maximum of 9-7 magnitude on igoi October 



21. The star was invisible on plates taken on 1899 October 6 



and 9, 1900 October 26, 27 and November 15, so that it must 



have been fainter than \? magnitude. The period is at present 



uncertain. 



NO. 1676, VOL. 65] 



Bright Meteor of December 4. — A brilliant meteor was 

 seen by several observers shortly after five o'clock in the even- 

 ing of Wednesday in last week, December 4. Prof. J. P. 

 O'Reilly, writing from Dublin, says: — " At 5h. iim. p.m. this 

 evening I saw in the south-eastern sky a brilliant meteor, which 

 appeared at a point about 30' above the horizon and had a 

 course about equal in length to the belt of Orion. The fore 

 part was brilliant bluish-white, the after part red sparks. The 

 direction of movement made with the horizon an angle of about 

 60' to 65", the inclination of the line of movement being to the 

 south. There were no stars visible by which I could more dis- 

 tinctly fix its position." 



Mr. C. Waterer (Highfield, Northdown Avenue, Margate) 

 and two friends saw the meteor while walking towards ICings- 

 gate, near Margate. He remarks, " The trail remained visible 

 to us all for some seconds. We were then looking west, and 

 its direction was approximately from north to south. The time 

 by my watch was 5. 35 p.m." 



"CoMPA.N'iON TO THE OBSERVATORY," 1902. — This almost 

 indispensable handbook for the practical observer has recently 

 been issued for the coming year. The contents and arrange- 

 ment are similar to those of previous issues. A small addition 

 which will be useful to spectroscopists is the list of spectroscopic 

 double stars, with their periods so far as is at present known. 



THE VARIATIONS IN THE MAMMALIAN 

 EYE} 

 "TJR. LINDSAY JOHNSON'S work, in the investigation of 

 the deep anatomy of the mammalian eye as displayed by 

 the ophthalmoscope, has been of a very extensive and persevering, 

 not to say of a very adventurous character ; and the volume 

 before us, containing his contribution on the subject to the Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Society, represents no more than a fraction 

 of the material which he has collected, and which he intends, 

 we understand, one day to publish. Not the least interesting 

 part of it will be that which will deal with his methods, with 

 the perils occasionally attendant upon them, and with the con- 

 trivances by means of which a living lion and a living whale 

 were compelled to submit themselves to ophthalmoscopic ex- 

 amination. Mirror in hand, Dr. Johnson has not only visited 

 the zoological gardens of many countries, but also the native 

 haunts of many wild creatures ; and in the book before us some 

 of his discoveries are displayed in twenty-six plates, containing 

 fifty coloured drawings of eyegrounds, beautifully finished and 

 exquisitively reproduced in chromolithography, and in three 

 plates with drawings in black and white, showing variations in 

 the forms of persistent hyaloid artery, rudimentary forms of 

 pecten, and different types of the appendages which are found 

 on the pupillary margins of many of the ungulata. 



The general result of Dr. Johnson's observations is to show 

 the existence among mammalia of very wide differences in two 

 respects ; first, as regards the vascular supply of the optic nerve 

 and retina ; secondly, as regards the presence, coloration and 

 pigmentation of the tapetum. 



With regard to the first of these, it may be said that the 

 general type pre.sented by the human eye, that is, the 

 presence of a central artery and vein of the retina, finding 

 entrance and exit among the fibres of the optic nerve, 

 and constituting a practically closed and complete retinal 

 circulation, is more or less preserved in monkeys, 

 lemurs, the carnivora, some of the ungulata, some of the 

 rodenlia, and some marsupialia, but is either absent or con- 

 cealed by tapetum in the Australian fruit-bat, the Indian rhi- 

 noceros, Burchell's zebra, the American tapir, the African 

 elephant, the Canadian beaver, the chinchilla, the guinea-pig, 

 the Central American agouti, the Brazilian porcupine, the hairy 

 armadillo, the wombat, the squirrel-like phalanger and the 

 echidna : while among these latter animals there are great 

 differences in the blood-supply of the optic disc itself, which in 

 some of them, as in the Indian rhinoceros and the hairy 

 armadillo, is of a dead white like the whiteness of atrophy in 

 the human subject ; while in others, as the zebra, it is 

 abundantly vascular, and is surrounded by a radiation of small 



\ " Contributions to the Comparative Anatomy of tlie Mammalian Eye, 

 chiefly based on Ophthalmoscopic Examination." By George Lindssy 

 Johnson, M.D., F.R.C.S. From the Philosophical Transactions of the 

 Royal Society of London for 1901. Pp. 82, wuh 26 plates in colour and 4 in 

 black and white. Price 2r^. 



