January 2, 1902] 



NA TURE 



Reusch found permanent ice in a bog near Vadsij. At lower 

 altitudes, where the soil lets the water through, no permanent 

 ice occurs. Still, at Karasjok the ground is not far from a state 

 of permanent freezing. The mean temperature of the place is 

 — 2'6' C. As it is difficult to dig graves in the ground during 

 winter time, a large hole is made in the autumn and bodies 

 are put into it as people die. The bodies soon freeze hard and 

 sometimes they do not thaw in the spring, when they are buried. 

 It has been found that bodies have remained frozen so long as 

 ten years after their burial. 



To the December number of The Zoologist Mr. G. Renshaw 

 contributes an interesting article on the extinct blaauwbok 

 (Hippotragiis leiicofhoei(s) of South Africa. This handsome 

 species, an ally of the sable antelope and the roan antelope, 

 was, it appears, always scarce and local, one of its refuges being 

 the mountains between Swellendam and Algoa Bay, where the 

 last specimens were shot in iSoo. Its colour was bluish-grey, 

 with pure white under-parts. The author records sixteen speci- 

 mens known to have been preserved, but only a few of these 

 appear to be still extant. One skin is now in the museum at 

 Vienna, a second in Stockholm, a third in Upsala, a fourth in 

 Paris and a fifth in Leyden. Our own Natural History Museum 

 possesses a couple of frontlets with horns believed to belong to 

 the blaauwbok. In the same journal Mr. H. E. Howard com- 

 ments on the marked increase in the numbers of the starling and 

 the hawfinch which has taken place of late years in this country. 

 Writing from Hampshire, he observes of the latter species : — 

 " Fifteen years ago I rarely saw this bird ; five years ago small 

 parties of five and six were not at all uncommon ; and during 

 the winter now I frequently see as many as a dozen under one 

 yew. This year eight pairs nested within half a mile of my 

 house." 



A FEW details concerning the plans of the Scottish Antarctic 

 Expedition are given in the Dundee Advertiser of December 

 25, 1901. The expedition will be directed by Mr. \V. S. 

 Bruce, who has had some experiSnce in the Antarctic, and has 

 been engaged in scientific work within the Arctic circle on 

 several occasions. Scientific research will be the chief object 

 of the expedition, and Mr. Bruce will be accompanied by at 

 least seven men of scientific training, who will be engaged with 

 different subjects of investigation. The ship which has been 

 secured for the expedition is a Norwegian whaler called the Hicla, a 

 wooden ship of similar dimensions and build to some of the Dundee 

 whalers. The ship will be ready about the beginning of August 

 next and will go for a trial spin for three weeks in the Atlantic for 

 the purpose of testing her gear and instruments before her final 

 departure for the Antarctic, when she will make for the Falkland 

 Islands for the purpose of taking on coal and provisions, and 

 then strike for the field of operations in the Weddell Sea — a 

 region of the Antarctic about which nothing is known, and 

 which has only once been visited by an exploring party, some 

 eighty years ago. This region promises to yield results of very 

 great scientific value, and a thorough knowledge of it would go 

 a long way to solve many of the problems connected with the 

 Antarctic. The Weddell Sea is situated directly between the 

 sphere of operations of the German expedition on the one 

 hand, and the Swedish expedition on the other ; so that the 

 results of all three expeditions will be of advantage to each 

 other on their return home. Details of cooperation or division 

 of labour were carefully planned and arranged between the respec- 

 tive leaders of the Scottish, German and Swedish expeditions 

 before the departure of the two latter. It is expected that the 

 expedition will be absent more than a year at least, and possibly 

 much longer if the necessary funds are forthcoming. The whole 

 of the money subscribed towards the expedition has been given by 

 Scotsmen only, and as the scientific staff and ship's officers and 

 NO. 1679, VOL- 65] 



crew will also belong to the northern side of the Border, the 

 whole project is a truly Scottish one. 



M. C. GuTTON has described in \ht Journal de Physique for 

 December some experiments tending to show that the wave- 

 length of Hertzian oscillations is the same in water as in air. 

 The corresponding property for castor oil has been previously 

 proved by M. Blondlot ; the present result is interesting, as in 

 the case of water the imperfect conductivity gives rise to 

 absorption of the oscillations. 



A NEW method of determining the principal indices of refrac- 

 tion of a crystal by means of the critical angle has been investi- 

 gated by M. Cornu, and the results are briefly detailed in 

 the Bulletin of the French Physical Society, 172. The method 

 is based on M. Cornu's geometric investigations of the total 

 reflection at the surface of a crystal, and has been applied to 

 calculate the indices of refraction in tartaric acid. In this sub- 

 stance the angle of conical refraction amounts to 4°, and interest- 

 ing lantern experiments are described on the conical refraction 

 of a crystal 23 mm. thick as well as on ordinary crystals of 

 commercial tartaric acid immersed in clove oil. 



The design and construction of fly-wheels for slow-speed 

 engines for electric lighting and traction purposes are discussed 

 by Mr. A. Marshall Downie in the Transactions of the Scotch 

 Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders, xlv. i. By projecting 

 the indicator diagrams of the several cylinders of compound 

 engines the author obtains curves representing the fluctua- 

 tions in the combined crank efforts at different points of the 

 revolution. From an examination of these fluctuations the 

 author arrives at the conclusion that a good average value for 

 the energy necessary to be stored in fly-wheels for electric 

 lighting purposes is 2*9 foot-tons per electric horse-power, and 

 in traction-plant 4 foot-tons. 



From observations described by Prof Geitel in the Physikal- 

 ische Zeilschrift, iii. 4, it appears that atmospheric air is itself 

 capable of inducing radio-activity. When a mass of air remains 

 shut up for a long time in a cellar or cave. Prof. Geitel finds 

 that its electric conductivity increases to a maximum. There are 

 three hypotheses possible, namely, that the exposed substances . 

 were themselves radio-active, that traces of radio-active sub- 

 stances were present in the neighbourhood, or that the air itself 

 is the origin of the radio-activity. From experiments made with 

 a kite at a considerable height above the ground and from other 

 evidence, Prof. Geitel favours the view that the third is the 

 most likely hypothesis. 



Dr. Foveau de Courmelles and M. G. Trouve describe, 

 in the Bulletin of the French Physical Society, certain new 

 apparatus for the study of different light-rays of considerable in- 

 tensity. These are based chiefly on the use of parabolic 

 reflectors and other concentrators, and screens for filtering out 

 the heat-waves or separating those of any required portion of 

 the spectrum. The authors have applied their apparatus to the 

 cure of lupus, tuberculosis, and other diseases at the Hospital of 

 St. Louis in Paris, without producing any burning or blisters, 

 the source of energy being an arc lamp of 10 amperes radiating 

 for 10 minutes at 70 watts, or S amperes at 85 watts, while with 

 Finsen's apparatus 75 to So amperes for So minutes are 

 necessary. 



The arrangements for photochronographic observations in the 

 physiological laboratory of Moscow University form the subject 

 of a paper by Prof. L. Morokhowetz and Drs. A. Samojloff and 

 A. ludin, published by the Imperial University Press. The room 

 used for these observations is divided into four parts, one of 

 which is described as a " monster camera," being a dark room 

 in which the photographs can be exposed and watched during 



