28o 



NA TURE 



[January 23, 1902 



and to provide against the dissemination of tuberculosis and 

 venereal disease. Dr. Gamier, of Paris, stated that juvenile 

 crime, which was rapidly increasing, was the result of the 

 prevalence of alcoholism. Mr. Alexander Sutherland, of Mel- 

 bourne, suggested that too much importance ought not to be 

 attached to the theory of heredity, so far as it applied to crime, 

 and pointed out that while in 1850 the population of Australia 

 was composed of 135,000 individuals who were either convicts, 

 or the children of convicts, and of only 105,000 normal persons, 

 in iSSo, after the course of but one generation, the number of 

 criminals in Australia per 10,000 of the population was much 

 below that in Prussia, Saxony, Italy and Sweden. 



In the Scientific American for January 4, Mr. L. P. Gratacap 

 gives a popular and illustrated description of the discovery and 

 preservation of the reinains of the great dinosaur, bronto- 

 saurus, which have recently been placed in the Natural History 

 Museum, New York. It was in 1898, under the direction of 

 Prof. Osborn, that the colossal vertebrce, ribs and pelvic bone 

 of the dinosaur were obtained from the Jurassic limestones of 

 Wyoming. The total length of the animal has been estimated 

 at more than sixty feet. The bones were taken out en bloc in 

 the field, retained in the enveloping matrix, and shipped to 

 New York, where a corps of skilled workmen finally extracted 

 them from the stony matrix in the most perfect condition. 



The accompanying illustration of the Severn Bore is re- 

 produced from a portion of the kineniatograph picture recently 

 obtained under Dr. Vaughan Cornish's direction with a bio- 



scope camera and exhibilcd .it llic Koyal Gcogr.iphical Society. 

 When first projected on the screen the Severn is seen at 

 low water ; in a few seconds the bore appears round the 

 bend of the river about 500 yards distant, and it takes rather 

 more than one minute to arrive at the position shown in 

 the illustration. It is only upon reaching the shoal water 

 near the camera that the wave curls over as here shown. The 

 dark-fronted wave then rushes out of the field of view and 

 the remainder of the film records the rapid current which 

 follows close upon the bore. The film is 150 feet long with 

 2400 pictures, about half of which are views of the bore itself. 

 The moving picture not only enables those who have never 

 seen a tidal bore to realise the phenomenon with a complete- 

 ness impossible from the examination of stationary photographs, 

 but it provides a means for exhibiting at will a phenomenon 

 which in nature is never precisely repeated. By repeating 

 the projection of the picture as often as required, the various 

 aspects of the phenomenon can be successively studied in a 

 manner impossible to the observer of the bore itself. How 

 much escapes observation when watching a transitory phen- 

 omenon, and the advantage of repeated projection on a screen, 

 NO. 1682, VOL. 65] 



may be gathered from the various accounts which different 

 spectators give of a kinematograph picture which all have seen 

 simultaneously, but in which the points of attraction and interest 

 are different in the case of different individuals. 



Sir Ciiari.es Todd, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., has recently 

 issued his comprehensive volume of meteorological observa- 

 tions in South Australia, for 1898. The work is divided into 

 three parts ; sections l and 2 deal with the observations at 

 Adelaide and a number of other stations, and contain a valu- 

 able discussion on the exposure of thermometers in different 

 screens. Section 3 gives the monthly and yearly totals of rain- 

 fall at 432 stations, and comparisons of the results with the 

 averages for previous years. The annual distribution of rain- 

 fall is also clearly shown on a tinted map. 



Mr. J. E. Ci.ARi; has contributed an interesting paper to 

 Symons's Meteorological Magazine for this month, entitled 

 " Day Darkness in the City." He has recorded the number of 

 quarter hours at which artificial light was necessary between 9h. 

 a.m. and 5h. p.m. (Saturday afternoons and Sundays excepted) 

 at the Wool Exchange, between October and March, 1S97-1901. 

 The tables show that November, December and January are 

 preeminently the dark months, although, on the mean, 

 November is a good deal behind the other two. The only 

 really bad foggy months in the four years were December 

 1899 and January 1901, with which may be compared the 

 prevalent fogs of November and December last. A diagram 

 showing the distribution of dark quarter hours during the day 

 shows a rapid rise between 9h. and loh. and again about noon. 

 The author points out that these anomalies are associated with 

 the lighting of office fires and with preparations in the 

 restaurants ; in fact, smoke plays a main part in the darkness 

 during both high and low fogs. 



In the Bibliotheca mathematica (iii. 2) for December 30, 1901, 

 Prof. Gino Loria, of Genoa, gives an account of the late Prof. 

 Beltrami, with a fairly detailed statement of the mathematical 

 theorems and formulae discovered by him. The paper is illus- 

 trated by a portrait of Beltrami. 



Some observations on the variation of position of the ap- 

 parent horizon relative to the true horizon on the lake of Geneva 

 are described by Prof. F. A. Forel, of Morges, in the Comftes 

 rendns de la Sociiti hclv6ti<iue for the Neuchatel meeting of 

 1899, recently received. The extreme relative displacements 

 of the horizons, due to refraction, during eight months' observa- 

 tion varied from -272" to -f50l", the telescope being 2'S 

 metres above the lake. A table is given of corrections for 

 refraction in terms of the difference of temperature at the 

 surface of the lake and at the altitude of observation. 



A SHORT paper on the observatory of the University of 

 Durham is given by Prof K. A. Sampson in the Proceedings of 

 the Durham Philosophical Society. The observatory was built 

 in 1840, and the chief event in its annals was the tenure of the 

 post of observer by Richard Carrington, which, however, he 

 resigned in 1S52, after holding it for three years. From that 

 time on the observatory seems to have had a chequered career 



i until 1 89 1, when the old equatorial was replaced by a new one. 

 In 1896 a new departure was made ; instead of the transit 



I circle being renewed an almucantar was provided, and with 

 this it is hoped to do rather better work than could be expected 

 with a meridian instrument. 



' We are glad to learn that the gliding experiments with which 

 Lilienthal and Pilcher sought to investigate the balance and 

 stability of machines supported by aeroplanes and aerocurves have 

 not been discontinued since the death of these two investigators. 

 A great deal of valuable work has already been done in 



j America by Mr. Octave Chanute, and in conjunction with him 



