444 



NATURE 



[March 13, 1902 



The subject is one of recent development, and among other 

 workers the names of Dr. Sorby, Profs. Marten and Weddinp;, 

 and M. Osmond, of Paris, are mentioned. The paper deals with 

 the analogy between the transformations occurring in steel and 

 in frozen saline .solutions, taking as illustrations Sir \V. C. 

 Roberts- Austen's diagrams of equilibrium curves. The methods 

 of preparing and polishing steel for opaque examination are 

 described, including Prof. Le Chatelier's method of obtaining 

 sufficiently fine polishing powders. The paper is illustrated by 

 several photographs of the different constituents of iron and 

 steel under a magnification of 850 diameters. Although 

 metallography was originally of scientific interest only, it has now 

 become of the greatest commercial importance. 



A VERY remarkable barograph trace obtained during a typhoon 

 on August 2-3, 1901, is given in the Quarterly Journal of the 

 Royal Meteorological Society (January), and is here reproduced 



Barograph trace during typhoon, -August 2-3. 1901 



with the permission of the Society. The barograph was on the 

 steamer Laisang, which encountered the typhoon somewhere to 

 the northward of the Formosa Channel, in about lat. 25" N., 

 long. 122° E. or thereabouts. The fall and rise of the barometer 

 were most rapid, the range being no le.ss than two inches in eigh' 

 hours. The chart shows the minimum reading to have been as 

 low as 27 '35 in. at 9 p.m. on August 2. Such a low barometer 

 reading is said in the note from which these particulars are de- 

 rived to have been rarely recorded. It was, however, exceeded on 

 the following occasions : — 27-33 '"•> February 5, 1S70, on board 

 H.M.S. Tarifa, 500 miles west of Ireland. 27'332 in., 

 January 26, 1884, Ochtertyre, near Crieff, Scotland (Quarterly 

 fournal Royal Meteorological Society, vol. x. p. 114). 

 27135 in., September 22, 18S5, False Point, Orissa, India 

 (Nature, vol. xxxv. p. 344). 27-38 in., December 8, 1886, 

 Belfast ; probably about 27 '28 in. over the north of Ireland 

 (Quarterly fournal Royal Meteorological Society, vol. xiii. 

 p. 211). 



In the Irish Naturalist for March, Dr. R. F. Scharff records 

 the stranding in Dublin Bay of a specimen of the white-beaked 

 dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris). The specimen, which is 

 a male, seems of unusually large size, measuring 12 feet in 

 length, the species being stated in text-books not to exceed 

 9 feet. 



Students of " distribution " will be interested in a paper by 

 Dr. D. Sharp on Oriental beetles which appears in the March 

 number of the Entomologists' Monthly Magazine. The author 

 States that in the group Limnichini — the members of which are 

 remarkable for their death-feigning instinct — he finds a remark- 

 NO. 1689, VOL. 65] 



able similarity between the Central American and Oriental 

 forms, amounting in one instance to generic identity. 



Wi; have received ihe second number of the Nature-Study 

 Journal, published by the South-Eastern Agricultural College, 

 Wye, Kent. It contains a description of a country walk 

 through a fossiliferous district in autumn, in which attention is 

 directed to the objects of natural history met with, and also 

 samples of " nalure-lessons" for children. The editor asks 

 for outlines of a series of lessons suitable for the same purpose. 



I.N' their eleventh annual report, the Society for the Protection 

 of Birds record an increase in the number of their associates, 

 although they have to deplore a falling-off in subscriptions. 

 With the aid of the Royal Society for the Prevention of 

 Cruelty to Animals, the Society has succeeded in obtaining 

 several convictions during the past year, one of the most 

 satisfactory being in the case of a gamekeeper charged with 

 shooting two of the bustards intro; 

 iluced by Lord Walsingham into Nor- 

 folk. Some — although not a great — 

 effect appears to have been made upon 

 the plume-trade by the elTorts of the 

 Society ; but the recent fashion for the 

 skins of entire terns and the wings of 

 gulls as decorations for ladies' hats is 

 a cause for much regret. So great is 

 the demand for these objects that in 

 Yorkshire alone a single dealer is 

 stated to have contracted to supply 

 10,000 skins to a London firm. The 

 subject of the Society's second essay 

 competition was " the best means of 

 introducing Bird and Arbor Day into 

 England " ; and now that the prizes 

 have been awarded, the Society is 

 hopeful that Coronation year may mark 

 the institution of such a day in all the 

 schools of the country. 

 The accompanying diffraction effect is reproduced from a 

 plate contributed by Prof. W. S. Franklin to the January 

 number of the Physical Review, and represents one of 

 a number of photographs of shadows cast upon a photo- 



FlG. 1. — DitTraclion Shadows of a Tapering Slil. 



graphic plate from a monochromatic point of light distant 

 about sixteen metres from the plate. The objects casting 

 the shadows were about three metres from the plate, which 

 was in each case at right angles to the incident light. The 



