Aptiil 3, 1902] 



NA TURE 



519 



5. cerevisieae forms spores when it is starved, but S. aiiomalus, 

 contrary to the generally accepted ideas, gives a bigger spore 

 yield as the amount of food is increased. Botanists who wish 

 to obtain spores for class work or otherwise will also do well to 

 note that cells of the yeast will only give a good supply of spores 

 when they are about twenty-four hours old, and none at all 

 when they are two days old or more. 



Prof. Marshall Ward, F.R.S., has summarised for the 

 British Mycological Society a few of the important results which 

 he has obtained in the course of his studies on the susceptibility 

 of different species of brome-grasses to the attacks of the rust 

 fungus (Pucciiiia i/is/iersa). The development of the fungus 

 from the uredospore when taken from one species of Bromus 

 and transferred to another species is found to differ according 

 to the relationship of the two Bromes. If these are closely 

 related, the fungus infects and grows rapidly, whereas a more 

 remote species may be entirely immune from infection. By 

 means of carefully devised apparatus, Prof. Ward has raised 

 pure cultures of grass from sterilised seed in germ-free tubes, 

 and has thus been able to demonstrate that seeds from infected 

 plants are entirely free from disease, thereby proving fairly 

 conclusively the impossibility [of intra-seminal sources of 

 infection. 



A " Catalogue of Altitudes in Asiatic Russia and some 

 adjacent Portipns of Asia, on the Basis of Materials Published 

 up to 1894," by Dr. K. Hikisch, appears in the Memoirs of the 

 Russian Geographical Society (General Geography, vol. x.\xi., 

 2). The catalogue contains a very valuable list of 11,629 

 determinations of altitudes in Asiatic Russia, as also in Russian 

 and Chinese Turkestan, Mongolia and Manchuria, published 

 in the same form as they were issued by the respective authors. 

 Unfortunately there remains still an uncertainty of about 100 

 feet in the altitudes of the fundamental points for most 

 determinations — Irkutsk in Siberia and Tashkend in Turkestan. 

 An alphabetical index of all the names considerably facilitates 

 reference to this catalogue. 



Mr. John Cad.man has prepared a useful account of the 

 occurrence, mode of working! and treatment of the ironstones 

 found in the North Staffordshire Coal-field ( Trans. Inst. Mining 

 Engineers for 1901). The blackband ironstones occur in the 

 upper portion of the Coal-measures beneath the Etruria Marls ; 

 they overlie seams of coal, and the thickness of the coal 

 frequently varies in inverse ratio to the thickness of the iron- 

 stone. Sometimes the ironstones assume the nature of cannel 

 coal, and occasionally they pass into limestone. Many fossils 

 have been found in the ironstones, and notably through the 

 researches of Mr. John Ward, but the mollusc Anthracomya is 

 the prevailing shell. 



The geology of the " Riukiu Curve," or of that series of 

 islands which lies between Formosa and Kyushu in Japan, has 

 been dealt with by Prof. S. Yoshiwara (Journ. Coll. Science, 

 Tokyo, Japan, vol. xvi. 1901). The principal rocks of the 

 islands are of Palceozoic age, and comprise slate, sandstone, 

 quartzite and limestone, with amphibolite and schalstein. 

 The ancient sedimentary rocks dip steeply to the west, and are 

 penetrated in places by masses of granite and diorite. They 

 form a median zone in the series of islands. The inner zone in 

 the curve is formed mainly by volcanic rocks, and the outer 

 zone by Tertiary strata of Miocene and later stages, which 

 contain coal-seams and are here and there rather irregularly 

 inclined. Raised coral-reefs are found in various districts, and 

 these are quite horizontal. The maximum elevation of the reefs 

 is 684 feet ; they exhibit a character like those now growing in 

 adjacent seas, and they have been upheaved after a gradual 

 depression. The formation of the curve has been explained by 

 NO. 1692, VOL. 65] 



Prof. .Koto as due to the depression of the "East Sea" of 

 China, which took place for the most part in the Tertiary 

 period. The volcanic rocks appear to belong to somewhat 

 different stages in that period and to have originated along a 

 great fissure which is continued in the volcanoes of Kyushii. 



The Royal Zoological Society of Ireland has published a 

 short account of its origin and early history. The author, Dr. 

 D. J. Cunningham, has to lament the absence of documentary^ 

 evidence, or the extreme incompleteness of such evidence, as to 

 much of the early history of the Society ; but in spite of this he 

 has managed to bring together a number of interesting facts in 

 connection with its foundation, and also gives portraits of some 

 of the most prominent among the founders. The Society was 

 established in May, 1S30, at a meeting presided over by the Duke 

 of Leinster, Dr. Whitley Stokes being elected the first hon. 

 secretary at the second meeting, held later in the same month. 

 It is interesting to note that the eminent ornithologist Mr. 

 N. A. Vigors, who three years later became the first hon. 

 secretary of the London Zoological Society, took a prominent 

 part in the organisation of the Dublin institution. 



Of the five articles included in part iv. of vol. xxix. of Gegen- 

 baur's Morphologisches Jahrbiuh, four are devoted to mammalian 

 anatomy. In the longest, Ilerr G. Ruge discusses the varieties 

 of form displayed by the liver of the Primates. The author 

 considers that the mammalian liver was always divided into lobes, 

 and was never, as has been 'suggested, a simple organ. Some 

 emendation is made in the nomenclature of the lobes, and the 

 homology of the aberrant "spigelian" and "caudal" lobes 

 worked out. In another article, Dr. E. Stromer considers the 

 morphological importance of the foramen found at the lower 

 end of the humerus of many mammals and likewise of the third 

 trochanter of the femur. From its occurrence in so many of the 

 lower types, the entepicondylar foramen, as it is called, is re- 

 garded as a primitive structure, of which the original object 

 was to protect certain nerves and blood-vessels. It is remark- 

 able that it should persist in the spectacled bear of the Andes, 

 although it has disappeared in all other living members of the 

 group. The third trochanter of the femur, on the other hand, 

 can scarcely be regarded as primitive, seeing that it is wanting 

 in several of the lower groups of mammals. Neither can its 

 presence be attributed, as Gaudry suggests, to the reduction in 

 the number of the toes, as otherwise it should not be found in 

 the rhinoceros. Its general absence in man forbids the idea of 

 its having any connection with the upright posttire. 



The important position occupied by the science of bacterio- 

 logy in the United States may be gathered from the existence of 

 an American Society of Bacteriologists, which has already held 

 no less than three annual meetings. The last meeting of the 

 society's members was held at the end of last and beginning of 

 this year in Chicago, and a recent number of Science contains 

 abstracts of the papers read. A great variety of subjects was dealt 

 with, amongst which dairy bacteriology is well represented by 

 contributions from Mr. H. L. Russell amongst other well-known 

 authorities in this branch of applied bacteriology. A useful 

 paper, as emphasising the results obtained by other investigators 

 in the same field, is contributed by Mr. Caleb A. Fuller dn 

 "Oysters and Sewage in Narragansett Bay." The author found 

 that oysters from a bed two miles below the sewer outlet con- 

 tained bacteria typical of sewage, that 30 per cent, of the oysters 

 from a bed situated in a strong tidal current about five miles 

 from the sewer contained B. coli, that 40 per cent, of the oysters 

 from a bed in sluggish water five-and-a-quarter miles from the 

 sewer contained B. coli, and that these objectionable bacilli 

 were only absent from oysters in beds situated more than six miles 

 from the sewer outfall. Dr. W. J. Class submits another 

 claimant to the title of the scarlatina microbe, in the shape of a 



