246 



NATURE 



[August 25, 1910 



Institute, Prof. \V. Ridgeway sketched the results attained 

 in this country during the last fifty years. Describing the 

 refusal of the Prime Minister of a grant in aid of the 

 proposed Bureau of Anthropology, who at the same time 

 admitted that a knowledge of the science was indispensable 

 for our Indian and Colonial administrators, he added : — 

 If, then, in 'the United Kingdom we have not done all 

 that we ought to extend the study of man, I beg you to 

 remember that the Anthropological Institute has to depend 

 upon the subscriptions of its membcns. Your distinguished 

 society has long been recognised as of public udlity by the 

 State." 



In Foll;-lon' for June Mr. Andrew Lang discusses the 

 strange myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. He argues 

 that the fact of human sacrifice in Minoan times is not 

 established, and that the suggestion that Minos, like the 

 priest" kings described by Prof. J. G. Frazer, had to fight 

 for his life at stated periods, rests upon a passage in 

 Homer which cannot bear that meaning. He concludes 

 that the historic fact in the Attic myth is the sending of 

 Attic captives into the Cretan bull-ring, where boy and 

 girl acrobats played perilous triclis with bulls, as often 

 depicted in Cretan art. The rest of the myth is a common 

 marchcn localised. 



In a recent number of the Journal of the Royal Society of 

 Arts, a paper by Mr. H. Gibson is reprinted, embodying the 

 investigations made by Mr. H. P. Slade of the dew-ponds 

 on the Thorpe Downs, Berkshire. The result is to show 

 that dew contributed nothing to the water supply, which 

 appears to be entirely the consequence of rainfall. Dew, 

 in fact, is only scantily deposited on such high grounds 

 owing to draughts of air, which cause rapid re-evapora- 

 tion. As the temperature of the water was found to be 

 at night much lower than that of the surrounding air, 

 the author believes that the possibility of dew condensation 

 is disproved. He concludes that a catchment area con- 

 sisting of galvanised corrugated iron stretched upon a 

 wooden frame, with a roofed reservoir to collect and store 

 the rainfall, would be more economical and sanitary, as a 

 souce of water supply, than the most ingenious dew-pond 

 ever constructed. 



Information has been received by the Times that the 

 new direct wire connecting Montreal with the Bamfield 

 Creek cable station has been completed by the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway, and was handed over to the Pacific Cable 

 Board on Monday. The longest cable in the world (3458 

 nautical miles) is thus connected with a land line 3000 

 miles in length, and communication between Fanning 

 Island (long. 159 W., lat. 3 N.) and Montreal (long. 

 75 W., lat. 45 N.) will be effected with only one re- 

 transmission. The Pacific Cable Board expects, as a 

 result of this new arrangement, to be able to reduce the 

 average time in lransmi>sion biUwern .Australasia and 

 London by fifti/en minutes. 



.\ Fli'Tri report on research work carried out for the 

 Metropolitan Water Board by Dr. Houston, director of 

 water examination, has been issued. One important 

 section contains the results of the examination of raw 

 Thames and Lea water for the presence of the typhoid and 

 Cijirlner bacilli. The total amount of water dealt with 

 was 12 litr^'S, averiiging 62,688 microbes per cubic centi-. 

 metre; From this vast number of bacteria, one was 

 i-^olated having all the characters of a typhoid bacillus ;, 

 another Corresponded to the Gartner bacillus. If present, 

 therefore, these microbes must be -extremely scanty in the 

 raw waters, for control experiments carried out with the 

 NO. 2130, VOL. 84] 



raw waters artificially inoculated with these organisms 

 showed that the methods employed sufliced to reveal a 

 very small infection. Another search was for Morgan's' 

 bacillus No. i, supposed to be a cause of summer diarrhoea 

 of infants, but it was not found in the raw waters. 



In the Irish Saluralist for August, Dr. A. R. Jackson 

 records from Ireland a spider, Erigone capnt, new to the 

 fauna of the British Isles. 



In the paragraph on the local forms of musk-ox in our 

 last week's issue (p. 211), the statement that the range of 

 the species extends to the west of the .Mackenzie applies 

 only to a past epoch. 



To the .August number of the Naturalist Mr. Sheppard 

 contributes an illustrated article on Neolithic implements 

 from Bridlington, where there appear to have been four 

 sites for their manufacture, one of which occurs near 

 Danes' Dyke, the ancient earthwork stretching across 

 Flamboro' Head. .Ml the implements are made from 

 black flint, quite different from the local grey flint. Some 

 of the specimens recently obtained, more especially a so- 

 called sickle, are stated to be of unusual types. 



To the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy for 

 .April Mr. J. P. Moore contributes the second part of an 

 article on polychaitous annelids dredged off the Californian 

 coast by the Albatross in 1904. In the Polynoida; twelve 

 species are described as new, while four previously known 

 from Japan are for the first time recorded from the 

 .American side of the Pacific. The other groups discussed 

 are the .Aphroditidte and Segaleonidas, of which new forms, 

 including a new genus, are also described. 



We have received from the author, Mr. P. H. Grim- 

 shaw, a copy of a paper from the July number of the 

 Annals of Scottish Natural History on the species of insects 

 frequenting Scotch grouse-moors. The list was compiled 

 in connection with an investigation of the food of young 

 grouse, undertaken at the instance of the Grouse Disease 

 Committee, and it was considered that its publication 

 might be of interest from a faunistic point of view. 

 Species known to be eaten by grouse-chicken are denoted 

 by asterisks. 



In concluding an article on chromosomes and heredity^ 

 published in the .August number of the American Naturalist, 

 Prof. T. H. Morgan states, in a guarded manner, that 

 some progress has been made in the interpretation of the 

 mechanism by which sex is determined in the organism. 

 He considers it certain " that we have discovered in the 

 microscopic study of the germ cells a mechanism that is 

 connected in some way with sex determination ; and 1 

 have tried to show, also, that this mechanism accords 

 precisely with that the experimental results seem to call 

 for. The old view that sex is determined by external 

 conditions is entirely disproven, and we have discovered 

 an internal mechanism by means of which the equality 

 of the sexes where equality exists is attained. We see 

 how the results are automatically reached even if we 

 cannot enlirely understand the details of the process." 



In reference to the recent article on " Wild Plants on 

 Waste Land in London" (August 11, p. 1S4), a corre- 

 spondent suggests that various seeds may have been 

 brought to the ground in the nose-bags and hay trusses 

 of horses employed during the demolition of the build- 

 ings or passing along the neighbouring streets. Many of 

 the plants on the waste ground near the Strand are 

 common weds of arable land. 



