504 



NATURE 



[October 20. 19 10 



springs in Bocl-c Bay, a brancln of Wood Bay (not Wijde 

 Bav, as first reported). Wlien tlie brief announcement of 

 this discovery first reached Europe two months ago some 

 doubt was felt as to the recentness of volcanic action in 

 this quarter, but the details now given seem to prove 

 that the volcanic cone is at any rate of Quaternary age 

 and later than the general glaciation of the region. The 

 cone, about 1650 feet high, is described as consisting partly 

 of lapilli ; it occurs in lat. 78° (? 79°) 28' north, and 

 long. 13° 28' east (Greenwich), in the vicinity of a north- 

 south fault, which brings Devonian sandstones into juxta- 

 position with granite. The expedition encountered unusual 

 and difficult ice-conditions, and reports that Bell Sound, 

 in the south-west of the island, was already blocked up 

 by ice toward the end of August, and that hunting sloops 

 are now there frozen up. The weather was very fine 

 until the middle of August, but afterwards there was 

 scarcely one clear day in the western part of Spitsbergen. 

 The large Geological Congress party that visited Ice Fiord 

 under the leadership of Prof. G. de Geer early in August 

 are evidently to be congratulated on their good fortune in 

 having chanced upon the finest weather of the season. 



In Travel and Exploration for October Mr. A. de C. 

 Sowerby, in the service of the United States National 

 Museum, describes the exploration of a hitherto little 

 known district in China, the country drained by the 

 Fen-ho, a large tributary of the Yellow River, running 

 north and south through the western part of the Shansi 

 Province. He was successful in procuring a number of 

 new or uncommon specimens, such as moles, polecats, 

 striped hamsters, pikas, and other quadrupeds, but there 

 were practically no birds except bustards, crows, and 

 larks. Sport is abundant ; and Mr. Sowerby, who was 

 accompanied by his wife, seems to have been well received 

 by the people. 



The increasing importance of the museum of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania has encouraged the director, Mr. 

 G. B. Gordon, to commence the issue of a quarterly 

 journal, of which we have received the first number. The 

 past history and condition of the museum, and several 

 new and interesting acquisitions, have been here described 

 by the sectional officers. It illustrates the liberality of 

 .American citizens towards scientific institutions, and the 

 value which they attribute to museums as factors in 

 educational work, that the director now appeals, with 

 confident hopes of success, for the collection of an endow- 

 ment fund which will give an annual income of seventy- 

 five thousand dollars, which will, it is estimated, meet 

 immediate requirements. 



In the September number of the Quarterly Journal of 

 Microscopical Science (vol. Iv., part iii.) Mr. A. M. Carr 

 Saunders and Miss Margaret Poole discuss the development 

 of Aphysia punctata, with special reference to the origin 

 of the kidney, heart, and pericardium, concerning which 

 very different opinions have been expressed by previous 

 writers. This paper illustrates well the great accuracy in 

 the determination of cell-lineage which is expected of the 

 modern embryologist, and by which alone such problems 

 can be solved. The necessity for such accurate observa- 

 tion is also clearly brought out in a short controversial 

 paper, published in the same number, by Prof. Hubrecht, 

 who endeavours from the study of very early stages in 

 the development of Galeopithecus and Tarsius to demon- 

 strate the untenability of Mr. .Assheton's theory of the 

 hypoblastic origin of the mammalian trophoblast. The 

 extremely early segregation of the trophoblast cells in the 

 types referred to certainly seems to afford strong support 

 to Prof. Hubrecht's contention. 

 NO. 2138, VOL. 84] 



In the Centralblatt fiir Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, 

 c5"i;. (Originale Band 53, 1909), Dr. C. Elders describes 

 and figures a trypanosome found in the blood of a patient 

 in Sumatra. It was observed that at the beginning of the 

 rainy season the Javanese coolies on a rubber plantation 

 situated near the edge of the virgin forest often suffered 

 from a sickness characterised by " continuous, atypical 

 attacks of fever, with painful enlargement of the spleen, 

 liver, and lymphatic glands, sometimes with oedema pedis, 

 often with aches in the head, back, and limbs, and always 

 with increase of the large mononuclear leucocytes." It 

 was in a smear of blood from one of these patients that 

 a single specimen of a trypanosome was found, which 

 appears to differ in its characters, and especially in its 

 small size (8 fi. in length), from the .African Trypanosoma 

 gambiense or the Brazilian T. (Schizotrypanuni) cruzi, of 

 which an account was given recently (.August 4) in 

 Nature. Should this discovery be confirmed, this species 

 (which is not yet named) will be at least the third distinct 

 species of trypanosome parasitic X)n human beings. 



.\ MEMOIR entitled " Flagellaten-studien," by M. Hart- 

 mann and C. Chagas, in the Memorias do Instituto 

 Oswaldo Cruz, vol. ii., part i., is a very important con- 

 tribution to the cytology of the Flagellata. The authors 

 have studied the relations between the nuclear and flagellar 

 apparatus, both in the resting condition and during 

 mitosis, in a number of species of this class of Protozoa, 

 and they distinguish four types of flagellar insertion, as 

 follows : — (i) the flagellum takes origin directly from the 

 centriole contained in the nucleus (Rhizomastigina) ; (2) the 

 flagellum arises from a basal granule or secondary 

 centriole, connected by a filament or rhizoplast with the 

 primary centriole in the nucleus (Protomonadina and 

 Phytomonadina) ; (3) as in (2), but the basal granule of 

 the flagellum is connected with the centriole of a special 

 kinetic nucleus, and the organism is binucleate (trypano- 

 somes and allied forms) ; (4) the basal granule (secondary 

 centriole) of the flagellum is connected by a rhizoplast 

 with a centriole of the third order, lying outside the 

 nucleus altogether, and distinct from the primary centriole 

 contained in the nucleus (Euglenoidina). A natural classifi- 

 cation of the Flagellata is put forward, based principallv 

 on the above-mentioned differences of structure. In this 

 connection it may be mentioned that, as pointed out by 

 Minchin, the two primary subdivisions of calcareous 

 sponges, in the " natural " classification of this class, also 

 exhibit, amongst other characteristic points of difference, 

 distinct types of flagellar insertion in the collar-cells. 



The nomenclature of some <ff the species indigenous to 

 or visiting the United Kingdom is discussed by Dr. 

 Hartert in the October number of British Birds. Among 

 other items, we are told that the thrush " must hence- 

 forth be called " Turdus philomelos, while the- redwing is 

 to be known as T. musicus. Nevertheless, in the recently 

 published " Guide to the British Vertebrates in the British 

 Museum" the latter name is retained for the thrush, as 

 is Turdus iliacus for the redwing. 



In the Transactions of the Lincolnshire Naturalists" 

 Union for 1909 Mr. G. W. Mason completes his list of 

 the Lepidoptera of the county, while Messrs. Thornley and 

 Wallace continue their synopsis of the local Coleoptera, 

 dealing in this instance with the family Staphylinida;. In 

 the presidential address we are informed that measures 

 were to be taken for a malacological survey of the county 

 with the view of publishing a complete list of the land and 

 fresh-water molluscs. 



Despite the usual insufficiency of funds, supplemented 

 in this instance by an inadequate staff, lack of space, and 



