'52 



NATURE 



[August 3, 191 1 



Society .u Wisley. fhe rocks are Wealden sandstone, 

 some of the rocks weighing as much as a couple of tons. 

 A large moraine forms on.' of the subjects ol interest, 

 this being a bog-garden, watered from the source 

 which supplies the moi aim 



The poultry investigations at the Maine Experiment 

 Station are well known, and the recently issued bulletins 

 will be read will] interest by those engaged in similar 

 work elsewhere. Messrs. Pearl, Surface, and Curtis have 

 compiled an account of the common poultry diseases in a 

 bulletin which musl !»■ regarded as one of the most useful 

 vel issued lor the practical man. The symptoms are clearly 

 described, and such remedies as are known are indicated. 

 In a mqre technical publication Dr. Pearl continues his 

 discussion of the inheritance of fecundity in the domestic 

 fowl. 



The Boyle lecture on the fertility of the soil delivered by 

 Mr. A. D. Hall before the Oxford University Scientific 

 Club has now been issued a- a 31 parate reprint. It is 

 shown that Boyle and some of his contemporaries discussed 

 the question of soil fertility, and especially the part played 

 by nitre. The investigation was widened by Daubeny, 

 professor of botany and rural economy in Oxford, and the 



real founder ol • ol agriculture in this country, and 



in recent years has been shown to be even more complex 

 by the intervention of the micro-organic flora of the soil. 

 The factors determining fertility are. however, being slowly 

 disentangled and brought under control. 



The German Mineralogical Society, which now consists 

 of 158 members, under the presidency of Prof. F. Becke, 

 of Vienna, at its annual meeting in September last decided 

 on tlie publication of a journal, to be called the Forts.ch.riHe 

 der Mineralogie, Krystallographie, and Vetrographie, and 

 the first number has just made its appearance, under the 

 editorship of Prof. G. Linck, of Jena. It is an imposing 

 volume of nearly 300 pages, and contains fourteen articles 

 by distinguished members of the society. One of the earlier 

 ones is by Prof. Baumhauer, on " Geometrical Crystallo- 

 graphy," in which he deals with the " Law of the Com- 

 plication and the Development of Crystal-faces in Zones 

 rich in Faces," and discusses the most important recent 

 contributions to crystallographical literature from this point 

 of view. Then there are two articles by Prof. Miigge, of 

 Gdttingen, and Prof. F. Becke, the president, on " Twin- 

 Crystals," in which many recent descriptions of new 

 twin-forms are discussed and correlated, including the 

 important work of Dr. Stefan Kreutz on twins of calcite. 

 Another interesting and important article is that by Dr. 

 Albert Ritzel on the " Rapidity of Crystallisation and 

 Solution," in which the farts concerning the different speeds 

 of growth of a crystal in different directions, and the 

 corresponding differences in the times taken by a solvent 

 in dissolving the material from the different faces of the 

 crystal are carefully compiled from .all the recent work on 

 the subject, and the general results discussed. These 

 examples will suffice to show the value of this new publica- 

 tion, which reminds us very much ol the annual reports 

 published by the Chemical Society, but goes further in 

 including a considerable number of text-figures, and in 

 embodying original results obtained by the authors them- 

 selves. We heartilj congratulate thi German Mineralogical 

 si. iety on its venture, and shall look forward to seeing a 

 continuation of these excellent articles, presenting in an 

 interesting form the essence of the progress made- in the 

 subjects included in the purview of the society. 



Works are now in operation for improving a section of 

 the navigable channel of the Mississippi, and at the same 

 NO. 21/9, VOL. 8/] 



time developing the water resources of the river by the 

 construction of an hydro-electrical plant, consisting of a 

 power-house designed to contain machinery driven by tur- 

 bines capable of developing 120,000 horse-power. This 

 power-station lies about midway between Kansas City and 

 Chicago, and 140 miles north-west of St. Louis. The site 

 of the works is at the foot of the Des Moines rapids. 

 These rapids now are only navigable at high stages of the 

 river, and at other times vessels have to pass round them 

 by means of a canal having three locks. When the works 

 are completed there will only be a single lock, of dimen- 

 sions sufficient to accommodate vessels of much larger size 

 than those which now navigate this part of the river. The 

 works include a concrete dam 1560 yards in length and 

 40 feet high, and the pool above formed by the dam will 

 constitute a reservoir extending for forty or fifty miles. 



An instructive study of the mouth of the Scheld by F. 

 Miiller apywars in the June number of the Zeitschrift fur 

 Erdkunde, in which the form and character of the river 

 mouth, its tidal conditions and its development during the 

 past five centuries, are detailed. The various towns are 

 described, and in some cases illustrated, to show their 

 varying fortunes during the same period. Similar studies 

 of some British coastal settlements would form a profitable 

 object for geographical research in this country. In the 

 same number Prof. K. Kretschmer describes a number of 

 early manuscript maps in the Bibliotheque Nationale at 

 Paris, and analyses them. 



The demarcation of boundaries in Africa continues 

 steadily, one of the most recent being that between Tunis 

 and Tripoli. A French party carried out a geodetic and 

 topographical survey of a zone 10 kilometres wide from 

 Ras Ajedir on the Mediterranean coast to Ghadames, of 

 which the position was determined to be lat. 30 7' 487" N. 

 and long 7° 9' 570" W. of Paris, or some 27 kilometres 

 i-ast of Duveyrier's original determination ; the mean alti- 

 tude of the oasis was found to be 340 metres abov. 

 level. This information, given in the April number of 

 La Geographic, is supplemented in the May number by a 

 description of the route by L. Pervinquiere, who was 

 detailed to study the geology of the country traversed. 



The Survey of India has just published an account of 

 explorations made by Kinthup, a native of Sikkim, in 

 Bhutar, and on the lower Tsang-po, in 1886—7. He was 

 despatched in July, 1880, with a Chinese Lama, from 

 Darjeeling to Tibet by the late Captain Harman, and, after 

 being detained in slavery in the Pemakoi country, finally 

 succeeded in returning to India. He travelled along the 

 Tsang-po, or Brahmaputra River, from the point where it 

 turns southward towards India to the villageof Mrii Padam, 

 which he gives as about thirty-five miles from the British 

 frontier. Though followed under very unfavourable con- 

 ditions, the line of the river is probably indicated with fair 

 in uracy, and goes part of the way towards filling the gap 

 which has hitherto existed in our knowledge of the course 

 of this great waterway. 



New isothermal charts of Africa have been drawn for the 

 alias which is bring prepared in the Survey Department of 

 Fgypt for use in Egyptian schools, and Mr. J. I. Craig 

 gives those for January and July in the May number of 

 The Cairo Scientific Journal. Temperatures have been 

 reduced to sea-level, the gradient being taken as — 06 C. 

 per 100 metres in the equatorial zone, and as — 1° C. per 

 100 metres in the drier region of North Africa, on the 

 basis of kite observations at the Hclwan Observatory. 

 With the recent values employed the isotherms run some- 

 what differently from their courses as shown in earlier 



