August 31, 191 1] 



NATURE 



\o\ 



cards and envelopes will be devoted to charity. Captain 

 Windham, the most active mover in the present scheme, 

 inaugurated the first aerial post in India last February. 



A seismogra™ has recently been installed in the Tunnel 

 Colliery, Nuneaton, the object being to ascertain if the 

 apparently inexplicable falls of coal and roof in mines 

 have any relation with the occurrence of earthquakes. 

 Whether or no the problem admits of solution in this 

 direction, there can be no doubt that the comparison of 

 earthquake records obtained on the surface and in mines 

 will lead to interesting results. 



In the July number of The Cairo Scientific Journal, Mr. 

 J. Craig discusses some results derived from the anthro- 

 pometrical material which he had previously investigated 

 and published in Biometrika. The measurements dealt with 

 9000 prisoners of Egyptian nationality, and were taken by 

 the Anthropometric Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior 

 from about 1902 to 1908. The relations of the Copts to the 

 Moslem population, of the urban to the rural population, 

 and of the people of Lower Nubia to the rest of Egypt, were 

 studied, and though the data were not sufficient to support 

 definite conclusions, indications were found of a differentia- 

 tion into eastern, centre, and western delta districts ; Girga 

 and Qena provinces stood apart from Lower Nubia and 

 Aswan on one hand, and from the rest of Upper Egypt 

 on the other. The recent census is utilised to show the 

 amount of migration of males from one province to another. 



It is satisfactory to learn from the report of the Maid- 

 stone Museum, Library, and Art Gallery for the period 

 comprised between November, 1908, and October, 1910, 

 that investigations have been undertaken in relation to the 

 origin and purpose of the megalithic monuments of the 

 district, more especially the one at Coldrum. Excavations 

 undertaken beneath the dolmen occupying the centre of the 

 stone circle at that spot revealed evidence of human inter- 

 ments, but nothing indicative of systematic burial or of 

 the date when the interments were made. The skulls 

 have been submitted to an expert, whose opinion as to 

 their age and race had not been received when the report 

 went to press. A model of the Coldrum structures has 

 been presented to the museum by Mr. F. J. Bennett. 



A fine skull of the horned Dinosaur, Triceratops 

 prorsus, has just been added to the gallery of fossil reptiles 

 in the British Museum (Natural History). The specimen 

 was discovered in the Laramie formation (Upper Creta- 

 ceous) of Wyoming, U.S.A., by Mr. Charles H. Sternberg, 

 who undertook a special expedition for the purpose of 

 making this addition to the museum collection. It is 

 nearly complete, only the middle of the occipital crest, the 

 left horn-core, and the left quadrate bone being restored 

 in plaster. The skull proper measures 33 feet in length, 

 while the crest extends backwards for another 3 feet, and 

 rises above the level of the tips of the horns. The brain- 

 cavity has been carefully cleaned by the preparator, Mr. 

 Frank O. Barlow, and a cast has been made in plaster. 

 The total length of the cavity is only 10 inches, and its 

 extreme width across the cerebral hemispheres is 2 J inches. 

 For some time the museum has possessed a plaster copy 

 of the restored skeleton of Triceratops as mounted in the 

 National Museum at Washington, but the new specimen 

 is the first actual skull of this remarkable reptile which 

 has been exhibited in Europe. Portions of two skulls of 

 the same genus, also discovered by Mr. Sternberg, have 

 lately been acquired by the Senckenberg Museum, Frank- 

 furt, where they are now being prepared. 



The Times of August 2S gives an interesting and very 

 graphic account of a remarkable hailstorm in the Pyrenees 

 NO. 2183, VOL. 87] 



on August 16. The narrative of the storm is written by 

 Mr. D. W. Wheeler, who, with his wife and Mr. O. P. 

 Tidman, were encamped in the valley of Arayas, by the 

 side of the Ordesa River. The valley lies on the Spanish 

 side of the Pyrenees, in the Provincia de Huesca, five or 

 six miles directly south of the Cirque of Gavarnie, and 

 has an altitude of 4400 feet. Two storms were experienced, 

 the first shortly after n a.m., and this was preceded by a 

 clouding in of the sky and darkness. Mr. Wheeler says 

 that midway in the darkness was the clear-cut straight 

 line of cloud which invariably tells of hail. At first a 

 few isolated hailstones were experienced, but soon the air 

 suddenly became full of hailstones, and in a few minutes 

 the storm had passed. The average size of the hailstones 

 in the first storm is described as that of a marble, but 

 mixed with these was a scattering of much larger stones, 

 almost as large as golf-balls. Another storm, which 

 followed fairly quickly on the first, was more severe. At 

 first marble-sized hail fell and lightning blazed. Suddenly 

 the whole land was bombarded by great hailstones as large 

 as lawn-tennis balls. The violence of the hail is described 

 as surpassing anything that had been previously heard of. 

 All the mountains around were white with the covering 

 of stones, which lay over everything like a sheet, so that 

 in an hour summer had become winter. The smaller 

 branches of trees had fallen as if they had been clipped 

 by hedgers. The open grassland is described as pitted with 

 holes, some of them a couple of inches in depth, and of 

 about the same diameter. Testing the weight of the stones 

 in two instances, in one six stones went to the kilogram, 

 in the other five, which gives 5 and 7 ounces respectively. 

 The size was that of a tennis-ball, and almost uniform. 

 The storm wrought much destruction in the Pyrenean 

 valleys. Seventy sheep were said to have been killed on 

 the heights immediately above the position occupied by the 

 writer of the narrative. Above the village of El Plan, 

 thirty-five cows and some mules were killed. The size 

 of the hailstones is said to have varied in different parts, 

 according to different peasants' accounts, from "hen's 

 eggs" to that of the closed fist. The Paris Bulletin Inter- 

 national gives no indication of any atmospheric disturbance 

 over the Spanish Peninsula. Mr. Wheeler directs attention 

 to a hailstorm which occurred in Moravia in 1S89, which 

 is described in " Chambers's Encyclopaedia," where the 

 hailstones are said to be the size of a man's fist, and 

 weighing 3 lb. Mr. Wheeler suggests that this should be 

 three to the lb. The Hon. Rollo Russell, in his work on 

 " Hail," describes a storm in the Orkneys in October, 

 1890, in which stones fell the size of a goose's egg, and 

 the weight of the largest stones was estimated at 8 oz., 

 and some penetrated the ground to the depth of 4 inches, 

 whilst the depth of the hail in the open fields was 

 9 inches. 



The drought of July in this country and the serious 

 drought in India are referred to in Symons's Meteorological 

 Magazine for August. A map shows the parts of the United 

 Kingdom in which more than ten consecutive days without 

 rain occurred ; in some districts in England, Wales, and the 

 south of Ireland the rainfall was under 5 per cent, of the 

 average, but was rather above the average in the west of 

 Scotland. The duration of twenty-five days of drought was 

 general to the west of a line drawn from the Solent to 

 Dunstable (Bedfordshire) ; several places had no rain for the 

 whole month, and the same district suffered droughts in 

 May and June, and again in August. In India the feeble- 

 ness of the south-west monsoon has caused great anxiety. 

 Reports in The Times and other papers showed that up to 

 July 28 the area most affected was west of a line drawn 



