540 
NATURE 
[March 24, 1870 
chemical and agricultural science, new materials will be made 
available while a general summary of scientific facts and discoveries 
will form an important feature.” An editorial committee, com- 
prising some of the foremost scientific men in Canada, has been 
appointed and the publication remains, as before, under the 
“auspices” of the Natural History Society of Montreal. The 
number just received in this country contains, in addition to a 
batch of articles on different subjects in natural history, one on 
the partial eclipse of the sun in August last, as observed at Mont- 
real, by Dr. Smallwood. 
AN interesting report on the ravages of the Borer in Coffee 
estates has just been published by George Bidie, M.B., F.R.G.S. 
The coffee plant, as is well known, is not indigenous to 
Southern India, but was first introduced into India upwards of 
two centuries ago, by a Mussulman pilgrim, Bababooden, who 
on his return from Mecca brought a few berries in his wallet, 
and taking up his abode in the hills of Mysore, planted them 
near his tent, and from these the greater portion of the coffee 
now growing in Southern India has been derived. It is a 
native of Caffa in Southern Abyssinia. It is now largely 
cultivated in Mysore, Cuddoor, Coorg, and other parts along 
the crests and slopes of the Ghauts. It is a remarkably hardy 
plant, thriving at various elevations, and under the most different 
conditions of moisture, soil, and temperature. It is, however, 
liable to the attacks of certain insects, amongst which the Borer 
is the most formidable. This is shown by Dr. Bidie to be 
the larva of a beetle belonging to the Cerambycidz, and 
termed the Xy/otrechus guadrupes. The female lays its eggs 
in the bark of the plants, hot sunshine favouring their hatching. 
The larva immediately pierces the bark, and derives its 
nourishment from the more juicy layers, producing, by the 
damage it causes, exhaustion of the tree and loss of the crop. 
The whole duration of the life of the animal from the deposi- 
tion of the ovum to the death of the beetle does not exceed 
twelve months. The animal appears to be indigenous, and 
the causes that have led to the great increase in its ravages 
during the last few years are drought, want of shade, bad 
culture, destruction of forest trees in which the insect used to 
live, and departure of some of its enemies. © 
THE following changes are announced in the arrangements of 
the staff of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. One assistant-physi- 
cian is to have charge of the casualty department ; three casualty 
physicians are to act with him; and one casualty surgeon is to 
superintend the surgical side. The house-surgeons will have 
charge of casualty patients. 
TueE Geographical Society of St. Petersburg has decided to 
send a scientific expedition into Manchouria and Eastern 
Mongolia, for the purpose of making archeological and ethno- 
graphical researches in those countries. The expedition is to 
start next April, under the direction of the Archimandrite 
Palladiy, chief of the Russian mission at Pekin. It is said that 
the Emperor has contributed 5,000 roubles towards the ex- 
penses of the expedition. 
THE rainfall of the year ending December 31, 1869, as taken 
in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross, is registered as follows :— 
Number of inches fallen. 
23°760 
22110 
Height of gauge above ground. 
Gifeete ne es 
64 5, 
Mr. E. W. HiLeGarp, in his Geological Reconnaissance of 
Louisiana, finds reason for the assumption that ‘‘ the Gulf coast 
has in late quaternary times suffered a depression to the extent 
of at least 900 feet—perhaps more—and during the terrace 
epoch a contrary motion to the extent of about half that amount.” 
Elsewhere he remarks, ‘‘the age of the great gypsum for- 
mation has been the subject of much discussion. It has always 
seemed to me that the great extent of the area over which the 
cretaceous beds and underlying gypsum are known to be co- 
extensive, went far to prove that they belonged substantially to 
the same epoch. Whatever weight may attach to this argument 
it is greatly enhanced when we find the crystalline limestone and 
underlying gypsum not only reappearing in northern Louisiana, 
but actually accompanying each other beneath the waters of the 
Gulf of Mexico. Whether the volcanic agencies which even now 
so frequently disturb that great basin, have been instrumental in 
reducing the sulphur, distilling the petroleum and crystallising 
the rock salt of southern Louisiana, may be more profitably dis- 
cussed when more extensive excavations shall have given us an 
opportunity of closer inspection of the facts.” 
In reference to the electro-deposition of nickel, M. Bouilhet 
states that Jacobi published a method of obtaining thick coatings 
of nickel by using perfectly neutral solutions, Cosmos points out 
that nickel is especially abundant in Spain. 
ON THE TEMPERATURE AND ANIMAL LIFE 
OF THE DEEP SEA* 
108 
TURING the first and second cruises of the Porcupine, the 
temperature of the eastern border of the great North 
Atlantic basin was examined at various depths between from 
54 to 2,435 fathoms, and in widely different localities, ranging 
from lat. 47° to lat. 55°. The bottom-temperature was as- 
certained at thirty stations, and serial soundings were taken at 
seven stations ; making the total number of observations eighty- 
four. (Table IL, p. 20.) Amongst all these the coincidence 
of temperatures at corresponding depths is extraordinarily close; 
the chief differences showing themselves in the temperature of 
the surface and of the stratum immediately beneath it. A decided 
superheating is observable in this superficial stratum, not extend- 
ing toa depth of much more than 70 or 80 fathoms, and more 
considerable at the southern than at the northern stations. 
Whether this “superheating” is entirely due to the direct influ- 
ence of solar heat, or depends in any degree on an extension of 
the Gulf Stream as far as the southern part of the area examined, 
is a question which can only be resolved by the determination of 
its relative amount at different seasons. Between 100 and 500 
fathoms, the rate of decrement is very slow, averaging only about 
3° in the whole, or three-fourths of a degree for every 100 fathoms; 
and this body of water has a temperature so much above the 
isotherm of the northern stations at which the observations were 
mace, as decidedly to indicate that it must have found its way 
thither from a southern source. Between 500 and 750 fathoms, 
however, the rate of decrease becomes much more rapid, the 
reduction being 5°4°, or above 2° per 100 fathoms; while 
between 750 and 1000 fathoms it amounts to 3°1°, bringing 
down the temperature at the latter depth to an average of 
386°. Beneath this there is still a slow progressive reduction 
with increase of depth, the temperature falling a little moze 
than 2° between 1000 and 2,435 fathoms; so that at the last- 
named depth, the greatest at which it was ascertained, it was 
36°5°.— Thus it is obvious either that the vast body of water occu- 
pying the deeper half of the Atlantic basin has been itself derived 
from a colder region, or that its temperature has been reduced by 
the diffusion through it of frigid water from a Polar source. 
The latter supposition best accords with the gradual depression 
of temperature exhibited between 500 and 1000 fathoms, which 
corresponds with the ‘‘stratum of intermixture” of the cold 
area. 
The temperature soundings recently taken by Commander 
Chimmo, R.N., and Lieutenant Johnson, R.N., at various points 
in the North Atlantic basin, when the requisite corrections are 
applied for the influence of pressure on the bulbs of the unpro- 
tected thermometers employed by them, give results which are 
remarkably accordant with our own; so that it may be stated 
with confidence that the temperature of the deeper parts of the 
North Atlantic sea-board is but a very few degrees above the 
freezing-point, 
Now a glance at the North Polar region, as laid down either 
on a globe, or any projection of which the Pole is the centre, 
shows that the Polar basin is so much shut in by the northern 
shores of the European, Asiatic, and American continents, 
* A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution (continued from p. 490). 
