Dec. 20, iy!53] 



NA TURE 



In the American Journal of Science for September, 1883, 

 Messrs. Hague and Iddings prove that the four great volcanic 

 peaks of Mount Rainvier, Mount Hood, Mount Shasta, and 

 Lassen's Peak, rising to heights of from 10,500 to 14,444 feet 

 above sea-level in California, Washington Territory, and Oregon, 

 are mainly composed of andesitic lavas and tuffs, in vifhich 

 hypersthene i^ the prediminating bisilicate. 



In the Geological Magazine for July, 1SS3, Mr. Waller de- 

 scribes a similar rock from Mont-errat, and I have just analysed 

 one for Prof. Bonney from Old Providence Island in the Carib- 

 bean Sea. Prof. Bonney also informs me that he has found the 

 rhombic pyroxene in the anlesites brought by Mr. Whymper 

 from Pichincha and Antisina. 



It must not, however, be supposed that the rock is limited 

 either to the Pacific region or to the Tertiary and Recent periods. 



M. Fouque has shown that hypersthene occurs in the Santorin 

 lava of 1866. 



Niedzwiedski described a hypersthene-andesite from Steier- 

 mark in 1872. Mr. Whitman Cross and myself have recognised 

 the rhombic pyroxe'.e in many well known Hungarian rocks, in 

 which it had previously been regarded as au'^jite. Lastly, thanks 

 to kind assistance rendered by Prof. Rosenbusch, I have been 

 enabled to show that some Palceoznic lavas and tuffs of the 

 Cheviot region are of es-entially the same type (Geol. Mag., 

 March, June, and August, 1883). J. J. Harris Teall 



12, Cumberland Roarl, Kew 



Diffusion of Scientific Memoirs 

 Prof. Tait's admir.able remarks on the moral obligation laid 

 upon "every society whose memoirs are worthy of appearing in 

 print" to disseminate its publications must have awakened a 

 cordial response in the minds of many whose lot is cast in some 

 provincial cily or outlying Ijcal college. It is only too true that 

 the volumes of the Cambridge Philosophical Transactions are 

 "almost inaccessible" to many like myself, who often find 

 themselves tantalised by the desire of consulting some of the 

 classical masterpieces of research or analy-is therein enshrined, 

 which, therefore, are not to be consulted without a pilgrimage to 

 Cambridge or to London. Vet I hardly understand why Prof. 

 Tail should — save for the occasion of reviewing the happily ex- 

 humed memoirs of Prof. Stokes — have chosen the Cambridge 

 Transactions as the one instance of " inaccessibility," since it is 

 at least equally to be regretted that a memoir published in the 

 Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh — and there are 

 masterpieces of research and amiysis by the score irrevocably 

 buried therein — equally necessitates a pilgrimage on the part of 

 the provincial reader. I, for one, shall be extremely glad if Prof. 

 Tail will act upon his own prescription — that simple, easy cure — 

 and consider himself "bound to disseminate as widely as 

 possible " the memoirs which he has himself consig ed to those 

 very inaccessible Transactions. I doubt, indeed, if even Prof. 

 Tait has realised the difificulty besetting a would-be reader of 

 original memoirs and researches, who is compelled to journey 

 from one .-hore of England to the other in order to consult the 

 Edinburgh Transactions, the Cambridge Transactions, the 

 Comptes Rendus, the volumes of Poggendorff's Annalen, or 

 those of the Annates de Chemie et de Physique, or the memoirs 

 of any one of the five great Academies of the European 

 Continent. Silvanus P. Thompson 



University College, Bristol, December 14 



Deer and their Horns 

 Thf, (luestion is often asked, What becomes of the horns shed 

 ajfery year in tlie deer forests ? the number picked up or found 

 hardly accounts for all those which have been shed. It is said 

 that the deer themselves eat them. It is difficult to conceive how 

 a deer, with its toothless upper jaw, can eat a hard bone — for 

 such is a shed horn — but it seems probable, nevertheless, that 

 they do so. I picked up a horn recently in the deer forest at 

 Dunrobiii which appears to show that it has been in great part 

 eaten away ; and this, I think, was the opinion of the members 

 of the Zocjlogical Society to whom I exhibited it last Monday. 

 On inquiry from the head-keeper at Dunrobin, Mr. James Inglis, 

 I find that it is the general belief that the deer do eat°the 

 shed horns, whilst the appearance of the specimen here re- 

 ferred to, confirms the popular belief. The marks on it are 

 such as would be made by the broad incisors of the lower jaw, 

 and the appearance generally suggests that the horn has been 



gnawed and mumbled by the cutting teeth of the lower and the 

 toothless gums of the upper jaw. It would appear, therefore, I 

 think, that deer do eat some at least of the shed horns, and this 



Red deer's liorn, eaten (by other deer?), picked up in deer forest, Suther 

 land, 1883. A young stag's from. 



is rendered the more probable by the fact, according to Mr. 

 Inglis, that there are no foxes or other animals in this ]iarticular 

 forest to account for the mischief. J. Faykkr 



December 8 



" I BEG leave to inform you that I am unable to say from per- 

 sonal knowledge whether it is the stags or hinds that eat the 

 shed horns in the forest. I have never seen either eatuvj Iiorns, 

 but I have no doubt they do so, probably both stags and h^rds. 



" I have never known dogs to eat deer-honis, and we hnve no 

 foxes in our forest, and very rarely any dogs are to lie seen 

 in it; 'even although they should eat them,' the i umber of 

 pieces we find all the year round, nearly all partially eaten, 

 leaves no room to doubt that no other animal could have eaten 

 them. I think they commonly eat them after they have been 

 lying exposed to the weather for some time ; the horns are then 

 softer from exposure. 



" In eveiy case that I have seen, they commence at the top or 

 point of the horn, and eat down towards the root or burr ; the 

 latter part is often left uneaten. As soon as I can collect a few 

 specimens I will send them to you. 



" We often find burns entire without any marks of teeth on 

 them, but those are mostly not long shed. I have also got hirns 

 that had apparently lain for years without any marks on them. 

 But of course no one would expect all the shed horns to be 

 eaten. 



" I am sorry that I cannot give you more information, ,nnd I 

 am also sorry that as yet I have not been able to collect more 

 information than I know myself, but when I have any fiesh 

 evidence I will let you know. "James Inglis 



" November 18 " 



Sprengel on the Fertilisation of Flowers 



In Nature, vol. xxix. p. 29, is a letter from Prof. H.agen 

 of Cambridge, Mass., calling attention to the fact that .Sprengel's 

 treatise on the structure and fertilisation of flowers >' a^ not 

 unappreciated in his own day. Now it so happened that only a 

 week or two before reading this I took up by chance the " In- 

 troduction to Physiolog'cal and Systematical Botany," by Sir 

 James Edward Smith, the American edition, dated 1814. On 

 p. 208 the author says : — 



