Feb. 2 1, 1884] 



NATURE 



397 



1 iveis, dating from the time when the Tertiary sea-bed w as raised 

 into land. Originally its source probably lay to the west of the 

 existing Jurassic escarpment of the Cot-wold Hills, and it flowed 

 eastward before the Chalk e^carpment had emerged. By degrees 

 the Chalk downs have appeared, and the escarpment has re- 

 treated many miles eastward. The river, however, having 

 fixed its course in the Chalk, has cut its way down into it, and 

 now seems as if it had broken a path for itself across the escarp- 

 ment. As all the escarpments are creeping eastward, the length 

 and drainage area of the Thames are necessarily slowly diminish- 

 ing. The Severn presents a much more complex comrse ; but 

 its windinijs across the most varied geological striictur« are to be 

 explained by its having found a channel on the rising floor of 

 Secondary rocks between the base of the Welsh hills and the 

 nascent Jurassic escarpments. The Wye and Usk afford remark- 

 able examples of the trenching of a tableland. The Tay and 

 Nith are more intricate in their history. The Shannon began 

 to flow over the central Irish plain when it was covered with 

 several thousand feet of strata now removed. In deepening its 

 channel it has cut down into the range of hills north of Limerick, 

 and has actually sawn it into two. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



The American Journal of Scunce, January, 18S4. — The effect 

 of a warmer climate on glaciers, by Capt. C. E. Button. The 

 .author fully discusses the theory of those jwho argue that the 

 more copious snowfall required for a more e.xtended system of 

 glaciation implied more atmospheric moisture, greater evapora- 

 tion, and a generally higher temperature ; in fact, a warmer 

 climate than at present, due probably to a greater rate of solar 

 radiation. He concludes that the possibility of obtaining a 

 ijreater snowfall by a warmer climate would be necessarily 

 limited to the Arctic regions, or to altitudes far above the pre- 

 sent snow line. Elsewhere a higher temperature would add 

 to the rainfall, and actually diminish the snowfall. The advo- 

 cates of the theory have failed to perceive that the additional 

 moisture postulated could fall only as rain. Not until the air 

 has discharged as rain all the moisture in excess of the quantity 

 which saturates it at zero, can it begin to yield snow. — On the 

 application of Wright's apparatus for distilling, to the filling of 

 barometer tubes (one illustration), by Frank Waldo. — Account 

 of a new method of measuring the energy expended on or ren- 

 dered by a dynamo or a magneto machine m connection \\ ith 

 the production of electricity in a large way, by C. F. Brackett. 

 — On some points in climatology : a rejoinder to Mr. Croll, by 

 Simon Newcomb. The assumed low er mean temperature of the 

 northern hemisphere at some former geological epoch is attri- 

 buted by Mr. CroU to a greater eccentricity of the earth's orbit, 

 combined with a position of the perihelion near the northern 

 solstice, causing a short perihelion summer and a correspondingly 

 long aphelion winter. To this the author replies that too little 

 is known of the laws of terrestrial radiation of heat through the 

 atmosphere to justify the establishment of any theory of the 

 glacial epoch, and that, in any case Mr. Croll fails to show why 

 the mean temperature should be different at the supposed periods. 

 Hence the conclusion, not that Mr. Croll's theory is false, but 

 that it is not proven. — An account of some recent methods 

 of photographing the solar corona without an eclipse, and of 

 the results obtained (one illustration), by Dr. W. Huggins. — 

 Elliptical elements of comet 1882 I., by F. J. Parsons. — The 

 Minnesota Valley in the Ice Age, by Warren Upham. — On the 

 so-called dimorphism in the genus Camharus, by Walter Faxon. 

 — Evolution of the American trotting horse, by Francis E. 

 Nipher. In reply to the criticism of Mr. W. H. Pickering, the 

 author argues that the known facts are not opposed to the conclu- 

 sion that the trotting horse may finally trot his mile in about the 

 same time that the running horse will cover the same distance. — 

 On the origin of jointed structure, by G. N. Gilbert. — A theory 

 of the earthquakes of the Great Basin, by the same author. 



Revue d' Anthropohgie, tome vi. fasc. 4, Paiis, 1883. — The 

 larger portion of this number is devoted to M. Mathias Duval's 

 lecture on Transformisni, of which two parts have already 

 appeared in the earlier fascicules of the Revue for 18S3. For 

 English readers generally the address lacks the interest of 

 novelty, as it is little more than an exposition of the works and 

 opinions of Darwin and of the principal authorities, chiefly 

 English, whose observations corroborate his views. It is satis- 

 factory, however, to find that, while maintaining with patriotic 



zeal Lamarck's claim to be regarded as the originator of the 

 theory of evolution, M. Duval recognises in Darwin the one 

 man who, through varied yet profound scientific acquirements, 

 intellectual qualifications, and special personal and social condi- 

 tions, was alone capable of giving to novel conclusions of such 

 extraordinary significance the authoritative force .and stability of 

 a tiue science. — On so-called Wormian or supernumerary bones 

 in domestic animals, by M. Cornevin, Professor in the Lyons 

 Veterinary College. The author finds that while in man such 

 bones are generally cranial, in animals they are facial, and he 

 believes him elf justified in drawing from his observations two 

 important conclusions (which, however, need support) that in 

 animals the Wormians appear some time after birth, deve- 

 loping more and more with age, and that they are of frequent 

 occurrence in the less carefully bred races, while they 

 are very rarely found in the high breeds of horses, oxen, .sheep, 

 pigs, &c. — On the Kalmuks, by M. Deniker. The author, who 

 is a native of the regions which he describes, has made the 

 presence of an encampment of Kalmuks in the " Jardiu d'Accli- 

 matation," at Paris, the occasion for bringing together all the 

 most reliable historical, geographic, ethnic, and socio-physical 

 data in connection with this people, whose various migrations, 

 including their great exodus from the region of the Volga in the 

 eighteenth century, he treats at great length. He considers the 

 oblique opening c^f the eye, which most writers accept as an 

 ethnic characteristic, as of little scientific value, since it is not of 

 specially frequent occurrence among pure Mongols such as are 

 the Kalmuks ; but he recognises, on the other hand, that such an 

 ethnological peculiarity is to be found in a peculiar introversion 

 of the upper eyelid which in young Kalmuk children has often 

 the effect of obliterating the eyelashes ; while the general nar- 

 rowness of the opening imparts a triangular form to the eye. 

 Black, scantily developed hair, dark brown eye-, slightly yellow 

 skin, and a statme somewhat below the mean (the adult Kalmuk 

 presenting the proportions of Europeans of thirteen to fourteen 

 years of age), constitute the chief physical characteristics of the 

 Mongol race The pa[.er, which is illustrated by an admirable 

 map of the Kourghees and Kirghees territories of South Russia 

 and West Thibet, will be continued in a subsequent number. 



journal of the Russian Chemical and Physical Society, vol. xv. 

 fasc. 7. — On the relations between the refracting power and the 

 chemical constitution, by S. Kanonnikoff. — On the velocities of 

 chemical reactions, by A. Potylitzin. The thermo-chemical 

 equivalents obtained separately for several pairs of elements 

 allow to foresee only the direction which will be taken by the 

 reaction when they are brought together ; the heat disengaged 

 by one pair of elements brought into reaction in the presence of 

 other bodies, which are also liable to chemical modifications, is 

 not equal to the whole of the thermo-chemical work of the pair, 

 a part of it being employed for chemical work in the accessory 

 bodies ; the thermo-chemical equivalents are proportionate to 

 the velocities during the first moments of the reaction. — Sketch 

 of the present state of the theory of explosive sub-tances, by S. 

 Tcheltsoff. The actual tendency of the technics to substitute 

 determined chemical combinations, instead of the mixtures 

 w hich w ere used at first as explosives, is quite rational. Not only 

 the decomposition goes on with more regularity in a chemical com- 

 pound, but also the potential energy is greater. — On the chloride 

 of pyro.sulphuryl, by D. Konovaloff. — On the cause of the 

 changes in the galvanic resistance of selenium under the influeijce 

 of light, by N. Hesehus. The author concludes in favc ur of 

 the dissociation transmitted into the interior of the body as the 

 cause of this change, and, following the hints of Mes-rs. Bidwell 

 and Siemens, tries to prove it by mathematical argi ments. — 

 Notes on radiophony, by M. Geritch ; and on resounding 

 tubes, by M. Bachmetieff. 



Zeitschrift fiir wissenschajtliclie Zoologie, vol. xxxix. Part 2, 

 November 6, 1S83, contains: — Researches on the brain struc- 

 tures in Petromyzons, by Dr. F. Ahlborn (plates 13-17). A 

 very excellent and detailed_memoir, based chiefly on the brain in 

 Petromyzon plancri and P. fluviatilis. — On the biology and 

 anatomy of Clione, by N. Nassonow, assistant in the Zoological 

 Museum of Moscow (plates 18 and 19). These investigations 

 were carried on at the biological station at Sebastopol, and on 

 an apparently new form called C. stationis, found in the shdls of 

 Ostrea adrialica, in it the oscula are prominent orange-coloured. 

 Branching plasmodia were traced through the shell-structure, 

 reminding one of the mycelial threads of a fun;.<us. — Contribu- 

 tions to the histology of the Echinoderms, by Dr. Otto Hamann 



