594 



NA TURE 



[April 2 I , I { 



comparison being made as a test of the accuracy of tlie instru- 

 ments. Two recent earthquakes are discussed, each of which 

 was recorded in duplicate at the Tokio Observatory, by two 

 somewhat different forms of Ewing's horizontal pendulum 

 seimograph, and the autographic records are reproduced iu the 

 paper. Prof. Sekiya compares the corresponding motions .as 

 recorded by dilTerent instruments, and remarks that when the 

 records are gone through, wave by wave, the corresponding 

 pointers are found to h.ave drawn w.ives of exactly the same 

 amplitude and period, and even the irregular minor ripples which 

 are superposed on the principal undulations are reproduced 

 faithfully by both. He concludes that this exact coincidence 

 proves conclusively the trustworthiness of the horizontal pendu- 

 lum seismograph. The diagrams reproduced in the Journal 

 also show the vertical motion of the ground, as recorded by 

 Ewing's vertical motion seismograph. This motion, the author 

 points out, is much less in amplitude than the horizont.al motion 

 (usually from -J- to f), and its average period is only about 

 h.alf that of the horizontal motion. The three components of 

 motion, when combined, give a resultant form of extraordinary 

 complexity for tlie p.ath pursued by particles on the surface of 

 the ground during an earthquake shock. 



The Association Scientifique de France has discontinued the 

 publication of its weekly Bulletin, and will issue, instead, a 

 Comple rendu of the Conferences of the Association in half- 

 yearly volumes. A few advance parts will be published fort- 

 nightly, for the use of such of the members as may desire to have 

 them. The Bulletin has been published since 1864. 



Mr. J.\mes Wild, Geogr.apher to the Queen, died at his London 

 residence, at the age of seventy four, on the 17th inst. lie was 

 educated at Woohvich for the army, but afterwards devoted himself 

 to the production of scientific and educational works. He soon 

 became a member of various scientific .Societies, and his maps 

 and geographical works secured for him the position of Geo- 

 grapher to the Queen. For a good many years he had a seat 

 in Parliament. After his retirement from political life he repre- 

 sented the Ward of Cornhill in the Common Council, and he 

 took a leading part in directing the attention of the Cloth- 

 workers' Company, of which he was a member, to the subject of 

 technical education. It was mainly through his efforts that the 

 technical schools of Bristol, Manchester, and Leeds were 

 erected. Among the many honours conferred upon him was the 

 gold medal for scientific merit, granted by the present German 

 Emperor as King of Prussia. 



In a paper entitled "Field Notes from Afghanistan," printed 

 in the new number of Records of the Geological Survey of 

 India, Mr. C. L. Griesbach gives an account of instances of 

 recent glacial action observed by him when crossing the Hindu 

 Ki'ish by the Chahardar Pass in October l8S6. The road which 

 Ie.ids from Chapdarra camping- ground on the north side of the 

 Hindu Kush to the top of the pass ascends a n.arrow straight 

 valley, bounded on each side by steep cliffs, some of them 

 crowned with perpetual snow. The bottom of the valley itself 

 is greatly choked and partially filled with debris, which might be 

 simply the detritvis from the hill-sides. Large cones and fans 

 of fragmentary material descend from each small ravine on both 

 sides. So far only the configuration of the valley, its nearly 

 straight course and absence of larger side streams, would suggest 

 the former presence of gl.aciers. But on reaching an elevation 

 of i2,ooo feet, one suddenly comes to a huge mass of debris, 

 which closely resembles the recent accumulations near the 

 lower end of a glacier. Large blocks, some of them of immense 

 dimensions, are loosely mingled with angular fragments of every 

 size, and the whole is arranged like a dam across the valley. 

 The hill-sides (gneiss) are polished and grooved, and the black- 

 ened surfaces glisten and shine in the distance like metal. All 



the larger blocks show extensive grooving and deep ice-scratches 

 on their polished sides. This mass of debris lies at the l>ase of 

 a terrace filling the valley. Tlie former glacier, of which this is 

 the end moraine, w.as on the upper and raised portion of the 

 valley. The latter bears the remarkable appearance of an ice- 

 worn trough ; it is wider than the v.alley below, and its base is 

 now partially filled by finer debris, through which a small 

 stream winds its way amidst a series of swampy pools. It is 

 within the area of perpetual snow, and the latter with frozen 

 patches of ice lies on the hill-sides and in sheltered depressions. 

 The valley looks as if the glacier had only quite recently left it. 

 Moraines and glacial silt still lie as they were deposited. The 

 head and catcliment area of the valley close to the top of the 

 pass (14,100 feet) is still rather thickly covered witlr frozen 

 snow. Near the head of a narrovr valley leading from the 

 Chahardar Pass to the Deh-i-Tang, at an elevation of 12,050 

 feet above sea-level, several sra.aU r.avines join. Mr. Griesbach 

 noticed that three of these ravines were still filled with glaciers. 

 Although they were very small, the moraine accumulations near 

 their lower ends were enormous. 



In a highly important and interesting paper on the structure 

 of the Nostochineae, contained in the first volume of the new 

 Italian botanical journ.al Malpighii, Prof. A. Borzi, of Messina, 

 states the very interesting fact that, in .Vosloc ellipsosporiiiii an 1 

 other species of the same genus, a distinct communication can bo 

 detected between adjacent cells. If the cell is an intercalary one, it 

 has two pores at opposite poles ; if apical,, only one ; and througli 

 these pores pass very delicate threads of a substance which some- 

 times gives the reactions of protoplasm, sometimes of cyanophycin, 

 the substance of which, according to Borzi, both the cell-contents 

 and the investing gelatinous sheath of the Nostocaceae are com- 

 posed. This intercommunication between the cells is always 

 interrupted in the formation of heterocysts. During the tr.ans- 

 formation of ordinary cells into heterocysts, the walls become 

 thicker, the gelatinous substance of which they are composed 

 collecting especially round the pores through which the strands 

 pass, and eventually completely closing them up. In this way 

 is formed a short conical projection poiiting towards the 

 interior of the heterocyst. In the vegetative cells of the 

 filament, that is, those which are not ilestined to become hetero- 

 cysts, the connecting threals appear always to consist of proto- 

 plasm. In the hormogones this connexion between adjacent 

 cells is especially evident. In addition to several species of 

 Nostoc, Prof. Borzi has observed this interesting phenomenon in 

 several of the other families of Nostochine.ne or filamentous 

 Cyahophycena, viz. in the Scytonemacere, .Stigonemacese, and 

 Rivulariaceas. 



Prof. D. Kikuchi, of Tokio, who graduated 'at Cambridge 

 in 1877, is editing, at the request of the Education Department 

 of the Japanese Government, text-books of geometry and 

 algebra, those in use at present being very unsatisfactory. He 

 has already translated and published the syllabus of plane geo- 

 metry drawn up by the .-Vssociation for the Improvement of 

 Geometrical Teaching, and has also done the same for Clifford's 

 " Common Sense of the Exact Sciences." His principal cour e 

 of lectures — a two years' one — is on dynamics, commencing with 

 statics, and including sound and liquid waves. 



With reference to Mr. Hooper's paper on Gymiuma sylveslre, 

 printed by us hast week, Mr. J. C. Shenstone writes to us that 

 the peculiar properties of the phant were described in a cooi- 

 munication to the Linnean Society, December 7, 1847, by Capt. 

 Edgeworth. The plant was pointed out to him by the natives, 

 who H ere aware of its peculiarity. " No doubt," says Mr. 

 Shenstone, " this is the Mr. Edgeworth alluded toby Mr. Hooper 

 in his paper as having first discovered the property of the plant, 

 but a reference to the original cominunication may interest some 

 of your readers." 



