August 7, 1913] 



NATURE 



S8: 



fever, when the auroras were very bright, consecu- 

 tive exposures were given, lasting from o'5 

 second to 1 second for each image. 



Another series of about ioo photographs was 

 taken on April 8 with the kinematograph, each 

 exposure lasting about four seconds. These 

 photographs demonstrate the great utility of this 

 instrument not only in obtaining consecutive 

 features of the displays, but in securing ordinary 

 photographs at the two stations. The communica- 

 tion is accompanied by two most interesting 

 plates. The first of these shows excellent repro- 

 ductions of the aurora on March 3, photographed 

 at the two stations at the same time, with 

 clear impressions of the stars, demonstrating at 

 a glance the parallactic effect (Fig 1). The second 

 plate reproduces four portions of the kinemato- 

 graph strip exposed on April 8 at Bossekop. These 

 speak for themselves in indicating the valuable aid 

 the kinematograph brings to auroral studies. A 

 7iortion of these strips is here reproduced, the ex- 

 posures for each portion being four seconds (Fig. 

 2). The gradual change in form and density of the 

 filaments illustrated is here clearly indicated. M. 

 Stormer states that the results of this expedition 

 will be published in considerable detail in a subse- 

 quent memoir, and the above brief summary is 

 sufficient to show that the memoir will be a most 

 valuable contribution to our knowledge of the 

 aurora. 



THE INTERN 17 ION 1 /. MEDIC 1/ 

 CONGRESS. 



THE International Medical Congress, which is 

 now meeting in London, may fairly be de- 

 scribed as the greatest scientific congress ever 

 held in the metropolis; for the time has gone rot- 

 ever when a medical congress can be confined to 

 the sciences commonly thought of as medical, and 

 it is probable that the future will remember with 

 most gratitude those contributions to the present 

 congress which may seem to have the least rela- 

 tion to medicine. 



\ T o single fact marks better the advance of 

 medical thought since last the congress met in 

 London, thirty-two vears ago, than the deliverv 

 of an address by Mr. \Y. Bateson on heredity. 

 The supreme names of the past may have no living 

 parallels, but their work bears fruit. Pasteur is 

 gone, but the bacteriologists are all in force at 

 the congress, and his pupil Laveran, who dis- 

 covered the parasite of malaria a generation ago, 

 is here to see, at any rate in tropical medicine, 

 something like the realisation of his master's 

 dictum that " it is in the power of man to make 

 all parasitic diseases disappear from the earth." 

 Lister is not here, but Prof, dishing can scarcely 

 fail to refer to the surgery of the pituitary body, 

 which seemed wildly impossible only a few vears 

 asjo. Jonathan Hutchinson is not here, but Prof. 

 Ehrlich will report on the modern treatment of 

 syphilis, though Schaudinn, who found the 

 spirochete, did not live to hear of salvarsan. 

 XO. 2284, VOL. 91] 



The congress will greatly serve science, but it 

 may still more greatlj serve public opinion, and 

 even develop something like public wisdom in 

 some respects. The international resolution on 

 the value of vivisection will be an illustration of 

 this, and also the discussion on alcohol and de- 

 generacy ; but most may be hoped from the dis- 

 cission, in the Albert Hall itself, of the duty of 

 the State in respect of syphilis. This can si ar< eh 

 fail to reinforce the demand for a Royal Com- 

 mission lately made by the leaders of medicine in 

 this country, supported by the British Medical 

 Association at Brighton, and repeated by the 

 English-Speaking Conference on Infant Mor- 

 tality in London on Tuesday, on behalf of abso- 

 lute innocence, now commonly murdered by our 

 immoral neglect of this subject. 



THE RIVERS OF THE SCOTTISH 

 LOWLANDS. 1 



THE handsome volume before us is about evenl) 

 divided between the physiographic and 

 industrial questions of the Forth area, and in this 

 combination of interests serves to remind us of 

 the enormous scope of modern geography. 



Mr. Cadell has qualified himself to be the 

 historian of the Forth by a long period of service 

 in the Geological Survey of Scotland ; and for the 

 subjects treated in the latter half of the book by 

 an almost equally long period of public service 

 in the Lothians. 



The history of the Forth begins naturally with 

 the origin of the solid rocks which form the floor 

 of its valley. These foundation-stones were laid 

 in the far-off times of the Old Red Sandstone 

 lakes and the steamy swamps of the Carboniferous. 

 In the first three chapters an excellent light treat- 

 ment of the many points of interest in connection 

 with the deposition of these rocks, especially the 

 economic materials they contain, is given. After 

 the formation of this basement there must have 

 been a long period of peneplanation, then sub- 

 mergence, and finally re-emergence of the pene- 

 plane with a slight tilt en blot to the east. This 

 tilt determined the direction of the Forth and 

 other consequent rivers. 



The most original and interesting portion of the 

 book, perhaps, is that which deals with the 

 development of the river system. The Forth, 

 however, cannot be treated in this respect as a 

 separate entity. Its origin involves that of the 

 Clyde and Tweed, and also the lochs of Dum- 

 bartonshire and Argyllshire. The Forth originally 

 rose in the highlands of the latter counties, but 

 its headwaters were captured by an energetic 

 stream which flowed southward down what is now 

 the Firth of Clyde. The well-marked narrow- 

 trench crossing the Midland Valley from Clyde- 

 bank to Grangemouth is now occupied by small 

 streams totally disproportionate to its size, and 

 is regarded by Mr. Cadell as the course of a 

 former large tributary of the Forth. The Clyde 



1 "TheSlorvof the Forth." By H M. Cadell. Pp. .Yvii + 299+plates 

 Glasgow : James Macteho.-e and Son«, 1913.) Price 16s. net. 



