5iS 



NATURE 



[Sept. 30, 1880 



arguments upon both sides and had some correspondence with 

 leaders of the anti-vivisection movement, I have been led to 

 think tliat the discussion may be simplified, and a right conclu- 

 sion sooner reached, if we adopt new terms corresponding to 

 the tHO kinds of experimentation. Having waited long in the 

 hope that some candid discussion of the whole subject might 

 contain the needed terms, I venture to suggest that painful 

 vivisection be known as sentisfciion, and painless vivisection as 

 (aUisation. The etymology of the former word is obvious ; tlie 

 distinctive element of the latter is the Latin callus, which, 'in a 

 derived sense, may denote a nervous condition unrecognised, 

 strictly speaking, by the ancients. Some idea of the relative 

 numbers of callisectionists and sentisectionists may be gained 

 from the fact that I have been teaching physiology in a uni- 

 versity for twelve years, and for half that time in a medical 

 school ; yet I have never performed a sentisection, unless under 

 that head should be included the drowning of cats, and the 

 application of water at the temperature of 60° C. (140° F.), 

 with the view to ascertain whether such treatment would be 

 likely to succeed with human beings. I think that even 

 elementary physiological instruction is incomplete without 

 callisection, but that sentisection should be the unwelcome 

 prerogative of the very few whose natural and acquired 

 powers of body and mind qualify them above others to deter- 

 mme what experiments should be done to perform them properly 

 and to w isely interpret the results. Such men, deserving alike 

 of the highest honour and the deepest pity, should exercise their 

 solemn office not only unrestrained by lau-, but upheld by the 

 general sentiment of the profession and the public." 



American papers speak of remarkable clouds of flies that 

 have visited various districts. At East Pictou, Nova Scotia 

 (about ^44° 50' N., 6j° W.), such a cloud was seen on August 

 21. "They passed Lismore about six o'clock in the evening 

 close to the shore. They went with the wind, which was 

 blowing lightly from the west, occupying about twenty minutes 

 passing a given point. They made a loud buzzing noise, which 

 was heard by many who missed seeing them. They flew so 

 low that some of them appeared to fall into the water. About 

 two miles below Lismore they slightly changed their flight 

 heading more to the north. After their passage numbers of 

 strange flies were observed in some of the houses near the shore 

 They w ere about half an inch in length, with wings propor- 

 tionately longer than those of the common house-fly, but 

 whether they belonged to the swarm is uncertain." At Halifa.x, 

 Nova Scotia, immense swarms passed over Guy^boro' (lat' 

 44' 40' N., long. 61° 30' W.), on September 5. They came 

 from the east and resembled a dark cloud. A communication 

 from Toughkeepsie, New York (lat. 41° 50' N., long. 74° W.) 

 states that a storm of flies was encountered on the Hudson 

 Kiver on the afternoon of Sej.tember 4. The steamer Martin 

 bound south, encountered the fly storm between New ILimburah 

 and Newburgh. It seemed like a great drift of black snow 

 and it reached southward from shore to shore as far as the eye 

 could reach. There were millions upon millions of the flies 

 and they hurried northward as thick as snow-flakes driven by a 

 strong wind. They were long and black and had liolu win^s 

 and the cloud must have been miles in length. 0°ur readers 

 may remember that some weeks ago we recorded a somewhat 

 similar phenomenon as having been seen in various parts of 

 trance. 



A VERY successful attempt has been made to measure a base- 

 line, near Aarberg, for the triangulation of Switzerland. The 

 lust measurement gave 2400-087 metres; the second, made inde- 

 pendently of the first, gave 2400-085 metres as the result, the 

 dilTerence between the two being thus only two millimetres The 

 measurement was made under the direction of the Spanish 

 Ueneral Ibanez, who invented the instrument by which the work 



was done The place selected for the line is on the Sisselen 

 road, which presents here an almost straight and level line of 

 three kilometres. 



A CONGRESS is to [be held from October i to 10 at Saragossa, 

 to discuss matters relating to the phylloxera. 



The "Elephant Sugar Cane" of Cochin China, which is 

 said, though this requires confirmation, to reach a height of 

 eleven feet and a diameter of seven inches in six months, has 

 been successfully introduced by the Royal Gardens, Kew, from 

 Saigcn, into Jamaica. The rather sensational repntation of this 

 variety has excited a good deal of interest in it amongst the West 

 Indian planters. 



Mr. Roland Trimen, the Curator of the South African 

 Museum, has arrived in this country. 



The Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute for 1S7S 

 shows that it continues to be as active as ever in the advance- 

 ment of scientific knowledge. In all its departments a vast 

 amount of work has been done during the year, much of this 

 work being really of an international character. Many valuable 

 additions were made to the National Museum during the year, 

 and several monographs of the first importance published. On^ 

 of the principal papers in the volume is a memoir of the late 

 Prof. Joseph Henry, by Prof. Asa Gray. About 100 pages 

 are devoted to a paper by Mr. W. B. Tayler on " Henry and 

 the Telegraph," and another long paper describes Henry's 

 researches on sound, with special reference to fog-sigiialling. 

 Other papers are a translation of Arago's biography of Con- 

 dorcet ; Ernest Favre's biographical notice of Louis Agassiz ; 

 "The Effect of Irritation of a Polarised Nerve;" "Pfluger's 

 Electrotonus," by Dr. B. F. Lautenbach ; "Researches on Fever," 

 by Dr. H. C. Wood; "Constants of Nature," by Prof. John 

 LeConte ; list of apparatus relating to heat, light, electricity, 

 magnetism, and sound, available for scientific researches involv- 

 ing accurate measurements, in various institutions in the United 

 States ; " Ornithological Exploration of the Caribbee Islands," 

 by Mr. F. A. Ober ; "Report of Explorations in Greenland," 

 by L. Kumlein. 



Vol. XVI. of the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society of Victoria contains the results of a very satisfactory 

 year's work. The following are among the papers in this 

 volume :— " On the Relation between Forest Lands and Climate 

 in Victoria," by R. L. J. Ellery, F.R.S. ; "Experiments on the 

 Tensile Strength of a few of the Colonial Timbers," by Fred. A. 

 Campbell, C.E. ; "The Diorites and Granites of Swift's Creek 

 and their Contact Zones, with Notes on the Auriferous Deposits," 

 by A. W. Howitt, F.G.S. ; "On the Genus Amathia of La- 

 maroux, with a Description of a New Species," by the Rev. J. 

 E. Tenison-Woods, F.G.S. , &c. ; "Notes on the Customs of 

 Mota, Banks Islands," by the Rev. R. H. Codrington, M.A., 

 Oxford, with Remarks by the Rev. Lorimer Fison, Fiji ; "Some 

 New Localities for Minerals in Victoria," by J. Cosmo New- 

 berry ; "The Tidal Datum of Hobson's Bay," by R. L. J. 

 Ellery, F.R.S. ; "Notes on the Geology of the West Tamar 

 Histrict, Tasmania," by Norman Taylor; "Observations of 

 the Outer Satellite of Mars in 1S79," by E. J. White, F.R.A.S. 

 \\'illiams and Norgate are the London agents of this Society. 



The Government of India has offered the prize of 100/. for 

 the best "Manual of Hygiene," to serve as a text-book for the 

 u,e of the British soldiers in that country. Works submitted in 

 competition for this prize must be sent in by their authors to the 

 Secietarj- to the Government of India in the Military Department 

 at Calcutta, so as to reach his hands not later than the last day 

 of next March. The work is "to be written in clear and simple 

 English, and thoroughly practical, showing the ordinary causes 



