534 



NATURE 



[Oc/. 7. 1880 



gradients. (2) On the nearness of the observer to the path of 

 the cyclone centre. (3) On the velocity of translation of that 

 centre. 



In a great many cases I have observed, especially in the 

 west of Ireland, that when a rapid fall of the barometer is 

 reported, the wind is much stronger than existing gradients 

 would seem to justify. 



From this it would seem than the rate at which the change of 

 pressures is taking place has some influence on the strength of 

 the wind. 



3. Prof. Loomis has shown in his examination of the U.S. 

 Weather Charts that in American cyclones the area of rain- 

 cloud extends further in front when these storms are going fast 

 than when they are going slow. 



From this it would appear that another element of intensity 

 besides wind, viz., precipitation, is increased when a cyclone 

 centre moves with great rapidity. 



It was mainly on these grounds that 1 based the statement in 

 my former letter. Ralph Abercromby 



21, Chapel Street, Belgrave Square, October 5 



Deltocyathus Italicus, Ed. and H. 



I FIND that Prof. Ralph Tate, F.G.S., President of the 

 Adelaide Philosophical Society, has lately written as follows in 

 an anniversary address. "On the other hand the Geelong 

 coral, Deltocyathus italicus, Ed. and H., better known from tlie 

 Italian Miocenes, is considered by Count Pourtales and Sir 

 Wyville Thomson to be specifically distinct from its livinj 

 analogue inhabiting the deep waters of> Florida — an opposite 

 opinion to that held by Prof. Duncan." During the last 

 conversation I had \\'ith the late M. de Pourtales he informed 

 me that after having seen and studied the Italian types, he was 

 satisfied that I was correct in the statement I had made regarding 

 the specific identity of the Tertiary and recent forms. 



P. Martin Duncan 



4, St. George's Terrace, Regent's Park, N. W. 



Temperature of the Breath 

 My attention has been directed to a communication under the 

 above heading by R. E. Dudgeon, in Nature, vol. xxii. p. 

 241. The speculations therein raised regarding the temperature 

 of the breath are scarcely compatible with ascertained physio- 

 logical truth. Mr. Dudgeon's friend's explanation, against which 

 he argues, is undoubtedly correct. The great value of woollen 

 clothing in preventing chill after exercise may be explained on 

 the same principles. The hygroscopic state of the atmosphere 

 (and material) is the condition which causes variation in different 

 experiments. Different materials have effects corresponding to 

 their hygroscopic properties. The following results of a few 

 experiments which I recently made speak for themselves : — 

 No. I. — Temp, of air, 87° F. — Air moderately dry (dew point 

 not ascertained). 

 ,, breath, 96° in mouth cavity. 

 ,, ,, I02°'9. — Thermometer enveloped in 



four folds wool, 

 f, ,, 102^*2. — Thermometer enveloped in 



four folds silk. 

 ,, ,, ioo'"S. — Thermometer enveloped in 



four folds linen. 

 No. 2. — Temp, of air, 79° F. — Air very damp, raining heavily. 

 ,, breath, 97° in mouth cavity. 

 ,, ,, 99° ,, through four folds of silk. 



Time occupied in each observation, three minutes. 

 Madras, September 9 C. J. McNally 



Swiss Chalets 

 1 DO not know whether the idea has previously occurred to 

 any one that the modern Swiss chalet is a descendant of the old 

 lake dwelling, but I was strongly impressed with that conviction 

 this autumn. Not only do they actually build the smaller chalets, 

 used as storehouses, entirely on short piles, but very many of the 

 dwelling-houses are still one half on piles, the steps leading up 

 to the gallery passing through a hole in tlie middle, so that tlie 

 modern exterior gallery would represent the original platform. 

 In the lake dwelling the probability is (I would suggest) that 

 there was a trap-door in the centre of the platform, inside the 

 inhabited part, with a movable ladder, so that the latter could 



be drawn up and the trap-door closed if required. At the present 

 day the ladder is represented by fixed wooden or stone steps 

 leading up into the gallery. The house being now on land, the 

 lower part is half or entirely closed in, and so forms an extra 

 chamber, though the family still dwell above the platform (i.e. 

 the gallery) as in days of yore. George Henslow 



Fascination 



Fascination originally meant a supposed power in man and 

 snakes of controlling or arresting the movements of various 

 animals by a glance. Your correspondent M. Chatel's personal 

 anecdote, with his comment thereon, suggests that the snake in 

 some way mesmerises his victim, not by its glance but by its 

 movements. His supposition that "the rapid gyratory motion 

 of a shining object " leads on to the debilitating nervous attack, 

 is open to debate. In displays of fireworks such motion occurs 

 before crowds without making any one sick or frightened 

 or inclined to rush into the middle of a catharine-wheel. 

 However then the motions of the snake, whether swift or slow, 

 may avail in attracting and fixing attention, the final catastrophe 

 is probably -due to pure fright, according to the old saying, 

 Miillis ipsum metuisse nocct. We may safely infer that your 

 correspondent himself would have felt no squeezing round his 

 temples had he known at first that the snal<e was for him a 

 harmless one, and not a viper nearly five feet long! 



In the opening letter on this subject the basilisk and the 

 bombshell seemed to be endowed alike with a semi-miraculous 

 power of enchaining the victims that looked upon them. Now, 

 that small birds should be paralysed with terror at the sight of 

 a gesticulating snake is possible or probable enough ; but that 

 English officers should be rooted to the ground by mere alarm 

 at the flight of shot or shell is an uncongenial explanation of 

 facts which appear to me capable of interpretation on a 

 different hypothesis. 



In moral, as distinct from physical, perils, there is good 

 reason to suppose that too close a concentration of thought 

 upon a danger has a tendency to overpower the will and bend it 

 to the commission of the very acts which the intellect has pro- 

 nounced unchoiceworthy. But the acts so committed carry with 

 them present gratification. To use the common simile, men fly 

 to them as moths to a candle, not because they are panic- 

 stricken, but because the sense of the danger is lost in the 

 pleasure that attends it. 



I am inclined, in the present state of the controversy, to 

 gi'oup the effects of so-called fascination under three heads : 

 (i) there is the effect of paralysing terror ; (2) there is the effect 

 of indecision ; (3) there is the effect of qualities attractive and 

 repulsive accidentally combined in the same object. The first 

 and second effects are perhaps at times combined together in 

 various degrees, and mixed with that absorbing curiosity of which 

 Mr. Hodgson speaks (Nature, vol. xxii. p. 383), but which by 

 itself seems rather to deserve the name of abstraction than ot 

 fascination. 



As to fascination in the original sense of the word, its nature 

 may await discussion till observation proves that such a power 

 in reality exists. Thom.\s R. R. StebbinG 



Tunbridge Wells, September 27 



Air-Bladder of Herring 



In Nature, vol. xxii. p. 520, there was an abstract of Mr. F. 

 W. Bennett's paper on the "Visceral Anatomy of the Herring" 

 (Journ. Aiiat. and Phys., July 18S0). It has escaped the notice 

 of Mr. Bennett that Dr. E. H. Weber described and figured 

 (Tab. vii. 63) the posterior opening of the air-bladder of C. 

 /;.7?r«i'/M into the urogenital sinus in his " De Aure et Auditu 

 Hominis et Animalium," pars i. 1S20. 



Zoological Museum, Cambridge ALFRED C. HaddON 



The "Waiting Carriage" 

 M. Hanrez' proposed " w.iiting carriage" (Nature, xxii. 

 519) has doubtless been schemed by many readers before now. 

 A simpler form had long ago occurred to me, having the drum 

 of cable in the train engine, the cable passing under the carriages 

 and catching the waiting carriage at the tail. The running out 

 of rope could be as well managed at one end of the train as at 

 the other, and only an ordinary carriage without any special 

 engine would be required, which would be dropped just before 



