230 



NA TURE 



[July 5, 1906 



appear to bear the same relation to the buffaloes of that 

 continent that the North American bison does to the 

 American buffalo"; while on the preceding page we are 

 informed that " the camels and llamas form transition 

 species between horses and oxen (ruminants and solid 

 ungulates)." Almost equally original pieces of inform- 

 ation occur on other pages. 



In the Bulletin (May) of the Department of .Agriculture, 

 Jamaica, a new epiphytic fern, allied to the rare Poly- 

 podium Fawcettii and Polypodiiim dendricolum, is described 

 by Mr. W. R. Maxon under the name of Polypodiiim 

 nesioticum. Reference is made to a weevil attacking the 

 camphor trees at Cinchona that has been identified as 

 Hilipus elegans, a species abundant in Central America, 

 whence it has been probably imported to Jamaica. The 

 Bulletin also contains a note on the coagulation of Castilloa 

 rubber, as well as an article recommending the plantation 

 of Castilloa trees in Nicaragua in preference to Hevea. 



The investigation of the fungi that prey upon scale- 

 insects has its practical aspect, as already some of these 

 fungi have been successfully employed in the United States 

 as remedies against scale-pests. They are probablv un- 

 important in temperate regions, but in the tropics they 

 are widely spread, as may be gathered from an account 

 contributed by Mr. J. Parkin to the Annals of the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, Ceylon, vol. iii., part i., reviewing the 

 subject generally and making special reference to Ceylon 

 forms. All the fungi so far determined fall under the 

 Ascomycetes, and most of them belong to the Hypocreales, 

 the best-known genus being Nectria. Other genera are 

 classed with the fungi impfrfecti, although they are prob- 

 ably conidial stages of the Hypocreales. 



In accordance with the announcement that papers on 

 systematic botany and monographs concerned with Philip- 

 pine plants will be published as supplements to the 

 Philippine Journal of .Science, a supplement to the first 

 volume contains a list of plants collected in that portion 

 of the island of Luzon lying upon the north-west side of 

 Manila Bay known as the Lamao forest reserve, where it 

 is intended to investigate various forestry problems. The 

 compilation has been prepared by Mr. E. D. Merrill, with 

 assistance from specialists, from material recently obtained 

 by different collectors. Out of the total of a thousand 

 species of phanerogams, representing more than six hundred 

 genera, 45 per cent, are classed as endemic and 54 per cent, 

 as trees. Obviously there are few genera with many 

 species, Ficus and Eugenia being two exceptions. 



In the Bulletin de la Sociite d' Encouragement (vol. 

 cviii.. No. 4) there is an illustrated description of a re- 

 markable testing machine of 270 tons constructed for the 

 University of Illinois. It is 11 metres high, and will test 

 for compression pieces 75 metres long, and for tension 

 pieces 6-6 metres long, provided that the elongation does 

 not exceed 20 per cent. There are also dimensioned draw- 

 ings of the 10,000 horse-power turbine at Snoqualmie 

 Falls. It weighs about 86 tons, and has an efficiency of 

 84 per cent. 



The three latest Bulletins of the admirable series issued 

 by the Peruvian Corps of Mining Engineers have been 

 received. In Boletin No. 32 Mr. F. Malaga Santolalla 

 describes the ore deposits and coalfields of the province 

 of Celendin, one of the smallest but richest of the depart- 

 ment of Cajamarca. The ore deposits are numerous, but 



NO. 1 9 14, VOL. 74] 



little exploration has been carried out owing to difficulties 

 of transport. In Boletin No. 33 Messrs. C. W. Sutton, 

 J. J. Bravo, and J. I. Adams describe the geology of the 

 province of Callao. An account is also given of the 

 triangulation of the province. The base line of 2 J kilo- 

 metres at Playa Brava was measured with a 100-metre 

 steel band, and the angles were measured with an 8-inch 

 theodolite reading to two seconds. In Boletin No. 34 Mr. 

 H. C. Hurd submits a report on the possibility of in- 

 creasing the quantity of water available for irrigation in 

 the valley of the Chili, in the department of .Arequipa. 



The current issue of the Records of the Geological 

 Survey of India (vol. xxxiii., part iii.) is a number of 

 more than ordinary interest. Mr. L. Leigh Fermor gives 

 some notes on the petrology and manganese ore desposits 

 of the Sausar Tahsil, Chhindwara district. Central 

 Provinces, in which he puts on record petrological descrip- 

 tions of certain types of rocks, chiefly of the mctamorphic 

 and crystalline series, and gives an account of the eleven 

 manganese ore deposits known to occur in this area. 

 Several of them are of economic importance. Six beauti- 

 fully reproduced plates of rock photomicrographs accom- 

 pany the paper. Mr. P. N. Datta describes the geology of 

 parts of the valley of the Kanhan River, Central Provinces, 

 and gives a geological map of the area. Mr. L. Leigh 

 Fermor describes a specimen of manganite from the Sandur 

 Hills, Madras Presidency, which is of special interest 

 inasmuch as the occurrence of this ore in India has 

 previously been recorded but twice. In the miscellaneous 

 notes the occurrence of gypsum in the Vindhyan series at 

 Satna is recorded, and accounts are given of ores of 

 antimony, copper, and lead from the Northern Shan States ; 

 of gems from the Tinnevelli district, Madras ; and of 

 cassiterite-granulite from the Hazaribagh district, Bengal. 

 The great increase in the exports of manganese ore from 

 India is also noted, brought about by failure in the Russian 

 supplies following the internal disturbances. The man- 

 ganese ore exported from India in 1905 amounted to 

 281,735 tons, against 154,829 tons in 1904. 



We have received from Prof. J. .\. Pollock and Mr. 

 .S. H. Barraclough, of the University of Sydney, a reprint 

 of an interesting paper read by them before the Royal 

 Society of New South Wales on a hollow lightning con- 

 ductor crushed by the discharge. The tube, i-8 cm. in 

 outer diameter, made of copper o-i cm. thick, was crushed 

 in a symmetrical manner, showing the characteristic 

 appearance of a tube which had collapsed under external 

 pressure. The crushing appears to have been due to the 

 electrodynamic action of the current. The material of the 

 tube was probably plastic at the time of collapse. If so, 

 the current is calculated to have been one of about 20,000 

 amperes ; if not, the current would have been one of about 

 100,000 amperes. 



Himmel und Erde for April contains an interesting 

 article by W. Gallenkamp, of Munich, on the results of 

 recent rainfall investigations. This paper does not deal 

 with statistics in the usual manner, but refers to experi- 

 ments by Lenard and Defant on the determination of the 

 size of raindrops and on the velocity with which they fall. 

 The size is determined by measuring the wet patch made 

 on blotting paper, assuming that a drop of a given size 

 will always produce a similar patch. The result arrived 

 at is that the weights or volumes of the drops have a 

 definite proportion to each other, e.g. if unity is taken 

 as representing the smallest drops, the weights of the 



