644 



NA TURE 



[October 25, 1906 



the art of the two races, and, secondly, the ancient people 

 were dolichocephalic, while the existing inhabitants are 

 brachycephalic. This older race, of whom little is as yet 

 known, was skilled in various arts, particularly that of 

 mortuary pottery, and the finds from their settlements 

 include weapons and implements of stone, bone, and shell, 

 with some rude stone images, fire and medicine stones, all 

 of which are illustrated and described by Mr. F.. L. 

 Hewett. 



The reports of H.M. Inspectors of Mines show that the 

 use of coal-cutting machinery in British collieries continues 

 to increase. In 1903 there were in use 64,-! machines, 755 

 in 1904, and 946 in 1905. These 946 machines produced 

 more than eight million tons of coal, and as the total 

 output of Great Britain was 236 million, there is still a 

 wide field open for the introduction of coal-cutting 

 machines. Of the machines in use, 500 were driven by 

 compressed air and 446 by electricity. 



The most striking paper in the lincnVmi Journal of 

 >icicncc for October is that by Mr. A. L. Day and Mr. 

 E. S. Shepherd on the lime-silica series of minerals, in 

 which the authors give the results of a study of mineral 

 and rock formation by direct measurement at the tempera- 

 ture.i' at which the minerals combine and separate, like 

 the solutions of ordinary chemistry under ordinary con- 

 ditions. The entire series of mixtures of lime and silica 

 have been prepared and studied. The only serious attempt 

 hitherto made to determine the constitution of this series of 

 minerals is that of Boudouard (Journal of the Iron and 

 Steel Institute, 1905, p. 339), but the method he used is 

 shown to be a very inaccurate one. 



The summary report of the Geological .Survev Depart- 

 ment of Canada for 1905 (Sessional Paper, 1906, No. 26) 

 gives a concise account of original investigations carried 

 out in the field and at the Ottawa headquarters with the 

 object of increasing the knowledge of the mineral wealth 

 of Canada. The staff of the Survey numbers sixty-seven, 

 and under the direction of Dr. Robert Bell a large number 

 of important explorations and surveys were carried out 

 during the year. Dr. Bell himself gives an account of 

 the cobalt mining district on the Timiskaming and 

 Northern Ontario Railway. Specimens of pure silver 

 weighing from a few pounds up to twenty pounds or more 

 have been obtained in a number of the mines. Nuggets 

 of mixed silver and calcite, weighing upwards of 100 lb., 

 are exhibited in some of the mining oliices in the district. 



The seventy-third annual report (1905) of the Royal 

 Cornwall Polytechnic .Societv contains, among other papers 

 of scientific interest, a verbatim report of a lecture entitled 

 " An Early Chapter in the History of Cornwall," which 

 was delivered by .Sir Norman Lockyer at Penzance in 

 April last. Sir Norman explained that the work he has 

 recently inaugurated, dealing with the raison d'etre of the 

 stone circles and other stone monuments of the coimty, 

 has barely commenced ; much more remains to be done, 

 but the evidence so far obtained, that their erection de- 

 pended upon the utilitarian necessity for regulating the 

 calendar by observations of celestial timekeepers, is so 

 remarkably conclusive that it is very desirable that many 

 other workers should carry it on until the whole of these 

 monuments have been considered in all their details. The 

 results obtained in Cornwall amply confirm the similar 

 conclusions obtained from the study of Egyptian temples, 

 and are themselves confirmed by the latter. A number of 

 slides showing I-ady Lockyer's photographs of the prin- 

 NO. 1930, VOL. 74] 



cipal circles, e.g. "The Hurlers " and "The Merry- 

 Maidens," were exhibited on the screen, accompanied by^ 

 maps and tables showing the wonderful similarity of pur- 

 pose of sight-lines which, owing 10 varying local conditions, 

 are themselves dissimilar in their directions. 



We have been favoured by Mr. F. Berwerth with a 

 reprint of an interesting paper he has contributed to 

 Tschcrmak.K Mitteiluiigen (vol. xxv., part iii.) on the- 

 meteorite of Kodaikanal, Palni Hills, Madura district, 

 Madras. This meteoric iron is of special interest in that, 

 on etching, it exhibits a crystalline mass of large octa- 

 hedral iron grains between which globular masses of 

 silicates of unusual character have separated out. The 

 general structure of the iron is thus of a porphyritic typo. 

 The ratio between the iron mass and the silicates is- 

 approximately 10 to i. Careful examination has shown 

 that the silicate segregations are of two kinds, a sphero- 

 lithic ground mass and glassy globules. The former con- 

 sists of weinbergite, diopside, bronzite, apatite, and' 

 chromite, and the latter of a glassy magma containing 

 suspended bronzite and chromite. The new silicate com- 

 pound to which the author gives the name of wein- 

 bergerite is found by analysis to have the composition 

 represented by the formula Na.Al.SiO,-|-3FeSi03. Mr. 

 Berwerth also sends a reprint of his paper on artificial' 

 metabolites contributed to the Vienna Academy of Sciences 

 {Mathem. naturw. Klasse , vol. cxiv., part i.), in which he 

 gives the* results of experiments made with a small plate 

 of the Toluca iron to ascertain the accuracy of his view 

 that the great group of crystalline-granular meteoric irons 

 are octahedral irons re-crystallised in consequence of beat- 

 ing in a solid condition. The plate, 5 mm. in thickness, 

 •was embedded in powdered charcoal in a graphite crucible 

 and heated for seven hours at a temperature of about 

 930° C. The results obtained induce the author to propose 

 to term the re-crystallised meteoric irons " the group of 

 the metabolites.'" With the increasing knowledge of the 

 physical characters of the artificial iron-nickel alloys, fresh 

 light will be thrown on the various forms* of irorv 

 metabolites. 



.\ CHEAP edition (price 7.';. 6d. net) of M. Vallery-Radot's 

 "Life of Pasteur," translated from the French by Mrs. 

 R. L. Devonshire, has been published by Messrs. .\. Con- 

 stable and Co. The original English edition appeared \\\ 

 two volumes five years ago, and was reviewed at length in 

 Nature of December 5, 1901 (vol. Ixv., p. 97). As Pasteur's, 

 son-in-law, M. Radot had exceptional opportiinities for pre- 

 paring this biography, and his work is a faithful and 

 fascinating history of Pasteur's scientific life anrf 

 aspirations. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



■\ New F'or.m of Photometer. — In the attempts which 

 irom time to time have been made to photograph the solar 

 corona without waiting for a total eclipse of the sun, the 

 intensity of the atmospheric halo about the sun's disc haa 

 played an important part. Obviously the most suitable 

 locality for these attempts would be where the atmospheric 

 glare is least intense. With this in view, MM. Deslandres 

 and Bernard have designed a photometer having for its 

 special aim the determination of the intensity of the circum- 

 solar light. 



The apparatus consists of an equatorially-mounted tele- 

 scope tube having affixed to the narrower end, which is 

 directed towards the sun, an opaque disc which Just occults 

 the actual solar disc. At the other end of the tube the light 



