204 



NA TURE 



[December i6, 1909 



In the chief meizoseismal zone the shock was preceded by 

 a very loud rumbUng like the firing of a gun, and the 

 perceptible movement, which occurred in three separate 

 phases, was estimated to last about thirty seconds. The 

 time of the shock within this area is known with con- 

 siderable accuracy, the clock at the geodynamic observatory 

 of Messina having stopped at 5h. 2im. 30s., or 

 4h. 2im. 30s. Greenwich mean time. On the Calabrian 

 shores, the sea-waves were greatest at Pellaro, Lazzaro, 

 and Gallico ; in .Sicily, near Briga, Riposto and Paradiso ; 

 they were distinctly perceptible at Malta, and were regis- 

 tered by the tide-gauges at Porto d'Ischia, Naples, Civita- 

 vecchia, Porto Corsini, and even in the neighbourhood of 

 Venice. 



Dr. Baratta attributes the disastrous results of the 

 recent earthquake chiefly to three causes— the damage 

 resulting from preceding earthquakes, and especially those 

 of 1894, 1905, and iqo7 ; the nature of the rocks on which 

 the houses were built ; and the wretched materials used 

 and a system of construction in complete contradiction to 

 the elementary rules that should govern all building in 

 seismic countries. He gives the following scale of founda- 

 tions, beginning with the worst : — yellow sands, sands and 

 conglomerates in irregular beds, recent alluvia, Miocene 

 sands and conglomerates, limestones and crystalline rocks. 

 The recent earthquake he regards as far inferior in intensity 

 to the first great shock of 1783, which produced permanent 

 changes in the ground and attained a maximum mortalitv, 

 though occurring in the daytime, of 77 per cent, at 

 Terranova. 



PHTHISIS AND INSANITY IN RELATION TO 



INHERITANCE. 

 A MEMOIR " On the Inheritance of the Diathesis of 

 jPhthisis and Insanity," by Dr. Charles Goring, has 

 been issued by Messrs. Dulau and Co. in the series of 

 Drapers' Company Research Memoirs, emanating from 

 the Department of Applied Mathematics, University 

 College, London. The methods used are similar to those 

 employed by Prof. Pearson in his " First Study of the 

 Statistics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis " and by Mr. Heron 

 in his " First Study of the Statistics of Insanity," but 

 the data are better in one respect, inasmuch as they are 

 based, not on hospital or asylum cases, but upon informa- 

 tion obtained respecting the inmates of convict prisons. 

 Whether, however, such a sample can be correctly de- 

 scribed as a random sample of the general population, as 

 the author holds, is certainly open to question. 



The conclusions reached by Dr. Goring are confirmatory 

 of those previously put forward by Pearson and by Heron ; 

 for both phthisis and insanity he finds a very marked 

 correlation between parents and offspring, the coefficients 

 fluctuating round 0-5. In the case of phthisis no evidence 

 IS found of infection between husband and wife, the 

 marital correlation being insignificant and negative. 

 VVhen, however, the author states, arguing against the 

 view that the observed correlation between parent and 

 child may be due to infection, that " upon statistical 

 evidence one conclusion alone seems to follow inevitably 

 and may be asserted without reserve. It is that such 

 parental infection, if existent, is relatively inconsiderable, 

 and that almost the whole of the parental association in 

 phthisis represents an inherited predisposition in the child 

 to be infected with the disease of his parents : that the one 

 vital factor in the occurrence of tuberculosis is inherit- 

 ance, ' he makes in the last sentence an assertion which 

 it is a little difficult to excuse. To mention only the best 

 known data, he will find in part ii. of each of the last 

 two decennial supplements published by the Registrar- 

 General ample evidence that the mortafity from phthisis 

 IS five to ten times as great for persons engaged in certain 

 occupations as for persons engaged in others ; it is surely 

 idle, with such evidence at hand, to argue that environ- 

 mental factors are of no importance ! 



We do not wish to underrate the value of the memoir — 

 the author deserves the thanks of all those interested in 

 the problem for his reduction and discussion of the data — 

 but we think it should be read with caution, as the writer 

 appears insufficiently acquainted with the other evidence 

 NO. 2094, VOL. 82] 



bearing on the question. In conclusion, a doubt may be 

 raised whether the most satisfactory method of studying 

 the influence of heredity on phthisis is to deal as a whole 

 with a random sample of the general population. In view 

 of the widely divergent liabilities of different occupations 

 to phthisis, the heterogeneity of the sample may very well 

 unduly increase the correlations observed. 



SOME PAPERS ON AMERICAN ZOOLOGY. 

 ■T^HE mammal and bird fauna of Alaska and Yukon 

 ■'■ territory forms the subject of No. 30 of the " North 

 .American Fauna " (U.S. Department of Agriculture). The 

 author, Mr. W. H. Osgood, gives the results of his 

 observations, both on the nature of the country and the 

 f,auna, made during three traverses, namely, one through 

 east central Alaska, a second through the Ogilvie Range 

 of the Yukon, and a third along the course of the Mac- 

 millan River. The habits, mutual relationships, and range 

 of the different species form the main subject of the 

 biological section, new names being very few. The atten- 

 tion of sportsmen may be directed to certain observations 

 connected with the habits of moose ; but, so far as 

 mammals are concerned, the chief interest in this issue is 

 concentrated in the announcement that the pure white 

 bighorn sheep of the Kenai Peninsula, the so-called Ovis 

 dalH, passes by imperceptible gradations into the black 

 sheep (O. stonei) of the Stikine Valley. For the future 

 these northern wild sheep must be regarded as local races 

 of the Rocky Mountain Bighorn. 



Nos. 1701 and 1702 of the Proceedings of the U.S. 

 National Museum are devoted to the description of por- 

 tions of the collections obtained during the cruise of the 

 .Albatross in igo6. In the first of these Miss H. Richard- 

 son gives an account of the isopod crustaceans collected 

 in the north-west Pacific. In addition to the new Holo- 

 telson — a member of the eubranchiate section distinguished 

 by the emargination of the terminal segment of the 

 abdomen — the author describes a very large number of new 

 species, especially in the genus Arcturus. 



Fresh-water .sponges from the Philippines form the sub- 

 ject of the second paper (No. 1702). The collection was 

 submitted to Dr. .4nnandale, of the Indian Museum, who 

 refers some of the specimens to SpongiUa philippinensis, 

 a species described by himself earlier in the present year, 

 and the rest to a new species, S. microsclerifera. 



In No. 1703 of the same publication Mr. J. P. Moore 

 describes a collection of polychaetous annelids dredged last 

 year off the coasts of Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova 

 Scotia. Most of the specimens came from Labrador, and 

 all are referred to species already known. They serve to 

 confirm the supposition that the Labrador polychaetes would 

 prove to belong mainly to Arctic types, with some admix- 

 ture from a more southern fauna. 



STEAM TURBINES.' 

 TN the first lecture it was pointed out that the first prac- 

 ■'■ tical steam engine was Newcomen's, about the middle 

 of the eighteenth century, and it used about 20 lb. of coal 

 per horse-power hour. James Watt succeeded in reducing 

 this to 5 lb. or 7 lb. of coal per horse-power hour, chiefly 

 through the introduction of the separate condenser, and the 

 Watt engine remained in principle without other than 

 detail improvements until the gradual rise of steanr 

 pressure, and consequent extra expansion, caused com- 

 pound, triple, and finally quadruple expansion engines to 

 be introduced, and as a result the coal bill is now some 

 one-fifteenth of what it was in the time of Newcomen. 



It has, however, been found that with reciprocating 

 engines there must be a steam pressure of about 7 lb. per 

 square inch on the low-pressure piston, or otherwise its 

 size and weight become excessive, and also that there is 

 little or no benefit in going to a higher vacuum than 

 about 25". 



With the steam turbine, vacua of 2S5" or 29", or abso- 

 lute pressures of from t^ lb. to ^ lb. per square inch, can 

 be easily utilised, since the difficulty of dealing with large 



I Abstract of three Canlor lectures delivered before the Royal Sociely of 

 .Arts by Mr. Gerald Stoney, and piibl'i'Wied in the Journal of the Sociely for 

 October 8, 15, and 23 



