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NA TURE 



[September 14, 1905 



ruined cities of which are engaging the attention of the 

 British Association and, what is more to the purpose, of 

 trained archsologists. The original Ophir, on the other 

 hand, Mr. Kingsmill locates at the head of the Persian 

 Gulf, which was reached by Solomon's fleets; he makes 

 his argument depend to some extent on a second argument 

 to prove that the head of the gulf is the site of the Garden 

 of Eden — a theory not improbable in itself, but apparently 

 unconnected with the question of Ophir and the source 

 of Solomon's treasure or of that of the earliest civilisa- 

 tions. Mr. Kingsmill has no evidence to show that the 

 Jews connected the Garden of Eden with the head of the 

 Persian Gulf, even if the myth originally referred to that 

 area, and it is by no means clear why the Jews should 

 associate gold with Ophir when they were, in Mr. Kings- 

 mill's opinion, drawing their supplies of that metal from 

 South Africa ; for no evidence is produced to show that they 

 drew gold from Mr. Kingsmill 's Ophir at any time, or 

 yet that the head of the Persian Gulf was known, much 

 less proverbial in pre-Solomonic times as a source of gold. 

 Mr. Kingsmill holds that Ophir, Sheba, Sofala, Havilah, 

 &c., are one and the same, but it is scarcely sufficient to 

 urge in proof of this that York appears twenty times in 

 the Times Atlas. Needless to say, the article was written 

 without knowing Mr. Randall Maclver's results recently 

 described. 



The issue of the Electrician for September i contains 

 a note by Lieut. Evans, R.E., upon some experiments 

 made with different methods of earth connection for wire- 

 less telegraphic installations. The experiments were made 

 with an oscillator consisting of a square copper wire 

 capacity, 17 feet square, suspended horizontally by in- 

 sulators, 14 feet above the ground. From the centre of 

 this area, a vertical wire led to one knob of a spark gap, 

 the other knob being connected by a similar wire to an 

 iron-wire netting 17 feet square, suspended horizontally 

 2 feet above the ground, also on insulators. The current 

 flowing in the vertical wire was measured under various 

 conditions as regards the earthing of the iron-wire netting, 

 and it was found that any connection of the transmitter 

 or of the receiver with the earth was objectionable, since 

 it greatly reduced the current flowing in the vertical wire. 

 The most desirable form for the oscillator was, in fact, 

 proved to be that approaching closely to a symmetrical 

 Hertz oscillator as described by Sir Oliver Lodge in his 

 Patent Specification, No. 11,575, of 1897. In this specifi- 

 cation, two capacity areas, connected by self-induction 

 coils and the receiving transformer, are clearly indicated. 



As is customary, the issues of the Lancet and the 

 British Medical Journal for September 2 are students' and 

 educational numbers dealing with the curriculum necessary 

 for the student of medicine, the various medical schools, 

 books, the portals of entry into the profession, &c. 

 The guardian of a prospective student could not do better 

 than consult these periodicals. 



The issue of Biologisches Centralblatt for August 15 

 contains an article by Mr. A. Issakowitsch on the causes 

 of se.Kual determination in water-fleas of the daphnid 

 group, and a second by Prof. J. Lebedensky on the 

 embryonic development of the echinoderm Pedicellina 

 echinata. 



Fishes from Borneo, principally from the Baram dis- 

 trict of Sarawak, form the subject of a paper by H. W. 

 Fowler in the July issue of the Proceedings of the 

 Philadelphia Academy. Several are described as new, 

 notably a shark belonging to the " tope " group, referred 

 to the genus Carcharinus as C. tephroides. 

 NO. 1872, VOL. 72] 



In a recent issue of Science Mr. O. A. Peterson, of 

 the Carnegie Museum, publishes a preliminary note on 

 remains of a huge pig-like animal allied to Entelodon 

 from the Loup-Fork beds of Nebraska, for which the name 

 Dinochoerus hollandi is suggested. The chief grounds for 

 generic separation of the new form appear to be the 

 geological horizon and the immense proportions of the 

 animal, of which the skull measures no less than thirty- 

 five inches in length. It would be interesting to ascertain 

 what relation this monster presents to the imperfectly 

 known Tetraconodon of the Indian Siwaliks. 



The Fortnightly Review and the Independent Review 

 for September each publish articles on the origin of life. 

 In the former Mr. Burke gives an account of his experi- 

 ments in which, by the action of radium on bouillon, micro- 

 scopic bodies, termed " radiobes," appear. These seem 

 to divide by fission, like a micro-organism, and not by 

 cleavage, as obtains in a crystal. Mr. Burke concludes 

 that the continuity of .structure, assimilation, and growth, 

 and then subdivision, together with the nucleated structure 

 as shown in a few of the best specimens (of radiobes), 

 suggests that they are entitled to be classed amongst 

 living things, in the sense in which we use the words, 

 whether we call them bacteria or not. In the Independent 

 Review Dr. Charlton Bastian writes on the origin and 

 development of living matter on the earth, and discusses 

 his theories of archebiosis and heterogenesis. With re- 

 gard to the former, the formation of living matter by a 

 process of Synthesis from its primitive elements, Dr. 

 Bastian recognises the extreme difficulty of proving it, and 

 suggests that when the results are negative in a " sterile " 

 fluid this may be due to the degrading influence on the 

 fluid of the heat employed for sterilisation. But " sterile " 

 nutrient fluids, e.g. egg-white and blood-serum, may be 

 obtained without the use of any treatment. As regards 

 heterogenesis, the development of one form of living matter 

 into another, e.g. anioebs from a bacterial zooglcea, 

 bacteriologists will not accept this until it has been proved 

 that the germs of the species which is supposed to have 

 developed were not present in the original zooglcea. 



The London County Council has issued an admirable 

 little handbook (price id.) to the case in the Horniman 

 Museum, Forest Hill, arranged as an introduction to the 

 study of birds' eggs. It is illustrated by si.x reproductions 

 from photographs of specimens in the case intended to 

 show variation in colouring, protective coloration, the 

 numbers in clutches of different species, size as compared 

 to that of the parent, form, and grain of the shell. The 

 first two plates require, of course, to be coloured in order 

 to bring out the distinctive features of the specimens, but 

 this would probably have involved too great expense. 



In the report of the Manchester Museum of Owens 

 College for 1904-5, an appeal is made to the public for 

 aid in preventing its work and expansion being crippled 

 for want of funds. The most important event recorded 

 during the year under review is the presentation by Mr. 

 J. Haworth of his collection of Egyptian antiquities, which 

 contains a large proportion of the specimens obtained by 

 Prof. Flinders Petrie between the years 1S88 and 1897. 

 The museum has issued as one of its handbooks the second 

 and third parts of Mr. H. Bolton's paper on the pale- 

 ontology of the Lancashire Coal-measures, originally pub- 

 lished in the Transactions of the Manchester Geological 

 and Mining Society for 1904. 



It is satisfactory to learn from Science that Trinity 

 College, Connecticut, has made arrangements for establish- 

 ing a floating laboratory of marine biology for the purposes 



