AvuGusT 22, 1912] 
NATURE 
645 
well-known superstitious reasons, it was found impos- 
sible to procure specimens of the head and beard hair 
of the Haneragmiut. We must, therefore, await the 
return of the expedition to examine any photographs 
or other anthropological material which they may 
have collected. 
Writing from Shingle Point, Arctic Ocean (approxi- 
mate lat. 69° N., long. 137° W.), Mr. Stefansson 
gives some interesting notes on the marriage rites, 
wife-lending, communism in the matter of food, and 
treatment of the sick by magical songs, dances, and 
sleight-of-hand tricks. Many of these people have 
attained a fairly high culture, using clocks, watches, 
magazine rifles, and American stoves. 
Until further information is forthcoming it is im- 
possible to discuss the supposed European strain 
among these people. As in the Vinland Saga, there 
is good evidence of early Norse communications with 
Greenland. Mr. Stefansson discards the theory that 
the European strain may have come from survivors 
of the Franklin expedition, some of whom are be- 
lieved to have survived among the Eskimo in Victoria 
Land. He seems to connect it with the so-called “lost 
colonies" from Denmark or Norway. But so many 
expeditions have failed to trace any survivals of them 
that for the present it will be wise to suspend judg- 
ment in the matter. 
LANCASHIRE SEA-FISHERIES. 
a= twentieth report (for 1911) on the Lancashire 
Sea-Fisheries Laboratory at the University of 
Liverpool and the hatchery at Piel provides ample 
evidence of the continuance of their sound scientific 
work. As in previous years, classes for fishermen 
have been held at Piel. Altogether fifty-seven fisher- 
men attended the four classes, and received instruction 
in marine biology. ‘Two of the classes were restricted 
to deep-sea trawl fishermen, who were preparing for 
the Board of Trade examination for certificates as 
second hands or skippers of fishing vessels. The men 
received each morning a lesson in marine biology 
suitable for deep-sea fishermen, and each afternoon 
a lesson in navigation and seamanship. These well- 
planned and efficiently taught classes stimulate the 
interest of the fishermen-students, and enable them to 
appreciate the problems associated with the develop- 
ment of fisheries, and to realise the value of the regu- 
lations which have been put in force for the benefit of 
fishermen and the fishing industry. 
Mr. Johnstone reports on measurements of plaice 
and on a number of interesting diseases of fishes, 
especially noteworthy being several forms of malignant 
erowths—melanotic sarcomata in skate, a fibro-sar- 
coma in a cod, and a lympho-sarcoma in a flounder. 
Mr. Riddell and Dr. D. M. Alexander contribute a 
note on an ulcerative disease which has occurred in 
the plaice in the spawning ponds at Port Erin. The 
disease is apparently a septicaemia, probably connected 
with one of three bacilli which the authors describe. 
Prof. Herdman gives a summary of the work of 
the last twenty years on shellfish, and their con- 
tamination by means of sewage. He directs attention 
to recent experiments which have shown that a very 
considerable degree of cleansing—the loss of about 
93 per cent. of the coli organisms—occurs when badly 
polluted mussels are relaid for four days in unpolluted 
water. A recommendation was made to apply this 
method of cleansing to mussels taken in the estuary 
of the Conway, but was met with such uncompromis- 
ing hostility from the fishermen concerned that the 
project had to be abandoned. Unless regulation of 
the mussel fishery in this estuary is established, it is 
probable that the industry will still further decline, as 
NO. 2234, VOL. 89| 
{ 
| the mussels are under grave suspicion. In view oi 
the increasing pollution of the estuary, the mussels 
may become a dangerous source of epidemic disease. 
An account, by Mr. Johnstone, follows, on the 
examination of the mussel-beds in the estuary of the 
Wyre, in which the pollution does not appear to reach 
a dangerous amount. 
Prof. Herdman gives details of a further series of 
studies, by himself and Mr. Scott, on the plankton 
around the south end of the Isle of Man. He con- 
cludes that, although there is a natural sequence in 
the distribution of the plankton throughout the year, 
and a certain constancy in the maxima and minima 
for particular groups, and even species, the sequence 
is liable to disturbance, and the maxima are affected, 
both in time and in amount, by surrounding condi- 
tions; hence the variations which have been recorded 
from year to year. Continued work on the plankton 
of the west coast of Scotland supports the suggestion, 
put forward in last year’s report, that the most prob- 
able explanation of the presence of huge masses of © 
diatoms in the Scottish seas in summer (when the 
plankton at Port Erin is composed almost entirely of 
animal organisms, especially copepods) is that the 
phytoplankton remains longer and passes off more 
slowly as one goes further north. Appended to the 
report is a useful memoir (115 pp., with eight plates) 
on the whellx, by Dr. W. J. Daixin. 
SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL? 
HE only general test of the relative nearness or 
farness of the stars is their brightness, because 
the faint stars must, on the average, be more distant 
than the bright ones. Herschel proposed to pene- 
trate into space by means of a celestial census of 
the distribution and of the brightness of the stars. 
With this object he carried out four complete reviews 
of the heavens, so far as they may be seen from our 
latitude, passing successively to the fainter and fainter 
objects by means of the increased size of his telescope. 
He divided the heavens into sweeps 2° 15! of 
breadth in declination, and each zone was examined 
throughout by the process which he called star-gaug- 
ing. His census was made with the 20-ft. reflector, 
with which instrument the field of view was about one- 
quarter of the size of the full moon. It needs more 
than 300,000 of such fields of view to cover the whole 
of the hemisphere of space, and Herschel surveyed 
the whole northern hemisphere, and as much of the 
southern one as he could. 
Von Magellan in a letter to Bode describes the 
method of observation as follows : ‘“‘ He has his 20-ft. 
Newtonian telescope in the open air. . . . It is moved 
by an assistant who stands below it... near the 
instrument is a clock ... in the room near it sits 
Herschel’s sister, and she has Flamsteed’s Atlas open 
before her. As he gives her the word, she writes 
down the declination and right ascension. . . . In 
this way Herschel examines the whole sky. . - he is 
sure that after four or five years (from 1788) he will 
have passed in review every object above our horizon. 
. Each sweep covers 2° 15! in declination, and he 
lets each star pass at least three times through the 
field of the telescope, so that it is impossible that 
anything can escape him. . . . Herschel observes the 
whole night through... for some years he has 
observed . . . every hour when the weather is clear, 
and this always in the open air.” 
Herschel points out that by this survey he was not 
only looking into the most distant space, but also into 
the remotest past, for the light of many of the stars 
1 A discourse delivered at the Royal Institution on April 26 by Sir George 
H. Darwin, K.C.B., F.R.S. Continued from p. 623. 
