June 6, 1907] 



NATURE 



an altitude of 45IH) motres, and referred to the valuable 

 researches at high altitudes carried on in connection with 

 it. The supplementary laboratory shortly to be opened is 

 at an altitude of 3000 metres, and will therefore permit 

 work to be carried on for longer periods and under less 

 diflicult conditions than at the higher Gnifetti laboratory. 

 The new building provides accommodation for work in 

 botany, bacteriology, zoology, physiology, terrestrial physics, 

 and meteorology, including material and instruments 

 usually required for investigations at high altitudes. 

 Eighteen investigators can find places in the laboratory, 

 and two of these places are for British men of science. 

 Prof. A. Mosso, Turin, to whose zeal and activity the 

 laboratories largely owe their existence, will give further 

 particulars concerning the conditions under which places 

 in them can be secured by investigators desiring to study 

 physiological and other problems in the High Alps. 



Plans have been perfected recently, we learn from 

 Science, for a detailed and systematic investigation of the 

 Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain stratigraphy and palae- 

 ontology. Several State surveys, including those of North 

 Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, will act in 

 cooperation with the United States Geological Survey. 

 The aim of the work is to determine the extent of the 

 fubdivisions recognised in New Jersey and Maryland on 

 the north and Alabama on the south, to determine their 

 relations to one another, and in general to establish satis- 

 factory correlations throughout the district between the 

 Potomac and the Mississippi River. Economic studies, 

 especially on the phosphates, will also be made. The 

 supervision of the work rests with a board of geologists, 

 consisting of the State geologists in the Coastal Plain 

 districts and the chief geologist and chief hydrographer 

 of the national survey. Dr. W. B. Clark being chairman. 

 The field work is in charge of Mr. M. L. Fuller, who will 

 put seven parties into the field during the summer. It is 

 hoped to complete the investigation in Virginia, North 

 Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida within a year, 

 while the work in the remaining States will be finished in 

 noS and 1909. 



The closing sitting of the International Association of 

 .Academies was held on June 2. An article upon this third 

 general assembly appeared in last week's Nature (p. 105) ; 

 rnd the Vienna correspondent of the Times gives, in 

 Tuesday's issue, a short account of the proceedings, from 

 which the following report of progress has been derived : — 

 The next meeting will be held in Rome three years hence, 

 and the management of the association during the interval 

 will devolve upon the Accademia dei Lincei. The associ- 

 ation has agreed to the issue of a complete and authentic 

 edition of the works of Leibnitz, both the mathematical 

 and the philosophical departments of the association 

 recognising its desirability. Notable progress was reported 

 in the preparation of the great Encyclopaedia of Islam, of 

 which Prof, de Goeic, of Leyden, laid before the meeting 

 the first section in three languages — English, French, and 

 German. The ideas of forming a Corpus of Greek docu- 

 ments and a Corpus Medicorum Antiquorum are taking 

 practical shape. The Belgian Government has announced 

 its intention of subsidising the scheme for an international 

 bibliography of historical and philosophical subjects, and 

 it is hoped that support will also be forthcoming from 

 England and America. The proposal that the association 

 should choose an international auxiliary language, such as 

 Esperanto, for use in the communications between members 

 was negatived by twelve votes to eight. The inembers of 

 the association are gratified by the reception accorded to 

 NO. 1962, VOL. 76] 



each of thein personally by the Emperor Francis Joseph, 

 and express warm gratitude for the hospitality extended 

 to them by the Vienna Academy and by the Austrian 

 authorities. 



The accounts which have been published in the Press, 

 through Reuter's Agency, of the expedition of Dr. A. F. R. 

 VVollaston to the Ruwenzori region give a terrible picture 

 of the ravages of sleeping sickness. In the Manyuema 

 country the sights are described as being fearful, with 

 people dead and dying on the roadside, as it is the custom 

 of those people to turn out stricken natives to die. A 

 similar custom prevails in Uganda, and is inspired by the 

 belief, firmly held by the natives, that persons affected with 

 sleeping sickness are infectious to others living with them. 

 Scientific investigations into the mode of transmission have . 

 so far demonstrated, however, only one means of convey- 

 ing the infection, namely, by the intermediary of tsetse- 

 flies {Glossina palpalis. also G. fiisca, fide Kochl. But 

 since the flv has only been shown to transmit the disease 

 by the direct method, that is to say, by taking up into 

 its proboscis from sick persons the parasites which cause 

 the disease, and inoculating them directly into healthy 

 subjects, it seems at least within the bounds of possibility 

 that other biting parasites, such as fleas or lice, inight be 

 able to do the same thing. Moreover, in a paper read 

 before the Royal Society last November, Prof. E. A. 

 Minchin suggested the possible occurrence of a mode of 

 infection which he has termed contaminative, to contrast it 

 with the ordinary inoculative method (sec N.ature, 

 December 27, 1906, vol. Ixxv., p. 214). These suggestions, 

 if confirmed, would account for the native theory of in- 

 fection. On the other hand, no patient has ever yet been 

 found to be infectious when removed to a healthy region 

 from one where sleeping sickness is rife. It is evident, 

 however, that the etiology of sleeping sickness is a subject 

 which has not been exhausted, since there are several 

 possibilities which require definite proof or disproof. 



The first part of vol. xxix. of Notes from the Leyden 

 Museum is entirely devoted to descriptive zoology, and 

 therefore mainly interesting to specialists. Reference may, 

 however, be made to the description, by Dr. Jentink, of a 

 new bat of the genus Taphozous from Batavia, which, in 

 the possession of a wing-pouch and a gular sac, approxi- 

 mates to the rare T. longimanus of India. 



In the course of an editorial note in reference to the 

 photograph of the skull of a hippopotamus which forms 

 the frontispiece to the April number of the (Haslemere) 

 Musciim Gazette, it is stated that " the hippopotamus has 

 its nearest British alliance in the pig, but unlike the latter, 

 it has four toes." We are led to wonder how many digits 

 the editor considers a pig to possess. We are also sur- 

 prised to learn (p. 564) that Proechidna takes the place in 

 New Guinea of Echidna in .\ustralia, seeing that zoologists 

 recognise a local race of the latter from Port Moresby. 

 As to the list of mammalian names on p. 569, perhaps the 

 less said the better. 



The structure and physiology of the male generative 

 organs of the dibranchiates forms the first part of a critical 

 study of cephalopod molluscs in general, by Mr. ^^ . 

 Marchand, of Leipzig, now in course of issue in the Zeit- 

 schrijt fur wisscnschaflliclie Zoologie, this instalment 

 appearing in vol. Ix.xxvi., part iii. As the result of his 

 investigations, the author concludes that modern pelagic 

 dibranchiates, in which the sexes are distinct, are the 

 descendants of non-pelagic hermaphrodite forms, with 



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