NA TURE 



[March i i, 190Q 



The guarantee fund for the International Aeronautical 

 Exhibition, to be opened at Frankfurt a. M. in July, 

 amounts to 700,000 marks. Count Zeppelin has con- 

 tributed 10,000 marks to the fund. It is expected that a 

 sum of one million marks will be raised. 



Invitations have been issued by the president of the 

 Royal Society, chairman of the general board of the 

 National Physical Laboratory, to meet the general board 

 at the laboratory, Bushy House, Teddington, on Friday, 

 March 19, when the various departments will be open for 

 inspection, and apparatus will be on view. 



The thirly-si.xth annual dinner of the old students of 

 the Royal .School of Mines will be held on Tuesday, 

 March 30, at the Hotel Cecil. The chair will be taken 

 by Mr. F. W. Rudler. Applications for tickets should be 

 made to Mr. George T. HoUoway, hon. sec. dinner com- 

 mittee, 57 Chancery Lane, W.C. 



In the third biennial report of the commissioners of the 

 Connecticut Geological and Natural History Survey, for 

 1907-8, attention is specially directed to the scientific 

 interest and economic importance of the peat-deposits of 

 that State. At the melting of the great ice-sheet the 

 surface of Connecticut was dotted over with innumerable 

 lakes and pools, many of which have since become 

 obliterated, some by the growth of peat and some by other 

 causes. Most of these peat-bogs have now been carefully 

 surveyed and sounded, so that the amount of their cubic 

 contents can be approximately ascertained. Peat is used in 

 the State not only for fuel and as a gas-producer (for 

 which it is specially suitable), but likewise as a fertiliser, 

 and, incidentally, for various other purposes. 



Since the importance of " types " to the working 

 systematic naturalist can scarcely be overrated, the authori- 

 ties of the U.S. National Museum have set a good example 

 to museum curators generally by issuing a catalogue of 

 all the mammalian specimens of this nature preserved in 

 the institution under their charge. This catalogue, which 

 is published at Washington as Bulletin No. 62 of the 

 museum, has been drawn up by Messrs. L. M. Ward and 

 W. H. Osgood, who appear to have discharged a by no 

 means easy task in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. 

 The number of mammalian species of which the museum 

 possesses the types is very large, but it should be borne 

 in mind that, in addition to real types, the list also includes 

 "cotypes," " lectotypes," &c. So far as practicable, all 

 the type-specimens in the collection have been arranged 

 in special cabinets, a plan which may be commended to 

 the best attention of those in charge of other museums. 



The skull and brain of the horned dinosaurs, Triceratops, 

 with notes on the brain-cases of Iguanodon and Megalo- 

 saurus, form the subject of a paper by Dr. O. P. Hay, 

 published as No. 1660 of the Proceedings of the U.S. 

 National Museum (vol. xxxvi., pp. 95-108). Several speci- 

 mens of the brain-case of the Ceratopsia are available for 

 study, from which casts of the brain itself have been 

 taken, but great difficulty has been experienced in homo- 

 logising the different parts owing to the f^ct that the bones 

 of this region of the skull are more or less completely 

 welded together. This has led, in the author's opinion, to 

 several misidentifications, notably in the case of the supra- 

 occipital. The paper is, however, of an extremely technical 

 nature, and without explanatory figures it would be little 

 use discussing the author's emendations and conclusions. 

 Certain amendments are suggested on previous determina- 

 tions of the component elements of the brain-case in the 

 iguanodon and the megalosaur. 



NO. 2054, VOL, 80] 



From the study of its crinoid fauna, Mr. .\. H. Clark 

 in an earlier paper suggested, with some hesitation, that 

 the entire Australian coast, southern as well as northern, 

 should be included in his " Indo-Pacific-Japanese " region. 

 The determination was based on the fact that all the 

 .Australian crinoids are tropical forms, the clement of hesita- 

 tion being due to the apparent absence of the South 

 Australian genus Ptiloraetra from the rest of the region. 

 In a paper on crinoids from the Philippines, published in 

 vol. Hi. of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, the 

 author announces the discovery of the genus in question 

 to the north of the equator, thereby definitely determining 

 the correctness of his earlier suggestion. The new paper 

 is based on a collection of crinoids obtained from Philip- 

 pine waters by the U.S. Fisheries steam-vessel Alhalross. 

 This collection includes not only a remarkably large 

 number of new forms, but likewise examples of species 

 previously known only by more or less imperfect speci- 

 mens. 



In the December (190S) number of the i\nna\s and 

 Magadnc of Natural History, Mr. R. Kirkpatrick, of the 

 British Museum (Natural History Department), described 

 two very remarkable new types of calcareous sponges, for 

 which he proposed the generic names Minchinella and 

 Merlia. These sponges bear many resemblances to some 

 of the fossil Pharetronids, and are extraordinarily different 

 from any other living forms. The history of the speci- 

 mens is curious. Minchinella was found in an old bottle 

 of Challenger material, still in an admirable state of histo- 

 logical preservation ! Merlia was represented by some dry 

 and stony-looking fragments which had been given to 

 Canon Norman, F.R.S., by a Madeiran naturalist. Being 

 anxious to investigate the minute anatomy of Merlia, Mr. 

 Kirkpatrick recently visited a small island near Madeira 

 with dredging apparatus, and after much hard work 

 succeeded in obtaining living specimens, which he pre- 

 served in a variety of ways for minute histological investi- 

 gation, so that we may expect shortly to have a full account 

 of this interesting genus. 



In Man for February Mr. H. C. Brown gives an account 

 of a curious device for cheating death practised in Burma. 

 In this case, after a death in the family, one of the 

 survivors was warned in a dream that the death of a 

 child would follow. Accordingly, a bamboo was cut exactly 

 the length of the body of the child, pieces of his hair 

 and nail.s were enclosed in it, and the whole, as a repre- 

 sentative of the child, was solemnly interred. The device 

 failed to produce the desired effect, the mourners on their 

 return from the mock funeral finding the child dead. 



Dr. G. F. Black, of the New York Public Library, has 

 undertaken a useful but difficult task in preparing a biblio- 

 graphy of the literature connected with the Gypsies. The 

 preliminary draft which he has issued, and for which he 

 invites additions and corrections, is intended to include 

 not only scpa.ately published books and pamphlets, but 

 also the vast fugitive literature of the subject, papers in 

 the proceedings of learned societies, reviews, and the like. 

 The British Museum Catalogue, the Berlin Orientalische 

 Biblio graphic, the Leipzig Geschichte und Sprache der 

 Zigucner, and the Bibliographia in Colocci's Gli Zingari 

 have all been laid under contribution. Even as it stands, 

 this bibliography will be of much assistance to students 

 of the history, sociology, and linguistics of this mysterious 

 race, and it may be hoped that the compiler will receive 

 the hcarlv cooperation of European and Oriental scholars 

 in bringing it to a successful completion. 



