156 



NA TURE 



[June i8, 1908 



Institute of Metals' shall be and is hereby constituted." 

 Sir William White was unanimously elected the first presi- 

 dent, and an interim council, composed of prominent 

 metal manufacturers, ship-builders, marine and locomoti\'e 

 engineers, electric cable constructors, &c., and including 

 representatives of pure science, was appointed to take the 

 necessary steps to bring the institute into working order. 

 The joint hon. secretaries are Prof. H. C. H. Carpenter, 

 the University, Manchester, and Mr. W. H. Johnson, 

 c/o Johnson, Clapham and Morris, Ltd., Manchester. 

 Promises of support have been received from more than 

 200 persons. 



The late Dr. Oswald Seeliger, professor of zoology in 

 the University of Rostock, whose death in his fifty-first 

 year has just been announced, was well known for his 

 many valuable contributions to knowledge, and particularly 

 for his writings on the morphology of the Tunicata. The 

 articles on this group in Bronn's " Klassen und 

 Ordnungen " and in Brehm's " Thierleben " were from 

 his pen. The researches with which his name is most 

 familiarly associated are upon questions connected with 

 the process of budding in Tunicata, Coelenterata, and other 

 animals. His statement that the nervous system of the 

 ascidiozooids of Pyrosoma is derived from the mesoblast 

 of the parent Cvathozooid, undermining, as it seemed to 

 do, the theory of the germ layers, gave rise to a long 

 and interesting controversy. More recently he repeated 

 Boveri's famous experiment of fertilising the enucleated 

 egg of one species of Echinoderm with the spermatozoon 

 of another, and, like Delage and others, came to the con- 

 clusion that the hybrid thus produced does exhibit some 

 of the maternal characters, and that, in consequence, the 

 theory that the hereditable characters are alone borne by 

 the nuclei of the germ cells is untenable. Seeliger 's 

 writings were clear and forcible, and as he was free from 

 the ordinary prejudice of orthodox opinion in biological 

 matters, his loss to science is severe. 



The second part of the Memoirs of the National 

 Museum, Melbourne, is devoted to a monograph of the 

 Silurian bivalve molluscs of Victoria, in the course of 

 which the author, Mr. F. Chapman, palaeontologist to the 

 museum, describes and figures a number of new species. 



With the June number British Birds commences its 

 second volume, to which we wish every success. To that 

 number Mr. W. H. Mullens commences a series of articles 

 on the older British ornithologists, the first name on the 

 list being that of William Turner, who was born just 

 about 400 years ago, and was therefore a contemporary 

 of the founder of Caius College, Cambridge. Previous to 

 Turner's time, exact knowledge of British birds was prac- 

 tically nil, while ornithology was but little more cultivated 

 on the Continent. Turner was the author of no fewer than 

 thirty-nine works, among which the most famous is that 

 dealing with the birds mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny. 

 To this wonderful work may be attributed the rise of 

 British ornithology. 



We have received a separate copy of a paper by Messrs. 

 Huene and Lull, from the February number of the American 

 Journal of Science (vol. x.xv., p. 113), on the Triassic 

 reptile Hallopus victor, which was regarded by its original 

 describer, the late Prof. O. C. Marsh, as a theropod dino- 

 saur. In some respects the pelvis is, however, more like 

 that of an orthopod dinosaur, although in the form of the 

 pubis, the calcaneum, the extreme thickness of the 

 astragalus, the contour of the scapula, and the height of 

 the ilium, the skeleton differs from all known members 

 of that group. In the opinion of the authors (the grounds 



NO. 2016, VOL. 78] 



of which are promised in a later memoir), the genus 

 appears to be most nearly related to Aetosaurus and its 

 allies. 



To the April number of Spolia Zcylanica Commander 

 Boyle Somerville communicates a thoughtful paper on the 

 submerged plateau surrounding Ceylon at an average 

 distance of about a dozen miles from the coast, with 

 depths shoaling from south to north from 40 to 20 fathoms. 

 Everywhere there is a sudden drop to oceanic depths on 

 the outer margin, but a slightly deeper channel or gully 

 occurs in the centre, tapering off to the northward and 

 ending in a marked shoaling, and the existence of banks, 

 which begin at Mount Lavinia and e.xtend northward. 

 After referring to the occurrence of lakes or lagoons near 

 the coast nearly all round the island, the author concludes 

 that while the high-ground of Ceylon has existed as land . 

 for an extremely long period, the low-country has in the 

 main been formed by the denudation of the central elevated 

 area, and was laid down on a plateau of which the present 

 fringe is a remnant. This accounts for the absence of 

 coral reefs round most of the coast. 



Stone implements from the Bulawayo district form the 

 subject of an illustrated paper by the Rev. F. Gardner in 

 vol. vii., part i., of the Proceedings of the Rhodesia Scien- 

 tific Association. The account is based on the large collec- 

 tion in the Rhodesia Museum. Many of the implements 

 are of well-defined shape and show workmanship of a 

 high order, although not rising to the standard frequently 

 noticeable in their corresponding (Neolithic) European 

 prototypes. In the author's opinion, they represent a 

 mixture, and are the product of many ages, some, perhaps, 

 having been manufactured in quite recent times. 



The latest issue (vol. iii.. No. i) of the Journal of 

 Economic Biology is devoted to an investigation, by Miss 

 J. S. Bayliss, of the basidiomycetous fungus Polystictus 

 versicolor, that grows as a saprophyte on dead wood, 

 causing it to rot and crumble. The bracket-like fruiting 

 body is characterised by a velvety zoned upper surface. 

 In laboratory cultures spore sowings produced oidia and 

 conidia, and on infected blocks of wood incipient fruiting 

 bodies were produced, but full development was only 

 obtained when the blocks were exposed under natural con- 

 ditions. Similarly, it was observed that the sporophores 

 will not develop in the dark or when revolving on a 

 clinostat. The zoning is shown to be due to changes in 

 the rate of growth dependent upon the temperature of the 

 air and the amount of moisture present. 



The botanic station in St. Vincent occupies a portion 

 of the site of the old botanic garden, established in 1765, 

 that reached a high state of prosperity during the tenure 

 of Dr. Anderson as superintendent. The station was re- 

 established by Mr. H. Powell in 1890, who with the pre- 

 sent curator, Mr. W. N. Sands, has contributed to its 

 present standard of efficiency. A historical account, accom- 

 panied with reproductions of photographs taken in the 

 gardens, appears in the annual report for 1906-7. Con- 

 ditions in recent years have led to a remarkable increase 

 in cotton cultivation, and a great reduction in the area 

 devoted to sugar-cane. Arrowroot still supplies the most 

 valuable asset of the colony, but the value of the cotton 

 exported will shortly exceed that of the former product. 



Two Bulletins received from the University of Illinois 

 afford evidence of the value of the investigations carried 

 on by the Engineering Experiment Station. Prof. A. N. 

 Talbot (Bulletin No. 20) gives the results of tests of con- 

 crete and reinforced concrete columns, throwing light on 



