250 



NATURE 



fJuLY 16. iqo8 



vertical and a 

 head is a loop 



loop for horizontal motion, while the 

 for vertical and a node for horizontal 



Fig. I. — Model of Aomori bay, showing stream lines o( fui.dament 1 oscil- 

 lation ; period 4*453 in model, rt presenting 303 m. in the biy itself. 



motion. The period of this oscillation in the model 

 was 4'45 seconds ; the factor, corresponding to the 

 scale adopted, being 4090, this represents a period of 



Fig. 2.— Mod.;l jf A ui i 

 period I'oj in ui^ 



I I.u-rial oscillation : 

 1 lljc bay itself. 



303 ni. in the actual bay, in which a periodic 

 oscillation of 300 m. was observed. Besides this 



NO. 2020, VOL. 78] 



fundamental wave, the water within the ba}- could be 

 set into lateral oscillation, as shown in Fig. 2, with 

 a period of r6o s. in the model, representing 

 108 m. in the actual bay, where a well-marketl 

 regular undulation of 103 m. was observed. 



The account of the e.xperiments is followed by a 

 mathematical treatment of the subject, and a calcula- 

 tion of the periods of the stationary waves for each of 

 the bays investigated, a calculation which gave results 

 in general, and sometimes in close, accordance with 

 the observed periods. Finally, there is a suggestion 

 that the great increase in the range of tides near the 

 head of large bays may be partly due to this cause. 

 The- Bay of Fundy is celebrated for the great range of 

 the tide near its head, where the difference between 

 high and low water is from 50 to 70 feet, while near 

 the mouth the range is not more than 7 to 10 feet ; the 

 difference is partly attributable to the banking of the 

 tidal wave as it travels up a narrowing channel, but, 

 the fundamental period of oscillation of the bay being 

 about twelve hours, it is by no means improbable 

 that this has a material effect in increasing the range 

 of the semi-diurnal tide, with which it approximately 

 agrees in period. 



We have indicated sufficiently the scope of this 

 important memoir, the unseismological interest of 

 which has been recognised by its simultaneous 

 appearance as one of the publications of the Earth- 

 quake Investigation Committee and as a volume of 

 the Journal of the College of Science of Tokyo. 



VESTIGES OF SCALES IN THE FOX. 



IN the case of such a familiar animal as the fox 

 it might well have been supposed that everything 

 worth knowing in the matter of its bodily structure 

 had already been recorded. That this is not so is 

 demonstrated in an article by Mr. K. Toldt, of 

 \ienna, published in the April number of the 

 Zoologisclier Anzciger, where it is shown, on what 

 appears to be practically conclusive evidence, that the fox 

 is descended from ancestors the bodies of which 

 appear to have been clothed with horny 

 those of the pangolins, or scaly 

 .-Mthough these scaly ant-eaters are 

 living mammals the bodies of which 

 pletely covered with overlapping scales, 

 furnish us with an example of another type of armour 

 in the same class ; while there are several groups of 

 mammals in which some portion of the body is scaly. 

 In the rat, for example, the whole tail is scaled, 

 and more or less distinctly scaled areas are met with 

 in several porcupines and certain other rodents, as 

 well as on the tail of the great South American ant- 

 eater. In all cases where hairs grow from the body 

 between the scales (as they almost invariably do), such 

 hairs, in place of being scattered about in an ir- 

 regular manner, have a certain definite arrangement. 

 Thev grow, for instance, in isolated bundles, arranged 

 in some cases in groups of three or four, and placed 

 at regular intervals from one another. 



From the fact that the hairs are arranged in this 

 peculiar and definite fashion in a number of species 



scales like 



ant-eaters. 



the only 



are com- 



armadillos 



that such mammals trace their descent from scale- 

 clad ancestors. 



Careful examination of the skins of young foxes has 

 enabled Mr. Toldt to announce, not only that the hairs 

 are arranged in this peculiar fashion, namely, in 

 groups of three bundles, each containing some fourteen 

 or fifteen hairs, but likewise that the skin itself 

 actuallv exhibits a structure such as would be presented 

 bv that of a pangolin after the scales had been pulled 

 out. \'iewcd through a microscope, the skin presents. 



