476 



jVA rURE 



[September 17, 1908 



but by means of them he is able to discuss the evolu- 

 tion of the atom, the relations of the elements, heat, 

 lit;ht, electricity, dissociation. The " mystery of life " 

 even is not excluded from the discussion. 



The treatise, as the author himself frankly acknow- 

 ledgres, is a purely imaginative one, and we do not 

 agtte with him in thinking that the diverse and tenta- 

 tive views held just now by our leading investigators 

 as to the ultimate constitution of matter afford a 

 sufficient justification for the present attempt to 

 explain matter and electricity by an effort of the 

 imagination. Views and theories based on mathe- 

 matical and experimental investigations are to us 

 certainly more convincing. 



The Fossil Fishes of the Hawkeshiiry Series at St. 



Peter's. By A. Smith Woodward, Mem. Geol. 



Surv. N. South Wales. (Sydney, 1908.) 

 Dr. Smith Woodward describes a scries of Permo- 

 Carboniferous fishes from St. Peter's, one of the 

 lllawara suburbs of Sydney. The greater number of 

 the specimens, including genera new to the Hawkes- 

 bury formation, were obtained from a dark indurated 

 shale. The discovery of .Sagenodus is interesting in 

 connection with recent discoveries of dipnoan fishes 

 in Australia, from the fact that we have evidence of 

 the forerunners of the surviving Ceratodus in various 

 foimations from the Devonian to the Jurassic, and it 

 is suggested that Ceratodus may have evolved in the 

 Australian region. A new palasoniscid genus, 

 Elpisopholis, allied to Phanerosteon and Sceletophorus, 

 is described, in addition to several new species of 

 fishes. A few specimens, somewhat newer in age, 

 were obtained from a soft grey shale resembling that 

 at Gosford. The work is well illustrated by four 

 plates and a restoration of the new genus. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part 0/ Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



Lamarck's " Systeme des Animaux sans Vertfebres." 



This work, as is well known, was first published in the 

 ninth year of the Republic, or 1801 ..\.D. (r'.e. the last nine 

 months thereof). But. to judge from the usual biblio- 

 graphies and library catalogues, it does not appear to be 

 generally known tliat the original sheets were re-issued 

 with a fresh title-page in the following year. The differ- 

 ences between the two title-pages are quite unimportant 

 until the imprint is reached. This in the first issue reads 

 as follows : — 



A P.^RIS 

 fL'AUTEUR, au .Museum d'Hist. Naturelle ; 

 Chez J DETERVILLE, Librairc, rue du Battoir, 

 \ n" 16, quartier de I'Odton. 



AN IX— 1801. 

 In the second issue the imprint is : — 

 A PARIS 

 'Maillard, Libraire, rue du Pont de Lodi, N° i. 

 Deterville, Libraire, rue du Battoir, N° 16, 

 Chez- quartier de I'Odeon. 



-Moulardier, Imprimeur-Libraire, quai des 

 Augustins, X" 28. 



AN X— 1802. 

 That this was a re-issue and not a new edition is proved 

 by a copy in the possession of ni\' friend Mr. Victor W. 

 Lyon, city engineer of Jeffersonville, Indiana. The text 

 and tables present absolutely no difference from those of 

 the first issue, and the new title-page, instead of forming 

 a part of the first section, has been printed on a wide 

 fly-leaf, the inner margin of w-hich is folded round the 

 adjoining leaves of the first section. 



NO. 2029, VOL. 78] 



This new title-page has some interest as suggesting 

 that the work was taken up by the booksellers more 

 warmly than had been anticipated, and that it was no 

 longer necessary for the author to be at the trouble of 

 selling his own copies. 



Since the writings of many naturalists show that a con- 

 fusion already exists in their minds between the 

 " Systeme," 1801, and the " Histoire," 1815-22, it has 

 seemed advisable to help them out of any fresh difficulty 

 that might be presented by the existence of two dates for 

 the " Systeme." Just now, when Lamarck is being 

 specially commemorated, it may be thought worth while 

 to publish this detail, which otherwise might be over- 

 looked. F. A. B.4TI1ER. 



September 5. 



The Hong Kong Typhoon of July 27-28. 



This typhoon appears to have been very similar in size, 

 direction, and intensity to that which caused such destruc- 

 tion in Hong Kong on September 18, 1906. 



It was notified by both the Hong Kong and Manila 1 

 observatories on July 2(1. It was then said to be in the 

 Balintang Channel, which runs between Luzon, the 

 northern island of the Philippines, and Formosa, and is 

 about 500 (nautical) miles E.S.E. of Hong Kong ; the 

 observations available at that date showed it to be moving 

 westwards, but were not sufficient to indicate that it was 

 a storm of any great intensity. From the Balintang 

 Channel it crossed .some 500 miles of open sea without 

 an observing station, and it was not until 6 p.m. on 

 July 27 that the local indications were such as to cause 

 the observatory officials in Hong Kong to hoist the signals 

 indicating a typhoon within 300 miles of the colony. At 

 9.30 p.m. it was notified that the typhoon was moving 

 towards the coast in the neighbourhood of Hong Kong. 

 At 1 1. 15 p.m. the signal was hoisted indicating that a 

 typhoon was imminent. The barometer commenced to fall 

 sharply at 10 p,m., and reached its minimum at i a.m. 

 on July 28; the fall varied from half an inch to an inch 

 in these three hours in different parts of the colony, the 

 variation in the fall indicating that the typhoon centre 

 passed close to the south of the island. The speed would 

 seem to have been about normal. The typhoon was in 

 the Balintang Channel on the morning of July 26, and 

 the centre passed Hong Kong at i a.m. on July 28 — 500 

 miles in forty hours, or I2j miles an hour. 



Owing to the timely warning, and to the gale coming 

 from the east, in which direction the harbour is well 

 sheltered, the damage to the shipping in it was com- 

 parativelv small ; four large steamers were driven ashore, 

 a steel four-masted barque lost two of her masts, and many 

 of the smaller craft suffered, with some loss of life, but 

 the majority had acted on the warning given, and sought 

 such shelter as was available. Outside the harbour the 

 most serious disaster was the loss of a river steamer 

 bound from Canton to Hong Kong, and with it some 

 400 lives. H.M. destroyer Whiting was also driven ashore 

 and badly damaged. On shore the damage far exceeded 

 that done by the typhoon of 1906. The damage to trees, 

 most of which are evergreens, such as banyans, was such 

 as almost entirely to deprive the roads and gardens on 

 the lower levels of much needed shade. The roads were 

 covered with broken branches, which will take weeks to 

 remove. Even such hard-leaved plants as bamboos are, 

 in exposed situations, now nothing but masses of stalks 

 and withered yellow leaves. 



The houses suffered mainly in their roofs and windows; 

 the roofing used consists of the pantiles and mortar rolls 

 common to China and the East, and is very liable to slip 

 with the vibration caused by a hurricane. Several of the 

 lower-class houses were demolished, with some loss of 

 life. The gale commenced about 10 p.m. on July 27, and 

 ended about 4 a.m. on July 28. Unfortunately, both the 

 Kowloon Observ.atorv anemometer and that at \'ictoria 

 Peak, 1800 feet above sea-level, were damaged during the 

 pale, and records are not available. It is thought that 

 the force of the wind far exceeded that of the typhoon 

 of iqo6, and was vcrv near to, if it did not exceed, the 

 highest previous record of 108 miles per hour, in 1896. 



Hong Kong, .August 11. L. Gibbs. 



