October 8, 1908 ] 



N.-J TURE 



577 



Dr. and Mrs. Bullock Workman, accompanied by Dr. 

 C. Calciati and Dr. M. Koncza, surveyors, have carried out 

 successfully a detailed survey of the Hispar glacier in 

 Hunza-Xagar. We learn from the Pioneer Mail that, 

 after remaining five weeks on the Hispar, camping much 

 of the time on snow, at altitudes of from 16,000 feet to 

 19,500 feet, Dr. and Mrs. Bullock Workman, with guides 

 and a caravan of Nagar coolies, crossed the Hispar pass 

 and descended the Biafo glacier — thirty miles long — reach- 

 ing .'^skole, Baltistan, on .\ugust 26. Although the chief 

 objects of the expedition were glacial study and mapping, 

 several new peaks and snow passes were climbed, the 

 most notable being a very steep and difficult snow peak of 

 about 22,000 feet, situated some distance to the north of 

 the Hispar pass, on the watershed of the Hispar and Biafo 

 glaciers, overlooking the solitudes of Snow Lake at the 

 head of the Biafo glacier. This is the second traverse 

 by Europeans of these two glaciers, the first having been 

 made by Sir Martin Conway in 1892. 



Mr. J. T. Cart, whose death we announce with regret, 

 entered the School of the Pharmaceutical Society in 

 October, 1902, as Bell scholar, was appointed demonstrator 

 in chemistry in October, 1903, and demonstrator in 

 pharmaceutics in April, 1904, a post which he held until 

 he took up an appointment with the firm of Messrs. 

 Hopkin and Williams in July, 1905. There he gained 

 additional experience in analytical and manufacturing 

 chemistry under the supervision of Mr. Edmund White, 

 leaving in 1906 for Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he was 

 appointed chemist to Messrs. C. A. Parsons and Co. to 

 carry on chemical engineering research work, and to deal 

 with such chemical questions as arise in the carrying on 

 of engineering and electrical business generally. His work 

 while at Newcastle threw him much into contact with Mr. 

 Charles A. Parsons and others, w^ho held him in the 

 highest regard. To all who had the privilege of his 

 acquaintance and friendship, his sudden and untimely death 

 has come as a great shock and sorrow. Mr. Cart was a 

 B.Sc. of London University, an Associate of the Institute 

 of Chemistry, and a member of the Northern Scientific 

 Club. 



Vol. xiii. (pp. 547-752) of the- Transactions of the South 

 .•\frican Philosophical Society is devoted to the concluding 

 portion of the descriptive catalogue of the Coleoptera of 

 South .-Xfrica, and deals mainly with the family 

 Scarabseidfe, of which a large number of new species is 

 described. It is illustrated with one plate. 



.\r.ofT thirty years ago a remarkable collection of fossil 

 plants and insects was discovered in beds of shale of the 

 Miocene period at and near Florissant, a small town in 

 Colorado. The plants were described by Lesquereux, and 

 Dr. Scudder published an important monograph on Tertiary 

 insects. Interest in these remains has again been aroused 

 by recent workings, upon which subject Prof. T. D. A. 

 Cockerell contributes an article to the Popular Science 

 Monthly (.August). The flora included many trees similar 

 to those existing in other parts at the present day, such 

 as Liquidambar, redwoods, and cottonwoods, also an 

 abundance of ferns. Two unique specimens were dis- 

 covered in the shape of a fungus that has been named 

 Didymosphaeria bethcli, and a tuft of moss bearing 

 capsules. Some remarkable insects were also unearthed, 

 notably a Glossina, or tsetse-fly, a genus now confined to 

 .Africa, also a genus. Halter, known only at the present 

 day in Chile, and two butterflies. 



NO. 2032, VOL. 78] 



In their report for 1907-8, the authorities of the Man- 

 chester Museum announce the acquisition of a tomb-group 

 of the twelfth dynasty, discovered by Prof. Flinders Petrie 

 at Rifeh, Upper Egypt, and consisting of two painted 

 sarcophagi, with body-coffins and mummies, two boats 

 with sailors, a finely painted canopic chest, of which all 

 the contents are complete, and five statuettes, all being of 

 the best workmanship. Reproductions from photographs 

 of the statuettes and boats accompany the report, which 

 also contains an illustration of a family group of striped 

 hysenas recently added to the exhibition-series. 



The School Nature Study Union has issued a series of 

 leaflets intended for teachers or for use in class. The 

 early numbers are introductory, indicating the facilities 

 offered by museums and gardens — we should have expected 

 the reverse order — in and near London, suggesting schemes 

 for study, and giving a list of useful books. Subsequent 

 publications deal with seeds, bulbs, sun-dials, tree twigs, 

 rocks, insects, and the school aquarium. The note on 

 sun-dials and how to make one, by Miss N. Sweeny, is 

 certain to be useful, and Miss S. E. Isaacson has collated 

 the chief characters of the more prominent insects. Miss 

 K. M. Hall has provided a practical article on the 

 culture of bulbs. The leaflets can be obtained from the 

 secretary of the union, i Grosvenor Park, Camberwell. 



The first part of the eighth volume of the Mtisciims 

 Journal contains the annual report of the Museums 

 .Association. This is in every way satisfactory, the 

 membership showing some increase, while the sale of the 

 journal has also expanded. The presidential address, by 

 Dr. Jonathan Hutchinson, was devoted to the rdle of 

 museums from an educational point of view. In this 

 respect simplicity was strongly insisted upon as one of the 

 most necessary factors, while the president likewise dwelt 

 upon the importance of a " space-for-time-method " for 

 exhibition purposes. In the museum at Haslemere, for 

 example, the building devoted to geology is divided into a 

 number of equal-sized compartments, each supposed to 

 represent a period of one million years, and severally 

 devoted to different geological epochs. The idea certainly 

 seems worthy of further development. 



Is a recent number of the Comptes rendus de la Socidti 

 de Biologie (vol. Ixiv., p. 1004), Messrs. Chatton and 

 .Alilaire describe a new species of trypanosome, very 

 similar in appearance to Trypanosoma dimorphon, found 

 by them in the Malpighian tubules of Drosophila confusa, 

 Staeger, a small fly common in distilleries and breweries 

 feeding on yeasts. In the intestine of the Drosophila the 

 authors also found a Herpetomonas, which they think may 

 represent a stage of the trypanosome. This is the first 

 time that a true trypanosome has been found anywhere 

 but in the blood of a vertebrate or the digestive tract of 

 a blood-sucking invertebrate, though species of the allied 

 genus, Trypanoplasma, are known to occur in the gut 

 as well as in the blood of fishes. It is greatly to be 

 hoped that the authors will follow up their discovery by 

 working out the life-cycle of the trypanosome and its 

 mode of transmission from one host to another. 



The report of the .Alexander McGregor Memorial 

 Museum, Kimberley, for the period ended December 31 

 last has just been received, from which we note that 

 substantial progress has been made in the fitting up and 

 equipment of the institution ; also that Miss Wilman, of 

 the South .African Museum, has been appointed curator, 

 and that she will take up her duties by the end of February 

 next. The board trusts, " as all other museums in the 



