236 



NATURE 



\_7uly 23, 1874 



1838 had 2,000 inhabitants, had in 1872 only 650. M. Leborgne 

 shows, however, that although alcoholism does not exist in these 

 islands, where fevers and smallpox are unknown, rheumatic, 

 neuralgic and nephritic affections are not uncommon, whilst 

 phthisis and scrofulous degeneration are attended by a frightful 

 mortality, which seems to point to the injurious results of con- 

 sanguineous unions. JI. Broca is disposed to attribute the 

 gradual diminution of the Polynesian and other analogous 

 peoples to the moral action of certain depressing influences to 

 which savages are exposed when they find themselves brought 

 suddenly in contact with civilised men. The very contact of 

 civilisation seems to exert in and for itself a destructive action on 

 their physical nature. M. de Quatrefages considers, in a separate 

 paper, the same question in reference to the general dilfusion 

 amongst the Polynesian races of tuberculosis, wliich was not 

 obseiTcd by tlie early discoverers, but has now attained such 

 dimensions that its presence could scarcely escape the notice of 

 the least observant travellers. In the universality of its destruc- 

 tive action on all the Australasian islands, M. de ( juatrefages 

 sees another and most incontrovertible evidence of the unity of 

 the entire race. 



Zeitsdirift der Oesterreichischen Gesellschaft fiir Mettorologie, 

 June 15. — In this number is commenced a review by HerrFritsch 

 ofM. Poey's " New Classification of Clouds," published in the 

 Annalis Hydrogmfhiqut-s. After insisting on the importance to 

 sailors, farmers, gardeners, and others, of a knowledge of clouds 

 with a view to prediction, M. Poey has remarked how few ob- 

 servers have recorded the kind of cloud, the shape, rate of move- 

 ment, course, and change of direction or shift, which differs with 

 the height at which it floats. The ideas of men who have busied 

 themselves with clouds, from Aristotle to Maury, are commented 

 upon and criticised. Lamarck was the first to divide clouds 

 into classes, and Howard's system, which followed independently 

 a year later, differed but slightly in the main from that of the 

 French naturalist. The stratus of Howard he regards as nothing 

 but a fog, and the cumulo-stratus as a cumulus. His own fraclo- 

 cumulus resembles Lamarck's " attroupes," and his pallio-cirrus 

 and pallio-cumulus, determined by observation in the Antilles, 

 replace the nimbus of Howard. The sub-divisions of Admiral 

 Fitzroy, based merely upon quantity, lead to error. As to the 

 stratus, the first mistake arose from its being described as a mist 

 by Howard himself, and the next from his followers raising the 

 thin streak of fog to the dignity of a cloud. For Kiimtz says of 

 the cirro-stratus, that when seen at the zenith it appears to be 

 made up of a number of cloudlets, but near the horizon like a 

 long and very narrow strealc. This cloud might therefore be 

 confused with the stratus as represented, especially as both are 

 common at sunrise and sunset. This error, namely, making the 

 stratus anything but a fog, has been followed in all publications 

 since 1S15, including one of Kiimtz in 1840, and the plates of 

 Schiibler, of the Smithsonian Institution, of Maury, and of the 

 French Ministry of Marine (see Nature, vol. ix. p. 163). 



Realt htituto Lombardo. Rendiconti : t. vii. fasc. vi., March.-— 

 The following papers are contained in this number :— In hy- 

 draulics there is a paper by M.E. Lombardini, On floods and on 

 the inundation of the Po in 1S72.— In experimental physics. 

 Prof. Rinaldo Ferrin contributes a paper On the reversal of the 

 current in Holtz's electric machine. — Prof. Alfonso Corradi con- 

 tributes a paper to the history of medicine on certain un- 

 published writings of Morgagni. — Tome vii. fasc. vi., April, 

 contains the following papers :— In the section of mathematical 

 and natural science there is an anthropological paper by Prof. 

 Cesare Lombroso, On tattooing amongst criminals in Italy.— In 

 chemistry there is a note by Prof. Egicio Pollacci, On the action 

 of sulphur on earthy carbonates, particularly on calcium carbo- 

 nate as relating to geology and agriculture. — In mechanics. Prof. 

 Giuseppe Bardelli contributes a mathematical note entitled 

 " Researches on the moment of inertia." 



I'unfzigste Jahreslericht der SchUsiscIun Gesellschaft fiir Valer- 

 landisc/ie Cullur {1S72).— This Society has its iiead-quarters 

 at Breslau, and, according to the present report, numbers 443 

 acting, 32 honorary, and 19S corresponding members. It is at 

 present under the presidency ol 1 'r. Guppert. The ac- 

 count of proceedings, now before us, attests considerable vigour 

 and industry duiing the year. In the deprlmcnt of natural 

 science, perhaps the most important jiaper is that of Prof. 

 Cohn, giving the results of his observations on Bacteria, and 

 their relation to putrefaction and contagion, — Dr. Roemer 

 reports on some bone-remains of rhinoceros found in the Tra- 



chenberg ; and Dr. Gbppert traces the history of the elk in 

 Silesia. — The family of the Cirratulides is described by Prof. 

 Grube ; and we also find accounts of a collection of Javan 

 birds, and Transcaucasian insects in the .Society's museum, and of 

 plant-eating Cetacea. — Dr. Poleck discusses the experimental 

 bases of tJe so-called modern chemistry. — Prof. Cohn's report 

 in the botanical section is of considerable length. We may note 

 in it Dr. Stenzel's paper. On the Riesengebirge as a limit of 

 vegetation. He finds that about thirteen species of phanerogam 

 and cryptogram vascular plants belong only to the Silesian side, 

 and about as many only to the Bohemian side of the range. The 

 entire number of plant species in that highland region is esti- 

 mated at about 200, so that about an eighth finds its limit at 

 the watershed of the range. — There is also an instructive paper 

 by Prof. Goppert, On the relation of the plant-world to 

 weather. — Dr. Schrciter communicates a list of the fungi he has 

 met with at Rastatt during a four years' residence ; and Dr. 

 Goppert reports on the fungus collection in the museum of the 

 Botanical Garden in Breslau. — Descriptions of flora of the 

 Giiinberg and other localities in Silesia are furnished by various 

 observers. — The Society has a section specially devoted to horti- 

 culture, and the report on this, presented by M. MuUer, contains 

 a good deal that will be found of value by ^the practical 

 gardenar. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 

 Geological Society, June 24. — ^John Evans, F.R.S., pre- 

 sident, in the chair. — The following communications were read : 

 — New Carboniferous Polyzoa, by Prof. John Young, and Mr. John 

 Young, Hunterian Museum, Glasgow University (see N.\ture, 

 vol. ix., p. 456). — On Paltiocoryne and other polyzoal appen- 

 dages, by Prof. John Young and Mr. John Young, Hunterian 

 Museum, Glasgow University. — The steppes of Siberia, by 

 Thomas Belt. The author described the portion of the Siberian 

 steppes traversed by him as consisting of sand and loam. The 

 best section seen by him was at Pavlodar, \\'here he found i ft. 

 of surface-soil, 20 ft. of stratified reddish-brown sand, with lines 

 of small gravel, 8 ft. of light-coloured sandy silt, 15 ft. of coarse 

 sand, with lines of small pebbles and one line of large ones, and 

 6 ft. of clayey unlaminated silt, with fragments of the bed-rock 

 in its lower half, the bed-rock Ijeing magnesian limestone much 

 crushed at the top. The generally accepted marine origin of 

 the great plain was said to be negatived by the absence of sea 

 shells in its deposits, whilst Cyreiia fltiiiiina/is occurs in them' 

 The author regards them as deposits from a great expanse 

 of fresh water kept back by a barrier of polar ice descending 

 far towards the south. In its greatest extension this ice- 

 barrier would produce the crushing of the bed-rock ; and as 

 it retreated, the water coming down from the higher ground in 

 the south would cover a continually increasing surface. — On the 

 microscopic structure and composition of British Carboni- 

 ferous dolerites, by S. AUport. — Additional remarks on 

 boulders, with a particular reference to a group of very large and 

 far-travelled erratics in Llanarmon parish, Denbiglishire, by D. 

 iMackintosh. — Note on the Bingera diamond-fields, by Archibald 

 Liversidge. — Remarks on the working of the molar teeth of the 

 Diprotodon, by Gerard Krefft, F.L. S. ; communicated by the 

 president. In this paper the author criticised a figure of the 

 lower molars of Diprolodon, published by Prof. Owen, on the 

 ground that the teeth are represented in it in an unabraded state, 

 and stated that when the last tooth breaks through the gum the 

 first of the series is always worn flat. He also remarked on the 

 peculiar modification of the premolar in the ^exi\i.% Diprolodon.- — 

 Descriptions of species of ChtTlil-s from the lower Silurian rocks 

 of North America, by Prof. H. Alleyne Nicholson, F.R.S.E. 

 In this paper the author accepted the union of CluTletes and 

 Slcnopora made by Milne Edwards and Ilaime, and stated that 

 Monticulipora D'Orb. and Nehulipora McCoy, also seemed to 

 him to belong to the same generic group, for which he proposed 

 to employ the name Clurlcles. — On the composition and struc» 

 ture of the bony palate of CIciiodns, byL. C. Miall ; communicated 

 by Prof. P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S. — Notes on a railway section of 

 the Lower Lias and Rhcetics between Stratford-on-Avon and 

 Fenny Compton, and on the occurrence of the Rha:tics near 

 Kineton and the Insect-beds near Knowle in Warwickshire, and 

 on the recent discovery of the Rluetics near Leicester, by the 

 Rev. P. B. Brodie. — The resemblances of ichthyosaurian bones 



