Oct. 2 2, 1874] 



NATURE 



513 



West London for the advancement of natural history and 

 physical science. There was a very good attendance, chiefly of 

 members of the various London field clubs, A number of 

 ladies have been received as members, and working men are 

 represented on the committee. 



According to the Belgique Horticole, Dr. Candezi has in- 

 vented a small photographic apparatus, which he calls a 

 " scenograph," which consists simply of a stick and of a camera 

 the size of an opera glass. To photograph a plant or other 

 object, it is sufficient to place it in the focus of the scenograph 

 for a minute or two. The negatives, it appears, can be pur- 

 chased ready prepared. 



The opening of the School of Horticulture at Versailles, which 

 was to have taken place on Oct. i, is postponed till Dec. i. 



Dr. a. Corlieu states, va. La France MMicale iat Sept. 30, 

 that he had occasion to search the registers of the parish of Saint 

 Antoine, preserved in the National Library. It was in the 

 cemetery of the Innocents, in that parish, that the dead bodies 

 from the Hutel-Dieu were interred ; and Dr. CorHeu has ascer- 

 tained that during the first six months of 1694 the deaths in the 

 hospital amounted to Il,6g6. In 1S73, during the same space 

 of time, the mortality amounted to 770 for 925 beds. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during 

 , the fast week include a Chacma Baboon {CyHocephaltts por- 



carius) from South Africa, presented by Mr. J. D. Lloyd ; a 

 I Ducorps' Cockatoo (Cacaliia diuorfsi) from the Solomon 

 ' Islands, presented by Mr. F. J. Dean ; two Lions (Fciis Ico) 



from South Africa; a Malbrouck Monkey [^Ccycophilhccus 

 I cynosurus) from West Africa ; a Sun Bittern {Euiypyga hdias) 



from South America.'deposited ; two European Rollers (Coracias 



garnda), European; a Naked-throated Bell-bird (Clujsino- 

 j rhynclms nudicoHis) {torn Baiiia ;"a solitary Tinamou {Tinamns 



solitarius) from Rio de Janeiro, purchased. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



The Quaiierly Journal of Microscopic Science iox \K\% month 

 commences with two articles which are of special interest to 

 embryologists, and therefore to biologists generally. The 

 former of these is by Mr. F. M. Balfour, entitled " A Preliminary 

 Account of the Development of the Elasmobranch Fishes; " it 

 occupies about forty pages, and is fully illustrated. The in- 

 vestigations were conducted at the Zoological Station at Naples, 

 which illustrates the value of that institution, and the justifiable- 

 ness of Dr. Dohrn's enthusiasm. The earliest stages of develop- 

 ment are those most minutely described. The points of greatest 

 interest made out are the following : — (i) The cpiblast of the 

 blastoderm in that part -which corresponds to the caudal extre- 

 mity of the future embryo, folds round inwards and becomes 

 continuous with tlie deeper layers ; which leads the author to 

 conclude that, as the hypoblastic origin of the alimentary canal 

 is connected with the presence of a food-yolk, and in origin its 

 those animals which develop an "anus of Rusconi " is not so, 

 the former is but an adaptation. (2) The notochord is shown to 

 be developed from the hypoblast, the niesoblast forming a mass 

 on each side of it. This may depend upon the mesoblast, whose 

 lateral columns just referred to, are "split olT, so to speak, from 

 the hypoblast," also developing a median independent sheet ; or 

 it may be, which unbiassed observation undoubtedly supports, 

 that the notocliord is a true hypoblastic structure. The former 

 of these views, as the author remarks, "proves too much," since 

 it is clear that by the same method of reasoning we could prove 

 the mesoblastic origin of any organ derived from the hypoblast 

 and budded off into the mesoblast. If Mr. Balfour's fundamental 

 fact is verified, it will much modify the argument as to the 

 homology of organs as based upon their embryonic origin. (3) 

 The medullary groove is quite flattened out in the cephalic region 

 at the time that the canal is fully formed in the caudal. This 

 paper is well worthy of careful study. — Mr. Ray Lankester 

 writes on tlie development of the pond snail (Lymnosus sta^nalis), 



and on the early stages of other mollusca. He begins by de- 

 scribing the shell-gland, which is situated below the developing 

 shell ; he shows its presence in Lamellibranchs, Gasteropods, 

 Pceropods, also in the Bracliiopoda and Loxosoma. From this 

 the question is asked whether it in any way corresponds to the 

 pen of the Dibranchiate Cephalopoda and the internal shell of 

 Liiim.x. Reasons are given in favour of the plug, which is 

 always found to occupy the shell-gland, being developed into the 

 latter ; but with regard to the former, the author, from originally 

 holding the opinion that it has a similar origin, now thinks 

 differently for the following reasons : — The pen of Loligo must 

 correspondtotheguardof theBelemnite, in which thephragmacone 

 is aborted. This guard is only a sheath to the phragmacone, 

 which again corresponds to the whole shell of Spirula. The 

 shell of Spirula must have been preceded by the shell-gland, 

 therefore the plug of the latter cannot have been the direct origin 

 of the Loligo pen. The latter part of the paper discusses the 

 development of the pond-snail in detail. — Mr. E. A. Sch;ifer 

 describes an ingenious and much-improved microscope warm- 

 stage, in which a mercury valve regulates the gas supplv to a 

 small circulating boiler. He remarks that much of the cooling is 

 produced by the proximity of the objective, and suggests that 

 this may be warmed by coiling a tube round it. It has always 

 occurred to us taask whether the Iieating of objectives does not 

 injure, for the time being, their optical powers ; as they are con- 

 structed so as to be achromatic, &c. , at the .average temperature 

 of the air, and very slight differences must produce material 

 changes in the distance between the lenses and their shape. 



Bulletins de la Societe d' Anthropologic de Paris, fascicule v. 

 tome S, 1874. — M. Topinard concludes his paper on the an- 

 thropology of Algiers, by drawing attention to the five periods 

 which characterise the anthropological lii^tory of the colony, and 

 which are those of the brown-skinned Kabyles ; the light-skinned 

 Kabyles ; the Numidians, to whom we must refer the greater 

 number of the Berber inscriptions hitherto found ; the Romans, 

 Arabs, and Turks ; and lastly, the Aryans. M. Topinard is of 

 opinion that in the fair and dark skinned Berbers we have a 

 kindred race with our oldest West-European races, and that there- 

 fore, with due regard to locality, we have evidence that P^urnpean 

 colonies could be made, like those tribes, to flourish in various 

 parts of Algiers. In the meanwhile, however, as General Faid- 

 herbe has remarked, it becomes a question of political as well as 

 ethnological importance to investigate and, if possible, arrest the 

 causes which are diminishing the numbers of the native popula- 

 tion, whose existence is the more important from their being the 

 best able to bear the climate and cultivate the soil. M. Topi- 

 nard considers that the mortality among the native races is not 

 to be referred with any special prominence to diseases introduced 

 by Europeans, but is due very much more to a natural scrofulous 

 diathesis antecedent among them, to any imported constitutional 

 taint, while famine, war, and many other causes depending upon 

 political conditions are probably the most important agents in 

 the process. — M. de Mortillet has recalled the attention of the 

 Society to M. I'Abbe Bourgeois' assumed evidence of the exist- 

 ence of man at the base of the Miocene or mean Tertiary, while 

 he presented to them one of the latest of the Abbe's finds of flint 

 implements from the Miocene beds at Thenay, and which in its 

 longitudinal lines showed unmistakable traces of cutting. The 

 speaker pointed out that since the foundation of the calcareous 

 beds at Beauce, and the deposit of the flints at Thenay, the 

 mammalian fauna has been renewed at least three times, while the 

 differences between the extinct and living fauna are sufficient to 

 justify the acceptance of the supervention of specific genera. 

 The question of the existence of man in the mean Tertiary period 

 rests, however, for the present, open, and must await further 

 discoveries of a less questionable nature before it can obtain an 

 unassailable solution. — M. Onimus, in a paper on language, has 

 considered at length the importance of reflex action generally 

 on all phenomena of the nervous system and on the intellectual 

 functions, illustrating his point by reference to the changes in the 

 faculty of speech which give rise to aphasia, and considering the 

 manner in which the latter lesion is modified by the previous and 

 normal mental condition of the patient. This number also con- 

 tains a suggestive paper, by Madame C. Royer, on the mathe- 

 matical laws of reversion through atavism ; notes by M. Bataillard 

 on the Gipsies of Algiers ; and a report of the hairy dog-man of 

 Kostroma, in whom an abnormal development of the hair of the 

 head and the down on the face and neck, combined with consi- 

 derable prognathism, has similated the characters of the canine 

 head. 



