82 



NA TURE 



[May 28, 1896 



completed, and the steamer La Vierge is in dock at Gothen- 

 Imrg. A folding canvas boat, to carry three persons and 600 

 kilograms of provisions, has also been constructed. The ex- 

 pedition is to sail from Gothenburg on June 7, and should arrive 

 al Spitzbergen about the l8th of that month. After that, 

 M. Andree cannot state what may happen — whether it will be a 

 long balloon voyage, or a sledge and boat journey. M. Ekholm 

 enumerated the various instruments which will be taken ; they 

 include several self-recording meteorological instruments, photo- 

 graphic apparatus, and electrometer. M. Strindberg gave 

 details respecting the construction of the balloon. After the 

 meeting a banquet took place, at which Baron Nordenskiold 

 wished success to the expedition, to which M. Andree warmly 

 responded. 



In spite of the numerous excursions that have been previously 

 made to Spitzbergen, it is remarkable that so very little has been 

 done in the interior. The botany of its coast-lands is as well 

 known as that of many British counties ; its mosses, hepatics, 

 and marine alga; have been carefully monographed. Many 

 groups of the fauna have been equally well described. The 

 geology of the coast sections has been mapped, and rich collec- 

 tions of fossils made from the remarkably rich sequence of rocks 

 ranging from the Devonian to the Pleistocene, and including 

 representatives of the Carboniferous, Permian, Trias, Jurassic, 

 Cretaceous and .Miocene. Nevertheless hardly anything is 

 known of the interior of West Spitzbergen, the largest island of 

 the archipelago. Nordenskiold and Palander crossed the north- 

 east island in June 1873, but up to the present only two short 

 excursions have been .made on to the ice-sheet of the main 

 island. The first of these was a short traverse by the late 

 Gustav Nordenskiold from Horn Sound to Bel Sound, and the 

 other a visit by Ribot to Mount Milne-Edwards, to the south- 

 east of Ice Fiord. The interior is known to be covered by an ice- 

 sheet, and a careful study of this would no doubt throw much light 

 on the problems of the former glaciation of Europe. An effort to 

 fill this remarkable gap in our knowledge is now being made by 

 Sir W. Martin Conway, who has organised an expedition to 

 Spitzbergen, which will start on June 2. The main object of 

 the expedition is the study of the interior, but it is hoped also to 

 supplement our knowledge of the fauna of the coast-lands, and 

 to make extensive collections for this country. The party will 

 consist of five other members, Mr. Ed. Conway, Mr. R. U. 

 Darbishire, Mr. E. J. Garwood, Dr. J. \V. Gregory, and Mr. 

 A. Trevor-Battye. The party expects to return early in Sep- 

 tember. The collections made will be the property of the 

 British Museum, the Trustees of that institution having lent 

 Dr. (Jiregory's services to the expedition. 



Writing to the Electrician on the subject of Riintgen rays, 

 Mr. James Mark Barr enunciates the proposition that reversing 

 the current in a "focusing" tube improves it for its normal 

 working after "fatiguing" has set in. He adds that the reverse 

 current used should be comparatively weak. 



A FINE specimen of a rare Marine Chalonian, the Leathery 

 Turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) has lately been presented to the 

 South African Museum by Mr. P. C. Keytel, of Cape Town. 

 The animal was stranded on Blaauwberg beach in Table Bay, 

 and was secured by some fishermen ; its length is over 5 feet, 

 :ind its breadth more than 2 feet. 



I.N ihe Indian Engineer some interesting statistics are given 

 relating to the development of the coal fields in Labuan. The 

 island contains four seams of coal varying in thickness from i\ 

 to 10 feet, and running from north-east to south-west. The 

 coal is good steam coal containing an abundance of resin, and 

 the outcrops are three-quarters of a mile from the sea. In 

 prospecting for coal near the head of the Ogangara River, oil was 

 NO. 1387, VOL. 54] 



struck, which continued to flow for a few days, when the spring 

 became exhausted. The yearly output of coal three years ago 

 was 18,000 tons. 



The current number of the fournal of the College of Science, 

 at Tokyo, fully maintains the standard of its predecessors ; but 

 we note with deep regret the announcement of the death of Mr. 

 Ilirota, whose last paper (on the " Dendritic Appendage of the 

 Urogenital Papilla of a Siluroid ") it contains. The half-dozen 

 monographs which have follen from Mr. Hirota's pen are of 

 exceptional merit, and show their author to have been a worker 

 of much promise and sound judgment. His first paper on the 

 " Sero-Amniotic Connection and the Fcetal Membranes in the 

 Chick " came as a revelation ; and let it be recorded to his last- 

 ing memory, that he therein disposed of an error in fundamentals, 

 of which Western embryologists, studying the hen's egg ad 

 nauseurn, had never dreamt. We tender our Eastern confreres 

 our profoundest sympathy, for their loss is our own. 



A PROTEST is raised in the Agricultural Gazette of New South 

 Wales (vol. vii. part 2) against the indiscriminate destruction 

 of beneficent lady-birds. The small yellow and black-banded 

 pumpkin beetle, Aiilocophora hilaris, Boisd. , feeds upon many 

 plants frequented by the 28-spotted lady-bird, Epilachna 28- 

 piinctata, and it is common to find these two destructive species 

 side by side upon the same plant. This appears to have led to 

 the misapplication of the term " lady-bird " to Aiilocophora 

 hilaris, with the unfortunate result that the whole of the group 

 Coccinellida;, to which the appellation properly belongs, has 

 been, in the most general terms, denounced and described as a 

 scourge. Considering that, out of the large number of species 

 of lady-birds to be found in New South Wales, only two — 

 Epilachna 2%-pHnctala and Epilachna guttato-piistulata — are 

 really injurious, it would be a great misfortune if all the useful 

 species of Coccinellida: were to be ostracised on their account. 



The last number of the American journal, Modern Medicine 

 and Bacteriological Review, draws attention to a report recently 

 drawn up by Prof. Conn, of the Western University, on the 

 bacteriology of milk, published by the United States Department 

 of Agriculture. Examinations of milk made at various places 

 yielded numbers varying from 330,000 to 9,000,000 microbes 

 per ounce. The milk-supply of Boston was found to be par- ' 

 ticularly rich in microbes, as many as 135 million germs being 

 found per ounce. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 

 lately reported a case in which a young man contracted tuber- 

 cular disease by drinking milk from a herd of cows, fifty-nine of 

 which were afterwards found to be tuberculous, whilst two per- 

 sons employed in making butter from the same herd, and who 

 drank large quantities of milk, also became infected. Although 

 much has been accomplished in our country of late years to 

 improve the sanitary conditions surrounding our public milk-sup- 

 plies, yet a great deal still remains to be done, and there cannot 

 be a doubt that the next important step will be the distribution 

 by our dairies of " pasteurised " milk and butter. The example 

 has already been set by one important London dairy company, 

 and it is to be hoped that others will follow what is, after all, but 

 a tardy imitation of what has been done for some time past by 

 our more enlightened neighbours on the continent. 



In commemoration of the Jenner centenary, a special number 

 of the British Medical Journal has been issued, containing a 

 number of interesting papers on Edward Jenner's life, work, 

 and writings. 



The Clarendon Press announces for early publication a " Flora 

 of Berkshire," by Mr. G. C. Druce. It is intended to be not 

 only a catalogue, but also a history, of the plants of the 

 county. 



