August 19, 1909], 



NATURE 



227 



pio^rrution by Government and State authorities. It was 

 known that no fat was removed by the firms in question, 

 and the authors show that the fault lies in the method 

 of analysis, the ordinary Babcock method failing; to show 

 all the fat in evaporated milk, k suitable method, giving 

 correct results, is described. 



The introduction of labour-saving machinery on the 

 farm has been one of the principal features of the modern 

 revolution in agriculture, and has been rendered necessary 

 by the difficulty of getting- sufficient help. Few con- 

 trivances are more interesting than the milking machine. 

 Rubber funnels are fitted on to the teats and connected 

 by stout tubing to a milk-can ; the pressure is diminished 

 by a pump to about half an atmosphere when the milk 

 begins to flow. K lengthy test has been made at the 

 Wisconsin -Agricultural Experiment Station, and is re- 

 corded in Bulletin Xo. 17;^. The machine worked more 

 quickly and more cheaply than a man ; it yielded a cleaner 

 milk, which therefore kept better, and, finally, was shown 

 to have no injurious effect on the udders or the general 

 health of the animals. The machine, of course, requires 

 proper attention and careful driving to get the best results, 

 but proved decidedly economical in herds of thirty cows or 

 more. There arc already signs that the agricultural 

 labourer of the next generation will be, in the main, an 

 engineer. 



We have received from Mr. Stewart J. McCal!, Director 

 of Agriculture, Nyasaland, an interesting pamphlet on 

 the growth of cotton in America. The four types dealt with 

 are (i) Sea Island cotton, a small high-quality crop, form- 

 ing less than i per cent, of the total American crop, but 

 very important by reason of its quality ; (2) upland cotton, 

 short staple, the principal variety in commerce; (3) upland 

 cotton, long staple, which has only been introduced within 

 the last few years, and is almost exclusively confined to 

 the rich bottom lands of the Mississippi ; (4) Egyptian 

 cotton, introduced to supply the manufacturers' demand for 

 a lustrous cotton, well adapted for mercerisation. The 

 pamphlet is written for the African cotton grower, and 

 great stress is laid on the necessity' for keeping out of 

 Africa the cotton weevil, which has done incalculable harm 

 in America, and made cotton cultivation impossible in some 

 places. Mr. McCall suggests that all seed imported from 

 America should pass through a Government Department for 

 examination and treatment. The question of distributing 

 insect and fungoid pests by artificial means has to be 

 considered seriously. Unfortunately, our administrators are 

 often insufficiently in touch with scientific problems to 

 realise that a small pest which could at little expense be 

 kept out of a country may do great damage once it is 

 introduced. 



The mixed population of Manila, which includes almost 

 all races of mankind in varying degrees of purity, has 

 afforded to Mr. R. B. Bean an unrivalled opportunity of 

 studying the different types of human ears, and formu- 

 lating, for the first time, a morphological classification of 

 the same. His results, which are published in the first 

 number of vol. iv. of the Philippine Journal of Science, 

 cannot fail to be of great interest to anthropologists. 

 Names, such as Malay, Negroid, Cro-Magnon, Alpine, Sic, 

 are given to these various types of cars, which are 

 characteristic of definite physical types of men, although 

 it does not necessarily follow that they are also distinctive 

 of all members of the races whose names they bear. The 

 Alpine ear is, for example, the ear of the fat man. In 

 the Philippines the author finds that ears not of European 

 origin are morphologically older than those of European 

 NO. 2077, VOL. 81] 



type, and from these data he draws certain conclusions 

 as to the evolution of the modern Filipinos. 



Dr. F. Erk, director of the Bavarian Meteorological 

 Service, has contributed to part i., vol. iii., of " Beitrage 

 zur Physik der freien Atmospharc " an interesting paper 

 on the relations of the upper inversion of temperature to 

 the areas of high and low atmospheric pressure. The 

 author, who has the experience of a critical examination 

 of daily weather conditions during the last twenty-five 

 years, assumes, from the labours of recent investigators, 

 that the relatively high temperatures of the region of the 

 upper inversion (the " stratosphere ") arise from the 

 absorption of radiation, not from the surface of the earth, 

 but from strata of some 4000 metres in height. He dis- 

 cusses at considerable length the effects of the descending 

 air in the high-pressure areas of the upper regions and 

 of the advance of the low-pressure systems towards the 

 stratosphere, and shows how a registering balloon on 

 entering the stratosphere must first meet with a rapid ' 

 increase, and afterwards with a gradual decrease, of 

 temperature. Photograms of the curves obtained during 

 ascents at Hamburg and Munich on the same day and ' 

 with similar instruments exhibit these phenomena very 

 clearly, and show the desirability of the more frequent 

 publication of results in this way instead of tabular state- 

 ments only. 



A NEW recording rain gauge made by Messrs. Negretti 

 and Zambra, which the makers have named the hyetograph, 

 is now procurable, and supplies a much-needed want. 

 Meteorologists have looked forward to the time when a 

 simple register should be obtainable of the duration and 

 amount of rainfall day by day. The instrument has the 

 advantage of great simplicity, and it is scarcely possible 

 for it to get out of order. The only movable parts are the 

 clock drum, the float, and the pen lever. The hyetograph 

 practically gives equal results with the necessarily more 

 expensive Halliwell's patent rain gauge, of which Messrs. 

 Negretti and Zambra are also the makers. The funnel is 

 8 inches in diameter. The float has the capacity for 

 measuring 4^ inches of rain, which is the maximum amount 

 likely to occur in one day in almost any locality in Great 

 Britain. The spindle attached to the float has a number 

 of pins or projections, and these engage successively with 

 a lever arranged so that when the pen reaches the top of 

 the chart, wound round the clock drum, the lever disengages 

 with the pin or projection and falls by its own weight on 

 to the next lower pin, which is so placed as to allow 

 the pen to fall to zero on the chart. The whole of the 

 working parts are protected by a stout galvanised iron 

 cover, and the water collected is removed by a hand-started 

 syphon. The hyetograph complete, with 100 special charts, 

 costs 61. 155. 



The " Report of a Magnetic Survey of South Africa," 

 upon which Prof. J. C. Beattie, of Cape Town, and 

 coadjutors have been engaged, with the aid of Royal 

 Society and colonial grants, for a series of years, has now 

 been published by the Royal Society at the price of 20s. 

 net. It forms a quarto volume with numerous maps and ' 

 plates, uniform with Riicker and Thorpe's Survey of the 

 British Islands. Copies may be obtained from the Cam- 

 bridge University Press Warehouse. 



We learn from the Amateur Photographer that Messrs. 

 .\ldis Bros., of Birmingham, have perfected a periscope 

 lens which enables the observer to see completely round 

 the horizon without movement of either himself or the 

 lens. It consists of a ring of glass with an outer curved' 



