266 



NA TURE 



[August 26, 1900 



by farmers at low prices. Two bulletins , by Messrs. 

 Russell and Hoffmann deal with bovine tuberculosis.. Tfiis 

 disease has appeared in Wisconsin, and has spread, 

 especially in tlie southern parts of the State, where more 

 than 43 per cent, of the herds are infected. The most 

 common mode of herd infection is through the purchase 

 of infected animals, and State regulation is strongly re- 

 commended. In another bulletin Mr. Sandstcn gives the 

 results of experiments, which are said to have been entirely 

 satisfactory, on the improvement of Wisconsin tobacco 

 through seed selection. The " King " system of venti- 

 lating barns and cow-sheds is described in Bulletin No. 164. 

 Its essential feature is that fresh air is introduced by 

 means of flues running in the walls from the bottom to 

 the top of the barn, and thus enters the building from 

 above, whilst the foul air is withdrawn by flues running 

 from the bottom to the top of the building, and terminating 

 outside in a ventilator. This inversion of the ordinary 

 system is said to work well, without draught and with- 

 out great loss of temperature. 



Mr. E. PiiiLirn, of Jena, justly observes that the strati- 

 fied structure of rocks is one of the phenomena that remain 

 inadequately explained on account of their very familiarity. 

 An a paper, " Uber das Problem der Schichtung und iiber 

 Schichtbildung am Bodcn der heutigcn Meere " (Zeitsch. 

 deutsch. gcol. Gcscll., Bd. 60, igoS, p. 346), he summarises 

 what is already known as to the bedding of sediments in 

 waters at some distance from a coast, and urges that 

 the German South Polar Expedition has shown stratification 

 to be the rule and not the exception in such materials. 

 Globigerina ooze, for example, seems regularly to contain 

 more terrigenous matter, and to be poorer in calcium car- 

 bonate, 30 cm. or so below its surface, and Philippi attri- 

 butes this to the former greater extension of the antarctic 

 ice, with consequent production of drift. Climatic changes 

 are probably the normal causes of stratified structure in 

 deep-sea deposits. Deep-sea sands are ascribed to the 

 weathering of submarine slopes and of ridges formed of 

 solid rock, some of which may only recently have been 

 forced towards sea-level. As new earth-ridges rise in sub- 

 marine areas, new material from them gathers in the 

 concomitant geosynclinals. Regular changes in the char- 

 acter of strata may thus indicate a periodicity in crust- 

 movement in the past. 



The Philippine Journal of Science for December last is 

 given up to an elaborate somatologica! study of the 

 Benguet Igorots, a tribe occupying the Benguet and 

 Lepanto-Bontoc provinces of Luzon, by Mr. R. B. Dean, of 

 the Anatomical Laboratory, Manila. The result is that the 

 writer is able to distinguish four groups : — Tall dolicho- 

 cephalic types with long arms ; small dolichocephalic with short 

 arms ; mixed mesocephalic ; and brachycephalic v/ith inter- 

 mediate arm form. One example, of which an illustration 

 IS given, is of a type curiously European in appearance. 

 The race, it is clear, has been subjected to repeated modi- 

 fication by the introduction of new varieties. The original 

 type seems to have been small and dolichocephalic, with 

 relatively . short arms, conjoined with a brachycephalic 

 element, which became mingled with the former and 

 partially fused. Upon these people intruded a tall, dolicho- 

 cephalic, long-armed race ; and the process of fusion was 

 continued uninterruptedly up to quite recent times. At 

 present the brachycephalic race is more distinct as a type 

 than either the tall or small dolichocephalic people, and 

 they are also present in larger numbers. The memoir, 

 which is fully illustrated and provided with full statistical 

 apparatus, supplies a singularly interesting example of race 

 fusion, and may be expected to throw much light on the 

 NO. 2078, VOL. 81] 



ethnological history of the Philippine Islands and the cognate 

 races of that region. 



In the August number of Man Mr. W. G. Smith dis- 

 cusses the character of the eoliths said to have been found 

 in association with remains of Elcphas mcridionalis in un- 

 disturbed beds at Dewlish in Dorsetshire. 'Ihis discovery 

 has been assumed by Dr. C. A. Windle and others to prove 

 the existence of man in the Pliocene period. Mr. Smith 

 shows that the evidence of the association of these eoliths 

 with remains of the Pliocene period is more than doubtful. 

 He has examined the remains found at Dewlish by the 

 Rev. Osmund Fisher, and finds that one of them is an 

 undoubted sponge of the Cephalitis order, while none of 

 the others, in his opinion, exhibit the faintest trace of 

 human worI<. The case of the flints found in the same 

 locality by Dr. Blackmore in 1814 is similar ; and an iron 

 stain on one example suggests that it was a surface find. 

 He sums up the question as follows : — " If bulbed flakes of 

 undoubted human origin have been found at Dewlish (none' 

 were sent to me) with Elephas mcridionalis, this cannot 

 prove that the elephant and the stones are Pliocene in age ; 

 it only suggests that, the elephant had survived into 

 Palreolithic times, for the sufficient reason that Dewlish 

 is an old and well-known locality for Pal.-eolithic imple- 

 ments. It is mentioned in Evans's ' Stone Implements,' 

 ed. i., 1872, p. 559, and ed. ii., 1897, p. 638. I have not 

 wiitten this and former notes on ' eoliths ' in an attempt to 

 show that a Pliocene ape-man probably never existed. It 

 is, to me, possible that such an animal did live somewhere 

 in pre-Glacial and Pliocene times. W'hen the evidence — 

 geological, osteological, and archiEological — is conclusive, 

 I shall be one of the first to accept it." ^ 



It has been shown experimentally that the incidence of 

 /3 or -y rays from a radio-active substance on a dielectric 

 increases its conductivity, and Dr. H. Greinacher, of the 

 University of Ziirlch, describes, in the July number 6t 

 Le Radium, his endeavours to detect a corresponding effect 

 in the case of the a rays. The rays were derived from a 

 layer of polonium, and fell on the dielectric of a condenser 

 placed in series with an electrometer and a battery of 

 storage cells. Although at first a considerable increase of 

 the conductivity of the dielectric appeared to be produced 

 when the radiation fell on it, Dr. Greinacher finally traced 

 the effect to the improved contact between the dielectric 

 and the electrodes of the condenser, and found no effect of 

 the radiation on the conductivity. This he attributes to 

 the closeness of the ions together in a solid, and the rapid 

 re-combination of them which in consequence ensues. 



The best method of determining an electrical resistance 

 in absolute measure has hitherto been that of Lorenz, but 

 in the Bulletin of the Bureau of Standards for May, Mr; 

 E. B. Rosa proposes to substitute for it a method which 

 depends on the revolution of a coil in the magnetic field 

 due to an electric current in another fi.xed coil. The fixed 

 coil consists of two portions set a little further apart than 

 in the Helmholtz galvanometer. The revolving coil con- 

 sists also of two parts wound in planes at right angles to 

 each other. The balancing is done by means of a differ- 

 ential galvanometer provided with three coils. Of these, 

 two are each in series with a part of the revolving coil, 

 and the third is connected to the ends of the resistance to 

 be measured, which is in series with the fixed coil. By 

 means of this apparatus Mr. Rosa hopes to obtain an 

 accuracy ten times that which has been obtained with the 

 Lorenz apparatus. 



We note from an article on machine-tool practice in the 

 Engineering Magazine for July an interesting example of 



