522 



NATURE 



[April i, 1880 



If this be the true explanation why the radiation of bodies 

 deviates from Newton's law, it should follow that in the 

 •case of gases where the particles stand at a considerable 

 •distance from one another, the obstruction to interior 

 radiation must be far less than in a solid, and consequently 

 that the rate at which a gas radiates its heat as its tempe- 

 rature rises, must increase more slowly than that of a 

 solid substance. In other words, in the case of a gas, the 

 rate of radiation must correspond more nearly to the 

 absolute temperature than in that of a solid ; and the less 

 the density and volume of a gas, .the more nearly will its 

 rate of radiation agree with Newton's law. The obstruc- 

 tion to interior radiation into space must diminish as we 

 ascend in the atmosphere, at the outer limits of which, 

 where there is no obstruction, the rate of radiation should 

 be pretty nearly proportional to the absolute temperature. 

 May not this to a certain extent be the cause why the 

 temperature of the air diminishes as we ascend? 



If the foregoing considerations be correct, it ought to 

 follow that a reduction in the amount of heat received 

 from the sun, owing to an increase of his distance, should 

 tend to produce a greater lowering effect on the tempera- 

 ture of the air than it does on the temperature of the solid 

 ground. Taking, therefore, into consideration, the fact 

 that space has probably a lower temperature than — 239 , 

 and that the temperature of our climate is determined by 

 the temperature of the air, it will follow that the error of 

 assuming that the decrease of temperature is proportional 

 to the decrease in the intensity of the sun's heat may not 

 be great. 



In estimating the extent to which the winter tem- 

 perature is lowered by a great increase in the sun's 

 distance there is another circumstance which must be 

 taken into account. The lowering of the temperature 

 tends to diminish the amount of aqueous vapour contained 

 in the air, and this in turn tends to lower the temperature 

 by allowing the air to throw off its heat more freely into 

 space. James Croll 



THE RUSSIAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY 



IT is no easy matter to render an account of the pro- 

 ceedings and publications of the " Imperial Russian 

 Geographical Society." So numerous are its sections, 

 and so prolific is each of them, that to master the whole 

 of the information yearly made available by them would 

 be no easy task, even for a reader possessing the amount 

 of leisure which most Russians enjoy. Some of its 

 volumes, however, are intended merely as works of 

 reference, books which are not meant to be read through, 

 but which serve as useful storehouses of facts and figures. 

 Of such a nature is the huge collection now before us of 

 Pistsovniya knigi, the rent-rolls, as it were, of the estates 

 of ecclesiastical and lay proprietors of the soil in the 

 sixteenth century. Some idea of the magnitude of the 

 work may be gained from the fact that the second part 

 alone of its first volume contains 1,598 large and closely 

 printed pages. As a general rule, the publications of the 

 Society are of no use to foreigners who are unacquainted 

 with Russian. But there are a few exceptions, such as 

 the monograph by Prof. Oswald Heer, of Zurich, on the 

 fossil flora of the coal-fields of East Siberia. In 1859 a 

 rich collection of fossil plants was made in the Amur 

 district by F. Schmidt, but it was burnt in the great fire 

 of Blagoveshensk the year after. In 1862 a fresh collec- 

 tion was made, and submitted to Prof. Heer. The results 

 of his investigations are given in the second division of 

 "the geological part" of the third volume of "the physical 

 section" of the Records {Trudi) of the "Siberian Expe- 

 dition" of the Society, under the title of the "Jurassic Flora 

 of the Irkutsk Government and the Amur Territory." The 

 greater part of the text is in Russian. But as the 

 descriptions are in Latin, and they are accompanied 

 by thirty-one quarto plates, printed at Winterthur, the 



book is available for Western scholars. The expedition 

 of the late A. Tchekanovsky to the Lena in 1875, says 

 the editor, F. Schmidt, in his preface, has contributed new 

 and important additions to our knowledge of the Jurassic 

 flora of Siberia. "The Jurassic plants collected around 

 Bulun and Ayakit, Lower Lena, serve as a link between 

 the Jurassic flora of South-East Siberia and the same flora 

 of the Spitzbergen Isles, and prove the unity and com- 

 parative uniformity of the Jurassic flora over a great part 

 of the northern hemisphere, namely from Spitzbergen to 

 England (Yorkshire) and beyond the Lena to the Irkutsk 

 Government and the Amur." Much valuable information 

 about Siberia is given also in the voluminous supple- 

 ments to Rater's "Asia," "serving as a continuation of 

 Ritter's work, based upon materials rendered available 

 since 1832." 



Among the subjects treated at greatest length in the 

 Transactioiis {Zapiski) of the Ethnographical Section of 

 the Society are " The Shores of the Frozen and White 

 Seas," "The Church Calendar of the Common People," 

 and the "Popular Juridical Customs of the Russian 

 Empire." The treatise on the first gives a full account of 

 the various tribes inhabiting the inhospitable northern 

 shores. In speaking of the Samoyeds, it may be worthy of 

 remark, the author does not even so much as allude to the 

 absurd explanation (dear to many English minds) of their 

 name as meaning cannibals. Lyudoyed, in Russian (from 

 lyudi, men, andjcy/', to eat), signifies a cannibal. A false 

 analogy has resolved Samoyed into the same meaning. If 

 it meant anything in Russian, it would mean a " self- 

 eater," whatever that might be. Russian philologists 

 explain it in different ways. Some, as Lerberg, consider 

 it a Russian word, corrupted from Semgo-yed, a salmon- 

 eater. Byelyavsky says that the Samoyeds employ, in 

 speaking of each other, a common tribal or family desig- 

 nation Khasovo, from Khaz, self (in Russian sum) and 

 ovo, one (in Russian odin). From these Russian equiva- 

 lents of the Samoyed words, sprang, he supposes, a 

 designation Sam-odin or Sam-yedin. In some old 

 documents the Samoyeds are called Suiroyadtsui, from 

 their habit of eating raw (suiroe) meat. But there seems 

 to be no reason for supposing that the two names have 

 any connection. Much more probable is the surmise 

 that the word is of Finnish origin, the land belonging to 

 some Ugrian neighbours of the Samoyeds having been 

 called Samoyanda or Samoyedna, from which the 

 Russians formed the name Samoyed. The Calendar 

 gives a detailed account of the Saints' days observed by 

 the Russian peasants, and of the various superstitions 

 and rites connected with them. It begins with September, 

 which was officially chosen as the first month at the 

 Council of Moscow in 1342. In ancient days March was 

 among the Russians, as it was among the Israelites, the 

 commencement of the new year. Its modern name, 

 Mart, was derived from Rome through Byzantium ; the 

 heathen Slavs knew it as Sukhy, " the Dry," or Berezozol, 

 from its effect on the bereza or birch-tree. 



The volume devoted to the juridical institutions of the 

 common people, their civil and criminal law courts, is 

 full of interest ; and the information it contains is 

 thoroughly trustworthy, having been carefully collected 

 and sifted by the members of a Commission appointed 

 for the purpose in 1876. It embraces not only the 

 village-jurisprudence of the Russians themselves, but 

 also that of the strangers within their gates, and the 

 wild tribes of their outlying provinces. Or great interest 

 also are the numerous volumes of Reports {trudui) issued 

 by the members of the Ethnographical-Statistical Com- 

 mission appointed to explore the western provinces of 

 Russia. The seven large volumes devoted to the south- 

 western governments give an exhaustive account of 

 Little- Russia, entering into most minute details concern- 

 ing the physical and moral character of the inhabitants 

 of that part of the empire, between whom and the 



