610 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 198. 



It was, therefore, resolved that the Government 

 of India be asked whether it could give any in- 

 formation as as to when the Chiefs' Institute of 

 Public Health was likely to take practical shape. 

 Until a reply is received nothing definite will be 

 done. Lieutenant- Colonel Eoe, Secretary of 

 the Institute, is proceeding on leave, and Major 

 C. J. Bamber has taken up the ofiiciating ap- 

 pointment. 



The Rev. E. C. Hallett, British Chaplain at 

 St. Vincent, writes on September 17th last, that 

 the steam barque Southern Cross, of Sir George 

 Newnes's Antarctic expedition, called in at St. 

 Vincent on September 13th for the purpose of 

 coaling, when very cordial visits were ex- 

 changed between the ship and the shore. Cap- 

 tain Borchgrevink and his staif, who were in 

 excellent spirits, most hospitably afforded the 

 the officials and residents of St. Vincent every 

 opportunity of inspecting the vessel before she 

 started again on the 14th on her voyage to the 

 to the South Polar regions. 



A TELEGRAM to the daily papers from San 

 Francisco states that Messrs. W. A. Woodruif 

 and C. L. Cleghorn, of Washington, D. C, 

 have sailed for Samoa. They are said to be 

 heading a government expedition to collect rare 

 plants, shrubs and other specimens in the in- 

 terior of the Samoan Islands. 



The New York Evening Post reports that M. 

 Viger, French Minister of Agriculture, has 

 delegated M. d'Anvina, an engineer, and MM. 

 Dubray and Minotier, to come to this country 

 to study the American machinery and tools 

 used in the manufacture of flour, and to ascer- 

 tain their prices and the cost of transportation 

 to France. 



Here G. Witt, of the Urania Observatory, 

 Berlin, has made an important discovery while 

 searching photographically for minor planets. 

 On August 14th last he found, says Nature, on 

 the plate he had exposed, in addition to the 

 trail of the minor planet he was hoping to 

 catch, a second trail which indicated the pres- 

 ence of another of these small bodies moving 

 round the sun with a more than usual velocity. 

 Herr Witt was not content, however, to let the 

 , matter rest thus, so he undertook a series of 

 eye observations and measurements which are 



necessary for the determination of the elements 

 of the body in question. Herr Berberich under- 

 took the task of investigating its motion from 

 these observations, and the result, as far as is 

 known, is surprisingly interesting. Instead of 

 the object being a new or a previously observed 

 member of that system of bodies which travels 

 round the sun between Mars and Jupiter, it 

 proves to be quite an exception, its orbit lying 

 within that of Mars ; in other words, it travels 

 in a path which is nearer to the earth than that 

 of Mars. It completes its revolution in a period 

 of about 600 days ; that is, roughly, 80 days 

 less than Mars takes ; both the eccentricity and 

 inclination of the orbit are considerable. This 

 small body thus becomes our nearest neighbor 

 after the moon, and, although small, will shine 

 when closest to us as a star of the sixth magni- 

 tude. No doubt the discovery of this new 

 planet will incite afresh observers of these small 

 bodies ; and who will say that this new object 

 is the only member of its kind that performs its 

 revolution round the sun in an orbit between 

 the earth and Mars ? 



Dr. Florentino Ameghino has made a re- 

 markable discovery, an account of which we 

 take from Natural Science. Details of a noc- 

 turnal quadruped have been brought to him 

 from time to time by the Indians, and a few 

 years ago the late Ramon Lista actually saw 

 and shot at a mysterious creature in the interior 

 of Santa Cruz. Apparently bullet-proof, it dis- 

 appeared into the brushwood, and all search 

 for it proved futile. Lista described the crea- 

 ture as a pangolin, without scales and covered 

 with reddish hair. Despite the fact that Lista 

 was known to be a good observer, Dr. Ameghino 

 could not help feeling that he was deceived. 

 Lista, however, has now been proved correct, 

 for Ameghino received recently from South 

 Patagonia some fresh bony ossicles and a par- 

 tially destroyed skin. The ossicles were com- 

 parable to those of Mylodon, but smaller, and 

 they were embedded in the skin, like ' paving 

 stones in a street.' The skin itself is two cm. 

 thick, and of such toughness that it could only 

 be cut with a hatchet. The surface of the skin 

 itself shows an epidermis, not scaly at all, but 

 covered with coarse hair, four to five cm. in 

 length, and of a reddish gray shade. This 



