February 6, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



235 



vegetable commonly found in the market was 

 as tasteless as white field corn. The market 

 people told us that to obtain sweet com, it 

 was necessary to plant northern seed every 

 time, while the seed corn grown from northern 

 seed always gave the tasteless variety. 



Since, I believe, our sweet varieties of corn 

 are derived by cultivation from the white field 

 corn, this looks very like a case of atavic 

 mutation. I hope that Dr. White or some 

 other investigators in Washington may be 

 able to give us further information about this 

 matter. John Murdoch. 



PuBuc Library, Boston, jNIass., 

 January 12, 1903. 



NOTES ON INORGANIC GHEMIBTRT. 



DISCOVERY OF NEW PLATINUM DEPOSITS. 



A New York World dispatch from St. 

 Petersburg of the date January 18 announces 

 the discovery of vast deposits of platinum on 

 the river Gusseva. It is said that within a 

 month 25,000 men swarmed to the diggings, 

 and before the police could reach the camp 

 the miners got away with $1,500,000 worth 

 of platinum. The locality indicated in the 

 dispatch is in the upper, or Goroblagodatsk 

 district, on the eastern watershed of the Oural 

 Mountains. The mines of this region are 

 chiefly owned by Count Shouvalof and a num- 

 ber of companies. About eighty miles to the 

 south is the Nizhni Tagilsk district, which is 

 owned by the Demidofis, and which has been 

 the greatest producer of platinum in the past. 

 The last few years the northern district has 

 been a larger producer, but the sands and 

 rock have run very low in platinum. While 

 as recently as 1870 the richness of the sands 

 was as high as one ounce to the ton, in 1895 

 the average was hardly one and a half penny- 

 weights to the ton. The total production of 

 that year was less than 150,000 ounces. If 

 the figures of the World dispatch are reliable, 

 it would indicate the production in a month 

 of more than the usual annual output of late 

 years. The platinum problem has become a 

 very serious one, for while the demand has 

 increased rapidly the last few years, the sup- 

 ply has been diminishing. Great efforts have 

 been made to discover new fields, but without 



much practical success. Platinum occurs in 

 many places, but generally in insufficient 

 quantities to pay for working. The Goro- 

 blagodatsk district consists chiefly of the river 

 Iss and its tributaries. The total length of 

 these streams is about sixty miles, and the 

 Gusseva is one of these afiluents. Allowing 

 for all the probable exaggeration of the dis- 

 patch, it would seem that deposits have been 

 discovered in this region which must be far 

 richer than any which have been worked for 

 many years. It is sincerely to be hoped that 

 they shall prove to be of considerable area. 



J. L. H. 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 



report of the CHIEF OF THE WEATHER BUREAU. 



The 'Eeport of the Chief of the Weather 

 Bureau ' for 1901-1902 (4to, pp. 342) contains 

 a number of interesting facts regarding the 

 work of the Bureau. The storm warnings 

 issued for the transatlantic steamship routes 

 were so successful that the secretary of 

 ' Lloyd's,' in London, conveyed to the Chief 

 of the Bureau the congratulations of his com- 

 mittee ' on the infallibility of the predictions 

 that have been supplied by the forecasts.' 

 On August 1, 1902, 10,025 rural free mail- 

 delivery routes were in operation, serving 

 approximately 1,000,000 families. Of these 

 families, 105,000, served by about 1,000 routes, 

 were furnished with the forecasts of the 

 Weather Bureau. If the necessary funds 

 were available, it would be possible to make 

 the distribution of the daily forecasts coex- 

 tensive with the rui-al free delivery itself. 

 Professor Abbe has acted as the general ad- 

 viser of the trustees of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion on matters pertaining to meteorology, and 

 has also been charged with the oversight of the 

 aerial research work of the Weather Bureau. 

 A valuable set of nephoscope observations 

 from the West Indies has been secured, from 

 May, 1899, to May, 1902. Among the special 

 studies carried on by the Bureau are the fol- 

 lowing: Investigation of the intensity of solar 

 radiation by means of Angstrom's electric 

 compensation pyrheliometer ; a new barometric 



