198 



SCIENCE. 



[N. a. Vol. IV. No. 85. 



F.R.S., presented four groups of Lepas fasci- 

 cularis. These barnacles attach themselves to 

 minute floating foreign bodies, whose buoyancy- 

 soon becomes insufficient of itself for their sup- 

 port. A secretion from the cement glands is, 

 however, poured upon the surface of the for- 

 eign body in large quantities and covers it to a 

 considerable depth with a natural float in the 

 form of a spongy reticulum full of air bubbles. 

 In one of the specimens part of the float has 

 been removed to show the attenuated stalks of 

 the barnacles attached to the foreign body. 

 There is also a very good skeleton from a case 

 of Osteitis Deforamans, showing in a marked 

 degree the changes characteristic of that dis- 

 ease. Altogether some 360 specimens have been 

 added to various departments of the museum. 

 At a meeting of the Geological Society of 

 London, on June 24th, Sir William Dawson 

 said that the whole of the facts were tending to 

 the conclusion that instead of ascribing the 

 phenomena of the glacial age to continental 

 ice sheets, we should have to be content with 

 local glaciers on the higher lands and cold 

 ocean currents pervading the submerged lower 

 levels. Evidently the phenomena could not be 

 explained without giving attention to the evi- 

 dence of continental submergence afforded by 

 the clays containing marine remains and the 

 ancient shore lines found at very high eleva- 

 tions. The action of shore and field ice during 

 periods of gradual subsidence and elevation 

 could alone account for the great beds of boul- 

 der clay holding marine shells and tests of mod- 

 ern foraminifera, and the term ' unstratified ' 

 till was not always appropriate, as where long 

 continuous sections could be observed, succes- 

 sive beds were often marked by color lines, by 

 rows of stones or by fossiliferous layers. 



The London Times states that the naturalists 

 of the English Marine Biological Association 

 have recently been paying particular attention 

 to the question of the collection of fishery sta- 

 tistics, and an important report on the subject 

 has just been received by the Council of the 

 Association. In this report an account is first 

 given of the statistics at present collected and 

 published by the Board of Trade relating to 

 sea fisheries in England. It is pointed out that 



the methods at present adopted for collecting 

 the statistics are not such as to give confidence 

 in the accuracy of the returns, whilst their in- 

 adequacy in plan and extent cannot be ques- 

 tioned. The defects upon which emphasis is 

 principally laid are the want of sufficient 

 discrimination between the species of fish 

 landed, the lack of all information as to the 

 locality of capture of the fish, and the fact 

 that no attempt is made to distinguish be- 

 tween the products of different methods of 

 fishing. Various suggestions are made as to 

 methods by which the statistics could be im- 

 proved, and it is maintained that the only 

 really satisfactory course would be to require 

 the master of each fishing vessel to supply the 

 Board of Trade with correct returns of the fish 

 caught and of the locality of their capture. In 

 the case of the larger vessels, at any rate, such 

 records already exist and are supplied by the 

 master to his owners. All that is required is 

 that copies of these records should be furnished 

 to the proper officers, so that the information 

 may be utilized for the general benefit of the 

 public and of the fishing industry. The report 

 will be published in full in the forthcoming 

 number of the journal of the Association. 



The Optician states that a report which has ■;;, 

 just been issued by the Assistant Secretary of 

 the Marine Department gives particulars of the 

 working of the new tests for vision adopted by M \ 

 the mercantile marine during the 16 months ■ 

 ended December 31, 1895. A supplementary 

 plate contains specimens of the colors of each 

 series of wools used in the Holmgren test for 

 color blindness. During this period the per- 

 centage of failures in color vision was slightly 

 higher than under the old system, the i)ercent- 

 age under the old system being .88, while un- 

 der the new it amounts to 1.39. The total 

 percentage of failures under the new system, in- 

 cluding failures in form vision as well as those in 

 color vision, was 2.8, while the total percentage 

 of failures under the old system was .88. One 

 commendable feature of the new system is the 

 appeal to special examiners which is allowed 

 when a candidate fails to pass in colors. Of the 

 101 candidates who failed in colors, 21 availed 

 themselves of this appeal ; 8 were passed and 



