2 74 



SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



in the venous circulation. This was noticed in only 

 about half the observations when the light weight 

 was carried, but it increased to fully eighty-seven 

 per cent, with the heaviest one. This explains the 

 disordered action of the heart, which is a frequent 

 consequence of military training. Such investiga- 

 tions are of the utmost practical use, and we hope 

 that our own Government will undertake a similar 

 inquiry. 



We received last month, too late for a notice in 

 our January issue, the recent publications of Hull 

 Museum. This pamphlet gives an account of an 

 interesting discovery in the moors of a roughly 

 carved model of a war-canoe, carrying four stand- 

 ing armed figures. The carving bears a striking 

 resemblance to the canoes of the Andaman 

 Islanders. There is also an account of what is 

 known as the Ballachulish Image : a life-sized 

 female figure, carved in wood, and evidently belong- 

 ing to the same period. 



The Zoological Society has sustained a serious 

 loss by the death of " Charley." the young male 

 giraffe. All visitors to the Gardens must have 

 noticed a very decided " kink " in the neck of the 

 animal, due to the fact that at least one of the 

 cervical vertebrae had sustained a terrible wrench. 

 The wonder is that it managed to survive so long 

 with so serious an injury. We may still hope that 

 a herd of giraffes may once more be reared in the 

 Gardens, as a pair of the typical northern form 

 (Giraffa camelopardalis) are now at Khartoum, 

 whence they will probably be sent to England in 

 the spring or early summer. 



The Metropolitan Asylums Board has just pub- 

 lished a report dealing with the present small-pox 

 outbreak, and the effect of vaccination upon its 

 victims. It demonstrates in a striking manner the 

 value of vaccination, and especially shows how 

 vaccination lessens the danger to life. We con- 

 clude from the report that the conscientious 

 objector is much less common now than formerly. 

 Of the unvaccinated persons over 50 per cent, have 

 succumbed, as against a trifling percentage of the 

 vaccinated. These latter include some who have 

 been vaccinated during the incubation period, and 

 at long periods before the attack. Another en- 

 couraging factor is the increased demand for 

 lymph. 



The result of the first detailed Government 

 survey of the British portion of Lake Victoria 

 Nyanza has added very considerably to our know- 

 ledge of the lake regions of Equatorial Africa. It 

 has been found that an enclosed stretch of water, 

 forty miles long, exists on the east side of the 

 lake, and that outside its mouth a valuable tract of 

 high country, with a large population, juts out into 

 the lake, where previously there were supposed to 

 be only a few islands. A much larger number of 

 islands existed in the lake than were formerly 

 marked on its map ; some of them are over thirty 

 miles from tne shore. The lake is peculiarly liable 

 to storms, in fact, a thunderstorm is nearly always 

 in sight. Owing to this fact it was not* thought 

 advisable to visit three small islets which were 

 visible far out in the lake, but with these excep- 

 tions every island has been visited and mapped by 

 the expedition. During the journey, the expedi- 

 tion came across numbers of naked savage people, 

 previously unvisited. All these, however, were 

 friendly and amiable. 



For some time past a recrudescence in the 

 activity of Vesuvius has been noticed. At night,, 

 when the summit is not obscured by smoke, flames; 

 caused by the eruption can be distinctly seen 

 arising from the crater. 



The total destruction of a Russian house in six: 

 months is an alarming example of the ravages of 

 the fuugus Meruliibs lachrymcms, otherwise " dry- 

 rot." Even in England we. have striking examples- 

 of the growth and destructive powers of this fungus. 

 A wooden platform at the Oxford House, Bethnal 

 Green, which was erected little more than a year 

 ago, is now reduced to tinder. 



At a recent meeting of the Entomological 

 Society Mr. J. H. Carpenter exhibited a number 

 of Colias hyale bred from ova laid by the parent 

 butterfly taken at Sheerness in August 1900. Mr. 

 Carpenter has cleared up a point in this insect' s- 

 life history which was hitherto obscure, and has 

 succeeded in showing that it hibernates in the 

 larval stage and pupates and emerges in the 

 spring. 



There is in " Nature " of January 9th an inter- 

 esting article on the work of Mr. W. A. Bentley, of 

 Jericho, Vermont, U.S.A. Mr. Bentley has devoted 

 twenty years to the study of snow crystals, with 

 special reference to the relation between their 

 forms and the atmospheric condition at the time 

 of their fall. The article is illustrated by a number 

 of beautiful pictures of snow-crystals reproduced 

 from a summary of Mr. Bentley's work in the 

 '■' Monthly Weather Review." 



The " Globe " the other day had a rather amusing- 

 item of news in the " By the Way " column. We 

 quote it at length. " The latest Parisian develop- 

 ment of public utility is said to be a State-aided 

 school for lion-tamers. We are not precisely in- 

 formed in what way the State is to aid the scholars^ 

 nor yet in what state the majority of them are 

 likely to find themselves after the first course of 

 lessons ; but as it stands the scheme seems worthy 

 of the Academy of Lagado, where one of the 

 philosophers kept a breed of hairless sheep." 



On January 9th Professor Fleming, F.R.S. r 

 delivered the last of his course of lectures on 

 li Waves and Ripples," and dealt with wave-motion 

 in the aether. On the table were a radiator and 

 receiver with a coherer, and the point to which 

 the lecturer drew attention was that there were 

 some thing's through which the radiations would 

 pass freely and others through which they would 

 not pass. This would lead to a widening of the 

 meaning of the terms il transparent " and " opaque,"' 

 so as to include all forms of radiation. The 

 experiments showed that non-conductors were 

 transparent, while conductors were opaque. These 

 electric waves might be treated like light rays, 

 and be reflected as they came from the radiator. 

 Light travelled at the rate of 180,000 miles a 

 second ; the velocity of the electric waves was 

 identical, and the difference between light and 

 electricity was one of wave length. One of the 

 most popular and instructive of the lectures was 

 that dealing with the vibrations from which sound 

 and music result, and with singing flames. An 

 interesting experiment showed that the production 

 of notes from a small organ was due to air 

 vibration. The vibrations in glass plates were 

 demonstrated by means of the well-known sand 

 figures. 



