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SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Dec. 14, i{ 



Interesting Fossil Remains. — Mr. R. Etheridge has 

 recently examined a small collection of fossil bones 

 found by Mr. A. S. Cotter, of Cainwarra Station, Paroo 

 River, New South Wales, in sinking a well at Thor- 

 bindah, near that place. He states that they consist 

 chiefly of those of the kangaroo and the large extinct 

 diprotodon ; but amongst them were two bird bones. 

 One of these proves to be the right shank bone of a very 

 large bird, allied to, but distinct from the emu. It 

 exceeded the latter in stature and robustness of limb, 

 and in Australia took the place of the gigantic extinct 

 moas of New Zealand. The first intimation of the 

 existence of such a bird in Australia is due to the late 

 Rev. W. B. Clarke and Mr. Gerard Krefft, who in 1869 

 referred a thigh bone of a large bird found in a well 

 sinking on the Peak Downs to the moa. This determi- 

 nation, however, was afterwards shown by the veteran 

 osteologist Professor Sir Richard Owen to be only 

 partially correct, and in naming the bone Dromornis 

 Australis he showed that it represented a stuthious 

 extinct bird, having more affinity to the emu than to the 

 moa. Since then a left shank bone was sent to Professor 

 Owen from Mount Gambier Ranges, South Australia, 

 ind in 1876 a large pelvis was found in the Canadian 

 lead, near Gulgong, both of which are believed by Sir 

 Richard to have belonged to his Dromornis. The late 

 discovery is, therefore, a very welcome addition to our 

 knowledge of the extinct Australian avifauna. 



Seedlings of Sugar-cane. — The sugar-cane has been 

 cultivated for so long a period that its native country is 

 unknown. Bentham states that " we have no authentic 

 record of any really wild station for the common sugar- 

 cane." Further, according to the Kew Bulletin for 

 December, the sugar-cane so rarely produces mature 

 seeds that no one appears to have ever seen them. In 

 botanical works the subject is often mentioned, but 

 apparently only to restate the fact that observers in all 

 countries " have never seen the seeds of the sugar-cane." 

 The authorities at Kew have been working at this sub- 

 ject for several years. It was felt that if a sugar-cane 

 producing ripe seeds could be found a most interesting 

 and important line of inquiry would be opened for im- 

 proving the saccharine qualities of the sugar-cane, in the 

 same way as that so successfully adopted with regard to 

 the beet. Hitherto the sugar-cane has been reproduced 

 under cultivation solely by means of buds and suckers. 

 The improvement of the cane has therefore been restricted 

 to chance variations occurring at wide intervals, and 

 probably escaping altogether the observation of the 

 planter. Now all this is likely to be changed. It 

 appears that at Barbados seedlings of sugar-canes have 

 been successfully raised by Professor Harrison, and 

 among these seedlings are several different kinds indicat- 

 ing hybridity of a definite sort, such as would be expected 

 to arise from the crossing of different varieties. It is to 

 be hoped this subject will be fully and clearly followed 

 up as a definite field of investigation. In any case the 

 possibility of improving so important and valuable a plant 

 as the sugar-cane possesses general interest. 



The Public Health. — The Registrar-General's return 

 for the week ending December 1st shows that the deaths 

 registered during that period in twenty-eight great towns 

 of England and Wales corresponded to an annual rate 

 of 17-8 per 1,000 of their aggregate population, which is 



estimated at 9,398,273 persons in the middle of this 

 year. The six healthiest places were Hull, Brighton, 

 Nottingham, Leicester, Portsmouth, and Bradford. In 

 London 2,367 births and 1,352 deaths were registered. 

 Allowance made for increase of population, the births 

 were 372 and the deaths 412 below the average num- 

 bers in the corresponding weeks of the last ten years. 

 The annual death-rate per 1,000 from all causes, which 

 had been 197 and i7 - 2 in the , two preceding weeks, 

 further declined last week to i6 - 5. During the first nine 

 weeks of the current quarter the death-rate averaged 

 18-7 per 1,000, and was 1-4 below the mean rate in the 

 corresponding periods of the ten years 1878-87. The 

 1,352 deaths included 141 from measles, 24 from scarlet 

 fever, 34 from diphtheria, 20 from whooping cough, 11 

 from enteric fever, 1 from an undefined form of continued 

 fever, 13 from diarrhoea and dysentery, 1 from cholera, 

 and not one from small-pox or from typhus ; thus 245 

 deaths were referred to these diseases, being 22 above 

 the corrected average weekly number. In Greater Lon- 

 don 3,068 births and 1,678 deaths were registered, 

 corresponding to annual rates of 29^0 and 15 '8 per 1,000 

 of the estimated population. In the Outer Ring 16 

 deaths from measles, 7 from diphtheria, and 5 from 

 whooping-cough were registered ; 7 fatal cases of 

 measles occurred in West Ham sub-district, and two of 

 diphtheria in Willesden and in Tottenham sub-districts. 



Talking Machines. — If the improved phonograph, and 

 its rival the graphophone, never succeed in rising to be 

 more than toys, they will at least have afforded material 

 for several amusing articles in which their possible uses 

 have been discussed. In looking up a subject in the 

 Mechanics' Magazine for 1839 we lighted on a letter on 

 " Mechanical Probabilities," by Chas. Thornton Coathupe, 

 from which we extract the following : " Musing over 

 mechanism and mechanies, I thought of Babbage's 

 ' calculating-machine,' and then of the embyro ' talking- 

 instrument,' and felt that a space in mechanics was yet 

 imperfectly explored which, if cultivated, might per- 

 chance prove of essential benefit to mankind. Perhaps 

 here I slept, and dreamed ; for having conceived our 

 religious doctrines to be of an immutable nature, and 

 that almost every text in our sacred Scriptures had re- 

 ceived the fullest expositions of our ablest divines over 

 and over again, and that little more could be advanced 

 which had not been promulgated by voluminous edited 

 publications, I fancied every pulpit had become a 

 ' talking instrument,' and every sermon a steam- 

 engine of very ' small power,' every clergyman a 

 ' barrel ' ' pricked ' for its text. I thought of the saving 

 to the agriculturists in tithes, and to the more important 

 public in dues, fees, and other taxation, and again felt 

 too happy. I then dreamed of schools for public instruc- 

 tion, in which the master's desk was a steam-engine, the 

 master the ' barrel ' ' pricked ' either for grammar 

 (English, Latin, or Greek) or for mathematics (pure or 

 mixed). I fancied the usher the engine-man, consuming 

 his rod in ' teasing ' the fire, while the boys stood round 

 Babbage's machine with their slates in hand, listening 

 to the explanations from the talking barrel. I fancied I 

 saw barrels representing professors of Oxford and of 

 Cambridge, ' shifting ' according to expediency, some 

 branded ' multum in parvo,' intended for the elucidation 

 of four or five branches of natural philosophy, in lieu of so 

 many professors." Can any reader give us further infor 

 mation about the talking-machine referred to ? 



