Issue Of May Research Articles

The Origin of the Horse

IN your issue of May 19 (p. 53) Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell refers to Equus caballus celticus, Ewart, as “still surviving in the pure state in Iceland.” Prof. Ewart, in his paper on “The Multiple Origin of Horses and Ponies,” says that “the few pure specimens of the Celtic pony survive” in the north of Iceland. I take it that Prof. Ewart does not mean that the northern Icelandic breed of ponies is a pure one, but only that certain individuals of this breed exhibit the “Celtic” characters in a very marked degree. In a recent paper (Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc., vol. xii., part iv.) Mr. F. H. A. Marshall and I have brought forward both historical and zoological evidence for the mixed origin of the Icelandic pony. It is perhaps worth noting that the people of north Iceland still claim a social superiority over those of the south as being descended chiefly from the second body of colonists which reached the island. In considering the origin of different breeds of the domestic animals ethnological considerations are often. important, and, conversely, the examination of local breeds may sometimes throw light on ethnological problems. For example, in the Malay Peninsula the breed of dogs owned by the majority of the jungle tribes usually classed as Sakais differs from that of the Malay pariah, which has recently been adopted in some cases by Semang tribes and also by those Sakais who live in close intercourse with the Malays. The pariah seems likely to oust the Sakai dog completely, and I am riot aware that any zoologist has yet made a detailed examination of the latter, which shows certain resemblances to the local race of Cyon rutilans.

Moisture in the Atmosphere of Mars

IN your issue of May 5 I see a note in the astronomical column on Mr. Lowell's theory of the Martian canals. It is perhaps not just to criticise it on so short a summary, but there is a point on which I should like to ask a question. If, as Mr. Lowell says, there is not sufficient moisture on the planet to produce vegetation, how does the water return to the poles ready for the next summer? The only way, it seems to me, is by evaporation. His suggestion of artificial waterways to carry the water from the polar caps implies the existence of an atmosphere sufficiently dense to enable intelligent beings to live. That being so, is it not just as plausible that the evaporated water should condense in the form of rain on the general body of the planet as well as at the poles? although, of course, the excessive cold would account for an increased fall at these extremities.

“Red Rain” and the Dust Storm of February 22

IN a letter under the above heading which you did me the honour to print in your issue of May 21, vol. lxviii. P. 53, I gave the results of the chemical examination of a sample of dust collected from the roof of Bayham Abbey, Lamberhurst, after the dust storm of February 22, and sent to me by the kindness of Lord Camden, and I stated that it would be interesting to compare its characters with those of the dust, presumably of African origin, which was observed to fall in the district of Taormina by Sir Arthur Rucker, and was the subject of an interesting communication to NATURE by Prof. Judd in 1901 (vol. lxiii. p. 514).

Stopping down the Lens of the Human Eye

IT may interest your readers to know that the principle referred to, under the above heading, in your issue of May 8 was adopted, a great many years ago, by the late Lord Sherbrooke, whose sight I believe was very defective. I remember seeing, about the middle of the seventies of the last century, at an exhibition of physical apparatus at South Kensington, a pair of spectacles which were said to have been invented by him for his own use. They consisted of two convex metal cups, closely resembling in shape and size the bowl of an ordinary tea-spoon. In the centre of each cup was a small pin-hole, which was the only aperture through which light could enter; and the two cups were fastened together by an elastic string, evidently intended to go over the head. The invention impressed me at the time as a remarkable example of scientific skill combined with great simplicity of contrivance.

HIP-JOINT AMPUTATION BY MEANS OF THE WYETH PINS.

The issue of May 19, 1901, ofThe Journalcontains an interesting article by Professor Wyeth on Bloodless Amputations at the Hip-Joint. The writer having had recently a case desires to report it as follows: C. H., aged 8, residing at Corning, Ohio, fell from a tree, a distance of 20 feet, sustaining a compound fracture of the upper third of the left femur. Oct. 27, 1900, three weeks after the accident, he was brought to St. Anthony's Hospital in a septic condition. Pulse was 140; temperature 104. The limb was much swollen and filled with pus. An incision was made on the outer aspect of the thigh and considerable pus liberated. The muscular structure was found to be disorganized, the bone comminuted, and the medullary canal filled with purulent matter. The bone was devoid of periosteum for more than five inches, and no evidence of bony union found. His

Comets and Corpuscular Matter

REFERRING to Prof. J. J. Thomson's article on “corpuscles” in your issue of May 10, it occurs to me that the behaviour of corpuscular matter described therein may have some bearing on cometary phenomena. May not the structure of comets to some extent be explained by assuming that their tails are composed of aggregations of negatively charged particles of extremely minute size, answering to the free corpuscular matter as defined by Prof. Thomson, and which to a large degree may be formed by a sort of “corpuscular dissociation,” or detachment, taking place in the comet's nucleus when its temperature is elevated upon nearing the sun? Since Prof. Thomson's experiments indicate the presence of negatively charged matter in kathode rays having a much smaller mass than ordinary atoms, there is reason to believe that matter in this state has properties quite apart from matter in a much coarser state of atomic division. Postulating an electrostatic field as existing in interplanetary space, with the sun as a negative centre or source of electrostatic radiation, and assuming that a comet's tail is composed of these corpuscles, the gravitational force it may suffer, when in proximity to the sun, would perhaps be very small in comparison with the electrostatic force existing throughout the vast congregation of these extremely minute particles, and thereby account for the repulsion of the tails of comets when they approach the sun.

Concerning the Thermodynamic Correction for an Air Thermometer

IT seems noteworthy not only that the theoretical investigation on this subject, given in Maxwell's “Theory of Heat” and Tait's “Heat,” is fallacious, as has been pointed out by Mr. Rose-Innes in his letter which appeared in your issue of May 26, but that there is no indication in either of these text-books that the result given is not in accordance with the experimental facts. The investigation in question, which is practically the same as that first given by Lord Kelvin before the experiments were performed, leads to the result that the cooling effect should be proportional to the difference of the logarithms of the pressures before and after passing the plug, instead of proportional to the difference of the pressures themselves, as was actually found to be the case; the discrepancy was, of course, noted'by the experimenters. The methods used in all the theoretical discussions in Lord Kelvin's papers on this subject prior to the final one in Part iv. of the papers “On the Thermal Effects of Fluids in Motion,” seem equally open to objection. The numerical results derived by the-last method, which seems perfectly sound, were given apparently for the first time in the article “Heat” in the “Encyclopaedia Britannica”; the investigation and results are reproduced in Preston's “Theory of Heat,” and substantially in Parker's “Thermodynamics.” The correction obtained to the number representing the temperature of melting ice on the absolute scale by this method was + ˙70, the previous methods giving in succession + ˙83, –˙3 and + .87; the uncorrected estimate finally used was also different from that taken at first.

On Augury from Combat of Shell-fish

IN your issue of May 13 (p. 30), Mr. Kumagusu Minakata quotes several examples of augury from the combat of shell-fish. In Spencer St. John's “Life in the Forests of the Far East,” vol. i. p. 77, amongst various ordeals related by him as being practised by the Sea-Dyaks of Sarawak, he gives the following:—“Another is with two land shells, which are put on a plate and lime-juice squeezed upon them, and the one that moved first shows the guilt or innocence of the owner, according as they have settled previously whether motion or rest is to prove the case.”

“A Text-book of Histology”

MY attention has been drawn to a review of my work on histology, which appeared in your issue of May 20; and as the review appears to me to be biassed, and amounts in fact to a public attack on me as an histologist, I trust you will, in fairness, give me the opportunity of as publicly defending myself, by inserting this letter in your next number.

The Portable Sterilizer.

Denver, Colo., May 17, 1897. To the Editor: —I am pleased to waive any claim of priority for developing or presenting the principle of the Compact Portable Sterilizer illustrated in your issue of May 1, and regret that unfamiliarity with the publications of Dr. Carl Beck in regard to his sterilizer made it necessary for me to work this instrument out for myself, and that I should appear to claim that to which I am not entitled. I shall feel that my labor has not been wasted, however, for it has resulted in giving me a most satisfactory instrument, one I believe to be in a number of essential details a great improvement upon that described by Dr. Beck; the lamp, stand and absence of wire screens and baskets being among them. Its extreme simplicity is one of its best features.

Blackboards in Schools.

Austin, Texas, May 14, 1897. To the Editor: —In your issue of May 1, page 854, Dr. A. C. Corr says: The blackboards ought to be clean black, etc. The color of school exercise boards is a matter of great importance, but has been strangely neglected. For, from time immemorial, it has been a fact of common knowledge, even among uneducated people, that black is the worst of colors for the eyes; hence, it has long been a custom with tailors, to charge more for making a black suit of clothes, than for any other color. For many years we have given schoolroom hygiene much special study, and have long taught, by word and pen, that school exercise boards should not be black . The best color for such boards is some shade of cream white, a dead surface of soft, mellow tint, varied in its degree of whiteness to suit

Boomerangs without Twist

IN your issue of May 13 (p. 46), a writer mentions some Australasian boomerangs as thrown not to return (if I have rightly understood him). I had not heard of these before, but in British India at least one race, the Kolis of Northern Gujarat, have the like. These are invariably of “fish” section, varying in weight, curve, and material; but the commonest and most efficient sort is of “Babul” wood (Acacia arabica), with the natural curve of the heart of the wood, something like that of an old-fashioned genuine Turkish sabre, rather a “knee” than any regular geometric curve.

Was Goldsmith a Physician?

Sydney, Australia, June 29, 1896. <h3>To the Editor:</h3> —In your issue of May 16, Dr. John Morris publishes an extremely interesting and scholarly article under the above heading. There is great doubt concerning the dates of the various incidents in Goldsmith's life, and as I may be able to throw some light upon the matter, I send you a few remarks on the subject of the poet's life in Trinity College, Dublin. Dr. Morris states that Goldsmith was born at Pallas, or Pallasmore, in 1728, that he entered Trinity College in 1745, and took his degree of B.A. in 1750. John Forster, in his "Life and Times of Goldsmith," gives these dates also, but they are not in agreement with the records of Trinity College. The Rev. Dr. Stubbs, in his "History of the University of Dublin," published in 1889, gives in an appendix, some university records of well-known members

Medical Society of State of Pennsylvania.

Harrisburg, Pa., June 15, 1896. To the Editor: —In your issue of May 30, page 1092, it is stated the convention will be held at Pittsburg in September, The next meeting of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania will be held in Pittsburg, Pa., the third Tuesday of May, 1897. There was some mention of September, but May is provided for in the By-Laws. Convention is not a good word to use for meetings of medical men, though a good many journals use it, ourJournalshould set a better example. The above correction of date and title is so you can have the list of meetings correct. Very truly,

Our Mexican Confreres.

New York, June 2, 1896. To the Editor: —In common with every reputable medical man in this country, I can only regret that Dr. David Cerna has felt it incumbent upon him, in your issue of May 30, to reply to certain unfounded reflections upon the medical profession of Mexico. Statements, such as those he seeks to confute, might better have been left unnoticed, the very refutation giving them an undeserved publicity. The creditable appearance of the Mexican members of the First Pan-American Medical Congress, convened at Washington in September, 1893, their dignified demeanor, the admirable papers they contributed to the transactions, their intelligent participation in the discussions in the several sections, and their interested and zealous attention to their duties as committeemen, etc., were matters of commendatory comment by their colleagues in the Congress from other American nationalities, who were appointed with them for the first time. To the

Treatment of Typhoid Fever.

Montclair, N. J., June 2, 1896. To the Editor: —I have just read with great interest two able addresses in your issue of May 23, one from the pen of Professor Osier, and the other from that of Professor Quine, both delivered at the recent meeting of theAmerican Medical Association. Both of these gentlemen pay their respects to the Woodbridge treatment of typhoid fever, and both seem inclined to sneer at the so-called pretensions of the advocates of this treatment. Dr. Woodbridge has fought out his own battle with great pluck and pertinacity, and if there be any virtue in his plan of treatment, every practitioner in America who reads the journals or attends the meetings of a live medical society, is sure to hear of it. He does not, therefore, need any defense nor even aid from me. But if one can read between the lines, both the

Sero-therapy—et id omne genus.

San Francisco, Cal., May 23, 1896. To the Editor: —The announcement in your issue of May 16 (quoted from La Semaine Medicale ), of two cases of mania cured at Montpellier by injections of serum from a recovered maniac, suggests boundless expectations from sero-therapy and other new agents. It is presumptive that insanity is a germ disease, and that bacteriologists will soon differentiate its specific microorganism. At present we can only speculate whether homicidal and suicidal mania, kleptomania, pyromania, dementia, etc., are due to the same or separate microbes; but obviously one ought to choose cultures from cases resembling the particular type of insanity under treatment. We may anticipate also the early discovery that the vices of gambling, drunkenness, unchastity and mendacity (already supposed to be evidence of mental deterioration) are due to specific microbes and amenable to sero-therapy. The only difficulty would be in determining whether the supply be derived

Halley's Equal Variation Chart

I HAVE read Mr. Ward's interesting letter on this topic in NATURE of May 30, p. 106. I embrace this opportunity to correct some typographical errors in my letter in the issue of May 23.

Boltzmann's Minimum Theorem

THERE is a point of great interest, in connection with Mr. Burbury's letter in your issue of May 30, on which he has not touched.

The Unit of Heat

I WAS glad to read Prof. Joly's communication in your issue of May 2, for I have made many efforts to call attention to the unsatisfactory nature of our present system of calorimetric measurements, and now that a more powerful voice than mine has been raised in favour of a change, I have some hopes of progress.