Meritorious Work Research Articles

Our Astronomical Column

THE “URANOMETRIA ARGENTINA.”—The publication of this great and meritorious work is just announced, though, so far as we know, the complete volume has not yet reached Europe. The system of observations upon which it is based was designed and commenced by Dr. B. A. Gould, the distinguished director of the Argentine Observatory, immediately after his arrival at Cordoba in September, 1870, on accepting the superintendence of the new establishment, and while awaiting the completion of the observatory buildings and the arrival of telescopes which had been ordered in Europe, but delayed by the outbreak of the Franco-German war, and the work upon it has been continued with more or less attention to the present year. It was intended to represent in a series of charts and accompanying catalogue the sky from the south pole as far as 10° north of the equator, as it appears to the naked eye, showing all stars down to a round magnitude fixed at 7.0, with their characteristics of duplicity, variability, and colour, and the milky-way in all its ramifications and gradations of brightness. The actual observations were assigned to the four assistants, Messrs. Rock, Davis, Hathaway, and Thome, who had proceeded to Cordoba from the United States, the first three returning home at the expiration of three years, when the Uranometry was already finished as to its general details. Mr. Thome subsequently reviewed the entire work twice, and with the result that Dr. Gould considers it improbable that any star so bright as 7.0, on a scale which it has been desired to extend accurately from Argelander's, will have escaped insertion, while notwithstanding the great degree of nicety implied, he thinks the magnitudes are essentially correct to the nearest tenth. During the first two years the work was continued on all cloudless nights, both summer and winter, at an average of six hours' work each night. The total number of stars of which the magnitudes have been assigned is 10,649, anne total estimates of magnitudes 44,510, or more than four for each star.

Chemical Denudation in Relation to Geological Time

THIS little book is made up of three papers: one on “Geological Time;” a second on “The Geological Significance of the Challenger Discoveries;” and the third on “Limestone as an Index of Geological Time.” The last paper was read before the Royal Society in January, 1879, and the others have been read before the Liverpool Society, of which the author is a distinguished member. Although, therefore, not new, these papers are well worth reading, for a vast amount of good solid fact is environed by curious calculations, and by hypotheses of a highly exciting nature. That is to say, exciting to the prosy realistic disposition of modern geology. This meritorious work, however, is slightly depreciated by the introduction of matter which is not strictly consistent with the results of modern research. Nevertheless, on the whole, the work may be considered very satisfactory by those who believe that doubt is the mother of progress; for all the hypotheses and conclusions in it are the product of a geological imagination of the highest and most vigorous order, and are of course open to objection. In the introduction it is stated that the author, during an attempt to estimate the amount of “solid matter conveyed annually in solution” in river-water to the sea from the surface of England and Wales, had a “new modulus” come into his mind, which might enable him to gauge the vista of the immensity of past time, or rather to arrive at “a minimum limit to the age of the earth.” The result is thus stated: “If we imagine the area of England and Wales consisting of 58,300 square miles, to form one river-basin, the delivery of water by such river would be 68,450,936,960 tons, or 18.3 inches per annum, containing a total of 8,370,630 tons of solids in solution, representing a general lowering of the surface from that cause alone of.0077 of a foot per century, or one foot in 12,978 years.” Taking the “soluble denudation” of other parts of the world into consideration, Mr. Reade considers “that about loo tons of rocky matter is dissolved by rain per English square mile per annum.” This he states contains 50 tons of carbonate of lime, and twenty of sulphate of lime, &c., and proceeds: “If, as is generally supposed, the sea contains only what is washed into it from the land, and we can estimate its numeral contents in tons, we at once get a minimum measure of the age of the earth.” As Herschel states that the ocean contains 2,494,500 billions of tons of water, and the mean of Dr. Frankland's analysis gives 48.9 tons of carbonate of lime and magnesia, and 1,017 tons of sulphate of lime and magnesia in 100,000 tons, it follows, according to the author, that it would take 25,000,000 of years to accumulate the quantity of sulphate of lime and magnesia contained in sea water, but only 480,000 years to renew the carbonate of lime and magnesia, and the discrepancy is caused by the appropriation of the calcic carbonate by mollusca for their tests. The amount of visible sediment brought down mechanically by rivers, as calculated for the whole world upon the results of Humphreys and Abbot for the Mississippi, and the estimate is given at six times the amount of the soluble matters. This produces over the whole globe an amount of denudable matter equal to 600 tons a square mile per year. Going back in all time at this rate, and allowing for coast erosion, glaciers, &c., the ten miles of sedimentary strata must have occupied 526 millions of years in accumulation. The author readily disposes of Sir William Thomson and tidal retardation, and his limits of time. His calculations are “fallacious through leaving out agencies that we know are at work, and which the calculations I have submitted bring out in greater force.”

Book Reviews

IN a former volume of NATURE (vol. xiii., p. 464) we have given some account of the origin of this meritorious work, of which the second portion is now before us. Like the former half of the first volume of the contributions the present section is chiefly occupied with memoirs based upon the collections made by Dr. A. B. Meyer during his well-known expedition to New Guinea and the adjacent islands. Herr Th. Kirsch, the entomologist of the Dresden Museum, commences with two articles upon the lepidoptera and beetles collected by Dr. Meyer in New Guinea. Of the former Herr Kirsch enumerates 167 species, of which 133 belong to the diurnal section. Several novelties are described and well figured. The next article is by Dr. Meyer himself, and gives us an account of a large series of Papuan skulls which he collected on the mainland of New Guinea and in the Island of Mysore, in the Bay of Geeldink. The collection, embracing altogether 135 examples, is, we believe, by far the finest of this branch of the human family ever made, and should, we suppose, lead to some definite results upon that somewhat mysterious subject —the differentiation of the various races of mankind by their skulls. A second article by Dr. Meyer relates to the specimens of anthropoid apes in the Dresden Museum. We cannotsay that the photographic plates of the stuffed specimens of these creatures are either elegant or likely to be of very great use, but it is satisfactory to have the vexed question of the identity of the celebrated “Mafoka”lately living in the Zoological Gardens at Dresden, and long supposed to be a gorilla, finally set at rest, as is done by von BischofiPs article on its anatomy, which follows that of Dr. Meyer. A memoir on the Hexactinellid Sponges collected by Dr. Meyer in the Philippine Seas, in the preparation of which Herr W. Marshall has given his assistance, concludes this interesting volume, of which we may say that it adds materially to the status of the Dresden Museum, and to the scientific fame of its energetic director.

Anales del Museo Publico de Buenos Ayres, para dar a conocer los objetos de Historia Natural nuevos o poco conocidos conservados en este establecimento

IN a previous number of NATURE (vol. iii. p. 282), Prof. Flower has given our readers an account of the first volume of this most meritorious work, and of the objects of its distinguished author in undertaking it. Since Prof. Flowers's article was published, four parts of the second volume of the “Anales” have been issued, containing a series of articles and illustrations of quite as great zoological interest as those in the first volume. The wonders of the extinct Mammalian Fauna of the Argentine Republic are well known, and in the present volume Prof. Burmeister devotes himself to their exposition. In the first part he commences a complete monograph of the Glyptodonts, or extinct gigantic Armadillos, represented by specimens in the museum under his charges and carries it on to the end of Part IV. In the first volume of the “Annals” Prof. Burmeister, in the course of a general article on the fossil mammals of the diluvium of Buenos Ayres, had given a preliminary exposition of his views as to the arrangement of these wonderful animals. He now enters at length upon the description of the species known to him, and gives a series of splendid lithographs to illustrate their remains. Not only are the bones of the Glyptodonts so perfectly preserved as to enable many of the skeletons to be completely restored, but great portions of the extraordinary suits of armour with which they were clad above and below have likewise been discovered, so that their external appearance can likewise be portrayed. Those who interest themselves in palæontology will do well to secure copies of these beautiful illustrations, a few of which are on sale at Messrs. Ta ylor and Francis, of Red Lion Court, at los. a number.