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we should have been equally impressed with its insignificance and yet the two statements are virtually the same. In fact, the unscientific reader is not likely to realize the prodigious number of pounds in the earth's

mass.

It may be remembered that Croll computes, in " Climate and Time," the value of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit from Leverrier's formulæ, and endeavours thus to assign actual dates to various glacial periods. Now, Sir Robert Ball very justly will not admit that our knowledge of the solar system is accurate enough to justify the application of these formula to the enormously long intervals of time involved. I think, however, that it would have been of interest to the general reader to be told in round numbers the kind of intervals which we have

reason to believe may have elapsed between one glacial period and the next; in fact, to learn whether the intervals are probably millions of millions of years, or hundreds of thousands of years. I conjecture that our knowledge of the planetary movements is sufficient to enable us to say that such an interval may be something comparable with 200,000 years. I should like, further, also to ask Sir Robert Ball whether he does not consider that Leverrier's formulæ may probably be relied on to give at least a rough approximation for about 100,000 years in the past; and, if this is so, whether we might not conclude, with fair probability, that the last glacial period occurred about that number of years ago? I must, however, disclaim any special knowledge on this point, and I should gladly see his opinion, or that of any other physical astronomer, on the matter.

In conclusion, I wish to say that, in making the foregoing criticisms and suggestions, I have no intention of disparaging the book; on the contrary, it is only because it is a good book that it is worth while to consider it carefully. I have found it profoundly interesting from end to end, and I am convinced that it will be widely read, as it deserves to be. G. H. DARWIN.

POPULAR ZOOLOGY.

Amma Sketches. By C. Lloyd Morgan, F.G.S., Prin. cipal of University College, Bristol. (London: Edward Arnold.)

THIS

HIS is one of those delightful books of natural history for young people which their parents never had the benefit of, and for which they ought to be duly thankful. A competent naturalist here gives them the result of his full and varied knowledge, but gives it so blended with imagination and humour, so intermingled with anecdote and personal adventure or observation, as to make it a real story-book about animals, by reading which we learn much of their lives and habits, their peculiarities of structure and their relations to each other, while we seem to be only reading for amusement. There is nothing systematic in this volume. It is merely a collection of miscellaneous chapters on a variety of animals, beginning with the lion and ending with the oyster, every chapter of which is both pleasant and instructive.

The best way to notice a book of this kind is to give a few examples of the author's style, which in this case will

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certainly commend the book better than any description of its contents. First, then, as a bit of serious biology, we will give a passage on the nesting-habits of the ostrich.

"The nest is scooped out in the sand, and two or three hen-birds may combine to lay their eggs in it, to the number of about twenty. It is said, and that by several observers, that, besides the eggs laid in the nest, each hen lays several in the neighbourhood, and that these are broken when the young are hatched, and the regard these statements with some suspicion. The hens contents are given them as food. But I am inclined to take turns in sitting during the day, never leaving them long in the scorching heat of the South African sun. But at sun-down the cock-bird takes charge of the eggs, and sits throughout the night. He is not going to be bound by any conventional rules as to the proper division of

labour between the sexes.

"A very careful observer, Mrs. Barber, has drawn attention to the fact that the indistinct grey colours of the hen ostrich are wonderfully adapted for purposes of concealment. These birds while upon their nests do not erect their necks, but place them at full length in front of them upon the ground; and the grey-brown body might, Mrs. Barber says, be easily mistaken for some other object, such as, for instance, an ant-hill, so common on the plains of South Africa. That so large a bird should be inconspicuous may seem surprising; but another observer, Mr. W. Larden, tells us of his experience with the rhea, or South American ostrich, which seems quite to bear this out. 'One day,' he says, 'I came across a rhea in a nest that it had made in the dry weeds and grass. Its wings and feathers were loosely arranged, and looked not unlike a heap of dry grass; at any rate the bird did not attract my attention until I was close on him. The long neck was stretched out close along the ground, the crest feathers were flattened, and an appalling hiss greeted my approach. It was a pardonable mistake if for a moment I thought I had come across a huge snake, and sprang back hastily under this impression.'

"The male ostrich, with his splendid black and white But feathers, would not be thus inconspicuous by day.

he sits at night, and his strength and pugnacity would induce most other creatures to let him alone. Mrs. Barber describes the careful manner in which the female | bird approaches the nest in the morning, when her turn for incubation has come. In wide circles, and apparently in the most unconcerned manner, she will feed round the nest, never once looking towards it, but gradually ap|proaching nearer and nearer to it by diminishing each circle as she walks round, until at length her perambulations have brought her to within a yard or so of the nest, when the birds will rapidly change places, the male walking swiftly away, and not remaining in the vicinity of the nest during the day. The wonderful rapidity with which the change is effected is perfectly astonishing, and done, so swiftly do they change places." it is impossible to see the exact manner in which it is

As an example of Mr. Lloyd Morgan's lighter manner, what can be more attractive than the opening sentences of his chapter entitled "Long-nose, Long-neck, and Stumpy"?

"And which of all the animals in the Zoo do you like best?' I said to a bright, fair-haired little girl whom I had assisted in her descent from the elephant.

"I think I like Long-nose, Long-neck, and Stumpy best, because they are so big and curous, and Long-nose best of all because he has given me a ride. Did you know it was his nose?'

"Of course I affected the most extreme surprise and

delight at the novel suggestion that the big, patient animal's trunk was really his nose, and said that I had always thought it was his proboscis.

"No, it isn't that, it's his nose. Auntie says so. That's Auntie over there, waiting for me. I suppose you's seen Stumpy?'

"I inquired who Stumpy was, and whether I might not know him by another name.

"I think they sometimes call him Pottums. But we call him Stumpy. Now I must go to Auntie.'

And then our author tells us much about those three strange and remote types, the elephant, hippopotamus, and giraffe, in his own pleasant manner-their singular structure and habits, their external diversities concealing so much internal resemblance-devoting, however, most attention to the elephant, and correcting some exaggerated statements that have been made respecting that animal.

One of the most interesting chapters is that on snakes. It is full of information, and there is an almost fascinating account of the whole process of capturing and devouring its prey by a python, as observed at the Antwerp Zoological Gardens. Prof. Lloyd Morgan has visited, or lived in, many lands, and often enlivens his pages with personal anecdotes, of which the following is by no means the most remarkable :

"My first experience of South African death-dealing snakes was somewhat different. One of my pupils brought me, in a large cigar-box, a ‘ring-hals-slang,' a deadly and courageous snake not uncommon at the Cape, and turned him out on the verandah for our delectation. He was a spiteful little fellow, with an ominous hood, dark glossy skin, and glistening brown eye. He struck viciously at the cigar-box held up before him, indenting the wood, and moistening it with venom and saliva. I was particularly anxious to dissect out the poisongland and examine the poison-fang of the snake, so my friend kindly presented it to me, replacing it in the cigar-box, which he tied securely. After examining the fastenings, I placed the box on the windowsill of my bedroom, which looked out into the verandah, and left it there for the night. Next morning I procured a large washing-pan, big enough to drown a small python, placed the cigar-box therein, loaded it with a couple of bricks, and poured in water to the brim. I gave the ring-hals' three good hours to get thoroughly drowned, removed the bricks, took out the box, gently cut the string, lifted the lid-and found that I had been drowning with the utmost care an empty cigar-box. It had been securely tied, and how a creature more than thrice the girth of my thumb had managed to escape was, and still is, a mystery to me.

"I leave the reader to imagine the detailed search of every cranny of our bedroom, on which my wife insisted. For several days every boot had to be hammered with a stick before it was put on ; I stood on a chair and shook every pair of trousers, and other analogous garments, lest they should be already occupied. But no 'ring-hals was forthcoming. And I suppose it must have been a week or so afterwards that I was summoned to the kitchen to expel an unwelcome intruder-the black cook being, so far as her skin permitted, pale with terror-which proved to be none other than the missing ring-hals.' I despatched him promptly, but not by drowning."

6

Among the specially good chapters are those on "Cousin Sarah," the chimpanzee; on the sparrow as typical of birds, under the title "Master Impertinence"; on chameleons, frogs, sticklebats, crayfish-but it is useless to particularize when all are good. The book is well illustrated,

both with pictures and diagrams; and we may especially note that the structure of the elephant's tooth and that of the bee's compound eye are clearly elucidated by the cuts that accompany the descriptions.

Lastly, there is a pervading tone of sympathy with all that lives, as well as a general love and admiration of Nature, that renders it a most suitable work for the young. The cover and general get-up are attractive, and every school should add this charming volume to its list of prizes, with the certainty that it will be highly appreciated for its own sake by the recipients, and that its influence will be altogether wholesome and good.

A. R. W.

PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS.

Outlines of Practical Physiological Chemistry. By F. Charles Larkin, F.R.C.S., and Randle Leigh, M.B., B.Sc. Second Edition. (London: H. K. Lewis, 1891.)

THE

HE authors state in their preface that this edition of the work is "the result of seven years' experience in teaching the subject to medical students," from which we gather that the medical student is being treated in the physiological laboratory in much the same spirit as he has long been dealt with in that of the chemist. The work before us is constructed upon an essentially similar principle to those numerous little treatises, the be-all and the end-all of which is to instruct the medical student in three months how to analyze simple salts. For such treatises, and the unedifying kind of instruction to which they give rise, neither teacher nor student is to be

blamed the fault lies with the authorities who frame the medical curriculum and the syllabus for the subjects of examination. The root of the mischief lies in having to treat the medical student during his preliminary scientific training as a separate genus from the student of general science, a course which is rendered necessary through the attempt to crowd such a large number of subjects into a period of time which is wholly inadequate for the purpose; whilst another evil tending to degrade the standard of the examinations is the existence of competing corporate bodies possessing the power of granting medical qualifications. For

these ills the obvious remedies are, on the one hand, extension of the minimum time occupied by the curriculum, whilst, on the other hand, a uniform standard for qualification is required for the whole of the United Kingdom: fortunately, both of these changes are already in progress. Considering the necessarily technical and empirical character of the greater part of medical education proper, it is, in our opinion, of the greatest importance that in the teaching of the pure sciences to medical students there should be as little empiricism and rule-of-thumb as possible; and it is, therefore, just in his study of chemistry that the future physician and surgeon should receive an insight into the scientific use of the understanding.

Now, it is in this respect that the work before us, which contains a large number of facts arranged in a handy form, falls short of what is required. The subject of physiological chemistry is still at best such a very empirical one, that it becomes the more necessary to give an

explanation of phenomena whenever they are properly understood. It will be urged by some that such information is out of place in a practical manual, and that it belongs to theoretical works and lectures on the subject; in our experience, however, the great difficulty in laboratory teaching is to make the student associate his practical work with what he hears in the lecture-room or reads in his study, and that it is only by continually drawing his attention to the bearing of his experiments that the latter are made to have any great educational value. In short, it is only in this way that the instruction in a chemical laboratory materially differs from that obtainable in a kitchen, and that a work on practical physiological chemistry will be raised above the level of a hand-book on cookery. By amplifying their work on the lines indicated, we believe that its value to the student would be much enhanced, for in its present form it can only be used to much purpose under the guidance of an accomplished and energetic demonstrator.

In conclusion, we must point out an error which should hardly occur in a work professing to be the result of experience, still less in a second edition. On p. 29 the student is told to prepare lactic acid as follows:-" Place 50 c.c. of milk in a warm chamber for several weeks until it becomes strongly acid. Shake the ether, and decant the ethereal extract. Evaporate the ether, add extract residue with water. It is strongly acid, and yields crystals [sic] of lactic acid." The passage obviously contains several printers' errors, but the crystalline nature of lactic acid is new to us.

OUR BOOK SHELF.

Problems in Chemical Arithmetic. By E. J. Cox, F.C.S. Pp. 76. (London: Percival and Co., 1891.) THIS book contains a series of arithmetical examples chosen to meet the requirements of the examinations held by the Science and Art Department in the elementary stage of chemistry. There does not seem to be any outstanding feature to distinguish the book from others of its kind; indeed, setting aside the actual exercises, which may be useful to the teacher, the explanations of the principles involved in the calculations are, as a rule, meagre, and frequently inaccurate. Information such as the following is, to say the least of it, faulty: "Whatever may be the weight of any given volume of water, an equal volume of mercury under similar conditions will be 136 times as heavy." This conclusion was made to follow as a result of an apparently practical method of obtaining specific gravity, although no mention whatever was made of temperature or its effects in the description of the process.

The author keeps on repeating, without any qualifying clause, that the formula of a compound represents the molecule of the compound; and the student is led to infer (pp. 19 and 20) that the empirical formula as found by analysis serves to fix molecular weight. As a consequence of the above idea, several problems are setsuch as, Find the molecular weight of starch, of fluorspar, &c.-which are misleading, since they cannot be solved in practice.

The relationship between vapour-density and molecular weight is given, but the use of the former as a means of determining the latter is not even hinted at; and the author prefers to find the value of the ratio, molecular weight to vapour-density, by the use of numerical examples, rather than by a general process

of reasoning, although all the necessary points have previously been stated.

The examples include a series selected from the Deand list of answers are included. partment examination papers, and a table of contents

If the working of elementary problems in chemistry is to be an intellectual process, founded upon an appreciation of fact and theory, which may be supplemented but has not to be corrected by the student as he progresses, books such as the above fail to fulfil this end.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE. No notice is taken of anonymous communications.]

The Theory of Solutions.

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IN NATURE of December 31 (p. 193) occurs a review by "J. W. R." of my book on Solutions," which gives me occasion to enter, in a few words, upon the questions there brought forward, and to set right some errors, which have recently appeared in other places as well.

First of all I wish to express to Mr. J. W. R. my cordial thanks for the thorough and careful manner in which he has made himself acquainted with the contents of my book. I have no intention to discuss the objections made, some of which I am quite willing to recognize as well founded, but to make clear one important question in which I do not seem to be properly understood by my critic.

Mr. J. W. R. begins his discussion with the words, "To the fundamental question—' Is solution a physical or a chemical process?'-the answers are various"; and out of this variety he evidently finds against me a reproach. I have intentionally neither set up this question nor sought to answer it, for I hold it to be unclear and therefore very harmful. To the question, "Is gas-formation a chemical or a physical process?" would be answered, "In certain cases, as in the development of carbon dioxide out of champagne, a physical one; in others, as the development of carbon dioxide from limestone, a chemical one; and in many cases, as in the development of hydrogen from palladium hydride, one would be in doubt what to answer." The question set up is faulty in implicitly assuming that solution must be either a physical or a chemical process, and by this prepossession he is hindered from recognizing that I was entirely justified in placing the physical or chemical side of the question in the foreground according to the nature of the case. However, in case Mr. J. W. R. is not satisfied with this explanation, and insists upon setting up this question, I must postpone further discussion upon it until he shall have given me a sufficient definition of the ideas "physical" and chemical" processes, and of their distinction. I know of no such definition, and have consequently not made use of the expressions.

From the definition of solution given by me, Mr. J. W. R. concludes that I am a representative of the " physical theory' of solutions, in contrast to which he places, the "chemical theory." I cannot repeat energetically enough that I have never recognized such a contrast, and that I cannot at all admit the existence of such a contrast. It has never been maintained, either by me or by any other representative of the newer theory of solutions, that no interaction takes place between the solvent and the dissolved substance; on the contrary, I have for years directly encouraged research work directed towards making clear the nature of such interactions. What distinguishes the new theory of solutions, founded by van 't Hoff, from the others is that it has succeeded in discovering and bringing into connection a series of properties of solutions, which can be treated entirely independently of the question of a possible interaction between the parts of the dissolved substance and of the solvent.

All these properties hang together with the fact that in the making of a solution or in the altering its concentration there is developed or absorbed a definite amount of free or available energy, which is equal for equimolecular quantities of different substances, and is independent of the nature of the solvent. The amount of this free energy is the same as in the analogous processes with gases. These are purely experimental facts,

which, so far as I see, are not questioned by Mr. J. W. R. The newer theory of solutions, in its entirety, is only a development of the consequences of these facts; and if errors are present therein, they can only be errors in the application, since the premisses are correct: for the proof of such errors we can, of course, in the interest of science, be only thankful.

It cannot possibly be used as an objection to the newer theory of solutions that it concerns itself at present with those properties of solutions which depend only so far upon the nature of the substance in question as one constant-the molecular weight -is concerned; and which properties, like the relation holding for gases between pressure, volume, and temperature, I have proposed to term colligative properties. For Mr. J. W. R. agrees with me that the number and variety of the conclusions which have been drawn from this fact of the existence of these properties is already very great, and it seems to be open to no doubt that the possible applications are by no means exhausted. It will certainly be the task of the future to take also into consideration those properties of solutions which depend upon the individual nature of substances; and this has, indeed, already to a certain extent been done in a particularly important casethat of the change with the solvent of the molecular weight of a dissolved substance, and especially that of the specific property of water to form electrolytic solutions. But I do not believe that we can be justly reproached for having endeavoured to first solve the relatively more simple problems before turning to the more complex ones. It will be here that what is termed by Mr. J. W. R. the "chemical theory" will take its proper place.

I beg Mr. J. W. R. to recall the history of the rivalry between these two "theories." Van 't Hoff and his successors developed the laws of solutions entirely without polemical strife, because, since the fundamental ideas of van 't Hoff's theory were entirely new, there was nothing at all in its territory to combat, as till then there was nothing there. The attacks upon van 't Hoff's theory were begun by an investigator who had until then directed his attention exclusively to the phenomena which I have above characterized as individual, and who was evidently unprepared to deal with such colligative properties. The defence had to consist in an unceasing clearing up of misconceptions. Now, the greatest of these misconceptions is, that both "theories" are rivals. The existence and form of the laws founded by van 't Hoff and his successors stand at present beyond question; if the totality of these laws be termed the physical theory of solutions (which I should not do), there is nothing to be objected to this. But what has until now been known as the hydrate theory has not been in a position to give any information whatever in regard to these laws; none of them have been discovered with its aid, and since it has for its subject not the colligative but the individual properties of solutions this will not be otherwise in the future. In fact, the existence of the colligative laws, or van 't Hoff laws, is entirely independent of whether hydrates exist in solutions or not, and all attempts, successful or otherwise, to demonstrate the existence and composition of such hydrates, lead conversely in no wise to the van 't Hoff laws.

It will possibly not be superfluous to emphasize that with the new theory of solutions the question is not one of hypotheses, but of facts, of numerical relations. Whether one can form a conception as to the cause of the colligative laws of solutions with the aid of the kinetic molecular hypothesis or in any other way, is, for the actual existence of these laws, just as much a matter of indifference as it is for the existence of the laws of gases. In my book the question is this one of facts, and although I have therein made more use of molecular considerations than I should at present hold to be proper, yet I have done so only to render more clear the actual relations, and never to prove quantitative laws.

The theory of solutions which I represent and defend consists, accordingly, of a certain number of laws, i.e. of exact relations between measurable quantities belonging to solutions. I cannot see that that which as "chemical theory" is set in opposition thereto contains anything similar to this. The latter contains in actual material certain methods-very doubtful ones to my mind-for demonstrating the existence of compounds between dissolved substance and solvent. The result of these endeavours remains, however, in any event, entirely without influence upon those colligative laws. The same may be said of the future answer to the question, whether an interaction, and what, occurs between dissolved substance and solvent. İn order to render this apparent, I need only recall the fact, re

cently observed by Goldschmidt, that the depression of the freez. ing-point in a basic solvent, such as paratoluidine, caused by dissolving in it an acid, has practically the same value as that effected by the equal molecular quantity of an indifferent substance, although in the first case a chemical compound is formed

and none in the second.

So, in the presentation of laws of solutions, as known up to the present, and which form the subject of my book, the socalled hydrate theory or chemical theory, did not enter into the question, because it had discovered no law of anything like general character. And further, that the methods and hypotheses of this "theory" cannot be yet looked upon as reasonably supported scientific results is known to the English-reading scientific public from a number of papers published in recent numbers of the Philosophical Magazine. W. OSTWALD. Leipzig, January 4.

A Simple Heat Engine.

AT the last soirée of the Royal Society, a beautiful experiment was shown by Mr. Shelford Bidwell, illustrative of the fact that nickel ceases to be magnetic at a certain definite temperature. A piece of nickel was arranged as the bob of a pendulum. As long as the nickel was below a certain temperature it was held on one side by a magnet, but when it was heated by a spirit lamp-flame beyond a certain temperature it ceased to be attracted, and passed out of the range of the flame; it then cooled, and almost instantly returned to its first position, again to be released by the heat of the flame. It occurred to me that if a disk of nickel were placed in a certain position in a magnetic field, and then heated, it would continuously revolve. This on trial I found to be the case.

The experiment was arranged thus:-The nickel disk BC, 5 cm. in diameter and I mm. thick, was mounted on an axle passing through A; it was held in a frame so that the faces of the two poles, N, s, of an electro-magnet were at right angles to one another; the heat was applied at H; the disk revolved in the

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direction shown. A great many different positions were tried, but the one indicated gave far the best results. The rotation began when the part of the disk above the flame reached 290° C. The distribution of the lines of force passing through the disk from edge to edge was examined by placing a sheet of a nonmagnetic metal above the disk when cold and when heated, and sifting iron filings on to it. When cold, the lines of force were uniformly disposed across it; but when the disk was heated, only a few appeared to pass through the heated region. From this it is evident that the fall on the heated side of the disk is always less than that on the side which is not so hot, and to this the rotation is due. FREDERICK J. SMITH. Trinity College, Oxford, December 31, 1891.

The Migration of the Lemming. DR. ANDREW WILSON, in referring to my letter on the Norwegian lemming, is under the very natural misapprehension which I formerly shared-that "only a miserable remnant of the original swarm" reach the sea. Now, although it is true that throughout their pilgrimage they are exposed to the attack of every rapacious bird, beast, and biped, and that even the Rendyr, which is by no means rapacious, never misses the opportunity of obtaining a bonne bouche of grass à la saur krout from their paunch, yet so prolific are the lemmings at this time that their numbers increase despite their enemies; some of which, be it remembered, do not dare to follow them when they leave the fjeld. During the last great migration I noticed that the little pilgrims became much more numerous as they ad

vanced towards the fjord; but probably no single individual of those who began the exodus lives to share its fate-only the cherited impulse survives in the offspring. These animals may live in captivity for two years; mine, at least, did so ; but, so far as I know, no one else has succeeded in keeping them nearly so long; and the reasons are curious. In the first place, they fight with each other incessantly, and irrespective of sex; and secondly, they invariably defile their supply of water, so that unless this can be made running, they are sure to perish.

The

I turned out my little colony on Richmond Green, at an hour when the almost ubiquitous boy was still abed, and I watched their behaviour with a box-compass and a butterfly net. former article proved unnecessary, as they boxed the compass for themselves, and the latter inadequate, as they ate their way through the gauze with remarkable rapidity. I should add, however, that they were all eventually recaptured, and that I derived no information as to their sense of direction from the experiment.

Dr. Wilson states that naturalists generally believe that the lemmings seek a "land of promise," or rather of past fulfilment. I was under the impression that the credit (or is it the reverse?) of the idea belonged to me, but under a an which sees so little that is new, I may well be mistaken; yet, singly or jointly, rightly or erroneously, I still believe that these migrations were formerly of benefit to the species. That they are not so now, is obvious; but the chief interest seems to lie in their periodicity, the marvellous fecundity which supports them, and the remarkable faculty which directs them.

Asgard, Richmond, January 14.

W. DUPPA-CROTCH.

The same

P.S.-Absence from home prevented me from noticing the letter of Prof. Romanes. To the former of his two queries I reply that all the migrations which I have noticed during twenty years have crossed my lake, which lies nearly north and south, whereas had they followed the valley and watershed they would have been spared this labour and risk. argument applies to Lake Mjosen and others. As regards the second query, whether I believe in a sub-tropical Atlantis or not seems to me to have as little bearing on a possible landconnection between Norway and Iceland as on the Goodwin Sands. It has been suggested to me that at the close of the latest glacial epoch the lemmings may have found it necessary to migrate to the warmer western shores of the peninsula : this, however, leaves the presence of the animals in Iceland anexplained, save by the rather vague action of flotsam and etsam. In any case, I only wish to adopt the most convenient hypothesis, until it is disproved or supplemented by a better one.-W. D-C., January 18.

IN discussing the much-debated subject of the westward migration of the Norwegian lemming, the primary cause-as it appears to me-has been altogether overlooked.

This is, that the whole of Norway north of the Jotunhjem region-that is, the whole of the country of the Norwegian lemmings-is simply the steep and narrow westward slope of a long ridge of mountains.

When Mr. Collett says that "the wanderings take place in the direction of the valleys," he simply repeats in other words the usual description of their general westerly course.

They breed in the uplands, and when very prolific the increase must descend or perish, as they consume all the vegetation of their birth-region and no further supplies of food are obtainable either northward, southward, or eastward; but downwards, i.e. westward, the vegetation increases steadily as they proceed, and the descending autumn snow-line pushes onward behind them. Their devastation of meadows and oat-fields proves the urgency of their downward or westward course.

There are lemmings also on the eastern slopes of the Kjölen range, i.e. in Sweden. We are told that the Swedish lemmings proceed to the Gulf of Bothnia and are there drowned. To do this they must travel in the eastward and southward directions of a much longer slope than the steep westward course of the Norwegian lemming. A glance at a good map of Sweden and Norway will show all this. W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS. The Grange, Neasden.

The New Forest Bill, 1892.

IN connection with the petitions in favour of this Bill, to which the signatures of persons interested in the New Forest

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are being obtained, I am frequently asked, "What is the necessity for the Bill, and what is its object?" The facts of the case may be shortly stated as follows. The "Woods and Wastes" of the Forest comprise about 63,000 acres of land, the whole of which were, prior to 1698, open and uninclosed; but under the authority of the Acts 9 and 10 William III. c. 36 (1698) and 48 George III. c. 72 (1808), the Crown was empowered to inclose, and keep inclosed, freed and discharged from all rights of common, such quantity of land in the Forest as would amount to 6000 acres, for the growth of timber. By the Act of 14 and 15 Viet. c. 76 (the Deer Removal Act of 1851), the Crown was authorized to inclose and plant with trees any quantity of land, not exceeding 10,000 acres, in addition to the 6000 acres already in inclosure under the authority of the Acts before mentioned. The powers conferred by these Acts are not repealed by 40 and 41 Vict. c. 121 (the "New Forest Act, 1877"), but the rights of inclosure are by sec. 5 of the last cited Act limited to "such lands as are at the date of the passing of this Act inclosed, or as have, previously to such date, been inclosed by virtue of commissions issued in pursuance of the said Acts or some of them." The New Forest Act of 1877 practically secured the New Forest to the public, but the Act is virtually repealed by the 10th section of the Ranges Act, 1891 (and other Acts therein referred to), under the authority of which the War Department, with the consent of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, can take possession of any part of the Forest for military purposes, and exclude the public from the enjoyment of any tract so taken. Already it is proposed to take 800 acres for a rifle range and the site of a camp, and there is nothing to prevent the exercise of such rights throughout the district, and the conversion of the Forest Wherever a portion of the Forest is taken, the rights of the commoners, if they complain, will be bought up and extinguished; and thus, by taking different areas at different times, the Commissioners may before very long extinguish the common rights, and reduce the Forest into private ownership. It is clear that the proposed inclosure of 800 acres, and the user of the Forest generally in the way described, is in direct violation of the spirit and intention, as well as of the express provisions, of the New Forest Act of 1877.

into a second Aldershot.

The object, therefore, of the New Forest Bill is to make it clear that the Forest shall not be deemed to be within the provisions of the 10th section of the Ranges Act, 1891, and that the provisions of the New Forest Act, 1877, shall remain in force.

The rights secured by the Act of 1877 and the preservation of the Forest as an open space are of the greatest importance to naturalists, artists, and the general public, and every possible effort should be made to secure the passing of the Bill by signing petitions in support of it. H. Goss.

Entomological Society, 11 Chandos Street,
Cavendish Square, W., January 26.

A Brilliant Meteor.

LAST night, at 10h. 55m. G. M. T., I had the good fortune to witness the flight of a magnificently brilliant meteor. I was standing outside in the south-east re-entering corner of this building, and happened to be looking up at the constellation Leo, when the meteor suddenly flashed into sight from over the roof of the Observatory, a little east of the zenith, and not far from the stars and Ursa Majoris, passed east of Procyon, and did not disappear till it had reached a position about 5° east of Sirius. An immediate reference to the map showed the positions of its appearance and disappearance to be about 9h.. + 48 and 7h. - 15.

For the greater part of its course it presented the appearance of a broad band of deep yellow light, but after it had passed about two-thirds of its path, it widened out into an elongated mass, distinctly rounded on the front, and of a full violet colour. From the middle of this round front the yellow band again emerged, and was finally lost to view about 15 or 20° further on. The violet mass would be about 5° in length. The whole apparition occupied 4 or 5 seconds, and the band of light was seen for an instant complete on the sky, stretching over some 65°.

About 10 minutes later a small meteor shot out from a point near the stars and λ Ursa Majoris, and disappeared in the direction of Procyon. THOMAS HEATH. Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, January 25.

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