they too have intelligence, and that they exhibit at times a very respectable amount of common sense. The stories about them are strictly true, and from their very nature strictly new. But the volume tells also of many a twofooted friend, and the last few chapters almost exclusively treat of the fishes of the coast. There is much in this portion of the volume of interest to the scientific worker; there is much in every part of it to make it of value to those who care to learn something of the habits of Tasmanian beasts, birds, and fishes. One feature of the volume must be specially noticed--the eight coloured drawings, excellently chromolithographed from the water-colour drawings of the author. From a personal knowledge of the splendid colouring often present in freshly-caught tropical fishes, these plates are, we should say, by no means too brilliant. Four are devoted to some of the strange, wondrously-coloured fishes, and four to flowers, fruits, and insects. This volume would be an excellent and not overexpensive Christmas present, which may lie on any table however select, and be read by any person however critical. 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. No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great that it is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even of communications containing interesting and novel facts.] Mr. Spencer and Prof. Tait PROF. TAIT'S explanation itself shows that the word commonly applied to products of imagination, was applicable to his statements; for the only justification he assigns is that he "assumed," that is to say, imagined, that his substitution of "definition" for "formula" must have been the ground of offence. How inadequate a plea this is, will be seen on re-reading the questions I put, which were these: "He [Prof. Tait] says that because he has used the word 'definition' instead of 'formula,' he has incurred my 'sore displeasure and grave censure.' In what place have I expressed or implied displeasure or censure in relation to this substitution of terms? Alleging that I have an obvious motive for calling it a formula,' he says I am indignant at its being called a definition.' I wish to see the words in which I have expressed my indignation; and shall be glad if Prof. Tait will quote them. He says:-'It seems I should have called him the discoverer of the formula!' instead of the inventor of the definition.' Will he oblige me by pointing out where I have used either the one phrase or the other? Every reader would infer that, for these specific statements made by Prof. Tait, there are specific foundations, which could be named when asked for. He does not name them, for the sufficient reason that they do not exist. Unable, as he says, to see in the passages I quoted from him, anything else to call for "censure" (a strange inability !), he "of course" assumed that this change of terms was the ground of censure. And the assumption thus made, is the only warrant he assigns for these positive assertions. This is not all, however. Prof. Tait says:-"I could not have ventured to suppose that Mr. Spencer did not even know that he was in the habit of saying formula rather than definition.' This naïve confession cannot but be correct." Of Prof. Tait's motive for putting this statement of mine in italics and calling it naïve, the reader may judge for himself. How entirely correct it is, and how well Prof. Tait might have "ventured to suppose it, will quickly appear. For there is proof that I am not in the habit of always saying formula rather than definition; and Prof. Tait had the proof before him. In the note on page 565 of the Appendix forming the pamphlet in question-a page which Prof. Tait must have read, since it concerns Mr. Kirkman and himself -I have used the word "definition." So that not only had Prof. Tait no evidence on which to base his distinct statements, WILL you kindly allow a learner to ask for the criterion according to which Kinetic Energy and Work are real things, while Momentum and Force are unreal? Prof. Tait says mv and wh express real things, but me and wt unrealities (NATURE, vol. xxiii. p. 82). If wt be "as unreal as is the product of a quart into an acre," how is it that wh is real? The illustration of quart and acre is as applicable or inapplicable to the one as to the other. In both cases we take the product of two numbers, not two concrete magnitudes, which of course it would be absurd to speak of multiplying together. In one case the product is the number of units of Momentum, in the other case it is the number of units of Kinetic Energy. If it be said that a thing is real if its quantity cannot be altered, and vice versa, why is m2 said to be real, and my unreal? They vanish together. When Prof. Tait asserts "there is no such thing as Force," "it is merely a convenient expression for a certain rate" (NATURE, vol. xiv. P. 459), he seems, if I may venture to say so, to confound the measure of Force with Force itself, and to lay himself open to Mr. Spencer's comment that "a relation changes the state of a body." Certainly mu is not a thing, but neither is mo2 a thing: yet the latter is the measure of something which Prof. Tait asserts to be "as real as matter itself": why is not that of which the former is the measure equally real? E. G. Bardsea [What Prof. Tait asserts may be correct or not, but it is selfconsistent. He asserts in his lecture on "Force" (NATURE, vol. xiv. p. 462) that matter and energy must be looked on as real things, because we cannot change the amount of either. Such expressions as mv2, and wh, are to be considered as wholes, not as products of two or more factors. This separation into factors (where one is mv, or w, for instance) he asserts to be a relic of the old erroneous belief in the trustworthiness of the impressions made on the "muscular" sense.-ED.] Landslips IN NATURE, vol. xxii. p. 560, I pointed out that landslips often occurred in the Salt Districts. I did not then expect that I should so soon be able to refer again to the subject; but on December 6, at an early hour in the morning, one of the largest subsidences and landslips ever known in Cheshire occurred. I pointed out that whenever fresh water reaches the rock salt it dissolves it. In certain districts in the immediate neighbourhood of Northwich the ground is completely honeycombed with rocksalt mines that had been worked out and abandoned. Into many of these fresh water had penetrated, and had become by solution strong brine. This brine has of late been extensively pumped up, and many of these extensive cavities had become nearly empty. The thin crust of rock salt forming the roof of these old mines had become gradually thinner, owing to its solution by water, and on Monday morning the roof of one pit gave way, and let the superincumbent earth down into the mine, rifting and opening the ground to the surface. The surface rift passed across the bed of a large brook, and the water of the brook ran through the crevice into the mines below. In a short time the water made a more extensive cavity, and as the brook was cut in two about 200 yards above its entrance into a large lake that was drained by the Weaver River, the water in the lower portion of the brook and of the lake, as well as of the Weaver, commenced to return and run down the enlarged cavity. For four or five hours this return stream increased in velocity, pouring down the crater-like hole. Notwithstanding the water of the brook and the return water, as well as a large body of water from another small lake entering this cavity, the water standing in the funnelshaped hole gradually lowered. The velocity of both portions of the brook increased, and such was the force of the water that the bottom of the brook for 100 yards was scooped out from 2 feet in depth to 10 feet, and the banks were washed away, making the brook from 30 to 40 feet wide instead of 20 as at first. The quantity of water thus rushing down for twelve hours from the commencement would be fully 600,000 tons. The water in one direction over a surface of 160 acres was lowered one foot in the space of three hours. Shortly after this water commenced to rush below it made its way through a weak portion of a barrier wall into a rock salt mine that was being worked. This mine, extending over fifteen acres, and having a worked-out depth of eighteen feet, was completely filled and all the tools, materials, waggons, tramways, &c., entirely lost. It will be quite impossible ever to pump out the water. Besides this mine, all the old abandoned mines were filled, and the brine, which stood at 100 yards from the surface on the Sunday, stood at 24 yards on Monday night. The water being fresh, great damage was expected by the solution of the salt. This soon occurred, for an old mine that fell in forty-two years ago, and the cavity of which had been filled with water, gave way, and suddenly the whole land over a circle of about 500 feet in diameter sank, and a large portion of water escaped into neighbouring pits. The ground cracked and rifted and subsided, and a length of road of 160 yards was destroyed, as also pipes conveying brine to the salt works. A large reservoir holding brine was split across and all the brine let out; the rending of the earth passed through two kilns of bricks, dropping one-half of the kilns at least 2 feet. On the Monday afternoon a tall chimney 90 feet in height became affected, and in a few hours fell with a great crash. The air that had filled the cavities below was forced out by the inrush of water, and caused all the pits and brooks near to bubble and boil violently, whilst in some of the rifts where water occurred miniature mud geysirs were formed, throwing up mud 10 or 12 feet high. These appearances extended over a district between two brooks for the space of 2000 feet. On Wednesday night a large hole 30 yards in diameter and 30 yards deep fell in, and more subsidences are daily expected, as the fresh water will eat away the pillars supporting the roofs of the abandoned mines. The cavity formed on Monday is full of water, and the brook now runs through it. Some idea may be formed of it when I mention that it is crater-like, and of about 200 feet in diameter. On sounding it on Wednesday I found a depth of 78 feet of water in the centre, and various depths from 70 to 60, 50, and so on to about 12 feet at the margin. On Sunday, on the spot which is now 78 feet, there was a sandbank with its surface above the water. Serious injury has been done to one set of salt works, and five sets are stopped for want of brine, the pipes being broken and the road destroyed. As the salt trade increases these enormous sinkings keep increasing, and become more alarming in their character. Brookfield House, Northwich THOS. WARD The Geology of East-Central Africa and the Subterranean Forest in Bombay IN Mr. J. Thomson's very interesting "Notes on the Geology of East-Central Africa" (NATURE, vol. xxiii. p. 104) he remarks that doubtless the immense development of volcanic rocks described by myself (and I may add by several previous explorers) in Abyssinia is of the same age as the volcanic rocks at the Cape of Good Hope, assigned to the Trias. Mr. Thomson has, I think, overlooked the circumstance that whatever may be the age of the Cape volcanic rocks, the teaks of Abyssinia cannot be older than Jurassic. As I have shown (Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., 1869, pp. 403, &c., and "Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia," pp. 184, &c.), there are in the Abyssinian highlands two groups of bedded dolerites and trachytes, the upper of which rests unconformably on the lower, while the latter overlies limestone with Jurassic (Middle Jurassic) fossils. I trust that Mr. Thomson will pardon my suggesting the possibility of the Tanganyika sandstones being river valley deposits, like the Gondwana series of India, rather than lacustrine. I may be mistaken, but the description appears to me to indicate beds coarser than those usually deposited in an extensive lake basin. In the same number of NATURE, p. 105, is a brief notice of a "Subterranean Forest in India." As I understand the account given, the forest should perhaps rather be termed submarine than subterranean. My object in calling attention to this notice however is to point out that a previous description of the same formation was published in the Records of the Geological Survey of India for 1878, vol. xi. p. 302. This account is by Mr. G. E. Ormiston, Resident Engineer, and agrees in all essential particulars with the note in NATURE. I appended a few remarks on the geological bearing of the discovery. The "forest" has clearly been depressed, whilst neighbouring tracts in Bombay island appear to have been elevated in comparatively recent times. W. T. BLANFORD Dr. Siemens's Gas-Grate HAVING endeavoured for some years past to heat my study by gas appliances, and having utterly failed in obtaining a comfortable temperature of 60°, as a last effort to accomplish my object I had fitted into an ordinary grate Dr. Siemens's arrangement of copper and iron, the construction of which was communicated to the public in the pages of NATURE, vol. xxiii. p. 25. Before giving the results of the trial of Dr. Siemens's gas-grate I may mention in what way my former gas-stoves failed. My first gasfire consisted of gas and asbestos, but this gave out fumes which were quite intolerable; my second trial was with a gas-stove reflecting heat from a copper lining; this not only failed to warm the room, but was a cheerless and grim apology for a fire, and to obtain even a moderate degree of temperature a constant and expensive consumption of gas was necessary. With Dr. Siemens's gasgrate all that is required to produce a good cheerful fire radiating heat to all parts of the room, and maintaining a temperature from 60° to 62°, is to turn on the gas full for about twenty minutes, and as soon as the lower stratum of coke becomes incandescent, the gas may be quite turned off, the fuel, whether coke or anthracite, continuing to burn for five or six hours without any further expenditure of either gas or fuel. If the fire is required for a longer time, or if at any time a more rapid combustion is wanted, it is only necessary to turn on the gas again for a few minutes and add more fuel. This is my experience of Dr. Siemens's gas-grate, and I consider it a great boon to householders who desire well-warmed rooms combined with economy. After the lucid description of the gas-grate given by Dr. Siemens in NATURE, it would be presumption in me to discuss the scientific explanation of its action; I shall only, in conclusion, venture to claim for it the following advantages which I believe it to possess over every other kind of gasstove yet invented : 1. It gives a clear, smokeless, cheerful fire. 2. It is most economical, and very soon pays the cost of the construction. 3. Being absolutely smokeless, contributes nothing to that constituent of our London fogs which renders them injurious in so many ways. This last advantage, if multiplied by every householder at an outlay of 25s., adopting a cheaper modification than the copper and iron gas-grate, we should before very long observe a marked change for the better in our London atmosphere; and the darkness, dirt, and destruction of property with which we Londoners are annually afflicted, would be things of the past. December 13 R. DOUGLAS HALE Geological Climates I HAVE just read Mr. A. R. Wallace's letter in NATURE, vol. xxiii. p. 124, but as I have not yet seen his book, "Island Life,' although my bookseller had promised it, I shall defer my reply in NATURE until I shall have made myself master of his ideas. For the present I shall only say :-1. That Mr. Wallace's proposal would benefit the Polar regions but not Bournemouth. 2. Mr. Wallace omits all mention of the return cold currents which the admission of two new Gulf Streams into the Arctic regions would produce. These currents would seriously lower the temperature of China and Japan; and also of the Ural Mountains and east of Europe. Trinity College, Dublin, December 10 SAMUEL HAUGHTON SOME weeks since the Rev. Prof. Haughton took exception to a brief letter of mine, in which I suggested that as a bamboo flourishes in Cooper's Hill College garden, in a northern aspect winter after winter, it could be used effectually in an argument relating to geological climates. The bamboo being found in torrid India now, that at Cooper's Hill, if found in a future period, would, according to some geologists, indicate that the valley of the Thames was tropical formerly. My letter was written because the Rev. Professor had written a very long one, in which he applied this kind of bad reasoning in relation to a bit of a leafy part of a tree found at Bournemouth in an Eocene deposit. The leaves of his bit resemble those of Araucaria Cunninghami squashed; nevertheless a thermometric virtue is given to the fossil because this Araucaria is native in districts in Eastern Australia. Self-satisfied with his recognition of the similarity of the leaves, the Rev. Professor coolly assumes that he has made out his species, and therefore demands the name of mine, giving me a scolding before I could possibly let him have it. It is curious that the Rev. Professor should not have seen the point of my letter, and the only explanation is that he was so taken up with the incomparable value of his delicate "selfregistering plant thermometer." I did not believe in his discovery, and my bamboo-never mind whence it came-was quite as good in the method of argument as his so-called Araucaria. No botanist would feel satisfied with the coneless evidence of the Rev. Professor, and his genus is in doubt as well as his species. With regard to this, Lindley stated years since that Araucaria Cunninghami is a "supposed species" in relation to the Norfolk Island C. excelsa. So the " self-registering ther mometer" has neither bulb nor stem, and the spirit or the mercury represents the Rev. Professor's genius. He bids me plant the bamboo in the sunny south-west. Not so; it is the damp soil and the shade which have permitted the stems to grow up to 10 feet 6 inches. He tells me that the bamboo grows in China that fact I had heard of before, and it has been strikingly impressed on many generations of Celestials. Last week, but too late for my purpose of immediate publication in NATURE, I learned that the bamboo is of the sub-genus Arundinacea, and the species is falcata. Its natural habitat is in the temperate Himalayas, where frosts, fogs, and north-cast winds, such as plague the Thames Valley, are unknown. Finally I believe that the so-called A. Cunninghami has grown of late years in the south of England. December 9 P. MARTIN DUNCAN Hailstorm in Dorsetshire AT about 1.30 on the 25th of last November, with a strong wind from the south-west, this place was visited by a hailstorm which lasted about five minutes, accompanied by rain and violent gusts of wind, and by a single vivid flash of lightning which was followed with scarcely more than an appreciable interval by the thunder. The character of the hailstones which fell on the occasion, and which I examined before they could have undergone any important change induced by the higher temperature of the surrounding air, may be worth noting; for though they were not of very unusual size, and in most respects scarcely departed from what may be regarded as the typical condition of hailstones, they exhibited some features not generally met with in so well-marked a form. In their simplest condition their shape was that of a sphere, and in every such case they consisted of a spherical nucleus of 3 4 opaque white ice enveloped by a concentric shell of ice perfectly transparent and homogeneous, showing none of the radial striæ often met with in hailstones (Fig. 1). The largest measured about half an inch in diameter, the nucleus having a diameter of about a quarter of an inch. The appearance of the opaque white nucleus surrounded by its thick crystal-clear envelope was very striking and beautiful. In In many cases two such hailstones were united firmly to one another, doubtless by a process of regelation after contact. some of these the transparent envelope was continuous around each of the nuclei in the plane of contact (Fig. 2). In others it was here deficient, and the two nuclei were then in immediate contact with one another (Fig. 3). The difference thus presented is not without significance as affording evidence that there are two distinct conditions under which the union of hailstones by regelation may occur; for it is probable that in the former case the contact and regelation had taken place directly between the nuclei while as yet free from the investing shell of clear ice which had afterwards formed around the twin nuclei; while in the latter case the envelope had already existed before the contact and regelation of the hailstones. Another frequent occurrence was the presence of one or two little piriform offsets, which projected from the surface of the hailstone, and were, like the envelope itself, formed of clear homogeneous ice (Fig. 4). In a paper published in the Proc. Asiatic Society for June, 1880, to which iny attention has been called by Mr. Scott of the Meteorological Office, very similar clubshaped projections of transparent ice are described by Mr. Blanford in large hailstones figured by Col. Godwin-Austen as having fallen at Calcutta in March, 1877. In It is possible that in these cases the projections had originally the form of crystals, and that their faces and angles had been rounded off in passing through a warmer region of the atmosphere, such radiating crystals of ice not being unknown. a memoir by Abich ("Ueber Kugel Hagel im Unterem Kaukasus," Vienna, 1879), for a knowledge of which I am also indebted to Mr. Scott, an account is given of certain very large hailstones which fell at Tiflis in Georgia, and had large ice crystals radiating from the surface. GEO. J. ALLMAN Ardmore, Parkstone, Dorset, December 11 Sargassum I FIND in NATURE, vol. xxiii. p. 70, a short report on my paper, "Revision von Sargassum," with several objections, which I believe to be erroneous. It is said that the fragments occurring sometimes on the open sea, the so called Sargassum bacciferum, should have a bright yellow colour. Not long ago I received fresh samples thereof from the Sargasso Sea, which are not yellow at all; these fragments are never bright yellow, but of the same brown, varying to yellowish colour as decaying Fucus vesiculosus. I observed the latter, for instance, in this condition in several fjörds of Norway, where I found broken Fucus in greater quantities than ever I did Sargassum in the open sea between England and the West Indies. Microcystis pyrifera shows always stem and leaves entangled in a ball, if broken and swimming in the open sea (vile p. 235 of my treatise), and the Sargasso fragments of the open sea are also often entangled in compact balls, as Sir Wyville Thomson states ("The Atlantic," i. 194), and as it may be seen on my phototypic table, Fig. 1. If the floating Sargassum should have no reproductive organs, this would be no difficulty, but rather a confirmation of my views on the fragmentary nature of swimming Sargassum, for a particular pelagic species could not be without reproductive organs. Besides there have been found "with certainty" sometimes samples in the open sea with reproductive organs, and I gave an explanation of their seldom occurrence by want or breaking off of the air-vesicles. The writer on my paper is mistaken in comparing Macrocystis and Fucus with Sargassum, for the air-vesicles and reproductive organs of Sargassum are separate from the leaves and isolated on thin stalks, which break off easily, while those of Fucus and Macrocystis are never separate, but in the middle of the leaf or on the base, or on the broad end of the leaf or thallus. Therefore swimming Sargassum is found often without reproductive organs, and its air-vesicles are often broken off, whilst on Macrocystis and Fucus such a separation is not possible. Having refuted those objections, and having also brought in my paper many more arguments against the existence and vegetation of Sargassum bacciferum than there are mentioned in the short report, I hope that my results on Sargassum will now generally be accepted Leipzig-Eutritzsch, December 4 OTTO KUNTZE Wallace, I should have said that the climate of Vancouver Meteors ON the evening of November 20 at about 8 p.m. my attention was attracted by a number of meteors appearing as often as once per minute in different quarters of the heavens, but pursuing courses apparently radiating from a point near the constellation Andromeda. M. A. VEEDER Lyons, New York, November 22 THE PROBABILITY OF PHYLLOXERA MUCH alarm has been felt by the wine-growers of South Africa at the possibility of the phylloxera being introduced into the Cape vineyards. Very stringent regulations have been framed in consequence, prohibiting the importation of living plants or vegetables in any form; and so rigidly have these regulations been carried out that it is stated that, in accordance with them, a cargo of potatoes from New Zealand was destroyed on its reaching Capetown. It is generally conceded by the experts who have been consulted that the importation of vines, on the tissues of which the phylloxera would be able to live in transit, must be prohibited. The phylloxera can however, it is admitted, feed on no other plant but the vine, and the important question for the South African Government to decide is whether it is really needful to exclude other plants or vegetables besides the vine. In order to obtain the best opinion upon this point, Dr. Maxime Cornu was consulted. He accordingly drew up several reports, in which he expresses the opinion that, though extremely unlikely, it is still theoretically possible that the phylloxera should be conveyed from Europe to South Africa by means of other vegetable products than the vine, and he therefore supports the prohibitive action taken by the Cape Government. The inconvenience to the community which such a policy involves is necessarily considerable. The grounds of Dr. Maxime Cornu's decision have therefore been carefully considered by an entomologist who has studied The question is of great importance to all wine-growing the subject and who has drawn up the following notes. countries in the southern hemisphere, and as these doubtless contain many readers of NATURE, I think the publication of these notes in its columns will give them the best opportunity of being fairly considered. W. T. T. D. Notes on Dr. Cornu's Reports on the Phylloxera, and on the Protective Measures against its Introduction. Among the "truths" laid down in the first report, No. I. is, "The Phylloxera vastatrix lives only upon the vine." This is emphasised in the third report ("Memorandum on Laws of Protection, &c."), Paragraph No. IV., stating, "they (the insects) can, moreover, subsist only upon the vine." Notwithstanding these unreserved statements of this fundamental fact in the life history of phylloxera, the same "Memorandum on Laws of Protection, &c.," proceeds (in its" General Conclusion ") to recommend, "if such a course were possible," the imitation of "the example set by Algeria, and to forbid the introduction of all vegetable products whatever, with the exception of those which are absolutely required for consumption." It may well be asked on what ground such a recommendation is based. After stating (Third Report, Paragraph IV.) that the phylloxera cannot live when dissociated from the vine for more than four or five days, and requires protection from dessication in any case, Dr. as Cornu proceeds (Paragraph V.) to sketch "the most favourable conditions for the introduction of the insect "> follows:-"A phylloxera is removed in the soil, say a pregnant mother, which survives for a period of five days; it lays an egg before dying; the egg takes fifteen days to hatch (at the mean temperature of 59 deg. Fahr.), and the young insect which is produced five days to die. This makes in all twenty-five days." That is to say, that the maternal phylloxera, when in articulo mortis at the end of her five days' dessication and starvation, is to lay an egg ; that this egg, produced under such extraordinary conditions, is to hatch in due course, and, after undergoing total starvation from its birth, is to live out the normal term of five days allotted to the mother (presumably well fed until she started on the dolorous voyage), and after all this is to land at the Cape and propagate its species in the nearest vineyard at hand! If these are the most favourable conditions" under which the phylloxera would be introduced, we may surely say with Dr. Cornu in another part of the same report (Paragraph VII. a) that "it would require a concatenation of circumstances which it is difficult to imagine to bring about the misfortune of the insect's introduction." It is as well also to note that the writer expressly states (Paragraph V.) that the egg's hatching is accelerated when the temperature exceeds 59 deg. Fahr., so that in the supposed case, if the starveling progeny ever did see the light on the voyage, it would probably emerge in a tropical temperature long before the normal fifteen days allowed, and so resign its life of total abstinence before reaching the promised land of plenty at the Cape. Let us now turn to the "winter egg," which, as Dr. Cornu states (Paragraph VI.), "is particularly to be dreaded." This is the rarest condition of the insect, each female of the generation which includes both sexes laying only one egg (Paragraph VI.). "It is to this egg alone that the introduction of the phylloxera in packing-cases, straw, &c., could be attributed; this would however require confirmation; in fact I am not aware of any well-authenticated instance of the introduction of the phylloxera resulting from the transmission of the winter egg" (Paragraph VII.). This admission on the writer's part seems to reduce any apprehension about the winter egg to infinitesimal proportions, especially when it is noted that the "winter egg," as its title implies, is a state limited to cold weather, and commences to develop at the return of the fine weather" (Paragraph VI.). If a specimen of this rare œuf d'hiver did by any chance (in the absence of the vine-stems or branches upon which it is laid) start on a voyage for South Africa, we may be very sure that in its passage through the whole extent of both tropics it would very speedily cease to merit its title, and become a miserable phylloxera d'été, only to share the fate of its luckless relative, produced from the last dying egg of the mère pondeuse. It does not mend matters to find Dr. Cornu stating in italics (Paragraph VII.), "Such introduction is nevertheless possible from a scientific point of view." Impossibility can with accuracy be predicated of but very few propositions; as a rule it is safer to say of most matters apparently incredible that it is next to impossible, and this may very certainly be said in the present case; and when all known facts and conditions place every probability against a bare possibility, wise men will know how to act. As long as vines and all parts of vines from abroad are kept out of the Cape, the requirements of the wine industry are fully met. This prohibition was put in force by the late Government, by Proclamation No. 88, of November 30, 1876, and has been in force ever since that date. As late as the 4th December last, attention was specially directed to this Proclamation, with the intimation that its provisions would be strictly enforced (in Government Notice, No. 1288, of 1879). The present superfluous and vexatious restrictions were added by Proclamation No. 14, of January, 1880, and all the facts adduced by Dr. Cornu point to their futility. SONGS OF THE SCIENCES—I. ZOOLOGY WE must regard it as a noteworthy sign that science has begun to percolate so through society generally, that it has reached the pages of Punch. Almost every week we find a bit of more or less telling waggery, and last week the first of a series of "Songs of the Sciences" appeared, which we reproduce: Oh! merry is the Madrepore that sits beside the sea, Then study well zoology, and add unto your store, As THE AUGUST AURORAS S I had the pleasure of witnessing to great advantage at Christiania the superb aurora of August 12 last, as well as that of the 13th, it is possible that some account of these displays as seen in Norway may be useful for comparison with accounts of their appearance in England. My attention was first drawn to the aurora on going into the open air at 11 p.m. At 10.30 p.m. a friend had remarked that the night seemed unusually dark, and that the stars were shining brightly. When first seen by me the aurora consisted of a wide arch of diffused light, the centre of which was about 30° in height. A few broad streamers were then beginning to appear. I walked as quickly as possible to a hill whence a good view could be obtained, but I had hardly got there before the aurora had already reached, about 11.10 p.m., its maximum splendour. Broad streamers had by this time covered almost the whole of the northern half of the heavens, converging to a point considerably south of the zenith, forming a grand corona. The arch was still highly luminous, and from its upper margin coruscations or waves of white light shot up every two or three seconds towards the zenith. At this time also there suddenly appeared to the east of magnetic north a splendid sheaf of rays proceeding from the horizon altogether beyond the auroral arch, and apparently in complete independence of it. These rays, through bright, attained an elevation of only some 35°, and belonged apparently to a distinct auroral discharge. At 11.15 the arch had already begun to fade, but a mass of rays shone out brightly near its eastern termination. Throughout the display I was struck by the tendency to the formation of compact bodies of streamers which seemed to flank each end of the arch. As the arch faded the pulsations of |