François, Ferroux, Mackean, and Turrettini. All these machines have one common object, to project forcibly, and with blows of the greatest rapidity, a tool against the rock, and, as it is drawn back, force it to rotate slightly on its axis. Some of the machines advance by an automatic movement; others require a workman to push them. But to keep these boring machines in action some considerable motive power is necessary, and in the Alps that motive power can only be water. The question, then, is How to collect it and transmit it into the tunnel? Close by the Goeschenen opening runs the River Reuss, which has just passed under the legendary "Devil's Bridge," and precipitates itself into its narrow and rocky bed with an average fall of 10 per 100, forming a volume of water which is never less than 1,000 litres per second. M. L. Favre utilised a large rock standing in the channel to fix his dam, below which the water is received in a reservoir to deposit its sand and gravel. Thence it is led to the machines by a cast-iron pipe 85 m. in diameter and 800 m. long. The useful fall from the pipe is 85 m., and it can supply 1,200 litres a second. This water works four Girard wheels with horizontal axes. Their diameter is 2'4; they revolve 160 times a minute, and are each of 250 to 280 horse-power. When turning a horizontal axis with cranks and wheels attached, the number of revolutions is reduced to 80 per minute. At Airolo, the nearest river being the Ticino, which has no rapid descent, it would have required a very long canal to procure enough of fall. M. Favre therefore followed the advice of engineers who had studied the matter and assured him he would find enough water by making use of the Tremola, a torrent close by the tunnel, which falls into the valley with an average descent of 20 per 100, and is said to supply at least from 300 to 400 litres a second at the bottom. By collecting the water at a height sufficient to allow of the receiving reservoir giving a useful fall of 180 m., the necessary motive power could thus be found. The works were completed in 1872, but in February, 1873, the supply of the Tremola fell to 100 litres, and there was not sufficient power to turn the waterwheels. This did not last long, it is true, but the same scarcity of water reappearing next year, M. Favre resolved to form an auxiliary supply by collecting the Ticino water 3 kilometres up the river, and thus have a new fall in order to meet all eventualities. By this means four tangential water-wheels with vertical axes are turned; they are of bronze, with a diameter of 12 m., and revolve 350 times a minute, each being of about 200 horse-power. By means of conical gearing they turn a horizontal axis with cranks revolving 85 times a minute. When the supply of the Ticino is insufficient, it is made to act on a smaller number of wheels; and then on the vertical axles, which are no longer turned by that stream, there are other water-wheels slightly different on which the water of the Ticino is brought to bear. The power communicated to the horizontal axis at each opening is transmitted into the tunnel by means of the remarkable system already employed at Mont Cenis, and the inventor of which is Prof. Colladon of Geneva. This engineer conceived the idea of using for that purpose compressed air. The immense advantage gained by it is the transmission of a motive power, whatever the tem perature or distance may be; moreover, it serves for ventilation and the supply of fresh air. But the compression of air develops great heat, which injures the machine. At Mont Cenis, to avoid this heating, the air was compressed by means of pistons of cold water, which were themselves pushed by ordinary pistons moving up and down in pump cylinders. In order that the piston pushing the water should move it without splashing it must itself be moved very slowly, and the quantity of air required being considerable, the slowness of the movement must be compensated by the size of the pumps. At St. Gothard the following new invention of M. Colladon was utilised to prevent the temperature from becoming too high. The body of the compression-pump is double, and between its outer and inner cylinder circulates a current of cold water introduced by pumps. This cold water also circulates in the hollow rod of the piston and in the piston itself, which is also hollow. Moreover, cold water under the form of fine dust is injected even into the interior of the body of the pump, and then expelled by each stroke of the piston along with the compressed air. In this manner air compressed at 8 atmospheres only assumes a temperature of 32° C., which is lowered in the reservoirs to which it is exposed before passing into the tunnel. By this ingenious arrangement we can give much more rapidity to the pistons and proportionately diminish the volume of the pumps. At Airolo and Goeschenen there are fifteen such pumps, divided at each place into five groups of three. They are horizontal, and their pistons are set in motion by beams connected with the cranks of the main axis. They serve a double purpose: at the bottom of each pump cylinder there are two expiration valves and one for supply. The Airolo pumps are of 46 m. interior diameter, and at each stroke of the piston (through 45 m.) a pump receives 71 litres of air, and by compression reduces this volume to a seventh part. In this manner, when the supply is adequate (160 litres for each wheel), four groups of three pumps (one of the five groups being generally left at rest) receive in twenty-four hours 208,000 cubic metres of air, whereas the volume required is 104,000. At Goeschenen the pumps are of 42 m. diameter, and at each stroke of the piston (through '65 m.) 87 litres are received; but the number of strokes of the piston is rather less. The compressed air is sent into reservoirs, where it is cooled, and the water in suspension deposited. Thence it is conducted by tubes into the tunnel. These conducting tubes are pipes of hammered iron of 20 m. diameter, which are bolted together end to end, and placed all along the tunnel. At each new stage of the work the expenditure of air diminishes as they advance, and the diameter of the pipes is accordingly reduced to '14, then to 10, till at last they terminate in india-rubber tubes of 5 centim., which supply the compressed air for working the advanced gallery. The process being now known, let us examine how the work is organised. The tunnel being 8 m. wide and 6 m. high above the rails, since it must be vaulted, it is necessary to make a clearance as high as 64 m. above the rails. The first thing is to make a preliminary or advanced boring 23 m. high and 24 m. broad. For this first boring M. Favre adopted the Belgian system, according to which the preliminary gallery is entirely at the top of the tunnel. To open this boring, six perforating machines were arranged on a cast-iron stand placed on rails. These machines, first of all, perforated six holes in a horizontal direction. Then shifting the points, they made six new holes, and again a third set and a fourth set. This ought to have produced twenty-four perforations; but as there was always some delay from the change of drills or other hindrances, they seldom had more than eighteen or twenty. As the tools striking on the rock became very hot, and much dust was produced in the holes, they required to be constantly moistened by a jet of water. The water was carried on a train behind the cast-iron stand, and, by means of an india-rubber pipe to convey compressed air, was projected forcibly in several jets. The holes bored were generally 1 m. deep. When the face of the rock was, in the opinion of the head miner, sufficiently perforated, the stand was drawn back and the holes were charged with a mixture of dynamite and clay. Then they were fired by means of slow matches, so arranged that the central holes should explode before the others. After that they broke the large fragments, loaded trucks with the rubbish, and rolled them towards the opening; and thus the gallery was advanced about I m. Then placing rails in front, the stand with its boring-machine was brought back, and the mining recommenced. The advance was more or less difficult according to the nature of the rocks, but on the whole the contractor was fortunate in [this respect. The rock was hard, but its hardness was almost always suitable for perforation. About three-quarters of an hour were necessary to make a hole I metre deep; and under favourable circumstances four operations would be made in twenty-four hours, that is to say, an advance of 4 metres on each side. The most favourable rocks were granite, gneiss, mica gneiss, and mica schist. The layers, which were almost vertical, lay from east to west, and were therefore at right angles to the direction of boring. There were, however, three unfavourable circumstances which greatly hindered the works at certain times :-(1) The infiltrations of water in the Airolo tunnel during the first months of the operations, and in such quantities that a regular river flowed from the southern opening. Fortunately dynamite is not affected by water, and after boring several hundred metres the infiltration stopped. (2) Rocks of exceptional hardness were met with from time to time blunting the best drills, and scarcely an advance of 1 metre a day could be made. (3) In the Goeschenen gallery, at 2,700 m. from the mouth, they came upon a bed of rock entirely disaggregated, where they could only work with the pickaxe and were afraid of being buried. Under the enormous pressure of the mountain the props were crushed, and even the arches of masonry overthrown. At this part the advance was from 30 to 40 m. a month, and it continued for more than four months. There was some danger even of the rock falling behind where the workmen were engaged, and so isolating them and all who were beyond. In order to strengthen this dangerous part it was necessary to employ a special system of arches strengthened with iron. When the advanced boring was completed, it was enlarged on the right and left. After that was done, they proceeded to build the arches of the roof, and then dug to the level of the tunnel's base a trench of about 3 m. wide, called the Cunette de Strosse. It is not dug in the middle, so as to leave as long as possible the way clear on the higher level. Then all is removed that remains on the right and left of the trench, and which is known as Strosse. These different excavations are almost all done by perforations, and the holes being bored downwards, the work is more easy, whether for boring or exploding. The transport of rubbish and materials had to be performed as often as possible by more powerful agents than manual power or horse-power. Steam-engines were out of the question, the air being already vitiated by the constant percussion of the boring-drills. The compressed air was employed to move the locomotives, just as if they were acted upon by steam. It was collected in reservoirs placed on the locomotive trains, and by simply turning a cock the machine was moved or stopped. But as the air of the atmosphere did not furnish a course' sufficient, except by means of enormous reservoirs, they constituted "compressors" of the same system as those already in use, but which compressed the air to fourteen atmospheres. With so considerable power the locomotives were sufficiently supplied by ordinary reservoirs. 66 Charge of the works was handed over to the contractor, M. Favre, in October, 1872, on condition of completing them within eight years; should they occupy nine years a heavy penalty was attached. On February 29, 1880 the two advanced borings met with great accuracy. By a mistake the general direction only was taken, and therefore the exact amount of error was not ascertained, but it could not have exceeded 10 centimetres (or less than 4 inches)! This meeting did not take place in the middle of the tunnel, but at a point about 600 m. nearer Airolo than Goeschenen. The newspapers fully reported the event, the joy of which was greatly mingled with sorrow on account of the death of Louis Favre, the energetic and intelligent contractor, who was to have presided at the ceremony, after having organised and directed all the details, and at the very moment when he was about to realise the aim of his efforts. He died suddenly in the tunnel, the offspring of his labours, on July 19, 1879. Born in 1826 in Chène, near Geneva, he left his native place as a journeyman carpenter, and by his intelligence and talent returned to Switzerland thirty years afterwards to be intrusted with the greatest undertaking of the present time. As he had thoroughly well organised everything, the works were continued without him, and also completed; but when shall we find such another man to begin again such another undertaking? There is still much to do in the tunnel-rocks to clear away, mason-work to be built, &c.-but now the ground is known, and there is no fear of being able to complete the tunnel within the stipulated time. But what purpose would it serve? The lines of approach could only be finished long after the tunnel, being much less advanced. It is proposed, however, to have carriages running next winter between Goeschenen and Airolo, driven by atmospheric locomotives. That would no doubt be an advantage, but would the result be worth the great exertions necessary? Much has been said of the extreme heat which prevails in the tunnel, and there is no doubt it is almost intolerable, being 32° to 35° C., and is injurious to men, and HE series of researches which Dr. Ord has put into the hands of the public in the volume before us possess a double value, as dealing with problems in molecular physics of the deepest intere t to the physical investigator and of the highest importance to the surgical practitioner. Dr. Ord now points out the very important relation held by these obscure molecular processes to the production of spherical and spheroidal concretions of calcareous matter in the renal and urinary organs, and he has sought to establish this relation by two lines of investigation : (1) by microscopic observation of calculi and other urinary deposits obtained under certain morbid conditions; (2) by synthetically obtaining identical forms from the various salts, phosphates, urates, &c., in the presence of colloids under varying conditions of temperature and hydration. The substances thus investigated were uric acid, urates, oxalate of lime, phosphates, and carbonates; and the colloids employed were gum, gelatin, albumin, grape-sugar, starch, &c. The experimental results were throughout compared with the microscopic observations of Thudicum, Beale, and Prout, and a very large proportion of the forms observed in nature were artificially reproduced, thus affording pregnant suggestions as to the varying circumstances which prevailed in their natural production. Many of these comparative observations are of considerable interest. Thus we learn, on p. 55, that the collospheres of uric acid are always very small and homogeneous when deposited in urine, though they are rare; and a "dumbBoth are found in albuminous bell" form is still rarer. urine of small density. The experiments with watery solutions of egg-albumin always gave large and brilliant spheres. The conclusion is that the presence of small quantities of urea may retard the formation of the collospheres of uric acid. This supposition is strengthened by the known effect of urea in small quantities in m.odifying the crystal form of chloride of sodium. Another deduction is of equal moment. Two-thirds of all urinary calculi are composed of, or start from, a nucleus of uric acid. This uric acid would be quite unlikely to cohere in globules without the presence of a colloidal body-the mucus which would undoubtedly be present. "To make calculi of uric acid without colloids would be as hopeless a task as making ropes of sea-sand." This should be remembered in attempting to prescribe a regimen for suspected calculous disease. Whenever the urine is for any length of time purulent and ammoniacal, the formation of calculus is to be looked for. This conclusion is confirmed by a case given in detail by Dr. Ord, in which paralysis led to renal disease, and which he sums up as follows:-"First comes the paralysis leading to retention; retention permits decomposition and the formation of carbonate of ammonia; then come cystitis and the mixture of mucus and albuminous fluid with the triple phosphate and the spherical urates; and so a calculus is formed." Some of the calculi figured by Dr. Beale notably those of dumb-bell form-were experimentally found to be reproduced by a scarcely suspected substance The starting-point of Dr. Ord's work is to be found in very remarkable research made more than twenty years ago by Mr. George Rainey, on the spherical forms assumed by carbonate of lime and other crystalline substances when deposited in the midst of gummy or colloidal liquids. The process by which this assumption of a globular form is effected Mr. Rainey termed "molecular coalescence." He also assigned the name of "molecular disintegration" to another process by which the conditions are reversed, and which breaks up the spheres into forms possessing a structure more nearly approaching a crystalline character. The most important of his deductions was undoubtedly the conclusion that the rounded forms of organised bodies depended on physical and not on so-called vital conditions. If solutions of gum arabic (containing malate of lime) and concentrated carbonate of potash are placed together in a bottle with as little mixing of the two as possible, the most perfect microscopic spheres are slowly deposited. They exhibit both concentric and radial markings, and in polarised light present a distinct "cross." They consist of carbonate of lime for the most part, but inclose portions of gum also. When plunged into stronger solutions of gum these spheres lose their globular arrangement and break up into radial lines, and subsequently into smaller particles. This is Mr. Rainey's fundamental fact; and others entirely analogous have been observed by Harting, Guthrie, and Montgomery, with different substances, and by somewhat different processes. Mr. Rainey was of opinion that these artificial spheres were the exact analogues of the globular masses detected by the microscope in bone, shell, in the testa of crustaceans, as in the tail of the shrimp, for example, and in ossified tendons, and--oxalate of lime. It was further shown that pre-existing he proceeded to argue that by a purely physical process in which the colloidal environment was concerned, not only bone, but starch granules and even the crystalline lens of the eye were formed. To these fundamental experiments Dr. Ord has himself contributed parallel observations on the disintegration of crystals of uric acid, carbonate and oxalate of lime, murexide, &c., which, when inclosed in gelatin, glycerine, or glycerine jelly, lose their sharpness of outline and transparency of substance, and progress by degrees towards the spherical form. crystals may be resolved into dumb-bell forms in two ways either by the formation of a dumb-bell within the crystal, or by a disintegration of the crystal and its subsequent conversion in mass into a non-crystalline, homogeneous dumb-bell. Catching at a suggestion of Rainey's that the peculiar action of the colloid resulted from its viscosity, Dr. Ord conceived that some independent evidence for or against this notion might be afforded by the influence of the apparent, viscosity of the magnetic field. Without appending any criticism on the admissibility or otherwise of this analogical piece of reasoning, we will simply narrate the results of putting the question to the test of experiment. When oxalate of lime was deposited in a gelatin plug between the poles of horseshoe magnets, "there was an extraordinary increase in the size of all the forms, crystalline and non-crystalline, where the plug or gelatin was subjected to the action of magnetism, but there was no production of new forms or greater tendency to sphericity." Similar experiments with a large electromagnet yielded crystals which in several cases appeared to have their axes slightly twisted. This observation, if confirmed, and if presenting any assignable relation between the direction of magnetisation and that of the alleged axial twist, would be in the highest degree interesting. Up to the present moment, so far as we are aware, no crystal presenting tetratohedral dissymmetry or optically active in the polarimeter has been procured by artificial synthesis. Is it possible that Dr. Ord's observation contains the germ of the method by which we may hope to procure the synthesis, not of the active tartrates and sugars only, but of quinine and other alkaloids also? Experiments with electric currents were also tried, but proved less satisfactory, though the electrolytic actions set up produced several unexpected results. Later chapters in Dr. Ord's book are devoted to renal and biliary calculi other than those mentioned—including a very singular case of an indigo calculus-and to a short scheme for the qualitative examination of calculi, which contains valuable hints to the general practitioner. Concerning the production of the collospheres themselves there does not appear to be any one assignable cause. Harting dwells strongly on the influence of the "nascent" state in which the crystalloid body is deposited by double decomposition within the colloid. This term will probably fall out of use by chemists so soon as they perceive that it is a term convenient only as a cloak for ignorance. A more satisfactory point is made by Dr. Ord in the suggestion that there exists a relation yet undiscovered between hydration and the colloidal state; the hydrate of fresh uric acid being a colloid. Dr. Ord is of opinion that hydrated colloids and strong solutions of very soluble salts alike prolong the colloidal state of certain crystals, thus favouring the production of spheroids. Dehydration, which in certain cases appears to determine the production of spheroidal forms, is obviously inadmissible as the cause in the majority of cases. Nor does the difference of crystalline form between one crystalsystem and another appear to affect the collospheric condition, in which absolutely no smallest modifications attributable to this possible cause can be detected. Solubility undoubtedly has much to do with the matter, since insoluble crystalline substances yield the best spheroids; but by evaporation and by deposition from hot strong solutions even sulphate of copper and ferrocyanide of potassium can be thus obtained. We must therefore fall back upon the conclusion that the one important factor in the production of the collospheric. condition is the influence of the colloid. Mr. Rainey, who came to this conclusion, attributed this action to the "viscosity" or tenacity of the colloid fluid; and hence he associates with true colloids such substances as glycerine (which is a true crystalloid) and other viscid substances. Dr. Ord, on the other hand, is disposed to regard the influence of the colloid as "a result of intestinal molecular movement inherent to the constitution of the colloid." Arrived at this point, however, we cease to perceive any definite coherence between the various speculations which follow and in which the effects of pressure, of strain, and of hypothetic spiral waves, are mixed up with Brownian movements and chemical interaction. It is a pity that the all-important bearing of surface-tension at the boundary of two media, and of the elegant and instructive researches of Plateau, including his production of liquid spheroids, is not once alluded to, even in the remotest manner, by Dr. Ord. For our own part, we are disposed to attribute a very large portion of the influence which determines the production of these collospheres of solid matter to the same] molecular actions as those which produce the surface-tensions between solids and liquids, and which cause the rise of liquids in capillary tubes and the production of liquid spherules in the experiments of Plateau. In conclusion we must not omit to quote one experiment of Dr. Ord, that in which the rapid production of the collospheres is conducted under conditions suitable for lecture demonstration. A solution of pure urea of density 1026 usually throws down shining white flakes of nitrate of urea on the addition of an equal bulk of strong nitric acid. If, however, a little egg-albumin be added to the urea solution before the nitric acid is added, spheres are formed of the greatest beauty, and appear “floating like snowballs" in the yellowish liquid. OUR BOOK SHELF A Guide for the Electric Testing of Telegraph Cables. By Capt. V. Hoskiær. Second Edition. (London: E. and F. N. Spon, 1879.) THIS very unpretentious but very useful little manual has reached a second edition, and now reappears with several valuable additions. In his original preface the author states that he does not expect an electrician to discover anything new in its pages. Be that as it may, the electrician will acknowledge the debt he owes to Capt. Hoskiær for the precision and brevity with which all his directions concerning the practical details of testing are given. Without philosophising or going into mathematical reasons of why and wherefore, he gives the necessary formula in the shape most useful for practical calculations; and the necessary tables of logarithms, trigonometrical functions, and temperature coefficients are sufficiently complete to save reference to other more extended works. The twelve lithographed diagrams leave nothing to be desired in point of clearness. 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.] The Antiquity of Oceanic Basins It seems to have escaped Dr. Carpenter's notice1 that, in a Report on the results of the Deep-sea Dredgings of Mr. Pourtalès 1 Lecture before the Royal Institution, January, 1880. 1 for 1866, 1867, 1868, Prof. Agassiz 1 had already called attention to the probable great antiquity of the oceanic basins. Dr. Carpenter seems also to have overlooked the series of physical observations of the depths of the sea commenced by the United States Coast Survey in 1850, and carried on without interruption to the present day. The statement made by Mr. Wild that the deepest sounding of the Tuscarora is not trustworthy, because "no sample of the bottom was brought up," is apparently endorsed by Dr. Carpenter, who says: "The sounding wire of the United States ship Tuscarora twice broke without reaching bottom . . . . at depths considerably exceeding 4,000 fathoms." This should be modified by stating that the wire broke while reeling in twice, once the bottom was not reached, and five casts were made over 4,000 fathoms, bringing up each time a specimen of the bottom.* Capt. Geo. E. Belknap, of the Tuscarora, says, speaking of the casts beyond 4,000 fathoms in depth: "The wire parted at the last two and deepest casts. . . . the result of momentary carelessness on the part of the men at the recling-in wheel.” The method of sounding with wire has now been in use long enough to show that even if the Tuscarora had not brought up a single specimen of the bottom during her whole trip, and if the wire had invariably broken while reeling in, we could not for that reason alone have rejected those soundings as inaccurate. Those who have sounded with wire know that the instant the sinker has touched bottom is recorded on deck, and the precise depth is then known, whether the cylinder is brought up or not. There is no more reason for rejecting the deepest sounding of the Tuscarora of 4,655 fathoms than for rejecting the 480 other casts which are accepted because a bottom specimen came up. Cambridge, Mass., April 5 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ On the Alum Bay Flora IN the list of fossils appended to the paper upon the Alum Bay flora, brought before the Royal Society by Baron von Ettingshausen and reported in NATURE, vol. xxi. p. 555, the new species have Ett. and Gard. attached to them, implying that Ettingshausen and myself are their authors. It is only fair to Ettingshausen to state that I had no share in making the determinations, and to myself, that I accept them simply as provisional. Associated as he is with me in the work upon the British eocene floras, he felt that he could hardly publish preliminary work connected with it in any other way. I completely disagree with him, however, as to the utility of publishing new specific names unaccompanied by drawings or descriptions of any kind, and think that a simple list of genera, with the number of new species in each, would have been unattended with any inconvenience. He appears to me to attach altogether undue weight to mere priority in nomenclature, and the existence of such provisional lists, far from aiding research, must prove a serious difficulty to our fellow workers. In the highly probable event of an author being unable to come from some distant country to examine the specimens themselves, is he, for instance, to forbear naming every undescribed species of such common Tertiary genera as Ficus, of which eight new and unpublished species are in the list, of Celastrus, of which there are five, or of any other of the some fifty genera containing new specific names?" He could not safely name even any indeterminable leaf or fruit, for fear it might be one of the long list of Phyllites or Carpolithes for which Ettingshausen has devised specific names. 1 Bulletin of the Museum of Comp. Zoology, 1869, vol. i., No. 13. 2 Coast Survey Reports, 1850 to present day; also Bibliography of Eiclogical Results (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. v., No. 9, 1878). 3Thalassa," 1877, p. 15.. 4 " 'Deep-Sea Soundings in the North Pacific obtained by the United States ship Tuscarora" (Washington: Hydrographic Office, 1874, No. 54, p. 30): 1874. June 11 17 ... Fathoms. 4,643 4.340 4.355 4,041 Wire broke; bottom not reached. 5 United Service Magazine, July, 1879. " But were our supposititious author to go on with his work, in spite of this "sword of Damocles," would Baron Ettingshausen claim priority and deprive the man who had first figured and published descriptions of them, of the pleasure of christening them in accordance with his views and wishes? If not, cui bono? To show the purely provisional light in which the list must be regarded, I may mention that, unfortunately just as the Baron left England, a large collection, that of the late M. Watelet from the Grès du Soissonnais, came into my possession, and seems, on a cursory examination, to contain a preponderance of species identical with those of Alum Bay. None of Wateler's published species appear in the list of the Alum Bay flora, which therefore must of necessity be considerably modified to include them. The same may be said of the flora of Gelinden, of which a large series has also reached me. Again, even in the only section of plants yet worked out by us for the palæontographical memoir, the ferns, discrepancies Occur. Two ferns occur in this Alum Bay list which are not included in our fern flora from that locality. These are inserted on the authority of Heer, who states that he has seen them from Alum Bay; but as on the occasion of that gentleman's visit or visits to England many years ago the floras from the different localities had not been systematically collected, and were generally mixed together in museums, in the same drawers and cases, and cannot always be identified by the matrix, I prefer to adhere to the opinion of that indefatigable collector, Henry Keeping, who lived within a short distance of Alum Bay, and to my own, Mr. Mitchell's, and all other workers' experience, that no fern but Marattia is found there. At all events, if they are to be included in the Alum Bay flora, they should be so with reserve, especially as Prof. Heer's ideas as to the position of the localities and their ages are so hazy that he puts the Alum Bay leaves in the "Bartonisem" (above, if anything), or about 1,000 feet too high, and thinks that Bournemouth is somewhere in the Isle of Wight. An illustration of the inconvenience caused by publishing names without proper figures and descriptions occurs to me. Heer named a small fern fragment which he supposed to be from Alum Bay, Asplenium martinsi. This name has got into works by Saporta and Crié, who have each tried to fit ferns of their own into Heer's meagre description. Neither had seen the original, nor could they give any information, and it was only after several attempts to obtain it that Ettingshausen received a rough sketch from Heer showing conclusively that the "species' in question was a fragment of the abundant and well-known Anemia subcretacea of Sézanne. I do not even now know whether it was upon this fragment or some other that Heer wrote that he had " seen this form'' (Anemia subcretacea) from Alum Bay. J. STARKIE GARDNER Negritoes in Borneo HAVING had inquiries addressed to me as to the existence of a Negrito race in Borneo, I think it may be useful to recall attention to, and possibly save from oblivion, a statement on this subject which was published by Windsor Earl in the Fournai of the East Indian Archipelago. Mr. Earl says that a Capt. Brownrigg, who had been shipwrecked on the east coast of Borneo, informed him (7.E.I.A., No. 9) that he had lived several months at a town some distance up the Berau River, and that during his stay the town was once visited by a small party of men from the interior, "who must have been of the Papuan race" (sic). He described them as being short, strongly-built people, black in complexion, with hair so short and curly that the head appeared to be covered with little knobs like peas; and with many raised scarifications over the breast and shoulders. He described them as being on good terms with the people of the town, mostly Bugis, and as supplying them occasionally with jungle produce. Of this account it may be remarked that Mr. Earl would not have retailed it unless he had had some confidence in the credi bility of his informant-that, so far as it goes, it is curiously circumstantial and that these people are said to have come exactly from that district in Borneo where we might expect à priori to find Negritoes if they existed at all. Whilst on the subject of Borneo, may I suggest that ethnologists should make a more sparing use of the term "Dyak "when treating of the Malay Archipelago? It should only be applied to tribes who themselves use it as the distinctive appellation of their people. As more than one tribe so uses it, there should always be prefixed some word still further limiting its applica |