Science.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2017, 14 January 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Science.

Drying up of Siberian Lakes. Tlia rapid drying up of lakes in the AralCnspinn depression, in so far as it appears from surveys made during the last hundred years, is the subject of a very interesting and important paper contributed by M. Tadrintseff to the last issue of the Itvettfa of the St. Petersburg Geographical SocietyTwo maps, which will be most welcome to physical geographers, accompany the paper. One of them represents the group of lakes Sumy, Abyshkan, Moloki, and Tchany, in the Governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk, according to a survey made in 1784. The other represents the same lakes according to three dilferont surveys made during oar century, in 1 SI3 to 1820. in 1850 to 1860, and finally in 1880, and it shows thus the rapid progress of drying up of these lakes. There arc also earlier maps of T.akc Tchany, which represent it as having very many islands (Pallas estimated their number at seventy), but they are not reliable. As to the map of 1784, no cartographer, accustomed to distinguish “ nature-true " maps from faney ones, would hesitate in recognising it as quite reliable as to its general features. It is also fully confirmed by the ulterior detained surveys dating from the beginning o! our century. It appears from this series of four maps, dating from different periods, that the drying up has gone on at a speed which will surely appear astonishing to geographers. The group of lakes consisted of three largo lakes —Sumy, Abyshkan, and Tchany, with a smaller lake, Moloki, between the two latter. Lake Tchany (the largest of the throe) has much diminished in size, especially in its eastern and southern parts ; but the greatest changes have gone on in the other lakes. Whole villages have grown on the site formerly occupied by Lake Moloki, which had a length of twenty miles at the end of last century, and now is hardly three miles wide. Of Lake Abyshkan, which had a length of forty miles from north to south, and a width of seventeen miles in the earlier years of this century, and whose surface was estimated at 530 square miles, only three small ponds have remained, the largest of them being hardly one mile and a half wide. The drying up but been going on with remarkable rapidity. Even twenty-five years ago there were several lakes ten and eight miles long and wide, where there are now but little ponds. Lake Tchebaklv, which was represented in 1784 as an oval forty miles long and thirty miles wide, has an elongated irregular shape on the map of the begnning of our century ; it measures, however, still forty miles in length, and its width varies from seven to twetty miles; while several small lakes to the east of it show its former extension. Thirty years later ve find m the same place bnt a fev small lakes, the largest of which hardly haaa length and width of three miles; and now, three small ponds, the largest of them having a width of less than two miles, are all that remain of a lake which covered about 350 square miles a hundred years ago. The same process is going on throughout the lakes of West Siberia, and throughout the Aral-Cas-pian depression. No geologist doubted upon, but wc cannot bnt heartily thank M. Yadrintse£E for having published documents which permit to estimate the rapidity of the pro* cess. F. K.

“Can Imagination KUir

This is, perhaps, hardly the correct form of question that the British and Colonial Druggist puts to itself In discussing the death of the young woman at Hackney under circumstances in which Keating's insect powder largely figured. As the powder appears by Dr, Tidy’s experiments to be perfectly harmless, the suggestion is not unnaturally made that the deceased, who was possibly of a hysterical, highly imaginative turn of mind, took the powder in the full belief that by its means her death might be accomplished. The writerof the article in onr contemporary, we think wrongly, brings forward two remarkable instances of what may be regarded as practicable jokes with melancholy terminations. In the case of the convict delivered up to the scientist for the purpose of a psychological experiment (the man was strapped to a tattle and blindfolded, ostensibly to be bled to death; a siphon containing water was placed near his head, and the fluid was allowed to trickle audibly into a vessel below it, at the same time that a trifling scratch with a needle was inflicted on the culprits neck ; it is said that death occurred at the end of six minutes), fear must have played no inconsiderable share in the fatal result, and we do not know whether all the vital organa were in sound condition, though they were presumably so. The old story of the case of a college porter is also one in point. The students entrapped him into room at night, a mock inquiry was held, and the punishment of death by decapitation decreed for his want of consideration to the students. It is small wonder that, under the dominion of fear and belief in the earnestness of his tormentors, the sight of an axe and block, with subsequent blindfolding and necessary genuflexion, a smart rap with a wet towel on the back of his neck should have been followed by the picking up of a corpse.— Lancet.

With reference to the recent catastrophe by which the King of Bavaria and bis physician lost their lives, Science notes that Dr. Guddenisasad loss to science, for he was one of the most noted authorities in the sphere of nervous and mental diseases. He has also been at the head of a laboratory in which investigations of the fine anatomy of the brain, spinal cord, and sense-organs have been carried on. He has given his name to a manner of studying the connections of the nervous system, which is as ingenious as it has proved fruitful of results. His method consists in extirpating a sense-organ or other part of an animal when young, and then allowing the animal to grow up. At death the animal is examined, and the fibres which have failed to develop will thus be marked out as tlie paths of connection between the extirpated sense-organ and the brain-centre. For many years be had been at work on the problem as to the mode of connection between tlie retina and the brain, but bis results are not yet before the public, A conference was held by the National Fish Culture Association recently at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. Sir Albert K. Kollitt, M. P., presided. The chairman, in delivering the presidential address, stated that the Association had made a great impression upon tlie public as to tlie necessity for remedial, protective, and other measures in the interest of our fishing industries and population. The Association was doing work which many other nations and colonics thought it expedient and economical to do upon a much larger and more expensive scale. He therefore thought the public ought to support it liberally in order to enable it to carry out the work which could not be left undone without serious danger to one of the greatest industries of this country. Mr. Oldham Chambers then read a paper upon “Carp Culture," which was followed by the Kev. C. J. Steward with a paper upon “ Marine Temperatures and their Influence upon Fisbs," and Mr. W ilb’s-Bund withapaper upon “ The Influence of the Weather upon the Migration of Fish.” After tlie several papers had been fully discussed, the proceedings terminated with a vote of tfrapks to the chairman for presiding.

A Pair of electric eeli (Gffmnnfus etccfri. evs) arrived the other day at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition Aquarium from British Guiana, but have since unfortunately died. They were very fine specimens, and measured 4J inches in length, their normal size being 6 feet. They require a temperature of T5 deg., and provided the water!* maintained at this standard they will live and thrive in cap. tmty The water should not be too deep, and must be kept clean, n