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controversies which arose out of his laryngoscopic work), was rendering him unfitted for the energetic performance of his professorial duties, he withdrew to Leipzig, where he was made Honorary Professor at the University, and where he continued to reside until his death, on Sept. 16 in the present year.

Carried off while yet in the prime of his life, and the energies of his last few years impaired by an insidious disease, Czermak has perhaps left a mark on the scientific progress of his time incommensurate with his talents or his promise. He will doubtless be best remembered through his laryngoscopic labours. We owe to him the real introduction into medical practice of this valuable instrument. But his other researches, such as those on the action of the vagus, the pulse, the sense of touch, the manége movements resulting from injuries to the brain, those on dyspnoea, and others, show remarkable acuteness and clearness of insight.

Two talents he possessed deserve special notice. He had remarkable aptitude in devising apparatus for observing or for demonstrating physiological phenomena. It was this faculty which made him successful where others had failed in the use of the laryngeal mirror; and would be difficult to exaggerate the immense help to experimental physiology which has been afforded by the ingenious "holder" which bears his name.

The other faculty, that of popular exposition, less common in his country than in ours, he possessed to a very high degree. And his popular lectures, which were originally delivered at Jena, and which were reviewed in an early number of NATURE, achieved and deserved great popularity.

mourned for by many friends in many lands, both by those
who had known him long and by those who knew him
for a short while only.
M. FOSTER

THE

THE ATMOSPheric telegRAPH HE Times of the 15th inst. contained an article on the Pneumatic Despatch, which has never been used to any extent in this country. From that article we learn the following particulars as to the working of this method of conveyance in London :

The pneumatic tube extends from the London and North-Western Railway Station at Euston Square to the General Post Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand. The central station is in Holborn, where is also the machinery for effecting the transit of the trains. Here the tube is divided, so that in effect there are two tubes opening into the station, one from Euston to Holborn, and the other from the Post Office. The length of the tube between Holborn and Euston is 3,080 yards, or exactly a mile and three-quarters, a greater length than was originally contemplated, but which was rendered necessary by the avoidance of certain property on the route. The tube is of a flattened horse-shoe section 5 ft. wide and 4 ft. 6 in. high at the centre, having a sectional area of 17 square feet. The straight portions of the line are formed of a continuous cast-iron tube, the curved lengths being constructed in brickwork, with a facing of cement. The gradients are easy; the two chief are 1 in 45 and 1 in 60, some portions of the line being on the level; the sharpest curve is that near the Holborn station, which is 70 ft. radius. The tube between Holborn and the Post Office is 1,658 yards in length, or 102 yards less than a mile, and is of the same section, and similarly constructed to the first length. Two gradients of 1 in 15 occur on the Post Office section, but this steep inclination is in no way inimical to the working of the system. The Holborn station is situated at right angles to the line of the tubes, which are therefore turned towards the station into which each opens. All through trains, therefore, have to reverse there, and this is effected in a very simple manner by a self-acting arrangement. A train upon its arrival runs by virtue of its acquired momentum up a short inthen quickly descends by gravity. In its descent it is turned on to a pair of rails leading to the other tube, into which it enters and through which it continues its jour ney, the whole process of reversing occupying barely 30 seconds. Trains containing goods for the Holborn station are simply run down from the top of the incline on to a siding.

Perhaps had his love of teaching been less strong, his work as an investigator would have been more sustained and weighty. But while in this country we might with profit often lose a lecturer and gain an investigator, Germany could well afford that one whose powers of rigorous and yet clear and popular demonstration were so exceptionally great, should somewhat slacken in his work as an inquirer. Or perhaps we should not so much say that Czermak slackened in inquiry, as that the consciousness of his power as an expositor, and the delight he consequently took in exposition, drew much of his energy in that direction. In the grounds of his residence at Leip-cline, at the summit of which it momentarily stops, and zig he had built and fitted, at his own expense, a large hall, or "spectatorium," as he called it, in which he proposed to deliver lectures on physiology, richly illustrated with experiments. In connection with the hall, the construction of which was admirably adapted in every way for its purpose, he had also erected a private laboratory for research; and on both he had spent much time and labour. They were intended to be a supplement-not a rival to the more technical institute of Prof. Ludwig in the same city. The writer will never forget the delight with which Czermak showed this Erklärungs-Tempel," -as he was fond of calling it—to Dr. Sharpey and himself in the summer of 1871, and pointed out all its ingenious contrivances, and the enthusiasm with which he looked forward to the lectures which would be delivered, and the work which would be carried on in it. He lived to open it by an inaugural lecture in December 1872; but the effects of his fatal disease were already painfully evident; and after a vain struggle during the following summer, Czermak-just as the British Association was gathering for its meeting at Bradford-was taken away from his unfinished work. He was a man of broad culture, outside his professional attainments. In philosophy especially he was well versed; and his last contribution to scientific literature-a paper in "Pflüger's Archiv," on the mesmerism of animals-was doubtless prompted by his interest in psychological questions. His straightforward, generous, and unostentatious manner formed a fitting frame for his intellectual attainments.

A widow and children mourn his death. He is also

The waggons, or carriers, as they are termed, weigh 22 cwt., are 10ft. 4 in. in length, and have a transverse contour conforming to that of the tube. They are, however, of a slightly smaller area than the tube itself, the difference-about an inch all round-being occupied by a flange of indiarubber, which causes the carrier to fit the tube exactly, and so to form a piston upon which the air acts. The machinery for propelling the carriers consists of a steam engine having a pair of 24-in. cylinders with 20 in. stroke. This engine drives a fan 22 ft. 6 in, in diameter, and the two are geared together in such a manner that one revolution of the former gives two of the latter, or, in technical terms, the engine is geared at 2 to I with the fan. The trains are drawn from Euston and the Post Office by exhaustion, and are propelled to those points by pressure. The working of the fan, however, is not reversed to suit these constantly varying conditions; it works continuously, the alternate action of pressure and exhaustion being governed by valves. The engine takes steam from three Cornish boilers, each 30 ft. long and 6 ft. 6 in. in diameter. Telegraphic signalling is carried on between the three stations by means of needle instru

ments.

The system of Pneumatic Despatch, or "Atmospheric Telegraph," as the French call it, is utilised to a much greater extent in Paris than in London, though with some important differences in construction and object. We have thought that some details concerning the working of this system in Paris might be useful and interesting at the present time, and we therefore give an abstract of some articles on the subject which have recently appeared in La Nature.

The question of the distribution of messages in the interior of towns has revived the systems of pneumatic transport, which, after having had their day of celebrity, seemned for twenty years doomed to oblivion.

In following the aspects of this question, we shall show in what way the atmospheric telegraph is a result of the electric telegraph; we shall afterwards consider the former more specially, and after having shown its present condition, shall inquire what future is in store for it.

The telegraphic despatch has become an article of everyday use; as the age is a fast one, it is natural that it should utilise with eagerness so handy a means of transmitting almost instantaneously its impressions or its wishes to all distances. It is necessary to remember that a city like London or Paris sends out and receives every day an immense number of telegrams. The wires which serve as conductors of electricity are multiplied in all directions for the purpose of meeting the demands of this traffic. They meet in the interior at the central office. This central station speaks urbi et orbi; in other words, it receives the messages of the city for the purpose of spreading them over the entire world, and it accomplishes also an inverse movement. The aspect with which we are here concerned is the distribution throughout the city itself; let us see what has been done in Paris to accomplish this purpose.

As each house cannot be put in immediate communication with the telegraphic network, it became necessary to adopt some other convenient plan. In the case of Paris, the city is divided into districts of a mean radius of 500 metres in order to limit the journeys of the foot-messengers. The application of this rule gave fifty points, distant one kilometre from each other, where are established so many branches of the chief office.

This system was found, however, not to work well, and was moreover very expensive, for reasons which we need not detail here; and after voitures were tried for some time as a means of sending despatches from the head office to the more important branches, it was resolved to have recourse to the pneumatic tube. We have just referred to the extent to which it has been carried in London. Paris and Berlin followed the example of London in 1865: we shall speak here of the system of

Paris.

In Paris there are fifty stations, distant from each other about a kilometre, connected by an iron tube, which is interrupted at each station. The central station, by which the transit of messages is effected with the interior, is in the Rue de Grenelle; there are seventeen district stations, in the Rue Boissy-d'Anglas, Grand-Hôtel, Bourse, &c. How is this network managed? Like a diminutive subterranean railway, in which the waggons are cylindrical boxes and the motive power compressed air prepared in the stations. At the central bureau the trains are formed, composed of as many boxes as there are branch offices to supply. The trains are omnibus when they stop at the intermediate stations, express when they shoot past

them.

Every quarter of an hour an omnibus train leaves the Rue de Grenelle, and accomplishes the distance which separates it from the Rue Boissy-d'Anglas (1,500 metres) in a minute and a half. There it is received in a vertical column, and the box which carries the messages to be distributed in the district having been taken out, the others are put into the section of the line which

runs towards the Grand Hotel, a new box having been added containing messages to be transmitted, which have been deposited since the last train. The train again takes its departure, composed of as many boxes as before; it goes through the same operations at the Grand Hotel, the Bourse, the Théâtre Français, and at the Rue des Saints-Pères. It re-enters the Rue de Grenelle twelve minutes after its departure, having changed all its boxes and carried back messages for distribution.

Besides this there is a secondary network, the details of which, however, we need not now enter upon. There is a direct line which goes from the Rue de Grenelle to the Bourse, and to branches in the Champs-Elysées, the Place du Havre, and the Rue des Halles. On the first run the express trains going and returning, the departures of which are intercalated between those of the omnibus trains, for the purpose of supplying those stations which are busiest, twice every quarter of an hour. The departure is accomplished by pressure, the return by aspiration. The same method of working is applied to the branches, which correspond with the omnibus trains of the principal network.

The tubes which compose the lines are of iron, the interior diameter being o'065 metre. They are connected by bridle joints à brides), and admit of curves having a radius of from 5 to 20 metres.

Various systems for the production of compressed or rarified air are employed. The first in date is an application of the principles of the apparatus known as Hiero's Fountain. Atmospheric air is decanted from a first receiver B (Fig. 1) into a second receiver communicating with the first by means of the tube bb, by the introduction of water into the receiver B. The air thus forced is drawn into the receiver for the purpose of being dispersed in the tubes. Where the machines are not allowed to be used, the employment of steam is much more economical for the compression of air. Recourse is then had to ordinary pumps, which insure an active service and are subject to fewer causes of irregularity. The latter method has been preferred in recent establishments.

Trains composed of ten boxes weigh about four kilograms, they are either pushed or sucked along by a difference of pressure of three-fourths of an atmosphere, which gives a mean speed of a kilometre per minute.

The travellers which take their places on the Lilliputian carriages already described are closed envelopes containing messages; they are piled in groups of thirty or forty in a curseur, or box. This box is formed of two cylinders, the interior one of sheet iron, the outer one, enveloping the former, of leather. To make up a train, a piston must be affixed after the last box, for the purpose of enabling the compressed air to take effect. The piston is a piece of wood provided with a leather collarette, which assumes the shape of the interior of the tube, and forms an almost hermetical joint, without much friction.

The apparatus at first adopted for receiving and despatching the boxes having been found neither sufficiently rapid nor convenient, a much more complete system, shown in Fig. 2, is now employed. The figure explains itself: two lines enter the office, each attached to separate apparatus. In the first place, for the purpose of despatching messages, a man opens the door A by means of the lever d; the boxes and the piston are thrown into the tube, and await at the bottom the current of air which will propel them. This current is produced as soon as the cock is opened, which commands the head of the apparatus opposite to the tube. The cock c' distributes the air upon the second line. In the second place, the receiving door B is opened by a second attendant, who finds the train at the station, and takes out the boxes in order to bring the telegrams to light. The entire apparatus has somewhat the form of a cannon, only the effect is . more blessed, the artillerymen are not exposed to death;

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(Epicrium) is only found in Asia. The order is called Ophiomorpha. These creatures are singularly unlike the frog in external appearance, as they are entirely destitute of limbs and have quite the appearance of earthworms, because they are not only very long and slender, but have also a skin which is soft and naked. By earlier naturalists, and even by Cuvier, they were classed with snakes. In spite of this striking dissimilarity between the Ophiomorpha and Anoura, the former are really more like frogs than they are like efts in one important respect.

FIG. 22.-Cacilia.

This is because, for all their elongated figure, the tail in them is quite rudimentary or altogether absent.

The Ophiomorpha would by many be supposed to present an analogy with serpents, from their long and elongated bodies, and from the utter absence of limbs. There are, however, but very few snakes (the "roughtails" Uropeltida and the Tortricida) which have long bodies and very short tails.

It is rather the singular family of lizards, Amphisbenida (with one exception completely limbless) that the Ophiomorpha resemble.

increases their resemblance to earth-worms) and feed on worms and other small animals and mould.

To turn now to another aspect of our subject, let us consider the relations of the Frog to past time. If, extending our survey over the records of past epochs, we search the tertiary and all other rocks above the Lias for fossil allies of our Frog, we shall (judging by what we yet know) fail to find any not at once referable to one or other of the three ordinal groups above enumerated.

Fossil frogs and toads have as yet only been found down to the miocene, the oldest being some found in the so-called "brown coal" which is not a carboniferous deposit

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FIG. 25.-Much enlarged horizonta section of the tooth of a Labyrinthodon at all. The remarkable thing, however, is that the difference between these oldest known Frogs and the existing thorough frogs as any that live now. forms is so very trifling. They are as complete and

Again, the fossil Urodeles similarly resemble their existing representatives, and no one extinct species exhibits characters in any way tending to bridge over the chasm which separates the Urodela from the Anoura.

When, however, we descend to the Lias, Trias, and Carboniferous rocks, we come upon a rich variety of extinct species of animals evidently allied to those forming the three Batrachian classes already described. They form, rinthodonta has been applied, and thus our search into however, an order by themselves, to which the term Labythe past has brought us a rich and important harvest,

and has introduced us to the fourth and last Order belonging to the frog's class of vertebrate animals. The Labyrinthodonts were creatures with long tails and mostly two pairs of limbs, but these members were always relatively small with slender toes. Some species attained a greater size by far than does any existing Urodele, even the gigantic Salamander.

To what existing animals can these huge monsters be considered to have affinity? It is impossible to say that they in any way bridge over the chasm separating the Frogs from the Efts. They appear indeed to have been almost equally removed from both-for the possession of short limbs and a long tail (characters common to so many widely different animals) cannot be regarded as any good evidence of affinity.

It is not improbable that they find their nearest allies in the existing insignificant Ophiomorpha. The latter, though apparently naked, have minute scales imbedded in the skin and arranged in rings at intervals, and the skull is provided with certain extra ossifications. The Labyrinthodonts have similar extra cranial ossifications, and though they have not rings of scales, the ventral region was protected by minute plates arranged in linear series converging inwards and forwards towards the middle line. Moreover, some forms appear to have been entirely devoid of limbs ; at least no remnant of such parts has yet been discovered. Nevertheless the degree of development of the tail constitutes a marked distinction between the Labyrinthodonta and the Ophiomorpha.

Certain Labyrinthodonts had great formidable teeth in elongated jaws like those of crocodiles. Altogether these singular remains tempt us to speculate as to the succession of life upon this planet's surface. We know that as to the later secondary period that part in the life of the globe which is now played by beasts was then played by reptiles. Instead of the existing bats, Pterodactyles of all sizes flitted through the air. The ocean was peopled not by whales and dolphins, these had not yet appeared, but by huge Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri. Reptiles of huge bulk (Iguanodons, Megalosauri, Notosauri, &c. &c.) fulfilled the parts of herbivorous and carnivorous beasts, and altogether the Mammalian fauna of to-day was represented by analogous reptilian precursors.

May it not have been similar in yet older periods with regard to animals of the Frog class? We have seen the possibility of aerial locomotion in even the existing Rhacophorus. It is true that all existing Urodeles are freshwater forms, but it may well be that marine creatures once bore the same relation to them as the great marine Ganoid fish fauna bears to the few existing Ganoids which now constitute a fresh-water group.

*

The great crocodile-like Labyrinthodonts must have been no ignoble predecessors of the rapacious reptiles which were to succeed them, and the fossil form Ophiderpeton suggests that the existing Ophiomorpha may be the last remnants of a race which preceded and represented the subsequently developed serpents.

This, however, is but a conjecture which future discoverers will probably ere long establish or refute.

The name Labyrinthodonta was bestowed upon the great fossil group on account of the beautiful and singularly complex structure of the teeth of some members of the order. These teeth are conical, and exhibit slight vertical grooves on their surface. A horizontal section shows that these surface-grooves are the external indications of deep indentations of the substance of the tooth. All these indentations converge towards the centre of the tooth, but not in straight lines, each indentation being elaborately inflected. Radiating from the centre of the tooth are a corresponding number of processes of the central pulp cavity-the radiating processes undulating like the converging folds.

Existing Ganoids are the sturgeon, bony pike (Lepidosteus), mud-fish (Lepidosiren), and others as noticed earlier.

A similar structure of tooth is found in some Ganoid fishes, and an incipient stage (as it were) of the same condition existed in the Ichthyosaurus.

We have now reviewed the closest as well as the more remote allies of our Frog, and have seen how the Frog is a species of a group (Anoura) which is one of three existing and widely divergent orders, supplemented by an extinct ordinal group of the carboniferous period-the four orders (1. Anoura, 2. Urodela, 3. Ophiomorpha, and 4. Labyrinthodonta) being embraced in a higher unity termed a "Class," which is the Frog's class, as "Anoura is his order. This class is with propriety spoken of as the Frog's class, since the Frog is the species from which its scientific derivation BATRACHIA is derived. This class may now be considered as a whole.

The Batrachians (of all three existing orders) are in the main aquatic animals, inasmuch as the greater num ber, even when adult, frequent, at least at intervals, ponds and streams, or delight in humid localities. Water also is necessary for the larval stages of almost all; and absolutely all, at one period of lite, possess gills, while some (as we have seen) retain gills during their whole existence, and are permanently and constantly inhabitants of water.

The extinct forms (Labyrinthodonta) were, no doubt, also aquatic, as, besides their general relation to other Batrachians, traces or indications of the hard parts which supported the branchiae of some Labyrinthodonts appear to have been actually found.

It is somewhat singular that in spite of this predominating aquatic habit, all Batrachians, both living and fossil, appear to inhabit, and to have inhabited, fresh water only. No Batrachian of any period is yet known to have been marine. This is the more remarkable since the most nearly allied class, that of fishes, is much more rich in salt-water than in fresh-water forms; while even existing Reptilia have (in the true sea-snakes and in chelonians) representatives which inhabit the open ocean, while in the secondary geological period marine reptiles (Ichthyosauri and Flesiosauri) abounded,

Indeed, of all classes of vertebrate animals, this aquatic class (Batrachia) has the least to do with the ocean, for many birds, and a still greater number of Mammals (e.g. the whales and porpoises), are constant inhabitants of salt water. All the adult Batrachians feed on animal substances, generally small worms, insects, or slugs, and animals allied to slugs. The larger Frogs and Toads will, however, as has been said, devour vertebrate animals, such as mice and small reptiles and birds. The existing large, tailed Batrachians devour fishes. The extinct tailed Batrachians, in their adult condition, were also undoubtedly animal feeders, but they may, in their young state, have been vegetarians. At any rate the tadpoles of the existing Urodela will eat vegetable matter, and indeed probably sustain themselves mainly upon it.

In cold latitudes the Batrachia, like the Reptilia, go into the winter sleep called hibernation, as also do the hedgehogs and bats amongst Mammals.

The Frogs and Toads sometimes hide and shelter themselves by creeping into out-of-the-way holes and corners, but more generally they (as also the Newts) bury themselves in mud at the bottom of ponds and streams. In hot latitudes, some forms pass the dry season in a similar state of lethargic inactivity.

Many beasts, birds, and fishes, range in flocks. The Batrachians, however, usually wander about in a solitary manner, and only congregate in the breeding season. It is then that their vocal powers find utterance, though only in the Anourous order; the tailed Batrachians never make more than a very feeble sound.

As regards the geographical distribution of the whole class, the northern hemisphere, and especially the Ame rican portion of it, is the more richly furnished. Africa, India, and Australia, are the most poorly supplied on the whole, because, though possessing very many kinds of

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