pre-Malays or Caucasian Indonesians, are here intruders. Intruders from where? Obviously from where the type exists, the neighbouring Indo-Chinese peninsula. What then becomes of the Malay as a primary division of mankind? As such it can no longer be recognised in anthropology, and must sink to the position of a mere variety of the Mongol type. The so-called true Malay or typical Malay is essentially a Mongolian, and the likeness between the two has not failed to strike all careful observers. "The Malayan race," says Wallace, whole undoubtedly very closely resembles the East Asian populations from Siam to Manchuria. I was much struck with this, when in the Island of Bali I saw Chinese

as a

traders, who had adopted the costume of that country, and who could then hardly be distinguished from Malays; and on the other hand I have seen natives of Java who, as far as physiognomy was concerned, would pass very well for Chinese." Hence De Quatrefages rightly rejects the claim of the Malays to be regarded as a fundamental type. "All polygenists," he remarks, "have regarded the Malays as one of their human species; many monogenists have considered them as one of the principal races. I showed long ago that in reality they are only a mixed race in which white, black, and yellow elements are associated."

The last clause of this sentence gives the true solution of the problem. The inhabitants of Malaysia consist not of one, nor even of three distinct races, but of three races variously interming ed, the yellow or Mongolian, and the white or Caucasian chiefly in the west, these two and the black or Papûan chiefly in the east. As the fusion of yellow, white, and black produces the so-called "Alfuros in the east, so the fusion of yellow and white produces the so-called Malays in the west. The more the yellow prevails the near r do the Malays approach the Mongol type; the more the white prevails the nearer do they approach the Caucasian type, until in some places they seem to be no longer distinguishable from the Mongols, in others from the Caucasians. The Javanese are taken for Chinese by Wallace, just as the Mentawey Islanders are taken for Sawaiori or Eastern Polynesians by von Rosenberg. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that those who seek for unity in the Archipelago should meet with nothing but confusion. Prof. Flower comments on the divergent characteristics presented by the Malayan crania, remarking that "there is certainly no very great conformity in the characters of the skulls in our collections which are said to belong to Malays." This must always be the case until we come to an understanding as to the meaning of the term Malay, which after all is far more a national and linguistic than a racial expression. Proceeding on the groundless assumption of a common Malay type in Oceanica, Welcker arrived at the subjoined astonishing results from cranial measurements in Micronesia and Malaysia

alone:

THE perhaps better known name of this genus is from the Chinese, has unfortunately priority. The genus Salisburia (Smith), but the Linnæan name, adapted contains only one existing species, the gigantic Ginkgo the Taxeæ, is dioecious, and the flabelliform leaves are biloba of Northern China and Japan. It is classified with deciduous, leathery, very variably lobed, and of all sizes up to an extreme of five inches across. The fruit, about stalk, composed externally of a fleshy layer, and internally an inch in diameter, is drupaceous, on a slender footof a hard light-coloured shell, and is somewhat unsymmetrical, owing to the abortion of one of the seeds. The foliage is like that of the maidenhair fern, but the petiole is stout, often three inches long, and distinctly articulated at the base. An important characteristic in recognising the fossil leaf, besides the petiole, is that however irregularly they may be lobed, they are almost invariably primarily bilobed.

Though so restricted a genus now, its ancestry is perhaps more venerable than that of any other forest tree. The Carboniferous fruits Trigonocarpus and Noeggerathia are believed by both Hooker and Saporta to have belonged to some ancestral form, and even the foliage of the latter, Psygmophyllum of Schimper, approaches nearly to that of Ginkgo. Baieria, beyond doubt a close ally, appears in the Permian, and Ginkgo in all probability in the bilobate Jeanpaulia of the Rhotic of Bayreuth, but the group did not reach its maximum until the Jurassics. A few species have been described in other works, but Heer's Jurassic flora of Eastern Siberia ("Flora foss. Arctica," vol. iv.) contains by far the most important contribution to their past history. Five genera are placed in the groups: Phanicopsis, Ginkgo, Baieria, Trichopitys, and Czekanowskia, but there is no special character uniting the latter to Ginkgo, although it is no doubt coniferous. The remains are clusters of occasion

ally forked acicular leaves, sheathing at the base in imbricated scales. The leaves widen in most specimens here and there into bead-like expansions, inferred to have been caused by some extinct type of parasitic fungus. It is thought by Heer that a detached stem bearing shortly petiolated double seeds or nuts may be their fruit. Phoenicopsis is a cluster of separate leaves, also sheathing in scales at the base, but forming a fine palm-like foliage, thought by Heer to unite Cordaites and Baieria, yet without any direct affinity with Ginkgo.

The most aberrant of the genera obviously belonging to the group is Trichopitys of Saporta. In this the leaves were smaller, with fewer veins, and the parenchyma reduced to a narrow expansion margining each vein. Although so extreme a modification of the normal type, T. setacea1 possesses the characteristic bilobation and petiole. Its affinity is best traced through G. concinna, which is similar, but with the segments of the leaves expanded to receive two to three veins each.

G. sibirica and G. lepida are separated on trivial grounds not supported by the illustrations, and when united furnish the chief and most abundant leaves in the deposit. These are nearly as large as in the existing species, but more digitate, and with about five veins to 1 T. pusilla probably belongs to some other division of the vegetable

each segment. They have the venation, bilobation, and petiole of Ginkgo, yet approaching in their larger leaves to Baieria. Other similar species (?) diminishing in size are G. schmidtiana, with about six segments, G. flabellata, with fourteen or fifteen segments, and G. pusilla, with a less number, and barely an inch across the base. These three might probably be united into a single species. The remaining form from Siberia, G. huttoni, is less divided, having but four rounded segments, and is in that respect a nearer approach to the existing one.

The nearest, however, is G. digitata from the Jurassic of Spitzbergen, which, but for smaller size and thicker petiole, might be placed in the existing species. Leaves from Scarborough, said to be of the same species, are larger. G. integriuscula is evidently the smaller and less lobate leaf of the same species, and the author has besides taken the unnecessary care to establish five duly named and lettered varieties, thus clearly showing that he had formed no adequate conception of the extent to which the leaves of the existing tree may vary, even on the same branch. His species should be reduced, the excessive subdivision being a disadvantage and rendering the work unwieldy. The author also changes the classification of the Coniferæ between the second and third volumes, and the name for this genus between the third and fourth volumes, without explanation or notice, which, in a work addressed especially to geologists, is an inconvenience.

The third genus, Baieria, possesses a larger and more palm-like leaf, averaging nearly five inches in radius, primarily bilobed, each lobe forking either once or twice, the ultimate segments being of uniform width and possessing four parallel veins each. The leaf tapers to the petiole, which is not preserved in the engraved specimens. The bilobation and venation connect it sufficiently with Ginkgo, and the persistence of these characters throughout the whole group, which would hardly have been suspected to have a morphologic value, is peculiarly remarkable.

There is a marked diminution in the group in the Cretaceous. Baieria from the Komeschichten is limited

to vestiges of stunted form placed among the ferns, while Ginkgo appears in a starved species with small leaves and short thick petiole, described as Adiantum for mosum, and by fragments from the Upper Cretaceous Ataneschichten, inappropriately named G. primordialis.

In the Arctic Eocenes (Miocenes of Heer) Ginkgo has only, and that very sparingly, been met with in Greenland. This variety so resembled G. adiantoides of the Italian Miocenes, that Heer almost directly abandoned his specific name primordialis, and became doubtful even whether both should not be united with the existing species.

The small fragments figured in the Miocene Baltic flora are inconclusive, and we only again meet with it in the Miocenes as far south as Italy, the South of France, and the Mississippi. It has been said to occur in English Eocenes by Heer, who wrote upon the tracing of an Adiantum from Bournemouth, "this is a Ginkgo," and by Ettingshausen, who considers four seeds from Sheppey to belong to it, although less than half the size of those of the present Ginkgo, and rather materially differing. Its absence otherwise in British and in French Eocenes, and in the Swiss and Austrian Tertiaries, is ascertained, for the occurrence of so distinctly-marked and easilypreserved a leaf could not well be overlooked.

The very strongly-marked and exceptional characters of Ginkgo, shared by the allied extinct genera, the remoteness of its origin in the Carboniferous, its extensive development in the Mesozoic, and persistence through so many ages, seems to render it desirable to separate them from the Taxeæ into a distinct tribe. Already dying out in the Cretaceous and lingering through the Tertiaries in a single species, its existence now is a mere survival.

Since writing the above, Saporta informs me that the supposed Mississippi species is really a Lygodium.

Its hone has been from time to time within the Arctic circle, yet it is scarcely proved, as Saporta says, that it actually originated there. The leaf of G. digitata from the Scarborough oolite, figured by Schimper, is far larger than any figured from Spitzbergen, and neither the foliage nor the fruit of the northern fossil Ginkgo, it appears, ever at any time approached those of the existing tree in its native habitats. It is now indigenous to the northern provinces of China, and must therefore be capable of withstanding a rigorous climate; yet the conditions in Western Europe do not appear to favour the ripening of its seed in higher latitudes than the South of France.

Its distribution during the Tertiaries is instructive, and Saporta's explanation, that it existed in the north during the warm Eocene and pre-Eocene times, and descended thence across Europe as the temperature decreased, on the approach of the Miocene time, is the only one that explains the facts. To suppose with Heer that the same species lived contemporaneously and at the same level in Italy and in Disco is absurd, and would presuppose a uniformity of climate such as no natural causes could have produced at so recent a geological period. J. STARKIE GARDNER

NOTES

THE Roman Academy of Sciences has awarded half of the King Humbert Prize, now awarded for the first time, to the German astronomer, Dr. Wilhelm Tempel, director of the Acetri Observatory at Florence, for his observations on nebulæ.

DEATH is levying heavy contributions from the students of entomology in France, more especially as regards the oldest and best known. We very recently had occasion to notice the decease of Etienne Mulsant, at a ripe age. Now, we regret to have to announce the death of Achille Guenée of Châteaudun, whose name is probably more known in England than is that of any other French entomologist. He died on the 30th ult. (his colleague and fellow-worker, Dr. Boisduval, died on December 30, 1879), in his seventy-second year. Guenée was a lepidopterist. His publications are very numerous. The most important of all are the six volumes of the series termed the "Suites à Buffon" on some of the principal families of the Lepidoptera of the world, which appeared from 1852 to 1857. These volumes formed a basis for future students of Lepidoptera, and largely influenced those of them amongst our own countrymen. The town of Châteaudun occupies a not unimportant position in the history of the Franco-Prussian war. Guené's house was occupied by the Prussian troops. He himself took refuge in Geneva, and, true to his predilections, studied the Lepidoptera in the collection of the museum of that city; the results of his investigations were published. We believe that when circum stances permitted his return, his own collections were found to have suffered very little damage at the hands of his unbidden guests. He was an officer of the French Academy. Our Entomological Society of London elected him one of its honorary members many years ago; and his friends amongst Englishmen were not few.

JOHN DUNCAN, a poor Aberdeenshire weaver, has presented to the University of Aberdeen his herbarium of nearly 1200 British plants, gathered by him all over the country from Northumberland to Banff, while acting as a harvest labourer. The story of Duncan was told in Good Words for 1878, by Mr. William Jolly, and now it would seem that the poor and intelligent weaver is so reduced in circumstances as to be compelled to accept parochial relief. Surely the University of Aberdeen ought to do something for him; and possibly some of our readers may care to send a trifle to John Duncan, Droughsburn, by Alford, Aberdeenshire.

LEIPZIG is at last to have a zoological garden. A number of citizens intend to form a company for the purpose of establishing a zoological garden on an area of twenty acres, with conservatories, &c. The civic authorities of Leipzig have given their consent, and pointed out a suitable place in the immediate environs of the city.

THE base of the Mont Cenis tunnel at the French entrance

shows such ominous signs of sinking that the Paris-Lyons Mediterranean Railway Company intend to have another entrance to the tunnel bored, which is to be situated at about I kilometre's distance from the present entrance, and is to reach the old tunnel at a spot about 600 metres from its mouth. The work has already been commenced.

VISITORS to the Brighton Aquarium will regret to hear of the death of the fine male sea-lion (Otaria stelleri ?), so long an inmate of the Institution. Mr. A. Crane sends us some details about the animal. Poor "Jack's" very sudden death is attributed to disease of the heart. The left lobe of that organ was found ruptured and in a state of complete collapse. His female companion is still in good health. The first offspring of the pair, a male cub, was born in the spring of 1877; the second, a dead female, in the following year. Jack was probably about twelve years of age at his death. His length was 8 feet 5 inches, maximum girth 5 feet 3 inches; fore-feet 4 feet 2 inches, and hind flippers 17 inches; greatest circumference of the head 2 feet 10 inches, frontal 2 feet 2 inches, round the jaws, under the eyes, 17 inches; weight of skin I cwt., of lungs 22 lbs. As the skeleton will be preserved in the Institution zoologists will be able to finally determine by means of the skull the exact species to which this male belonged. The cub born of this pair is now four years old, a fine animal 6 feet long and much larger than his somewhat diminutive and flat-headed mother, to whom at present he bears most resemblance, the extraordinary prominence of the frontal bones of the skull characterising his male parent being as yet undeveloped. The tanks, Mr. Crane states, are in excellent condition, and the growth of sponges, tunicates, and development of invertebrate life generally is very remarkable. In fact to a qualified histologist and embryological student they would furnish ample material for a vacation, and doubtless yield interesting results. Facilities for study, we are informed, would be willingly accorded by the Management.

PROF. E. MORREN's Correspondance botanique grows in size and in completeness. We have now before us the eighth issue (October, 1880) of this most useful botanical directory. In Europe and the United States the list of botanists, official and others, is now very full and complete; and scarcely any quarter of the globe can be named which is not represented by one or two names. Every working botanist should have it on his library table.

Ar a quarter to 5 p.m. on January 5 a somewhat violent shock of earthquake was felt at Agram. It lasted about three seconds. The ground rose in wave-like curves as the shock passed over. On the previous night two slight shocks were experienced.

THE Times Bucharest correspondent, under date January 4, describes a curious result following the recent earthquake which passed under that city. The soil of Bucharest is a rich, black, porous vegetable mould, very springy under pressure, and carriages passing in a street cause a strong vibration in the adjacent houses. The Grand Hôtel Boulevard, however, was an exception to this general rule, and in the correspondent's room, facing the principal street, on which there is a heavy traffic, he never could feel any sensible effect from passing vehicles. During the recent earthquake the windows and crockery in less massively constructed buildings rattled very sensibly, whereas there was no audible sound produced in the

hotel mentioned. Since the earthquake shock, however, this state of things has changed entirely, and every vehicle passing the hotel causes vibration in the whole building. The singular part of this change consists in the fact that the effect produced by the vehicle is precisely the same as that accompanying the earthquake. It is not a jar as previously produced in other buildings, but a sawing motion similar to that described in the correspondent's telegram relating to the late shock of earthquake. This movement is so great as to cause pictures to sway backwards and forwards on the walls, and it is equally perceptible in the rear corner rooms farthest from the street. The hotel is of brick, covered outside with mastic, which would show at once any crack in the walls. He has carefully examined the exterior of the building and there is not a crack in it. Hence, he thinks, this change in the solidity of the structure appears to be due to some effect produced in the earth underneath the building by the shock of earthquake.

THE Daily News Rangoon correspondent, writing on December 10, states that they had another shock of an earthquake in Bu mah three days before the same day on which Agram was revisited. In Rangoon it was not severe, but the tremulous motion lasted for fully a minute and a half, and was sufficiently strong to set pictures swinging and rattling against the walls. Like those which preceded it, the shock travelled from south to north, and was felt more violently elsewhere, though in no case so intensely as to cause serious damage.

ON the 6th inst., at 4.30 a.m. Berlin tine, a pretty strong shock of earthquake was felt at Rousdorf.

DR. KRISHABER of 41, rue de la Bienfaisance, Paris, writes to ask if any of our readers can give him information as to the causes of death in monkeys in a wild state.

THE appearance of the phylloxera in the Crimea has been the subject of a communication, by M. Porchinsky, to the St. Petersburg Entomological Society. It has appeared probably in consequence of vines having been imported fron France, and has extended hitherto very slowly in small concentric circles. As the vineyards are situated on the southern coast of the Crimea in the shape of a narrow strip at the foot of the mountains, M. Porchinsky thinks that the devastating insect will not cause much destruction. But if it appeared on the Caucasus, especially among the numberless wild vineyards of that country, it might completely destroy the whole of the vines in the valleys of the Rion and Kura rivers.

MR. F. W. PUTNAM has made a communication to the Essex (U.S.) Institute of peculiar interest on "The Former Indians of Southern California, as bearing on the origin of the Red Man in America." He called attention to the facts relating to the antiquity of man on the Pacific coast, and to the importance of the discovery in California of human remains and of the works of man in the gravel, under beds of volcanic material, where they were associated with the remains of extinct animals, and to the necessity of looking to this early race for much that it seems otherwise impossible to account. He thought that what is called the "Eskimo element," in the physical characters and arts of the southern Californians, was very likely due to the impress from a primitive American stock, which is probably to be found now in its purest continuation in the Innuit. In this connection he dwelt upon the probability of more than one type of man. In following out this argument he called attention to the distinctive characters in different tribes of Indians on the Pacific coast, and stated his belief that they had resulted from an admixture of the descendants of different stocks. Californians of 300 years ago, he thought, were the result of development by contact of tribe with tribe through an immense period of time, and that the primitive race of America, which

The

21 55 54

108 3.2 107 28.6

...

20 ... 21 47 12

...

...

Log. distance from Earth.

0*2836
0*2875
0.2916

0*2959
0'3002

24 22 423 SWIFT'S COMET.-Mr. Common, with his reflector of three feet aperture at Ealing, has observed this comet for position as late as January 5, when it was not yet considered the extremum visible in the instrument. Accurate observations were made by Mr. Lewis Boss at the Dudley Observatory, Albany, U.S., on October 11, the night after discovery, so that there will be a good extent of observation upon which to determine the orbit at this appearance.

MINIMA OF ALGOL.-The following epochs of geocentric minima of Algol are deduced from Prof. Schönfeld's elements. That very sensible perturbations have taken place during the last few years is shown by a comparison of these elements with the observations of Prof. Julius Schmidt of Athens; thus the mean errors since 1875 are, for 1875 76 - 4·8m.; 1876'76 + 19'4m. ; 1877 73+ 40'8m.; 1878 78 +213m. The star is well de

serving of attention during the present year.

8 48 5 37

30

...

19 22

...

February 2 CERASKI'S VARIABLE IN CEPHEUS.-A series of minima of this star visible in Europe commences about January 13, continuing until May. The period may be taken = 2'492913d. or 2d. 11h. 49 795m., and if we reckon from the second minimum completely observed by Prof. Schmidt on October 18, 1880, we shall find a minimum on January 18 at 17h. 41m. G. M. T., and successive visible epochs may be inferred by adding 41. 23h. 39°59m.

ELONGATIONS OF MIMAS.-According to the elements previou-ly adopted in this column for indicating approximately the times of greatest elongations of this very difficult object, the satellite would be at the western extremity of its apparent orbit at the following Greenwich times :

The elements upon which Prof. Newcomb's manuscript tables adopted in the American Ephemeris for 1882 and 1883 are founded appear to give the times of the elongations later by some forty minutes.

THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, PARIS.-The recent election of Dr. Warren De La Rue as Correspondent of the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of France, Section of Astronomy, in place of the late Sir Thomas Maclear, nearly completes the usual number of correspondents in this section, upon which several vacancies had existed for some time. The roll is now as follows, taking the names in alphabetical order :-Adams (Cambridge), Cayley (Cambridge), De La Rue (London), Gyldén (Stockholm), Hall (Washington), Hind (London), Huggins (London), Lockyer (London), Newcomb (Washington), Oppölzer (Vienna), Planta mour (Geneva), Roche (Montpellier), Schiaparelli (Milan), Stephan (Marseilles), and Struve (Pulkova). The Astronomer- Royal is one of the eight Foreign Associates of the Academy.

GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES

WE are glad to learn that the rumour of the murder of Herr Hildebrandt in Madagascar is unfounded.

THE first number of the memoirs (Zapiski) of the West Siberian Branch of the Russian Geographical Society contains valuable papers by M. Kostroff on witches in the Government Tomsk; by M. Grigorovsky, on the peasantry in the Narym

district; by M. Pyevtzoff, on his journey through Djoungaria, with a map; and by M. Balkashin, on trade via the Ob River with Europe during the years 1877 and 1878.

AT one of its recent meetings the Russian Geographical Society discussed the proposal of Mr. Fleming, transmitted to the Society by the Governor-General of Canada, as to the adoption of a universal time and of a universal first meridian. As to the suggestion to have a cosmopolitan noon at the same moment over the surface of our globe, the Society thinks that it would meet with a mass of difficulties as to its application in daily life; but the advantages which a universal time would afford being very great, the Society expresses the wish that the whole question be earnestly discussed and studied by learned societies. As to the first meridian, the Society, which already discussed the question in 1870, maintains its former resolution, namely, that the meridian of Greenwich, or at least that of Behring Strait, 180° distant from that of Greenwich, should be accepted by the whole civilised world as a first meridian.

WE have received the annual reports for 1879 of the Siberian, Orenburg, and Caucasian branches of the Russian Geographical Society, which has had the happy idea to publish all the reports together in one volume, thus rendering accessible for the general reader who knows Russian this most valuable geographical information, formerly disseminated in local publications. The oldest of these branches, the East Siberian, has endured heavy losses during the great fire at Irkoutsk. Its rich zoological, botanical, geological, and ethnographical collections were all destroyed by fire: the beautiful head of a Rhinoceros tichorhinus, just received from Verkhoyansk, the rare collection of samples of gold from all the gold-mines of Eastern Siberia, paleontological collections not yet described, and so on, as well as the 10,230 volumes of its rich library, and collections of old records, were all destroyed by fire. Several scientific bodies, Russian and foreign, have already sent their publications and duplicates from their libraries, so that the museum and library already are in way of reconstitution.

THE third volume of the "Rajputana Gazetteer" has just been issued from the Government press at Simla. The various sections into which it is divided are contributed by Capt. C. E. Yate, Major C. A. Baylay, and Major P. W. Powlett, and treat of general topography, history, population, trade, towns, &c. Mr. J. F. Baness, the chief draughtsman in the geographical and drawing branch of the Survey of India, has in the press at Calcutta a work entitled "Index Geographicus Indicus." It will be published in one volume, with eight coloured maps, and will comprise a list, alphabetically arranged, of the principal places in our Indian Empire, accompanied by much statistical, political, and descriptive information.

A SERIES of papers is commenced in last week's issue of Les Missions Catholiques, on the manners, customs, and religion of the races of the Caucasus.

The new number of the Bulletin of the Commercial Geographical Society of Bordeaux contains a useful paper on Japan, by M. E. Labrone.

THE Palestine Exploration Society have decided to undertake the exploration of Palestine east of the Jordan.

OBSERVATIONS ON ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS1

Power of Communication by something approaching to Language. IN my previous papers many experiments have been recorded, in which I have endeavoured to throw some light on the power of communication possessed by ants. It is unquestionable that if an ant or a bee discovers a store of food her comrades soon flock to the treasures, although, as I have shown, this is by no means always the case. But it may be argued that this fact taken alone does not prove any power of communication at all. An ant observing a friend bringing food home might infer, without being told, that by accompanying the friend on the return journey she might also participate in the good things. I have endeavoured to meet this argument in my third paper (Linn. Journ. vol. xii. p. 466) by showing that there was a marked I By Sir John Lubbock. Bart., M.P., F.R.S., F.L.S., D.C.L., LL. D., Vice-Chancellor of the University of London. Read at the Linnean Society, June 17. Abstract.