cannot be supposed to exist under the conditions in which deepsea temperatures are taken; and the only other possible source, that namely due to the direct effect of pressure, gives rise to an error which requires a correction of only o°04 F. per mile of depth. In the course of the description of experiments Prof. Tait had occasion to describe the various kinds of pressure. gauges which he had found it necessary to devise, the ordinary forms of gauge being altogether useless for scientific work.Mr. W. W. J. Nicol read a paper on the action of heat on thioformanilide, being an account of experiments he had made in Prof. Hoffman's laboratory at Berlin during the preceding winter.-Mr. Patrick Geddes read the second instalment of his scheme for the classification of statistics. In it he discussed the arrangement of statistics relating directly to the organisms of the society. Three great parallel classes, A, B, C, were formed: A being concerned with the source of the organisms forming a community as arising from survival, immigration, and birth; C with the loss, from emigration and death; while B contained the biological and social characteristics of the individuals forming a community at any given instant of time. Classes A and B formed the one side and C the other side of the social balance sheet. In treating of occupations the same three classes appeared again: A dealing with operations on matter and energy, B with services rendered to society (including education, government, &c.), and C forming the class of the essentially unproductive, e.g. the unemployed, the disabled, the destructive, &c. The question of partition, both mediate and ultimate, amongst the organisms of matter and energy fell next for discussion; and this led on to the final classification of uses made after partition, in all of which it was shown that the classification fitted naturally into the three original classes, A, B, and C, indicated above. In a future paper Mr. Geddes hoped to demonstrate the practical value of his system.

VIENNA

Imperial Academy of Sciences, April 7.-L. Fitzinger in the chair. The following papers were read:-Dr. G. Becka, on the orbit of the "Ino" planet (No. 173).-Dr. E. Ludwig, on a new method for the quantitative determination of uric acid. -Dr. D. Dublier, on the influence of continual use of carbonate of soda on the composition of the blood.-Dr. James Moser, electrostatic investigations especially into the ramification of induction on the differential inductometer and electrophorus.Dr. Moritz Holl, on the blood-vessels of the placenta of man.— L. Haitinger, on nitro-olefines.

Imperial Institute of Geology, March 15.-E. Kittl, on a recent find of Listriodon (found at Nussdorf, near Vienna, in 1879).-Dr. E. Mojssisowics, on the cephalopod-fauna of the Triassic formations at Mora d'Ebro, in Spain. -K. M. Paul, on the occurrence of ozokerite and petroleum at Boryslaw (Gallicia).

April 5.-E. Kittl, on Bohemian spas.-Baron H. Fullon, observations on crystallisation.-Dr. V. Hilber, on the terminal stratifications of gypsum in Eastern Gallicia.

PARIS

Academy of Sciences, April 11.-M. Wurtz in the chair.The following papers were read :-On peroxide of ethyl, by M. Berthelot. This may be prepared by sending through anhydrous ether, for several hours, a slow current of quite dry and strongly ozonised oxygen. The formation of oxygenated water by action

of ozone on ether is not immediate, but by destruction of a first compound, viz. peroxide of ethyl. This substance is a sesquioxide C16H200g.-On the Eulerian integral of the second species, by M. Gylden.-Researches on the liquefaction of gaseous mixtures, by MM. Cailletet and Hautefeuille. Operating with a gas easily liquefiable and a so-called permanent gas, in capillary tubes, total liquefaction (yielding a homogeneous liquid) is obtained by first compressing the mixture at a temperature so high that the strongest pressures prove powerless to abolish the gaseous state, then lowering the temperature regularly, so that all points of the tube pass at the same time through the temperature at which is produced a change of state. The authors thus obtained condensed carbonic acid, holding a large proportion of oxygen, hydrogen, or nitrogen, these latter substances concurring to form the liquid, though the temperature was too high for them to exist separately in that state. The results of experiment with cyanogen and carbonic acid are analysed. The assimilation (generally very imperfect) of solution of a gas to its liquefaction probably here applies. The mixture retains its characters at

temperatures considerably above that corresponding to the critical. point of its less easily liquefied element.-On the lines of iron in the sun, by Mr. N. Lockyer. He shows reason for believing that iron does not exist in the heart of the sun, but only its constituents, and these exist at different levels in the sun's atmosphere and produce more complex forms by condensation.-On pucerons attacked by a champignon, by MM. Cornu and Brongniart, The insect belongs to the cycle of development of Tetranture rubra, which produces the red galls of elm. The fungus is a Pleospora; it attacks the dead puceron. It is probably incapable of affecting much the multiplication of phylloxera.-On the integration of linear equations by means of Abelian functions, by M. Poincaré.-On formulæ of representation of functions, by M. du Bois-Reymond.-Study of the vapour of bisulphy drate of ammonia, by M. Isambert. The substance is less volatile in presence of its elements than in vacuo, or in an inert gas such as hydrogen.-On chlorides, bromides, and iodides of sulphur, by M. Ogier. A thermo-chemical study.-On the development of Tricuspidaria nodulosa or Trianophorus nođu. losus of Rudolph, and on its cysticercus, by M. Megnin. The perches of the Seine are greatly affected by this parasite at present.-Studies on some points of the anatomy of Sternaspis scutata, by M. Rietsch.-On the different species of bears whose remains are buried in the cavern of Lherm (Ariège), by M. Filhol. Remains of an enormous Ursus arctos (apparently) have been found among about 100 bones of Ursus spelaus. M. Filhol doubts the descent of the former bear from the latter. We supposes that Ursus arctos, appearing in distant regions (perhaps North America), gradually advanced and was substituted in our countries for Ursus spelaus. Bone fragments of a new type of bear have been found in this cave. author names it Ursus Gaudryi. The fossil femur of an enor mous lion has also been found.-Production of a hydrated silicate of baryta in crystals, by M. Le Chatelier. This appears on the inner surface of vessels of baryta water left standing uncleaned a long time.-On the production of a crystalline phosphide of iron and of anorthite felspar in the fires of the Commentry coal pits, by M. Mallard.-On the swelling of the Seine during the winter of 1881, by M. Lemoine. The Seine at Paris has been pretty high from the middle of January to the middle of March. Usually (as M. Belgrand has shown) the maximum of flood at Paris is due to the waters of small torrential rivers mostly in the upper part of the valley and issuing from impermeable strata. But last winter, it is chiefly the rivers nearest Paris, those of Brie, that, by their quite unusual swelling, have brought on the maximum (which has therefore come with great rapidity). The subsoil of La Brie is like a sponge, and when it is gorged with water the least rain causes important floods.

The 1

PAGE

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.

570

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577

The Tide Predicter.-Sir WILLIAM THOMSON, F.R.S.

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578

Symbolical Logic.-HUGH MCCOLL

578

The Sparrow and Division of Labour.-G. C. WALLICH

Agricultural Communism in Greece.-W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS
Heat of Stellar Masses.-SAML. J. WALLACE
Shadows Cast by Venus.-CHAS. T. WHITMELL.

578

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579

579

SIR PHILIP DE MALPAS GREY EGERTON, M.P., F.R.S.
THE SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN ELECTRIC LIGHTING.
Prof. W. GRYLLS ADAMS, F.R.S.

579

579

By

THE FRENCH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AT
ALGIERS. By G. F. RODWELL
MR. DARWIN ON VIVISECTION

NOTES

OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN:

The Solar Parallax

THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 1881

SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES

XVII. ROBERT WILHELM BUNSEN

work

lead ferrocyanide with ammonium carbonate. He also measured the angles of crystals of many of the double cyanides.

In 1837 he struck the first note of one of his most important and fruitful investigations in a memoir on the existence of arsenic as a constituent of organic bodies. In the year 1760 the French chemist Cadet had observed that a mixture of acetate of and white arsenic

which such work opens out. In this respect the labours

of Robert Wilhelm Bunsen stand second to those of no chemist of his time. Outwardly the existence of such a man, attached, as Bunsen has been from the first, exclusively to his science, seems to glide silently on without causes for excitement or stirring incident. His inward life however is on the contrary full of interests and of incidents of even a striking and exciting kind. The discovery of a fact which overthrows or remodels our ideas on a whole branch of science; the experimental proof of a general law hitherto unrecognised; the employment of a new and happy combination of known facts to effect an invention of general applicability and utility; these are the peaceful victories of the man of science which may well be thought to outweigh the high-sounding achievements of the more public professions.

Prof. Bunsen is eminently a soldier of science, his devotion to his flag has been unwavering and life-long, and his whole existence has been a noble struggle for the mastery of nature's secrets. Born on March 31, 1811, at Göttingen, where his father was Professor of Theology, Bunsen graduated in that ancient University before he had passed through his teens, and published an inaugural dissertation, "Enumeratio ac descriptio hygrometorum." Soon afterwards, at the age of twenty-two, he became a privat-docent at the university of his native town, thus entering the career of a teacher, which he has consistently followed with conspicuous success for close on half a century. In 1836 Bunsen became Professor of Che mistry at the Polytechnic School in Cassel; in 1838 he was appointed to the Chair of Chemistry in the University of Marburg, where he remained for thirteen years; afterwards he was for a short time at Breslau, whence he removed to Heidelberg, of which renowned University he has been one of the chief ornaments and attractions for the last thirty years.

Bunsen's first scientific investigation was one which attracted general attention, and the results of which are of permanent importance. In conjunction with Berthold, a colleague at Göttingen, he showed that moist freshly precipitated ferric hydroxide acts as a certain antidote in cases of poisoning by arsenic, provided that it is exhibited in sufficient quantity and early enough in the history of the case. The explanation of this action is the formation of an insoluble ferrous arsenite; 100 parts of the dry hydroxide carry down from five to six parts of arsenic. So well known and valued is this antidote in Germany, that it is kept by apothecaries ready for use.

In 1835 Bunsen described some singular compounds which the double cyanides form with ammonia. He contradicted the general statement that ammonium ferrocyanide is formed by boiling prussian blue with ammonia; but showed that it is formed by digesting VOL. XXIII.-No. 600

has a frightful smell and fumes strongly in the air, and this liquid was termed Cadet's fuming arsenical liquid. Little more than the fact of its existence was ascertained concerning this body until Bunsen undertook its examination, and in a series of memoirs which have now become classical, and which extended over many years, placed its composition in a true light, thus giving to the world the first member of the now well-known family of the organometallic bodies.

Bunsen showed that Cadet's liquid, as well as its numerous derivatives, contains a radical having the formula C,H,As, and that this substance in its chemical relations exhibited striking analogies with a metal, being indeed, as he terms it, a true organic metal." He succeeded in isolating this body, and this discovery formed not only the starting-point for the preparation of hundreds of other similar bodies, but also contributed largely to the development of one of the most important of our chemical theories, that of compound radicals. This body, like most of its compounds, possesses a most offensive odour, so much so that the air of a room containing a trace of the vapour is rendered absolutely unbearable. Hence to this substance Bunsen gave the name of Cacodyl (wakódns, a bad smell). Not only however are these compounds unpleasant, but they are highly poisonous, very volatile, dangerously explosive, and spontaneously inflammable. It is difficult enough nowadays for a chemist to work with such substances armed as he is with a knowledge of the danger which he has to encounter, as also with improved appliances of every kind to assist him in overcoming his difficulties. But Bunsen forty years ago was a traveller in an unknown and treacherous land, without sign-posts to guide him, or more assistance on his journey than was furnished by his own scientific acumen and his unfaltering determination. Nor did he escape scot-free from such a labour, for in analysing the cyanide of cacodyl the combustion tube exploded, Bunsen lost the sight of an eye, and for weeks lay between life and death owing to the combined effects of the explosion and the poisonous nature of the vapour. "This substance," he writes, "is extraordinarily poisonous, and for this reason its preparation and purification can only be carried on in the open air; indeed, under these circumstances it is necessary for the operator to breathe through a long open tube so as to ensure the inspiration of air free from impregnation with any trace of the vapour of this very volatile compound. If only a few grains of this substance be allowed to evaporate in a room at the ordinary temperature, the effect upon any one inspiring the air is that of sudden giddiness and insensibility, amounting to complete unconsciousness."

Taking a totally different direction, Bunsen's next important investigations were concerned with the examination of the chemical changes which occur in the blast

D D

terms, we can scarcely pretend to follow them. The terms which are specially Turanian are laid down by him in definitions, and these definitions are used in the demonstrations-so that, so far as these terms are concerned, he seems to assume what he is going to prove. On p. 87 (Prop. 12) he proves that certain groups are cousins by the mere statement of three definitions. What is also odd is that, immediately after, he proves, by a process of reasoning, that the same groups are not cousins, but brothers and sisters-in-law. Similarly, he proves first that a group is another group's nephew, and then that it is its son-in-law. This brings us to say that the terms which Mr. Morgan has translated uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, and cousin, and which he regards as denoting relationships, according to Mr. Fison really mean father and mother-in-law, and brother and sister-in-law only, and express nothing except that a person is called father or mother, brother or sister, as the case may be, by a man or woman whom one is free to marry. How these could, with group marriage, be more than terms of address it puzzles us to see. What it is necessary to notice in these demonstrations, however and nothing else is really necessary is that while by hypothesis descent is reckoned through the mother-which must show that relationship had to some extent been the subject of thought—and "so far as descent is concerned, the father is a mere nonentity," they all proceed on the view that the father, who on the hypothesis would be in each particular case unknown, is as much a relative as the mother. Having said this, no more need be said of Mr. Fison's demonstrations. It should be added, however, that the terms in use among relatives in Australia are, so far as Mr. Fison can learn, in the main Malayan-and he has no theory to account for the Malayan terms. He knows nothing at all of the terms in use among the Kamilaroi. He has himself found the native terms "exasperatingly puzzling." Several terms may be used by the same people for one relationship, and, as he says, matters other than relationship appear to be taken into account. The ceremony of initiation, for example, affects the words by which a man will designate another, though, as Mr. Fison says, it "does not touch their relationship." As to the hypothesis itself, an essential part of it (and indeed of Mr. Morgan's hypotheses too) is that, as regards the intercourse of the sexes, there should have been no mixing of generations that only men and women of the same generation should have been husbands and wives. A generation, apart from particular families, can be defined only loosely, but for Mr. Fison's purposes it should be definable with some precision. At any rate, his theory requires that the elderly men should have been kept separate from the young women, and the young men from the old women. But what an assumption this isespecially to make primarily of Australian natives, of whom nothing is better known than that the elderly men monopolise the women, and especially the young ones, and that a young man (though much license is allowed) hardly ever gets a wife, unless it be an old one, except by running away with her. This assumption, experience being dead against it, is of itself enough to put out of the field the hypothesis of which it forms a part. The idea of intermarrying divisions with groups of husbands all brothers, and groups of wives all sisters, no doubt sprang out of the hypotheses of Mr. Morgan, but apart from Mr. Morgan, it has a history which must be told. Briefly, it was suggested by a traveller's mistake.

In 1853 the Rev. William Ridley, a Presbyterian clergyman of Sydney, published a statement as to the marriage rules of the Kamilaroi, which statement is now known, on Mr. Ridley's own authority, to have been essentially erroneous. Mr. Fison still treats it as entirely true, and treats all later and more correct information as if it gave facts of a later order. Mr. Ridley said that the Kamilaroi were divided into four castes of men and

four of women, and that (with one exception) the men of a caste could marry only women of one other caste. Murri, feminine mata; kubbi, feminine kubbitha ; kumbo, feminine butha; and ipai, feminine ipata, were the castes; and he said that a murri could marry a butha and no other woman, and that his children were not murri and butha, but ipai and ipata; and that, similarly, a kubbi could marry only an ipata, his children being kumbo and butha; and a kumbo only a mata, his children being kubbi and kubbitha; while an ipai, besides being free to marry any kubbitha, could marry any ipata not of his own family-his children, when he married a kubbitha, being murri and mata, and when he married an ipata, kumbo and butha. Mr. Ridley repeated this statement without change in 1855, and he told it in 1871 to Mr. Fison with this amount of change, that instead of castes he now spoke of classes (in unhappy imitation of Mr. Morgan), and of four classes, with men and women in each, instead of four classes of men and four of women; and that he described the marriage of ipai with ipata (that is with a woman of his own class) as an infringement of rule-changes that may fairly be ascribed to the initiative of Mr. Fison. Mr. Fison, putting aside the marriage of ipai with a woman of his own class as an irregularity, and idealising Mr. Ridley's statement, at once formed the hypothesis that all the men of one class originally were by birth the husbands of all the women of the same generation in the class with which they might intermarry. This, although he knew from Mr. Ridley that polygamy was largely practised among the Kamilaroi. Much licence was allowed; and the only word for spouse signified a person whom one is free to marry; and these two facts seemed to him to override Kamilaroi practice, and to prove that marriage had been communal, to begin. In the same year (1871), however, Mr. Ridley was again among the Kamilaroi, and sent to Mr. Fison a statement which should have shaken his faith in his hypothesisboth because of the new matter it contained, and because there were in it what he himself perceived to be errors of observation. Mr. Ridley has published several statements since, all containing obvious errors of observation or slips of memory, and it is impossible to receive even his latest statement as final. But observe what his latest statement is, and compare it with Mr. Fison's hypothesis. It is that the Kamilaroi are divided into totem clans (iguanas, paddy-melons, opossums, emus, blacksnakes, bandicoots); that every native has three names-a personal name (carefully concealed), a "class" name, and a totem name; that children take both the class name and the totem name through the mother; that the men and women of every class are free to marry one another, provided they are not of the same totem--and that, besides, murri may marry any butha, kubbi any ipata, kumbo any mata, and ipai any kubbitha. If his statements can be trusted, murri and butha, kubbi and ipata, kumbo and mata, and ipai and kubbitha, who are free to marry one another, are never of the same totem so that all the marriages which certainly are permitted are marriages between persons of different totems. Mr. Ridley still leaves each class restricted from intermarrying with two others. So much of his original statement he has not yet found to be wrong. But the class name does not prevent marriage within the class. The notion that the Kamilaroi were in intermarrying or husband and wife "castes" was certainly erroneous. Is it likely then that the class-name is any bar to marriage outside the class? Is it not far more likely that there is still something for Mr. Ridley or some other inquirer to find out, and that, in the main, identity of totem is the only bar to marriage? We say in the main, because it is very likely that there are also regulations to prevent marriage between persons near in blood who are of different totems. Mr. Lance, who is a great authority with Mr. Fison, and who was Mr. Ridley's first informant, had got into his

head that the Kamilaroi were divided by their names into castes with the marriage law which Mr. Ridley first described, and, meeting with an ipai whose wife was an ipata, he regarded him as a daring transgressor of the customary rule. The man told him that he and his wife were free to marry because they were not of the same mudji (totem); and, thereupon, Mr. Lance (who evidently had never before heard of totems) told Mr. Ridley that the ipai were privileged above their neighbours in being free to marry women of their own class who were not of the same family with them; and Mr. Ridley told the world that they were the aristocratic caste among the Kamilaroi. (He has since stated that the murri are the aristocratic class.) This is the sort of observation we are questioning. Had Mr. Lance seen in operation a rule intended to prevent, say a man from marrying his own daughter, he might easily have magnified it into a rule prohibiting two whole "castes" from marrying. And in all probability it was something like this he did. It is the ludicrously wrong impression he had before he met the ipai aforesaid that Mr. Fison has taken for the basis of his hypothesis-but from even that to the hypothesis is a tremendous jump. And, after all, even if we overlook the inadmissible assumption which forms an essential part of the hypothesis, it appears not to be good for anything.

What have been called caste or class names appear, so far as the evidence goes at present, to be names merely, and to have no effect on the right of intermarriage. The system of naming is certainly very peculiar. The names alternate in successive generations. That is not in itself peculiar; but the same name is taken by all the sons, the same name by all the daughters. Thus ipata's children are the sons all kumbo, and the daughters all butha; and, again, butha's children are ipai and ipata. It is a pretty widely spread system. Mr. Howitt says that, as far as he knows, it prevails among all Australian tribes; but this is going a vast deal too far; and is calculated to undermine faith in Mr. Howitt's judgment, for it plainly does not prevail among the Kurnai whom he himself has described. His report shows nothing like castes or classes among them; the men, he says, are all called yeerung (emu-wren) by the women, and the women all djeetgun (superb-warbler) by the men, but this (whatever it may mean, and it may mean very little) does not divide the Kurnai into anything other than men and women. Mr. Fison has had from a number of correspondents statements which he takes to mean that among tribes other than the Kamilaroi which have this system of naming, there is no marriage between persons of the same name; but his correspondents are neither, as regards opportunity or observing power, above Mr. Lance; and Mr. Ridley's study of the Kamilaroi, imperfect as it has been, gives the only evidence that can be regarded as trustworthy. Mr. Fison has amended the list of marriages allowed among the Kamilaroi, given by Mr. Ridley, as he says, on later information; but anonymous information cannot be thought of much value on this matter as against the authority of Mr. Ridley. Mr. Fison is too easily satisfied with anything that seems to make for his view to be indly trusted in such a matter. We find him inferring from there being no marriage between blood-relations-which may mean totem clans-among people who have the class names that there is no marriage within the class. We find totem clans, too, reported to him as classes and ranked by him as classes; and "divisions,” which probably mean totem clans, are also ranked by him as classes. On the other hand he candidly gives at least one case in which the class-names are said not to restrict marriage. He gives at the very beginning of his book a native legend of brothers and sisters having married at the first-a legend which both Mr. Morgan and he make much of. We are surprised, however, at his missing the true point of it. What it exhibits is not a movement to "intermarrying divisions"

or classes, but to the establishment of totem clans. These are all the natives seem to have thought in need of explanation.

We should have been glad to notice Mr. Howitt's account of the Kurnai at some length, but we must be brief. The Kurnai have kinship through males and exogamy-that is, prohibition of marriage within the kindred; and as was to be expected in such a case, the kindreds form local tribes. He does not expressly tell us whether or not these clans or local tribes are distinguished by totems (which shows that he meant to be careful, and that his information was very far from being complete), but incidentally he lets out that they are. When a Kurnai young woman meets a young fellow who, being a stranger, looks as if he might make a husband for her, Do you eat kangaroo, opossum, blacksnake? is her first question after saluting him. Presumably the animal she names is her own totem. If the stranger may eat it he can marry her. As for his discovery of marriage by elopement, we have no doubt that it is (as a missionary friend of his, Mr. Bulmer, hinted to him it must be) a mere product of misconception. Young men among the Kurnai, he says, could get wives only by eloping with them on the proposal of the women. This may be; an Australian young man could scarcely ever get a wife except by running away with her. But how did the elderly men get their wives? He appears never to have asked that. But he is aware that there was a system of exchanges. The Kurnai are polygamous, and no doubt among them, as among other Australians, the elderly men had, by means of exchanges, nearly all the young women for wives. Mr. Howitt writes so candidly, and his account of the Kurnai is in many respects so interesting, that we should gladly have brought ourselves to think better of this discovery of his. But after reading Mr. Fison's most amazing account of the origin of marriage by elopement, we find ourselves shut up to holding that it is simply a big blunder. Nothing else could have elicited so preposterous an explanation. But such words as preposterous fall harshly on the ear, and we would part from our authors without unkindness. Their exertions to advance a growing science are truly commendable. If the result has been rather to mystify than to elucidate, there is but one more illustration of the way in which good intentions, industry, and ingenuity are wasted when men have started in the wrong track. D. MACLENNAN

NOTES

THE evening discourses at the meeting of the British Association at York will be delivered by Prof. Huxley and Mr. Spottiswoode. Mr. Huxley will speak of the "Rise and Progress of Paleontology" on Friday, September 2, and Mr. Spottiswoode "On the Electric Discharge, its Forms and its Functions," on Monday, September 5.

THE Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland was on Wednesday last week conferred on Prof. Helmholtz, and the Honorary Degree of LL.D. by the University of Dublin. On Monday night, at an ordinary meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Sir William Thomson in the chair, Prof. Helmholtz read a paper on "Electrolytic Conduction.” There was a crowded attendance, and Prof. Helmholtz was warmly received.

ON Monday the National Fisheries Exhibition, which has been organised at Norwich under the care of numerous public

bodies, from the Board of Trade downwards, was opened by the

Prince and Princess of Wales. The exhibition is divided into six classes, as follows:-1. Pisciculture and shell-fish culture; 2. Models, trawling gear, drifting gear, canvas and ropes, and inland fishing tackle; 3. Life-saving apparatus, lamps, fog-horns, signalling, &c., architectural plans for fish markets, fish-curing