answer.

And it is surely a visibly good thing that this intensity of energy should be thus secured for the investigation of this particular question. For, inviting as it is as a purely intellectual study, one may almost see that its intellectual interest alone could

"Had our writers more carefully considered the materials found in Consciousness, and, instead of joining with the unthinking portion of mankind in assuming the existence of an unknown entity called Matter, which is quite inadequate to account for the operations of Nature, and which has for centuries barred all attempts at a rational explanation of natural phenomena-had they, we say, examined a little more carefully, they would have discovered that the physical properties of which we are conscious are but different modifications not of matter, but of force. The apprehension of such a fact as this is most important to philosophy, for when we properly see and believe meaningless mass of matter, but as a magnificent it, the world at once opens out to us, not as a exhibition of power-a system or economy in which the Supreme Being, the source of power and being, by subjecting his absolute power, qua the physical world, to fixity and law, fulfils his purposes of sustaining living and conscious beings under the peculiar conditions which we observe in the physical world. . . . By merely assuming those mysterious elements, the chemical atoms, which no man has seen or can see, to be centres of force, and presenting physical substance as an aggregation of such dynamical atoms, the whole theory is complete, without deranging a single fact or principle of science." (p. 541.)

compels us to say: whatever exists it is not that; not that which answers either to our sense or to our thought. Mr. Wyld tries to persuade us to accept centres of force as the substance of things, only because so he can directly urge us to recognise "in all the energies of nature an epiphany of God's power; "not because his thought, any more than ours, is satisfied.

Does it follow, then, that we do not and cannot know anything about the cause of our perceptions, the real source of our experience? Or is there not a third possibility, namely, that we have yet to recognise the true method of treating the problem? It has been so little considered, especially is remarkable that this view of the case when we recall how full human history is of instances to the point; how full of cases in which persistent failure-leading men to despair-has been simply the precursor to the adoption of a truer method. Science itself is one great example. Men

could not know" the order and connexion of physical events (of phenomena themselves) until, after a long period of vain trying, they adopted a method they had overlooked. Socrates urged the impossibility of knowing the laws of the heavenly bodies in their day to prove it.* motions, and quoted the astronomy of his Failure to accomplish-if we are guided by experience, and that which the history of the past proves to be probable

that everything is not settled by knocking on the floor with a stick, where else does the very same feeling so easily and insidiously re-enter, under an opposite form, the very mind that had expelled it; and the conviction that we knew all about the subject, and there was nothing more to enquire into, resume its sway under the thinly-disguised form that we cannot know anything and there is nothing more to enquire into? Undermined by this treacherous impulse, on either hand, to treat the question as one settled and fixed-either as known, or as never to be known; but any would never, perhaps, by its own impulses how not to be enquired into the intellect alone, have fairly and thoroughly addressed itself to the question: What does our perception of the external world truly mean? But the soul cannot let it go; and thus the intellect cannot quit her task so lightly.

Mr. Wyld's book shows us this, in what we may, without offence, call almost a pathetic form. So glad man's jaded Thought would be to leave this barren and unhopeful ground, explored over and over again, until what more is there to say? every conceivable thing that is to be said turning out to be some horrid inconceivable at last. But here She is, clutched once more by her departing vestments, and bidden still to tarry, there is a solution yet: and we turn to listen; for if useful studies are hindered by the delay, still he who bids us has a claim; since there is good scientific work in the earlier portions of the volume. And what we find is, that if the world be considered as God's power expressed in physical laws, meeting our power as expressed in our own mental effort, and matter be no entity but merely the vehicle through which this divine power is transmitted, then we have

That is, Boscovich's suggestion of the material substance, is the key to open the atom as a centre of force alone, without prison-door of scepticism, and make "the theory of perception at once simple and

is immediately seen to be the result of a connexion between the Supreme Mind and power by suffering our power to come into the mind of the creature... He reveals His direct connexion and counterpoise with His (and also by making us recipients of those arbitrary signs which we call sensations)."

Now it is not because Mr. Wyld's mind is less acute than any other, that he overlooks the obvious reply that the proposal of cendoes but shift, and not at all remove, the tres of force as constituting physical things intellectual difficulty. How force without matter? Does force occupy space, is it immatter. If not, how do unextended centres penetrable, and has it weight? If so, it is of force make up physical extension? Our author, when treating of the ether, p. 205,

writes thus:

"As this subtle, though powerful, medium penetrates all bodies, even the densest, it is thus, as it were, the cushion on which the ultimate atoms of all things rest. It surrounds every atom and keeps each one apart from its fellows, and by its movements, which never cease, it maintains them in constant though invisible vibration," &c.

If there are only centres of force, how is ether a medium, how does it keep these centres apart; above all, how keep them in constant vibration? What is a centre of force if it wants keeping in movement? Is it not evident that the ether here serves our author as matter serves other men? That the chemical atoms are conditions-even dynamic conditions-of the ether is a view which has much to commend it (if only the ether itself would but be a thing one could really believe in as existing); but assuredly it does not help us over the difficulty externally of "matter." In short, the external physical world will not be conceived. It insists on landing us in a contradiction; it

to recognise the true method for our attempt. And this, we venture to suggest, is the proper inference from the failure man has hitherto encountered in his attempt to discover the true nature of the external world;

This

or, as we should prefer to say, the true cause of his experience. He has not bethought him of the true method. would be the fitting opinion, even if it had to be held in mere vagueness, with no indications as to the direction, even, in which a truer method might be sought. But the case is not so. Quite definite suggestions for a truer method challenge our attention.

One, for instance, is to try and gain guidance in the larger problem of perception as a whole, by carefully studying the phenomena of particular perceptions, which are more within our grasp. As, for instance, we find that, in very many perceptions at least, there is given us a knowledge of ourselves or of our relations, as well as of the object; and that we must take account of the former elements as

well as of the latter in order to know rightly respecting the thing perceived. So all sightperceptions, for example, challenge us to recognise our distance; all perceptions of touch, to remember the activity of our own muscles. And in general, in every act of ordinary perception we have to remember two things: one, that modified conditions of our own-as our being moved, our hands having been chilled or heated, &c.—affect the mode of our perceiving; and another, that our impression frequently differs from the truth by involving a non-perception on our part. Even such simple facts as these have not been called on yet to help us in the wider

* Mr. Wyld reminds us in this volume how Newon held chromatic aberration irremediable, through not having recognised the different refractive powers of various kinds of glass.

66

our

problem of our perception of the whole. Nor have we duly recalled to mind the fact that we learn to know particular objects by the study of them by more than one means; by uniting two senses, e.g., or sense and thought; and that the imperfect apprehension of the object by one of these means is the very circumstance that renders this union of different means of investigation easy. And we have laid little weight also on a fact to which our author rightly attaches great importance, namely, consciousness of possessing mental and animal power," as a source of knowledge. For, simple as this fact may seem, upon the hypothesis that external nature is as it appears to us, or is conceived by us, it assumes a new significance when it is held that the world that exists (if any) is different from that which we can apprehend. For then we come straight upon this fact, that we feel things to exist that do not exist; we consciously live our life in a world that is not. Is there no significance, no suggestion as a guide to farther thought, in that?

We may well thank Mr. Wyld for reminding us again that the question of our perception of the external world is not yet closed. And to anyone who is interested in a careful, clear, scientific exposition of the functions of the senses, we can also recommend his volume. In ch. xviii., a suggestion of real value is made as to the method by which single vision is secured, by means of a possible arrangement of the fibres of the optic nerve in the central ganglion.

JAMES HINTON.

SCIENCE NOTES.

PHYSICS.

the platinum wire the globule increases in size, attaining a diameter of 10 millimètres; when the wire is depressed the globule assumes a rapid gyratory motion, and having acquired a certain velocity becomes detached, as if attracted by the other electrode, and disappears with an explosion and flame at the negative electrode. This globule is not gaseous, for under these conditions the decomposition of the water takes place with great difficulty; it is a liquid globule in a peculiar spheroidal state, and since it is almost insulated, by reason of its spheroidal state, from the rest of the liquid, must naturally be charged with the originated, i.e., with positive electricity. same electricity as that of the wire at which it

The author observes that cases of globular lightning have generally been observed at the end of a storm, when the electricity of the atmosphere flows freely to the earth through air saturated with aqueous vapour. IIe regards this portion of the atmosphere as a vast voltameter, one electrode being formed by a cloud, the other by a point of the earth,-a voltameter in which the water would be with difficulty decomposed and in which such luminous and calorific phenomena as are described above would play a prominent part. Although fire-balls are certainly not spheres of liquid, they may nevertheless be formed of a ponderable matter charged with electricity, and we may conceive that the high tension of atmospheric electricity may produce with humid air that which dynamical electricity produces with saline liquid.

a

Acoustic Reversibility.-Professor Tyndall has shown that when a sensitive flame is placed immediately behind a cardboard screen 18 inches by 12, and a reed-pipe sounded at a distance of 6 feet from the screen, the flame is violently agitated. When the positions of the flame and reed are reversed, the latter being now close behind the screen, and the former at a distance of 6 feet from it, the sonorous vibrations are without sensible action on the flame. This experiment affords an explanation of a difficulty experienced by Arago and others when inCur-vestigating the velocity of sound between Villejuif and Montlhéry in 1822. It was noticed that while every report of the cannon fired at Montlhéry was heard with the greatest distinctness at Villejuif, by far the greater number of reports from Villejuif failed to reach Montlhéry. Villejuif is close to Paris, and over it (with the observed light wind) was slowly wafted the air from the city. Thousands of chimneys to windward of Villejuif were slowly discharging their heated currents, so that an atmosphere non-homogeneous in a high degree must have surrounded that station. At no great height in the atmosphere equilibrium of temperature would be established. The nonhomogeneous air surrounding Villejuif is experimentally typified by the screen with the source of sound close behind it. As the sensitive flame at a distance failed to be affected by the sounding body placed close behind the cardboard screen, so did the observers at Montlhéry fail to hear the sound of the Villejuif gun.

Phenomena produced in Liquids by Electric rents of High Tension.-M. G. Planté (Comptes Rendus, lxxx., p. 1133) has produced some extraordinary effects with his secondary battery which are very interesting for other reasons and also because they seem to throw light on the origin of fire-balls, of which no rational explanation has hitherto been given. A secondary battery of forty elements, each formed of plates of lead in acidulated water, is charged by two Bunsen's cells. The current from this battery, though only temporary, has sufficient duration to exhibit in all their details the effects produced by the passage of the electricity through imperfect conductors, such as the liquids of voltameters. Platinum wires connected with the two poles are dipped into acidulated water. In the circuit is introduced also a platinum wire eighty centimètres long and one-tenth of a millimètre in diameter. If the positive terminal be immersed first and then the negative, the latter is surrounded by an envelope of light, but there is no sensible disengagement of gas, nor does the platinum wire become visibly heated. At the end of two or three minutes the luminous envelope disappears, an abundant disengagement of gas takes place at the two electrodes, and the platinum. wire at the same time becomes red throughout its whole length.

M. Planté employed also a secondary battery of 200 elements, the discharge current of which was equal to that of 300 Bunsens arranged in series. This battery may be charged in about an hour by two Bunsen's cells. When discharged through a voltameter containing a saturated solution of common salt, the negative electrode being first immersed, the approach of the positive wire into contact with the liquid determines the formation around it, with a roaring noise, of a small luminous globule of perfect sphericity. On raising

Quadrant Electrometer.—In the Journal de Physique (May, 1875), appears a short account by M. Terquem of a simple and inexpensive modification of Sir. W. Thomson's quadrant electrometer, which has been employed by Dr. Angot and others in experimental researches in statical electricity. This modification, though similar in many respects to that devised by the late Mr. C. Becker, differs from it in one important particular. In Becker's form the aluminium needle is maintained at constant potential by means of a Leyden jar, with the inner coating of which it communicates; of the brass quadrants one pair is connected with the earth, the other with the body whose electrical condition is to be studied. In the form used by Dr. Angot there is no Leyden jar, and the aluminium needle is suspended by a metallic wire. The quadrants are connected in opposite pairs with the two poles of a battery (zinc, water, copper)

of 100 elements, and thus always exhibit a constant difference of potential. The conductor whose electrical capacity or potential is to be investigated is connected with the wire carrying the needle, and the deflections of the needle observed and measured by means of a telescope and scale. The instrument so used gives constant and satisfactory results.

Changes Produced in Iron and Steel by the Action of Hydrogen and Acids. - Mr. W. H. Johnson has communicated the results of his experiments on this subject to the Royal Society (Proc. xxiii. No. 158). A piece of iron wire

which has been immersed for a few minutes in strong hydrochloric or dilute sulphuric acid becomes more brittle; a piece breaking after being bent once on itself, while before immersion it

could be bent backwards and forwards several

times without breaking. If the fractured part, while still hot from the effort of breaking, be wetted, it froths, bubbles of gas being given off from the whole surface of the fracture for thirty or forty seconds, making the water on the fractured surface appear to boil violently. It is remarkable that steel when treated in the same manner does not froth, though the action of acids on steel is more rapid and more marked than on iron. The toughness of steel, however, is greatly diminished by a short immersion in hydrochloric or sulphuric acid; so much so that ten minutes' immersion in dilute sulphuric acid will sometimes cause a coil of highly carbonised tempered steel to break of itself into several pieces while in the liquid. The apparent absence of frothing in the case of steel was ascertained by the author to arise from the bubbles of gas being so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. On microscopic examination, numbers of minute bubbles were seen to arise from the moistened fracture. The frothing is not due to oxidation, for the bubbles are still seen if oil be employed instead of water, and no matter how numerous the bubbles, the closest examination fails to show any formation of oxide. That hydrogen is the sole cause of these changes produced in iron, or inseparably connected therewith, is shown by the fact that only those acids which evolve hydrogen by their action on iron produce any change in iron or steel, nitric acid having no effect. Again, if acids be dispensed with altogether, and pieces of iron be subjected to the action of nascent hydrogen (produced by the electrolysis of water or caustic soda), the same results are obtained. A trial was made to ascertain whether similar effects could be obtained in iron by leaving it in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas. The result, however, showed that hydrogen is only occluded by iron when in the nascent state. Experiments were conducted with the view of determining the change produced in the breaking strain and ultimate elongation of iron and steel wires by hydrogen occluded in them after immersion in hydrochloric and sulphuric acids; the experiments show that the tensile strain both of iron and steel is diminished under these circumstances, but that the elasticity of steel wire is increased up to a certain limit. The electrical conductivity of iron wire is slightly diminished when it contains occluded hydrogen, as Graham also found in the case of palladium.

Superposition of Magnetic Layers in Steel.—In a recent number of the Comptes Rendus (lxxx., p. 417) is a notice by M. Jamin of experiments on the depth of magnetic layers and their superposition in steel. A steel rod was introduced into a steel tube, and the system magnetised in a helix, in which passed a galvanic current of gradually increasing strength. So long as the current was feeble it acted only on the tube, leaving the core in its natural state. When the current attained a certain strength magnetism began to be imparted to the steel core, and increased in intensity with the current strength, until it finally became what it would have been had the tube been absent.

It thus appears that the magnetism penetrates to a limited depth, which increases with the strength of the magnetising current. In another experiment the steel core was magnetised to saturation before insertion in the tube, and the combination magnetised in the opposite direction by a current of gradually increasing strength. So long as the current was feeble the original magnetism of the core was preserved; after a time, however, it was enfeebled and finally reversed. There is a time during this process when the combination of tube and core does not possess any apparent magnetism; it is not, however, in its natural state, for on separating the two parts of the system they are found to be oppositely magnetised. Neutrality is produced by their superposition. If a steel lamina which has been magnetised be put into dilute sulphuric acid, and withdrawn every half-hour in order to measure its thickness and the magnetism which it has retained, it is found that the latter diminishes, as of course it should, for the acid in dissolving the metal dissolves also the magnetism which it contained. If the lamina were uniformly magnetised throughout its mass, the ratio of the quantity of magnetisation to the thickness would remain constant; but it is not so. It is found that the magnetism diminishes to zero. It follows that the intensity of the magnetic layer on the two faces of the lamina decreases from the surface where it is a maximum, to a certain depth where it is zero. For a given kind of steel the magnetic layer has a maximum thickness, which cannot be exceeded whatever be the strength of the magnetising source.

Position of the Poles of a Magnet.-M. C. G. Müller (Pogg. Ann. cliv., p. 474) investigates the position of the poles of a long steel magnet of small cross-section in the following manner:The magnet (a magnetised knitting-needle, for example) is attached to two pieces of cork, so as to be perfectly horizontal and place itself in the magnetic meridian when floated in water. A fine-pointed iron wire is then approached vertically from above over one of the ends of the needle, which moves until the resultant of all the acting magnetic forces coincides with the direction of the iron wire. If now the wire be cautiously depressed it will touch the needle at the point of maximum attraction, i.e. at the pole. M. Müller's experiments show that for such magnetic needles, of given length, the poles approach the extremities as the thickness diminishes; that for needles of constant diameter, but varying length, the poles are nearer the extremities as the needle is shorter, but that the ratio of the distance of a pole from the extremity of the length of the needle is not

constant.

Polariscope.-In the June number of the Phil. Mag. Mr. Spottiswoode describes a new revolving polariscope. The instrument consists of a Nicol's prism, or other ordinary polariser, and a double image prism as analyser. The latter is so cut as to show one image in the centre of the field of view, the other excentric; and the peculiarity of the arrangement consists in giving to the analyser a rapid motion of rotation. If the speed attains eight or ten revolutions per second, the image will remain persistently on the retina during an entire revolution, and all the phenomena which are usually seen in succession will appear displayed simultaneously in a ring by the excentric image. The principle of the revolving analyser is applicable alike to a table polariscope for eye-observations and to one constructed for projection.

Zinc Electrodes.-It was shown by Du BoisReymond, in 1859, that amalgamated zinc plates in solutions of zinc salts exhibit no phenomena of polarisation. Patry afterwards showed that the solutions must be neutral. M. A. Overbeck (Pogg. Ann. cliv., p. 445) has made some experiments on the subject, employing currents of gradually increasing strength, the result of which is to show that amalgamated zinc electrodes are not susceptible to polarisation only when the electrolysing

current is weak, but that with a battery of five or six Grove's cells the zinc plates become polarised exactly as if they were platinum. M. Overbeck supposed that when the current is feeble the salt only is decomposed and not the water in which it is dissolved, but that with a more intense current the water itself suffers decomposition.

BOTANY.

Commelynaceae et Cyrtandraceae Bengalenses (paucis aliis ex terris adjacentibus additis).-Mr. Č. B. Clarke, M.A., the author of a big folio volume of plates and letterpress, bearing the preceding title, contributed a paper on the Commelynaceae of Bengal to the Journal of the Linnean Society (vol. xi. p. 438), in which he did something to clear up the complicated and perplexing synonymy of this group, from the study of living plants. Like most monocotyledonous plants, the Commelynaceae are difficult of discrimination and identification from dried specimens; but Mr. Clarke has drawn his distinctions from the number of cells and manner of dehiscence of the capsules, and from the number, form, and sculpture of the seeds; and if these characters are tolerably constant, the determination of species will be considerably facilitated by their elucidation. In the volume before us, which was published at Calcutta, the author reviews and figures the genera and species of this family found in Bengal. The plates represent ten genera and forty-two species, and were, with the exception of most of the dissections and magnified figures, executed by native artists. As might be expected, they leave much to be desired from an artistic point of view, but they appear to be tolerably faithful outlines, and compare favourably with Wight's Icones Plantarum-also by native artists. Their chief value, however, is in the figures of the seeds and capsules of the different species. The attachment of the ovules and their structure is

very remarkable; and the position and shape of racteristic. The surface of the testa of different the embryo and its cap-like covering are chaspecies presents a great variety of reticulations and markings, and the shape of the seed itself is equally variable. Nothing but the examination of a large number of specimens, both living and dried, can determine the constancy of the characters employed by the writer, but seeds as a garden varieties of many things are readily disrule furnish very trustworthy differences, and tinguished by their seeds. Hasskarl's "Genera Commelynacearum" (Regensburg Flora, 1866) mostly as sections. Pollia Aclisia and Aclisia here rank, that is the new ones proposed by him, indica were confounded by Mr. Clarke in the paper mentioned above, but he now recognises them as being abundantly distinct. A new monotypic genus, Amelina Wallichii, is described and figured. It is founded mainly upon the capsula regulariter bilocularis, bivalvis, oblonga, apice lata, truncata, fere bicornuta, and the semina in quoque loculo unica serie superimposita. draceae illustrated number forty-nine species, belonging to twelve genera, one of which Baeica, Anders. MSS., is new. It differs from Baea in having a four-valved capsule. whole, the figures of this family are not so satisfactory as those of the Commelynaceae, but, as the author observes, it rested between such as he is able to give us and none at all, and they will doubtless be of some service in working up the family.

The Cyrtan

As a

Flore Bryologique de Belgique.-The Bulletin de la Société Royale de Botanique de Belgique for May, 1875, contains the first part of a descriptive enumeration of all the mosses hitherto observed growing in Belgium, by M. Gravet. Although that country has not been thoroughly explored, nearly 400 species have already been discovered, and doubtless this number will be considerably increased by future discoveries. In the Flore Cryptogamique des Flandres of Kickx, published in 1866, only

164 mosses are described; therefore this contribution to Muscology will be specially welcome to those who interest themselves in the distribution of plants.

Economic Botany.-A new edition of the Official Guide or Handbook to the Museums of Economic Botany of the Royal Gardens, Kew, gives us an opportunity of referring to the rich collection of vegetable substances, both in the raw and manufactured states, to be seen at Kew. The first edition was compiled by Professor D. Oliver, and the additions and corrections to subsequent editions have been done by Mr. J. R. Jackson, the Curator of the Museums; and therefore, although by no means a complete catalogue of the objects exhibited, it is perfectly trustworthy, and contains most of the latest discoveries relating to the sources of valuable drugs, oils, fibres, &c. Thus: Trachylobium Hornemannianum is now known to be the tree that produces the copal of East Africa, Rheum officinale the source of some of the medicinal rhubarb, Euryangium Sumbul of sumbul, Broussonetia Kaempferi of the best quality of the paper mulberry fibres employed by the Japanese in an infinite variety of manufactures, and the true Esparto grass is said to be a species of Macrochloa, &c. An interesting scrap of information, too, is that canary-seed (Phalaris canariensis and other species) is now extensively used for feeding race-horses, as it contains a large percentage of nutritive matter unmixed with less desirable properties. A complete work on applied botany is, however, one of the greatest desiderata

in this class of literature.

The Potato Disease.-Mr. Eccles Haigh has published a small pamphlet on the cause and pre

vention of this dreadful malady, as well as of the now almost extinct "curl." Although this essay appears to be based upon some sound notions respecting the economy of plant-life, yet we regret, for the sake of the community at large, that we cannot join with the author in his sanguine belief that he has discovered the solution of a problem which has baffled all the scientific and practical men of our day. Mr. Haigh lays no claim to practical knowledge, and assuredly his scientific attainments have not stood him in good stead. He has full faith and confidence in a pet theory of the functions of nitrogenous matters in the economy of plant-life, and upon this hinges the utter fallacy, or otherwise, of his presumed cause and prevention. His assumptions and misconceptions fit in together admirably, nevertheless we shall be well pleased if experience show that we have misjudged his essay.

The Alliums.-Dr. Regel, Director of the St. Petersburg Botanic Garden, has recently filled up a very important gap in systematic botany, in a monograph of the large genus Allium, which he has just published. A very large number of the 256 species he describes are indigenous in Russian territory, or in countries bordering thereon, which have been very little explored except by Russian travellers. Hence Dr. Regel had far more complete materials at his disposal than could be found in any other establishment, and as compared with some other monographs from the same pen, the present is much more carefully and exhaustively worked out; and it is certainly a most welcome addition to the literature used by those employed in determination of species. But the author betrays some inconsistencies, which those who are acquainted with his previous writings will not be surprised at. His views regarding species and genera seem to undergo a change with each work he publishes, when we consider his monographs of Vitis, Tulipa, and other genera. Nothoscordium, regarded by some as a well-defined genus, he refers to Allium, not even according it the status of a section, for he says that although the majority of Alliums have only two ovules in each cell, in A. nigrum and its allies they are numerous.

ANTHROPOLOGY.

Natives of Western Australia. - Mr. John Forrest, on Tuesday last, brought before the Anthropological Institute an account of the natives of Western Australia, whom he visited. They are divided into two great tribes, called the

Jornderuss and the Ballavook, which are again divided into innumerable sub-tribes. These great tribes are exogamous; a Jornderuss may not marry a Jornderuss, but must take a Ballavook. Wife stealing is a constant source of quarrelling among them, and the women are frequently speared or killed. If a husband dies, his wife belongs to the oldest man of his family, who either marries her or gives her to some one else. The children always belong to the mother's tribe. These natives do not wash, but grease themselves with ochre to keep away the flies. Tattooing and marking on the shoulder and breast is almost universal among them, and the rite of circumcision is practised by all the tribes that Mr. Forrest met with, except those of the south-west corner of Australia. It is a religious ceremony, and the men and women part for a fortnight upon the

occasion of it.

The natives of the interior are entirely without clothing and suffer much from the cold. They sleep in the open, except in wet weather, when they build small huts. Mr. Forrest believes that they have a sort of belief in a Supreme Being, but can give very little information about him. In the south-west corner of Australia the name for father

and mother is the same as for god and sun. They do not believe in natural death, but always assume that some other native has been the cause of it, and frequently kill him for it. Cannibalism is common among the natives of the interior; their weapons are identical with those used in other parts of Australia.

Ethnological Papers for the Arctic Expedition.— Mr. Clements Markham, F.R.S., has contributed to the papers reprinted for the use of the Arctic Expedition, and published by the Geographical Society immediately previous to the departure of the Expedition, several notes on the origin and condition of the Greenland Esquimaux. Although the whole of the Esquimaux race may be regarded as one people, having its origin in Northern Asia, Mr. Markham believes the Greenland Esquimaux to have started from the banks of the Indigirka and Kolyma in Eastern Siberia, at a later period than their brethren who now inhabit the northern coast of America and Labrador. Between the eleventh and fourteenth century there was a great movement among the people of Central Asia. Shaibani Khan, a grandson of Jingiz Khan, led 15,000 families into the northern wilds, and their descendants, the Jakhuts, pressed on until they are now found at the mouth of the rivers falling into the Polar Ocean. But these regions were formerly inhabited by numerous tribes, which were driven away further north over the frozen sea. Mr. Markham gives evidence to show that between Cape Chelagskoy and Melville Island there is a bridge of islands, the existence of which is proved by the accounts of the natives, by the flight of birds, and by the position of the pack ice in this region. Across this chain of islands the aborigines of northern Siberia fled from their southern invaders, and traces of their subsequent migrations are to be seen in the ruins of Yourts, similar to those still existing in the neighbourhood of Cape Chelagskoi, on Melville Island, Byam Martin Island, Bathurst Island, Cornwallis Island, on the shores of Wellington Channel, and in North Devon. The whole of this chain of islands having been proved by recent explorers to be unfit for permanent habitation, the fugitives pressed on towards the east and passed over to Greenland by Smith's Sound. Here a portion may have turned northward into the region to be explored by the expedition. Others, known as the Arctic highlanders, are now found on the eastern shore of Smith's Sound, between the Humboldt and Mel

ville Glaciers, and others pass southward into southern Greenland. This part of Greenland, lying between Cape Farewell and Disko Island on the west coast, was colonised by the Norsemen under Erik the Red in the end of the tenth century. This colony continued to flourish for three cenvillages were built along the sea-shore, and Greenturies and a half, upwards of 300 small farms and land became the see of a bishop. During the whole of this period no indigenous race was seen in the land, and no one appeared to dispute possession with the Norman colony. But in the middle of the fourteenth century a horde of small men resembling those known to inhabit the coast of Labrador, whom the Normans called Skroellings, appeared on the extreme northern point of the settlement at a place called Kindelfjord, and eighteen Norsemen were killed in an encounter with them. News of the invasion having been sent to the eastern settlement of Norsemen, one Ivar Bardsen came to the rescue in the year 1349, but found that the whole of the western Norsemen had disappeared, and that the SkroellThis Mr. Markham ings were in possession. believes to be the final achievement of the Greenland Esquimaux in their wanderings from the northern shores of Siberia. The Arctic highlanders who constitute the remaining portion of

this horde are found between latitudes 76° and

790, on the verge of the unknown polar region. They are described as a good-humoured race, of small stature, with scanty beard and coarse black hair. They possess great strength and endurance, and are on the whole intelligent. They have no canoes, nor have they bows and arrows, but their habitations are built of stone, and resemble those found along the belt of islands through which they are supposed to have migrated, and are different from those of the Esquimaux of America, who live in snow huts. A considerable number of words in the language of the Greenland Esquimaux are identical with those of the Siberian tribes near the Gulf of Anadyr, such as the words

for sun, earth, water, fire, father, eye, head, and the numerals as far as five. The ethnological portion of the volume concludes by a series of questions drawn up by a committee of the Anthropological Institute for the use of the expedition.

Excavations in Cissbury Camp, near Worthing, Sussex.-During the past week excavations have been carried on in this camp by a committee of the Anthropological Institute, with the view of ascertaining the relative age of the entrenchment, and the pits sunk for the purpose of obtaining flints for implements. These pits occupy the slope of the hill in the interior of the fort on the west side, and also extend in a belt for about 200 yards on the outside. As none of the rings which mark the mouths of these pits cut into the line of the rampart, it was evident that if the pits were in existence before the rampart, all trace of them must have been obliterated by the latter, and it was therefore determined to excavate a portion of the ditch at the point of intersection of the rampart and the belt of pits above mentioned. The result has been the discovery of a pit in the bottom of the ditch, no trace of which was observable on the surface. This pit, or rather shaft, cuts into a portion of the escarp of the ditch in such a manner as to prove that it was constructed previously to the formation of the ditch, and it extends to about 6 feet beneath the latter. At the bottom several galleries were found branching in different directions by means of which the flints had been obtained from the chalk. The result of these excavations, although it has proved satisfactorily that this hill was the site of an extensive flint factory before it was occupied by the ancient Britons for the purposes of defence, has not as yet brought to light any satisfactory evidence of the date of either of these works. The discovery of a large collection of flint flakes about half way down in the silting of the ditch leads to the supposition that the entrenchment, although later than the camp, may still be of the neolithic

age, inasmuch as these flint flakes must have been deposited in their present position after the ditch had been partly filled up by the débris from the rampart. The excavations have been conducted under the superintendence of the president of the Institute, assisted by a committee of members, and will be renewed in July, when it is hoped that further evidence will be forthcoming.

MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Monday, June 7). SIR S. S. SAUNDERS, C.M.G., President, in the Chair. Mr. Briggs exhibited some bred specimens of Zygaena meliloti, bearing a strong resemblance to Z. trifolii, and mentioned several instances in which the offspring of Z. meliloti exhibited a taint of trifolii blood; he suggested that Z. meliloti might be only a stunted variety. Mr. McLach lan remarked that the insects of the genus hybridised very freely and alluded to their pairing several times. Mr. W. A. Lewis had noticed that Z. meliloti was by far the most common insect in the New Forest and as it appeared to have been only discovered of late years, it seemed to support the idea that it was only a stunted variety which had been recently developed there. Mr. Weir said that he had taken the insect twenty years ago in Tilgate Forest.

leaf on which were galls of Phylloxera vastatrix, Mr. McLachlan exhibited a portion of a vine the leaf having been recently plucked in a greenhouse near London.

The Rev. A. E. Eaton exhibited the insects which he had recently captured in Kerguelen's Island. There were about a dozen species belonging to the Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Diptera, beside some specimens of bird-lice and fleas. They were all either apterous or the wings were more or less rudimentary. One of the Diptera possessed neither wings nor halteres.

prasinana which, when taken, was heard to squeak Mr. Briggs exhibited specimens of Halias several times distinctly, and at the same time, a abdomen, was observed to be in rapid motion, and slénder filament, projected from beneath the two small spiracles close to the filament were distinctly dilated.

The President called attention to a larva which he had recently discovered at Reigate in the body of a stylopised female of Andrena Trimmerana, this larva having a long telescopic process at the anterior extremity, and two reniform processes behind, similar to Conops, an insect which had frequently been reared from Pompilus, Spher and Odynerus, and had also been met with in Bombus, although he had never before heard of its being

found in Andrena.

The Secretary exhibited some specimens of a minute Podura, forwarded to him by the Secretary of the Royal Microscopical Society, having been found on the snow of the Sierra Nevada in California.

Mr. F. H. Ward exhibited some microscopic slides showing specimens of a flea attached to the skin of the neck of a fowl.

Professor Westwood communicated a description of a new genus of Clerideous Coleoptera from the Malayan Archipelago.

Mr. McLachlan read a paper entitled "A Sketch of our present knowledge of the Neuropterous Fauna of Japan (excluding Odonata and Trichoptera)."

Part I. of the Transactions of the Society for 1875 was on the table.

ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON (Thursday, June 10).

PROFESSOR MIVART, F.R.S., in the eighth lecture at the Society's Gardens, treated of Kangaroos. He drew attention to the minute size and absolute helplessness of the young at the time of birth, and to the manner in which the mother's milk is