attributed it to his freewill, it then would, according to his necessitarian philosophy, have fallen, at least to a large extent, under the other alternative of nature. Indeed, the retort cannot but suggest itself that Mr. Galton's opprobrious epithet is more appropriate to those scientific men who praise their natural genius in the proportion of fiftysix to eleven, and blame their education in the proportion of forty-six to ten. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that this tendency on the part of scientific men to exalt their own gifts at the expense of their teachers should be referred to circumstances which are temporary and peculiar to this country. The almost universal acceptance by this class of persons of Mr. Herbert Spencer's hypothesis of hereditary transmission, the faults of the common education in England when they were young, and the opposition many of them experienced in early life, coupled with the question-begging form in which Mr. Galton framed his enquiries, have perhaps unconsciously caused a prejudice, a species of the idolon tribus, which leads them, especially in their own cases, to form a disproportioned estimate of the relative influence of the circumstances which have modified their careers. To strengthen this presumption, a curious fact may be mentioned, namely, that in the case of medical science, whose representatives are better trained in the art of diagnosis, and whose views of human nature are presumably wider than in the other sciences, 30 many as four out of seven state that their tastes were 66 decidedly not innate," whereas the general average is only eleven out of ninety-one. It may further be urged that personal reminiscences of early childhood form a very weak species of testimony; for in the majority of cases conscious memory only begins at a date when habit and parental influence have had time to lay the foundations of a second nature. Again, the phrase of "innate taste is very open to misconstruction, for in the physical sciences, with which alone Mr. Galton concerns himself, it may mean merely that curiosity about external objects and the operations of nature which may be observed in the majority of intelligent children, and which, with home encouragement and favourable circumstances, may be developed into various scientific aptitudes. Neither Mr. Galton nor his correspondents have sufficiently guarded themselves against the popular mistake which confounds, under the common name of "scientific," a special department of knowledge and a special habit of mind. Now for the former it may well be granted that the taste is innate, and the latter may in many cases be an hereditary gift; yet the two things have no necessary connexion one with the other, and it is precisely because Mr. Galton fails to draw fundamental distinctions of this sort, which lie at the threshold of his subject, that his formidable figures carry with them no con

viction.

Indeed, it is almost certain that no great

results can be obtained from such a method as that which Mr. Galton has adopted. The personal history of one hundred persons, however typical these persons may be,

can never furnish sufficient materials for statistics. To secure results of general

Pathshegen, Commentary on the Targum of Ongelos on the Pentateuch, by a French Rabbi of the Fourteenth Century; and Nethinah Lagger, a Commentary on the same, by Dr. N. Adler, Chief Rabbi. (Warsaw, 1874.)

The

validity, the investigation ought to be extended to other countries, to other times, and to other classes of persons. It was, perhaps, inevitable that Mr. Galton should restrict himself as he has done, because, as he argues, it is only with reference to Englishmen of his own time that he could hope to attain accurate information, THE reading of chapters of the Pentateuch and the subject-matter of science offered in the synagogues was a very early instituhim peculiar facilities; but this only proves tion, as is clear from Acts xv. 21: "For that his instrument of investigation can Moses of old time hath in every city them never be satisfactorily applied. The pecu- that preach him, being read in the synaliar merit of the statistical method consists gogues every Sabbath day." The Talmud in its being the sole method applicable where assigns its origin to the time of Ezra, and the causes are various, mutually conflicting, even dates it back to Moses. And indeed it and of irregular operation; its proper field is cannot be later than the time of the Macwhere the phenomena to be investigated are cabees, when the reading of prophetical indefinitely numerous and capable of being chapters was already introduced (see Zunz, quantitatively ascertained; and its peculiar Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge, p. 3). defect is that it cannot unaided teach us the pure Hebrew idiom, which was spoken in a highest kind of causes, but merely a low kind very small district only during the time of of uniformities. Now Mr. Galton has adopted the first Temple, was nearly forgotten by a method which is nothing if not statistical, those who returned from Babylon. "And regardless of all these peculiarities, and in their children spake half in the speech of his hands it has become a mere simple Ashdod, and could not speak in the enumeration of a few affirmative facts, not Jewish language, but according to the accurately described, nor balanced by nega- language of each people" (Neh. xiii. 24). tive examples, and upon them he has based Very soon, therefore, the necessity was a law of causation of the first magnitude, at felt for interpreting the sections read in least for practical purposes. In the first In the first the synagogues in the language of the sentence of this book he explains that "its common people, which was the Aramaic; intent is to supply what may be termed a and this is the origin of the Targum in Natural History of the English Men of Palestine and Babylon, as also that of the Science at the present day," and within the Septuagint in Alexandria. The Pentateuch limits of this narrow definition its object having been read in its entirety, either yearly may be said to be satisfied. Yet in other as we find it in use later in the schools of passages he expresses, in equally clear lan- Babylon, or in a cycle of three years or of guage, the opinion that his results are more three years and a half as is said to have been than a mere description of a small class, and the case in schools of Palestine, we may that he has really achieved what he terms safely say that the Targum of the Pentateuch "the Sociology of Scientific Men," and has is, to some extent, the oldest remnant of the ascertained their general "pre-efficients." earliest translation of biblical books; next to Such a result, which would no doubt be of it comes that of the prophetical chapters inestimable value, can never be obtained read in the synagogues. Was the early inwithout a deeper appreciation of the problem, terpretation of the chapters only a literal a more subtle analysis of its elements, and a translation as we see it in the Samariwider range of view. tan Targum, or did the interpreter add

But if this problem is destined to be ever fully solved, it may be confidently suggested that its solution will give no support to the theory of education which Mr. Galton recommends in the last pages of his volume. The scientific men of the future, who are to form "a sort of scientific priesthood," are to be rigorously instructed in the five following subjects, and in these only: (1) Mathematics, and especially its utilised processes. (2) Logic, with the same proviso. (3) Some one special branch of science. (4) Accurate drawing of objects connected with that science. (5) Mechanical manipulation. When such is the practical conclusion at which Mr. Galton arrives, as deducible from the confessions of scientific men concerning their own general education, the outside world may well be permitted to doubt whether the chief representatives of physical science in this country are good judges of the means by which their own subjects may be best advanced, and whether

Mr. Galton's method can bear to be tested by the appeal to its necessary results.

JAS. S. COTTON.

in many cases a kind of commentary, or at least a paraphrase? This cannot be decided positively; the Targum in its present state, however, represents the latter method, which at all events must have been adopted as soon as the serious study of Scripture began. Scripture began. There was certainly no interpreter by profession at the time when the institution of reading and interpreting was introduced; anyone who was capable of doing so was called on to perform this duty for the instruction of the people. "And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read" (Luke iv. 16, seqq.). It is therefore more than probable that there was a variety of translators and of translations, of interpreters and interpretations, which were handed down by oral tradition for a long time; when, however, the necessity was felt of committing these views to writing, a kind of Masoratic school arose which endeavoured to obtain a unity of text in the interpretation of Scripture, as was the case previously with Scripture itself. This text is called the Targum of Onqelos, a name which probably represents a corrupted pronunciation of the Greek trans

lator Akilas, whose name was so popular that the Aramaic translation, put together from various versions, was attributed to him. Dr. Adler is perfectly right when he says in the preface to his commentary that the two translators are by no means identical; we differ only from him in taking the Talmudic tradition, which makes Onqelos the nephew of the emperor Titus, as purely legendary. The importance of this translation is well known, and it is indeed astonishing that, in spite of the use which the early Jewish commentators made of it, and of the fact that it was read every Sabbath after the section of the Pentateuch by every orthodox Jew, there is no earlier commentary on it than the present one by an anonymous French Jew and published from MSS. existing in the Bodleian Library, and in the National Library at Parma. It is no doubt of the highest value for the criticism of the socalled Onqelos, for the author made use of an old Masorah on this Targum, which is perhaps the same as that of which the late Professor Luzzatto published a fragment which is now reproduced by Dr. Adler. We have therefore great pleasure in announcing its publication by the learned Chief Rabbi in the edition of the Warsaw Pentateuch of 1874, with a small preface in which are given all possible indications that could help to find out the anonymous author. Dr. Adler has added to this his own commentary on Onqelos, wherein are contained: (a) grammatical remarks; (b) various readings of the text collated with MSS.; and (c) references to Talmudic interpretations agreeing or disagreeing with the Aramaic translation, and also to Rabbinic commentators who quote this Targum. No doubt the last two points are of importance for anyone who will undertake a critical edition of the Targum based upon other MSS. The elaborate introduction contains details of the life of

Onqelos and the method followed by him in the translation. We have already mentioned that, in our opinion, no such person as Onqelos ever existed, though Dr. Adler keeps for the sake of orthodoxy to the Talmudic tradition. As to the method employed by the translators, we may say that it is well described and deserves to be trans

lated into a modern language, for, after all, Rabbinic is accessible only to a few. It is to be regretted that the Polish printers are so careless in their corrections, for the numerous misprints in the commentary often disturb the reader, and are put by him to the account of the editor or author; we know, however, by experience, that no notice is. taken of corrections by printers either in Poland or in Germany. We should have desired for the benefit of the public that the learned Chief Rabbi should have published the two commentaries separately; many persons already possess an edition of the Rabbinical Bible, and cannot afford to buy another copy for the sake of two unpublished commentaries, be it even on such an important translation as the so-called Onqelos is. But this we hope will be remedied hereafter.

AD. NEUBAUER.

Elementary Lessons in Historical English Grammar. By the Rev. Richard Morris, LL.D., Hon. M.A. Oxford, &c. (London: Macmillan & Co., 1874.)

FROM its tough and technical character has come a call that the best English Grammar-which Dr. Morris's Accidence confessedly is should be simplified and shortened; and in answer to that call the present_Elementary Lessons has been produced. But this new book is not only the old one cut down; it is rewritten from beginning to end, is arranged more simply, is less crowded with details, and has a set of new and most apt quotations and illustrations, many of them from the yet unpublished sheets of the Four-text edition of the Early English Cursor Mundi which Dr. Morris is now editing for the Early English Text Society. Thus, under naught, not, we find the proof of these words coming from no whit, not a whit:—

"Sco said, ne herd yee na wight hou."-Cotton

MS. 1. 4396.

"He went forth, and further sogt."-Trinity MS. "He went forth and ferder soght."-Göttingen MS. proving the derivation of adown from of The Cursor also supplies good instances doun, the auxiliary use of do early in the fourteenth century; with other good instances like the "clouden piler" and the 'firen piler" of the Exodus, &c. Parallel texts are a godsend to the historical grammarian; and the substitution of their evidence for the guesses of grammar-mongers is a national benefit.

Under the verbal noun in ing, proof is rightly given that in such a phrase as "he in origin a participle, but a noun; witness thanked him for saving his life,” saving is not "Thonkyng him for the saving of his life."-Gesta Rom., p. 7.

"In knowing of the tid of day."-Chaucer, Astrolabe, p. 19.

66

he is to blame" are rightly shown to be And under the Infinitive, such phrases as gerundial. All through, the book is up to All through, the book is up to the latest points. It is written by the best of our Early English scholars, who is at the same timea long-practised and skilful teacher. It is very clearly printed and well arranged; and as it costs only half-a-crown, it ought to way into every school and family in the kingdom, if only to correct the mistakes and supply the defects of the ordinary popular grammars, so far as their accidence is concerned.

find its

F. J. FURNIVALL.

REFORM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN.

The New Academic Council. THE new Academic Council has at last been chosen, and considering the curious principle of election adopted, the University has reason to congratulate itself on the result. As cumulative voting was permitted, it follows that if, of the seven senior Fellows electing four representatives, any two, even the least desirable, had agreed to plump in turn for one another, they might retura one

another perpetually on the Council. This curious result, however, has not taken place.

The Board (of Senior Fellows) have returned the three ablest and most efficient of their number, reserving the fourth place for Mr. David Pigot, a Roman Catholic barrister, and a man of known probity and honour. There was some difficulty in finding a Roman Catholic to sit, as he must (1) be willing to face the opposition of the Ultramontane party in his own Church, and (2) he must not have declared himself for denominational education. Almost every Irish Roman Catholic M.P. had done so for election purposes, so this "right honourable" body was ineligible Fawcett's non-sectarian principles. for a Council professedly elected to work on Mr.

The junior Fellows, following suit, elected Sir Robert Kane, late President of the Queen's College, Cork, together with three of their own body. Šir R. Kane is undoubtedly pledged against denominational education, but he is said to have neglected

his duties in Cork, and this, if true, is not a good guarantee for his efficiency on an unpaid Council in the later years of his life. The junior Fellows chosen are not perhaps those that might have been anticipated. But they are able men, and will doubtless do their duty well.

The Professors have elected two medical menas might be expected from the large number of medical professors on the electoral body-and for the other two places, Dr. Salmon and Mr. Dowden, two men not inferior to any in the University. On the whole, it is likely that the professors are more ably represented than any of the other electoral bodies.

The outside members of the Senate, an heterogeneous body, for the most part non-resident, and of Meath, an ex-Fellow and professor, and a man only allowed to vote by a mistaken analogy with Oxford and Cambridge, have selected the Bishop intimate with University life, not only through himself, but through his brilliant sons at Trinity, Cambridge. They have further selected three decided mal-contents, or at least" reformers "— Dr. Robert MacDonnell, a medical men of eminence, and the author of various pamphlets on master, thoroughly acquainted with the teaching education; Mr. Monck, a distinguished resident of the College; and last of all, the Rev. Dr. Reichel, Senate, and formerly a Professor of Latin in a noted debater in the Church Synod and the Belfast. These gentlemen will adequately represent the feeling which demands large changes in views forcibly-perhaps even, we fear, eloquently, the University, and they will put forth their council of education. for surely eloquence is not desirable in a working

The duties of this new Council are important, but circumscribed. They will have in their hands

the control of the studies-the most important branch of University government, and one in which the existing Board, if not inefficient, has been at least somewhat timid and dilatory. They will also have the duty of recommending professors for vacant chairs. But the actual election of professors, as well as the administration of revenues,

rests as before with the Provost and seven senior Fellows, who are the trustees of the Corporation, and who could not have been deposed without new Acts of Parliament, if not without a new Charter. Thus collisions between the old Board and the new Council are possible, but not likely, if the Council is made up of such men as those now elected. For, beside the Provost and three senior Fellows, the oldest member of each of the three other divisions may be regarded as conservative in University matters, and these seven votes, including that of the chairman, are pretty certain to be given against violent changes. Nor are there more than three declared Radicals, in the same sense, now sitting on the Council.

As to professions, it is remarkable that the medical profession has three representatives, whereas the bar has but one-a fact doubtless attributable to the absence of any emolument attached to seats

on the Council. Had there been good salaries, the Irish bar would probably have secured a large majority.

As to the study of arts, mathematics are admirably represented by Dr. Salmon, Dr. Hart, and Mr. Jellett; but it is much to be regretted that the classical school has not secured any leading voice. Considering the recent development of this school and its good promise, this defect may be regarded as the most serious to be found in the new Council. We will not say that all its present members think themselves unable, or are unable, to offer a sound opinion upon classical matters; but the fact remains that no professor of classics in the University has been elected upon the present Council. It is also to be regretted that, in one case at least, political reasons made themselves felt, and that votes were given rather to aid a canvass than to promote the studies of the college.

We have thus discussed the merits of the new Academic Council very freely, as it is desirable that it should begin its task without excessive favour or prejudice on the part of the public. It has some defects in its constitution: it has also great merits. The election of some gentlemen because they were Roman Catholics, though it was thoroughly opposed to non-sectarian principle, and theoretically absurd, was yet practically demanded by the cry that for generations to come no Catholic could sit among the governors of the University. That cry is now silenced. When it has died away and been forgotten, we hope that the electors will also abandon the principle of electing men because of their religion, and look merely to ability and experience in the conducting of education. Meanwhile it must be confessed that Trinity College, Dublin, as the University is usually and justly styled, has made no mean progress towards the solution of the vexed problem, which has baffled great statesmen, and troubled the security of more than one government. It may not be amiss to point out in conclusion that this wise and peaceful reform is wholly due to the firmness and determination of Mr. Fawcett, who through good report and evil report, through Conservative opposition and Liberal opposition, through Protestant objections and through Catholic, held fast undaunted to his sound principle; nor do we think that any living politician may look back with equal pride upon a tedious and hard fought, but all the more glorious, victory.

SCIENCE NOTES.

BOTANY.

it treats. For upwards of half a century Mr. Bentham has laboured in systematic botany, and the nature and extent of the work accomplished are sufficient to ensure him a patient hearing. In none of his admirable addresses to the Linnean

Society, probably, is there so much food for thought for the aspiring naturalist; and as a history of the development of systematic botany during the last fifty years, in a concise form from personal knowledge, the present is of great practical use. The two or three pages devoted to a consideration of the limits of orders, genera and species, in so far as they are affected by the doctrine of evolution, are worthy of the special study of those persons who have been so terribly perplexed and shocked at the advanced notions of some biologists.

Foreign Botanical Periodicals for December. The Botanische Zeitung contains the conclusion of Dr. Stoll's paper on the formation of the callus in cuttings, and the two first parts of an article on the history of the germination of Cyclamen, by Dr. Gressner, in which the author examines not only the morphological, but likewise the histological changes which the embryo undergoes. Bulletin de la Société Royale de Botanique de Belgique-Notes on the Florule of Kraene-Poel, one of the few undisturbed spots left to Belgian botanists, by E. Vander Meersch; "Primitiae Monographiae Rosarum," by François Crepin-this occupies fifty and is only one of several, contributions on the same subject. It is a great pity that writers on critical forms should be so copious, and at the which otherwise must remain useless to those who same time neglect to summarise their labours, do not make a special study of the same group. M. Crepin here treats of some Asiatic species, devoting the space mentioned to the consideration of eleven species. The last number of the Linnea to hand contains the continuation of Böckler's "Cyperaceae of the Berlin Herbarium," and "Novitates Bryothecae," by C. Müller.

pages,

THE Botanical Magazine for December and January contains figures of some very interesting plants, in addition to the Rheum previously mentioned. Fuchsia procumbens is a very remarkable and anomalous-looking species from New Zealand,

where two or three outliers of this otherwise

We have received the prospectus of a graph of the Genus Lilium, by Henry J. Elwes, F.L.S., illustrated by W. H. Fitch, F.L.S. It is to be of folio size, uniform with Mr. Bateman's monograph of Odontoglossum. It will be issued in guinea parts, each part containing eight plates; the work to be completed in six parts. We have THE Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, much pleasure in announcing the appearance of Part II. No. ii. 1874, contains the first part of such a work, and we have little doubt from the some contributions towards a knowledge of the hands it is in that it will be well carried out. Burmese flora, by S. Kurz. This portion extends Now is the time for the publication of a monoto one hundred pages, and includes the Polypetalae, graph of the Lilies, for, thanks to the united labours up to the end of the Geraniaceae, and will doubtof various botanists, the species of this magnifi- less prove of considerable service to botanists encent genus have recently been reduced to some-gaged upon the Flora of India. thing like order. Specimens will shortly be exhibited at the various learned societies of Lon

American genus are found. This is an elegant trailing species with apetalous flowers. Boucerosia Maroccana is a new species of this curious genus, one of the numerous new plants found by Dr. Hooker and his companions on their Morocco expedition. A strikingly beautiful species of the Australian genus Eucalyptus, E. cornuta, is reMono-presented on tab. 6140. The flowers are borne of the calyx is of a brilliant red. When the in dense heads, and the long horn-like operculum operculum falls, the numerous long slender yellow of a bird of paradise. stamens spread out and fall over like the plumes

don and elsewhere. Intending subscribers should communicate with H. J. Elwes, 6 Tenterden Street, Hanover Square, London.

We are glad to see a reprint, from the Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1874, of Mr. Bentham's valuable address on the "Recent Progress and Present State of Systematic Botany," because it merits the attention of all students of biology, and because it is more especially calculated to imbue the mind of the young botanist with sound and philosophical ideas respecting the science of which

MR. ARCHER Contributes an article to the last

part of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science on Apothecia occurring in some Scytonematous and Sirosiphonaceous Algae, in addition to those previously known, or lichenous fructification on algae. This is no new discovery, except so far as the species are concerned, but in the present state of the algo-lichen theory everything bearing upon the subject is read with interest. Mr. Archer was unable to detect spermogonia in the specimens bearing the apothecia, though he, as well as Bornet, had previously found them in Ephebe pubescens, an organism formerly associated with the same group.

AN excursion by the Scottish Botanical Alpine Club to the Aberdeenshire and Forfarshire mountains in August last, resulted in the discovery of two species of plants new to the flora of Britain, as we learn from the Journal of Botany. The plants in question are Carex frigida and Salix Sadleri, the latter a species new to science: both were found near Loch Chander (Ceann Moor), Aberdeenshire, by Mr. Sadler.

THE tenth volume of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England contains, among other matters, an interesting report on the agriculture of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, by Professor J. Wrightson, from which we glean the following particulars. The study of the systems of agriculture practised in the vast plains of Hungary occupied the principal portion of the reporter's time. Some idea of the extent of these almost perfectly level expanses may be formed from the fact that the Alföld, or plain of Lower Hungary, alone comprises an area of 37,400 square miles. The two plains of Upper and Lower Hungary embrace the whole of the tiefland, or deep land; and the soil throughout is a rich black mould overlying water-worn gravel. It is apparently an alluvial deposit, formed by the rivers Danube, Theiss, Drave, and their tributaries. The natural fertility of the soil is frequently injured by the efflorescence of soda-salts on its surface, especially in Lower Hungary, where immense tracts of flat land are thus rendered unproductive, forming the plains of natron between Arad and Debriczin. Hedges or any other visible divisions of the land, except the long lines of acacia trees which usually bound the nobleman's estate, are entirely absent.

One of the most interesting features in the cultivation and ownership of the land is the existence of distinct communities, forming isolated These villages are survillages or hamlets. rounded by the land belonging to the inhabitants, each of whom is a free proprietor. Each house is detached and exactly resembles the next, and having seen one village you know the general features of hundreds. It is termed peasant farming, each member owning and cultivating a portion of the parish (gemeinde), grazing his stock on the common" proper surrounding the arable part of the land, and finally gathering his crops and stock around him at his homestead. Towards evening, the herds of cows, long-haired goats, and woolly swine are driven back to the village for the night, each turning in at its own gate, not to come out again until the herdsman's horn echoes through the village in early morning.

Professor Wrightson says it is difficult to give an idea of the Hungarian village to one who has not seen it. It is ushered in by a pond, evidently The road runs through the little town, but no formed by excavating for clay to build the houses. attempt appears to have been made to improve it, the entire space between the two rows of detached white thatched cottages being used as such. Once through the village, which ends, as it began, with a shapeless pond, you are in the open country, partly pasture, but more generally arable, in a and rye stretch away on all sides. The next feamore or less imperfect state of cultivation. Wheat ture to arrest the eye may be a belt of single trees, which, on coming up to it, you find to be the boundary of a large estate, where, in the place of peasants, are the stewards and labourers of the Count, pursuing a systematic course of agriculture. These domains and peasant lands alternate. The estate is usually better cultivated and yields better crops, and is laid off into square fields of from twenty-five to forty acres each, defined by grass drives, bounded on either side by trees. The value of land in Hungary is rising, but neither skill nor capital has yet been brought to bear upon the greater part. The price usually ranges from 141. to 281. per acre, according to quality and situation; and it is let at from 21s. to 288., or even 358. per acre.

In the Theiss district the land will grow wheat year after year without manure. In fact, manure

can only be applied for rape, Indian corn, or other crops, as wheat grows too luxuriantly after dung dressing. A curious fact connected with the culture of tobacco is mentioned by Professor Wrightson, to the effect that sheep do very well upon it in a green state as a forage crop.

The feudal system was abolished in 1848, and the serfs became free allodial owners. The whole area of Hungary is pretty equally distributed between great proprietors and peasants. Some large landholders would be very glad to let portions of their estates to good English and Scotch tenants on liberal terms. Most of the vast estates are in the hands of their owners, and thus, where in England we should have hundreds of independent tenant farmers, millers, smiths, coal-owners, brewers, &c., we have all concentrated and worked as it were for the benefit of one individual. One of the estates belonging to the Archduke Albrecht alone comprises 164,200 acres !

AFTER having been at work for upwards of two years, the Sub-Wealden Exploration Committee has determined to abandon their celebrated boring, and to commence working afresh upon an entirely new bore-hole in the immediate vicinity of the old one. Since the unfortunate accident of dropping the boring-tool, to which we referred some months ago, the work has been completely at a stand-still; the time having been consunied in fruitless attempts to extract the lost auger, and to remove the rubbish which has fallen into the borehole. A careful survey has proved that the 1,000 feet of bore is out of the perpendicular by a few inches, and the attempt to remove the obstruction has therefore sorely tasked the engineer ing resources of the Diamond Boring Company. In the face of these difficulties it was decided, at a meeting of the committee held at the Museum of Practical Geology on Friday the 15th inst., that no more work should be spent upon the old boring, but that a new bore-hole should at once be begun. It had been proposed to line the original bore to a considerable depth, at a cost of about 400.; the Diamond Boring Company has now undertaken, we believe, to sink the new borehole to the depth of 1,000 feet at the moderate cost of 6007., so that after all the bold step just taken will entail an additional outlay of only about 2007. It reflects great credit upon all concerned in this work, and especially upon the honorary secretary, Mr. Willett, that the enterprise should be carried on with such spirit; for one could hardly have been surprised, considering the unexpected difficulties of the case, if the committee had decided to altogether abandon the experiment. Let us hope that the Netherfield bore-hole No. 2 may be more successful than its ill-fated predecessor.

Der Naturforscher (December 19) gives an account of experiments made by Herr Moritz Traube on what he calls "inorganic cells," which were suggested by Graham's discoveries in dialysis. If a drop of gelatine solution is acted upon by gallic acid, so that a film of a leathery substance is formed round it, an artificial cell is produced; and this when placed in a weaker solution of gelatine will swell and exhibit a physical growth through the endosmose that takes place. Cells with these artificial membranes will have a tendency to thin out at the top, their lower parts being thicker from the downward gravitation of the particles, and as fresh fluid enters by endosmose the weakest part will be most stretched. The existence of these conditions in plant cells will favour their upward growth. Herr Traube succeeded in forming cells of different materials, and in imitating many physical processes of growth. The enlargement of the cells in his experiments differs materially from the extension of a soap-bubble by blowing more air into it. He observes phenomena of intussusception analogous to those of plant-cells. The enveloping membrane of his cells is formed by chemical precipitation, which stops when the

M. BECQUEREL observes that among the physico-chemical forces influencing organic functions, the electro-capillary forces are the most important, and that in order to produce them nothing more is required than permeable tissues separating two liquids of different natures, which find in the organism the conditions necessary for their production. Arterial blood leaving the left auricle of the heart, before becoming venous blood, traverses capillary vessels which bring it in contact with muscles covered with exuded liquids. Electrocapillary actions are thus excited, subserving to their nutrition and growth. In a series of experiments, arterial and venous blood were brought into contact with various liquids, such as bile, urine, wine, grape-juice, and sugar solution charged with carbonic acid, and both were found negative in relation to the liquids; and it may be supposed that the same thing occurs when arterial blood in the capillaries comes in contact with the liquid exuded by muscles. The direction of the electro-capillary currents is such that the interior walls of the capillaries are the positive electrodes of couples functioning as chemical forces, and their exterior walls negative electrodes. There is thus oxidation in the interior of the capillaries, and reduction on the side of the muscles. The interior of a muscle is usually negative in relation to the fluids that moisten its external surface: the electro-capillary currents proceed from the inside outwards, and this direction gives oxidation within and reduction without.

In fruits such as grapes, apples, pears, and in roots, as potatoes, carrots, and turnips, there are similar electro-capillary currents. In contact with water, the interior parts are constantly found to be positive. Thus, when fruits are moistened, their interior layers next to the external tissues tend to ceaseless oxidation; salt water produces opposite effects.

Before electro-capillary currents were known, it was supposed that in transmitting an electric current, for medical purposes, into the interior of an organised body, no electro-chemical action would ensue unless solid bodies, such as wires, conducted the electricity, and served as electrodes. Now, however, it is known that an infinitely thin layer of liquid adhering to the walls of a permeable tissue behaves like a metallic film in electro-chemical decompositions, and we may conceive such actions taking place in organisms, and producing very complicated results. (Comptes Rendus, December 7, 1874.)

M. MEGNIN, writing on the transport of virus and propagation of disease by certain flies, points out that the mischief is effected by those which have penetrating mouth-organs, and not merely suctorial organs, as the common blow-fly. Some flies of the genus Stomorys were observed at the camp of Gravelles feeding on the matter of an erysipelatous gangrene on a horse's leg. The proboscis of a fly so engaged contained a liquid in which the bacteria of putrescent fermentation could be seen with a microscope, and inoculation with a proboscis in that state produced voluminous ecthyma. In 1863, a gnat (Simulium) was supposed to have occasioned a severe epizootic by the action of its own poison, and M. Tisserant, a veterinary professor, to whom was confided the duty of investigating the disorder, came to this conclusion. M. Mégnin says he only saw half the truth: that the gnats did transport the poison, but got it first from animals that were affected. He exclaims, "it is certainly in the same way that the Tsetze acts." This may be, but it is not proved by experiments on other flies. M. Mégnin's paper is in Comptes Rendus, December 7, 1874.

MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES.

NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY (Friday, Jan. 8). F. J. FURNIVALL, Esq., Director, in the Chair. The names of ten new members were announced. The thanks of the Society were voted to H.R.H. Prince Leopold, Vice-President, for his present to each member of a copy of the Parallel-Text Quartos of Romeo and Juliet, 1597, 1599; to Mr. P. A. Daniel for editing the same, and the separate reprints, for the society; to Dr. Ingleby for 370 copies of his Still Lion; and to Mr. Furnivall for 500 copies of his Introduction to Gervinus, for the members of the Society. The paper read was by Dr. E. A. Abbott, on "The First two Quartos of Hamlet, 1603, 1604." Dr. Abbott contended nothing of Shakspere's that was not in the second that the incomplete Quarto of 1603 contained Quarto of 1604, and did not therefore represent an earlier state of the play, although it did contain large alterations of Shakspere's work by the Pirate who arranged for press the incomplete notes and recollections of the play shown in the the second Quarto. These alterations were due to the Pirate's desire to make the play more of an acting, and less of a philosophical one. Mr. Furnivall could not persuade himself that the very different view of Hamlet's mother taken by Q1, a view of such great importance in regard to the motive of the play, was due to the compiler of Q1. The change from her innocence in Q1 to the doubt of it in Q2 was Shakspere's change. He believed that Shakspere first partially recast the old Hamlet, and that that recast was, more or less, represented by Q1. Mr. Simpson also held that Q1 represented the old Corambis Hamlet as partially recast. The change of names in Q2 showed it. When Q2 was produced, then the old play would be printed, with, possibly, portions of the new play inserted. Other cases of this occurred. Dr. Nicholson and other members also contended that Q1 represented an earlier version of the play than Q2. Dr. Abbott admitted that he had perhaps assigned too much to the Pirate in attributing to him the changes-almost recasts—of the characters of the Queen and King, &c.; these were perhaps due to the old play; but he still doubted whether Q1 contained more than one line worthy of Shakspere which was not in Q2. The meeting asked Dr. Abbott to print his paper, though he had said he would not do so.

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ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY (Monday, Jan. 11). AT the meeting of the above body, an interesting letter from Colonel Long, who is attached to Colonel Gordon's expedition in Equatorial Africa, was read. Writing under date October 2 from Gondokoro, he stated that in April last he started to visit Mtesa, King of Mganda, and after thirtyeight days of painful marching reached his destination, where he was received with pomp, and made a stay of twenty-nine days' duration. After some days' delay, he succeeded in obtaining leave to return by the Victoria Nile (Somerset). launched his canoe upon the lake, emerging from Murchison Creek, and found it (the lake) to be from twenty-five to thirty-five feet deep, and the opposite shore from twelve to fifteen miles distant. The superstition of the natives prevented him from reaching Urondogani by way of the Ripon Falls, and he returned to Mtesa. Robbed of his baggage and deserted by his porters, he determined to make for the river, and after two days' incessant rowing reached a lake about twenty-five miles wide, which formed apparently a great reservoir of the waters of the Victoria Nyanza and of the surrounding plateau. After defeating 400 men of Keba Rega, he reached Foweira, near the Karuma Falls, on August 20, in a sorry plight, and finally arrived at Gondokoro on October 18. He had persuaded Mtesa to send his ivory to Gondokoro instead of to Zanzibar, and with the idea of further developing Egypt's monopoly of ivory, Colonel Gordon

intended soon to launch one steamer on the Albert Nyanza, and another to work up from Foweira to the Victoria Nyanza.

The next paper read was one by Captain Elton, giving an account of the country between Dar-esSalan and Kilwa, which he had traversed while in search of slaves held by British Indian subjects. This paper afforded ample proof of the continued activity of the land routes of the slave traffic and its concomitant horrors.

had

The last paper was read by Major Erskine on a voyage made by his son in South-East Africa. The journal forming the groundwork of the paper been written from memory and from the notes of M. Dubois, Erskine's interpreter, the original with the observations having been lost in a flood. In consequence of a deputation from Umzila, king of the Gosa, asking for protection for trade, Mr. Erskine and M. Dubois started in a schooner in June, 1871, and after some difficulty with the Portuguese Governor at Delagoa Bay, made for the interior. The abolition of the slave trade has depopulated Inhambane and Delagoa Bay, but legitimate trade is fast restoring prosperity to both. The Tongas, who inhabit this region, are industrious, and possess agricultural and manufacturing abilities. One of the chiefs was persuaded that Erskine's advent heralded the occupation of the country by the British, and was delighted at the idea. Erskine observes, with reference to the navigation and commerce of the great Limpopo river, that it is difficult of entry, has sixty miles of navigation, and flows through a fine alluvial valley fifteen miles broad, while its productions are hides, horns, native gums, ground nuts, &c. It is close to Leydenburg, in the Transvaal country, where bread-stuffs are grown as well as wool, and the distance to the new Gold Fields is 170 miles. He devotes a large portion of his narrative to an account of the Umzilas country and of his stay there. Since his return to Natal, he has started for a fourth expedition, and, according to last advices, had reached Delagoa Bay, where he is collecting ivory.

LONDON AND MIDDLESEX ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Monday, January 11).

THE Rev. Thomas Hugo, M.A., V.P., in the Chair. Mr. F. A. Burt exhibited Roman and mediaeval pottery recently obtained from excavations in Giltspur Street, City. Mr. C. Roach Smith, F.S.A., a Romano-Celtic bronze sword, dug up near Broadway Tower, in Gloucestershire; a similar weapon, though of inferior size, discovered some time since near Royston, was contributed by Mr. Thomas Milbourn. Mr. J. E. Price, honorary secretary, read a communication from Mr. C. Roach Smith, F.S.A., setting forth the claims of the late M. de Caumont, of Caen, upon English antiquaries. A statue to this distinguished man is about to be erected at Bayeux, and it is probable that many fellow-labourers in this country will wish to co-operate in the work. To M. de Caumont may be assigned the foremost place in popularising archaeology as we now see it through France and England." As a young man he took an active part in the formation of the Society of Antiquaries of Normandy, and in 1834 he conceived and established for a wide field of action the Société française d'Archéologie. "The Revolution at the close of the last century had destroyed or injured many of the finest ecclesiastical monuments; scarcely any of the cathedrals and churches had escaped its ravages; while other valuable remains of ancient art had also suffered. In spite of the efforts of M. Guizot and other enlightened men, vandalism remained rampant. M. de Caumont saw that nothing but a widely extended union of the national educated intellect could counteract the evil, and, unassisted by State patronage, to the nation he appealed. The result was the Société française d'Archéologie, and simultaneously the Bulletin Monumental, a bimonthly illustrated journal, which at the time of the death of its founder and editor had completed

"His great work, the Cours d'Antiquités Monumentales, extending from the year 1830 to 1844, comprises six volumes and six atlases. It embraces the Celtic and Gallo-Roman eras, religious architecture of the Middle Ages, military and civil architecture, and baptismal fonts, altars, tombs, paintings on glass, frescoes, enamels, and wainscoting. The Abécédaires, in octavo, four volumes, are, as termed, the rudiments of Archaeology." A graceful and pleasing memoir of M. de Caumont has been published in the Bulletin by his successor, M. de Cougny.

An interesting paper on "The Grammar School at Barnet, Herts," was read by the Rev. F. C. Cass, M.A. A coloured drawing of a wallpainting existing at Earl Stonham Church, in Suffolk, was exhibited by Mr. Golding, and described at length by Mr. John G. Waller.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE (Tuesday, Jan. 12). PROFESSOR BUSK, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. Mr. T. I. Hutchinson, late H.M's Consul, Callao, read a paper on "The Anthropology of Prehistoric Peru." The paper commenced with a notice of how little is known up to the present time about the glorious days of Peru, long before the time of the Incas-agreeing with Mr. Baldwin as to the original South Americans being the oldest people on the Continent. The grandeur of colossal work in the extent of the ancient burial mounds was shown by illustrations. A comparison of these, examined by the author in Peru, was made with those explored by Messrs. Squier and Davis in the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. The prehistoric architecture of Peru, described by Professor Raimondi in his recent work on the mineral riches of the department of Ancachs, were mentioned as highly interesting; more particularly the tombs cut out of solid blocks of diorite in the valleys where sandstone is the geological character, thus proving the enormous capacity for work of the ancient Peruvians in transporting these stony masses over the Andes. So small was the author's faith in Spanish accounts of South America, that he inclined to the belief in some future explorer finding the mythical "cradle of the Incas " in the National Library at Madrid instead of in the lake of Titicaca, to which latter place it is assigned by the Hakluyt Society.

A paper, by Dr. George Dobson, was read "On the Andamans and Andamanese." After giving a sketch of the geographical position of the Andaman islands, and their geological and zoological relations to the Asiatic continent, the author passed in review the various theories that had been propounded by eminent biologists to account for the origin of the Andamanese. He strongly inclined to the views of Mr. Wallace and of M. de Quatrefages that the Adamanese are Nigritos, or Samangs from the Malay Peninsula, and was opposed to the theory of their descent from shipwrecked African negroes, on the ground rather of the dissimilarity of their manners and customs than of their physical characteristics. It was impossible, however, to account for the presence of the wild tribes of Southern India, or of the peculiar Samangs of the interior of the Malay Peninsula, surrounded by races with which they have no connexion whatever, except on the hypothesis that they are the few surviving descendants of a woolly-haired people which in ages past occupied lands south of the Himalayas when the continent of Asia included within its southern

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Wednesday, January 13). J. EVANS, ESQ., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. In a paper "On the Kimeridge Clay of England," the Rev. J. F. Blake traced the lithological and palaeontological characters of this formation as it stretches across the country, with interruptions, from Dorsetshire to Yorkshire. The sections exhibited in Lincolnshire have been specially studied by the author. He believes that our Kimeridge Clay admits of division into an Upper and a Lower group of beds, but that no Middle group, such as England. The Upper Kimeridge series consists is found on the Continent, can be recognised in chiefly of bituminous paper-shales, reaching a thickness of upwards of 600 feet; while the Lower Kimeridge is formed mainly of a great mass of clay, perhaps nearly 400 feet in thickness. Below the true Kimeridge Clay there occurs a thin series of sandy beds, well exhibited near Weymouth, and termed by the author the "Kimeridge When the Coral Rag is Passage Beds." absent, as in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, these had entered into a critical examination of the transition beds also disappear. After Mr. Blake Kimeridge fossils, a new Chelonian from the Kimeridge Clay the oldest yet discovered in Britain-was described by Professor H. G. Seeley under the name of Pelobatochelys Blakii. Mr. A. Gault and Greensand," in which he advocated the J. Jukes-Browne read a paper "On the Cambridge view that the thin nodule-bed, so valued for the of the Chalk Marl. In the absence of true Upper sake of its coprolites, should be placed at the base Greensand, the coprolite-bed rests directly upon phosphatised fossils of the nodule-bed appear to an eroded surface of Gault Clay. The rolled and have been in large measure derived from the Upper Gault, while other fossils, less altered, seem to be species proper to the Chalk Marl. The author has carefully studied the invertebrate fauna of this debateable deposit, and has effected considerable revision in the list of fossils. Ammonites Tatricus (Pusch), an ammonite new to Britain, recently found in the Oxford Clay of St. Ives, Huntingdonshire, was exhibited by Mr. J. F. Walker, of York.

PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY (Friday, January 15). HENRY SWEET, Esq., in the Chair. A paper was read by F. T. Elworthy, Esq., on "The Dialect of West Somerset," which he treated particularly with reference to its pronunciation and grammar. The reader maintained that dialects are not disappearing so quickly as is generally supposed; that although words are constantly dropping into disuse, new ones are as certainly taking their places; and these, from having the stamp of the dialect impressed upon them, seem to hand down unaltered the archaic pronunciation. It was asserted that the Quantocks and Taunton are the limits of the districts of East and West The Western Somerset, and not the Parret. dialect had been but little studied, and was comparatively little known, although it was much richer in vocabulary and more expressive in speech than the East Somerset.

The reader pointed out the probable Normanism in the difference made in the sounds of zay, day, paay, maay, and in carefully going through the vowels, he gave no less than six distinct sounds for the diphthong ea.

Final compound consonants were nearly always reduced to simple ones, and the hard dentals and labials constantly softened.