278 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bly, however, a play upon names is con- 

 nected with these conditions ; and the dance 

 called the tarantella, which is in great favor 

 in Italy, may have derived its name in the 

 same way as the great spider, simply from 

 the fact that it is indigenous to the Taren- 

 tine province. The tarantula insect will 

 bite, like any spider, when it is trodden 

 upon ; but that its bite is more dangerous 

 than the sting of the hornet has not been 

 proved. It is still customary in Apulia to 

 make one dance who thinks he has been 

 bitten by a tarantula. Waldemar Kaden 

 relates that he was disturbed once by the 

 noise of music and dancing, and that look- 

 ing out he saw a youth, who was supposed 

 to have been bitten while asleep in the 

 field, going through the performance. The 

 poor fellow was in the center of a circle of 

 persons of all ages, held by the collar and 

 arms by a strong peasant, and compelled 

 to make the motions whether he would or 

 not, while the crowd kept him excited with 

 their shouts and clapping. The great point 

 to be gained was to make him sweat, and, 

 when this was brought about, the crowd 

 rejoiced and gave him a glass of wine. The 

 only mark on the youth was a red spot on 

 the forehead that might have been a scratch. 

 He had never seen a tarantula, and felt no 

 pain or uneasiness, and was out at play an 

 hour after the dance. Eerr Kaden inquired 

 of the people how many of them had been 

 tarantolati. Not one of them had ever seen 

 a tarantula, but they had all danced ! Die 

 Natur. 



The British Association. The meeting 

 of the British Association for 1883 was held 

 at Southport, beginning September 19th. 

 The President for the year was Professor 

 Cayley, whose address on the " Obligations 

 of Mathematics to Philosophy, and to Ques- 

 tions of Common Life," though it may have 

 been to minds trained in mathematical modes 

 of thought an admirable presentation of the 

 subject, was far too abstruse to be capable 

 of popular adaptation. Professor Ray Lan- 

 kester opened the Biological Section with 

 an address, urging greater liberality on the 

 part of the state in encouraging the prose- 

 cution of biological studies. He drew a 

 comparison decidedly unfavorable to Eng- 

 land with what is done in this line on the 



Continent, especially in Germany, and, 

 dwelling on the practical utility of such 

 studies, declared that forty new biological 

 institutes, requiring a capital sum of about 

 two millions sterling, were needed in Eng- 

 land. The section suggested the founda- 

 tion of a marine laboratory at some point 

 on the British coast, as a suitable object to 

 which the surplus of funds anticipated from 

 the Fisheries Exhibition could be applied. 

 Dr. Gladstone's address in the Chemical Sec- 

 tion was on "The Elements," and covered 

 the history of the theories that have pre- 

 vailed and the knowledge that has been 

 gained on the subject ; and showed that 

 we have much yet to learn upon it. Among 

 the more important papers read in this sec- 

 tion was that of Professor A. W. William- 

 son, " On the Constitution of Matter." Pro- 

 fessor W. C. Williamson, as Vice-President, 

 gave in the Geological Section " a clear and 

 concise exposition" of our present knowl- 

 edge of the carboniferous flora. By the 

 doctrine of evolution, there must have ex- 

 isted prior to the Devonian period, when the 

 cryptogams were flourishing in wonderful 

 grandeur, and distributed all over the earth, 

 a vast succession of forms of vegetable life ; 

 yet hardly a vestige of this pre-Devonian 

 flora has been unearthed ; and it is clear 

 that we are not yet in a position to construct 

 a genealogical tree of the vegetable king- 

 dom. Colonel Godwin- Austen addressed the 

 Geological Section on the orography and 

 geology of the Himalaya Mountain system ; 

 and Mr. Trelawney Saunders explained the 

 scheme for connecting the Mediterranean 

 with the Red Sea by means of a navigable 

 canal through the valley of the Jordan. A 

 communication was received in this section 

 from Mr. Stanley, advising the establish- 

 ment of a British protectorate over the Con- 

 go. Mr. Pengelly, of the Anthropological 

 Section, having the discoveries in Kent's 

 Cavern as his subject, adduced new evi- 

 dence in favor of the belief in glacial or 

 even pre-glacial man. Professor Hcnrici, 

 in the Mathematical Section, spoke of the 

 position of the study of geometry in Eng- 

 land. In the Mechanical Section, Mr. Brun- 

 lees, engineer, traced the growth of mechan- 

 ical appliances for the construction and 

 working of railways and docks. In his 

 address he referred to the assistance Mrs. 



