POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



57i 



Egypt, in Philistia, and Phoenicia ; M. Cot- 

 teau is making his way through Russia and 

 Siberia to Japan. M. Wiener is traveling 

 through South America ; M. Pinard, having 

 done some work in Alaska, is engaged in 

 California, New Mexico, and Arizona ; and 

 M. Charnay is digging in the ruins of the 

 ancient cities of Mexico. In Europe, M. 

 Georges Pouchet is studying the glacial 

 fauna of Norway; M. Dieulafait is inves- 

 tigating the formation of rock-salts and 

 gypsums in Switzerland ; M. Milne-Edwards, 

 as the head of a commission, is about to 

 engage in deep-sea researches in the Medi- 

 terranean ; and several parties are exploring 

 the Alps and the Pyrenees. 



Is the Moon red-hot? Mr. W. Mat- 

 tieu "Williams believes that the surface of 

 the moon has an intrinsic brilliancy of its 

 own, and a temperature much greater than 

 is usually supposed. He expresses the opin- 

 ion, in effect, that the surface of the moon 

 is, as it appears to be in eclipses, " of a dull- 

 red heat, and that this high temperature is 

 due to the action of the sun's rays striking 

 it directly, without any intervening shield of 

 aqueous vapor or other atmospheric mat- 

 ter. If the volcanic tufa, of which the 

 moon's surface is evidently composed, re- 

 sembles the corresponding material on our 

 earth, it is one of the best absorbers of heat 

 and the worst of conductors. This being the 

 case, the uninterrupted glare of the sun's 

 rays would produce its maximum possible 

 effect on a thin film of the moon's surface. 

 . . . "We must remember that a dull copper- 

 red heat, just visible in the dark, is consid- 

 erably below the temperature of red heat 

 visible in daylight. Supposing the color of 

 the moon to be due to such heat, I should 

 estimate its surface temperature at a little 

 above 600." Lord Rosse, estimating the 

 surface temperature of the moon, concluded 

 it was about 500. Mr. Williams was led to 

 his conclusion by watching the appearance 

 of the moon during the totality of an eclipse. 

 When the partially eclipsed moon rose, the 

 shaded part displayed a full copper-red col- 

 or ; a3 the eclipse progressed, this advanced 

 to a darker or more obscure copper-color ; 

 then the redness gradually faded, and the 

 shaded portion of the moon grew darker 

 and grayer, until at last it became of a dark 



slate-color ; and its outline or limb was 

 barely traceable toward the end of the 

 eclipse. In some elementary treatises this 

 copper-color is attributed to " the refraction 

 of the sun's light by the action of the earth.'* 

 Mr. Williams fails to see how this can oper- 

 ate in the middle of the shadow, where the 

 color is the most decided, and why it should 

 fade as the eclipse progresses, and finally be 

 lost just at the outer edge of the shadow. 

 The fading is easily accounted for on Mr. 

 Williams's hypothesis, as the result of the 

 rapid cooling of the lunar surface on the 

 withdrawal of the sun's rays. The reason- 

 ing that ascribes so high a temperature to 

 the side of the moon presented to the sun 

 must lead to the conclusion that the dark, or 

 night side, is intensely cold. 



The Original Home of the Aryans. 



Dr. Fligier argues in " Kosmos " that the 

 theory of the Asiatic origin of the Aryan 

 race is not yet as firmly settled as has been 

 supposed. Latham disputes it on geograph- 

 ical grounds in his "Native Races of the 

 Russian Empire." Pictet believes, on the 

 evidence of the names of animals and plants 

 that were known to them, that they origi- 

 nated farther north than the Asiatic theory 

 supposes, and fixes their birthplace in South- 

 ern Russia. Benfey and Professor Tomas- 

 chek, of Gratz, agree with him, and indicate 

 the region of the southern Volga as their 

 primary home, whence they may have spread 

 to the Carpathian Mountains on the west, 

 and to the marshes of the interior and the 

 Ural on the east. Bogdanoff has found 

 dolichocephalous skulls of the recognized 

 type of the German giant-graves in the Kur- 

 gans of Moscow. Resemblances between 

 Finnish and Aryan and between Magyar and 

 Iranian words indicate that those people 

 were respectively neighbors to each other 

 in their old times, as might have been the 

 case if the theory of the European origin of 

 the Aryans is true. Dr. Fligier believes that 

 the results of linguistic, anthropological, and 

 archaeological researches indicate that the 

 Indians and the Iranians lived near each 

 other for a long time in Eastern Europe or 

 Northwestern Asia, and that the Indians 

 followed the Iranians into Asia. That this 

 happened at a comparatively late period is 

 presumed to be shown by the fact that these 



