MISCELLANY. 



781 



interest was recently made at Cervetri, 

 Italy, being a terra-cotta sarcophagus of 

 native Etruscan production. The ancient 

 Etrurians were noted for the honor they 

 bestowed upon their dead, and their custom 

 of paying homage to ancestors by placing 

 their effigies upon their tombs seems to 

 have been peculiar to themselves, and un- 

 known among the Greeks. The recently- 

 discovered sarcophagus is now in the British 

 Museum. It measures internally four feet 

 ten inches in length, and two feet in width. 

 The floor is hollowed out, or rather marked 

 by a raised border, which takes the form 

 of a human figure. It rests upon four claw 

 feet projecting beyond the angles, and ter- 

 minating above in the head and breasts of 

 a winged siren. The lid of the sarcophagus 

 represents an upholstered couch upon which 

 recline two human figures, male and female. 

 There are inscriptions on the four sides of 

 the couch. The panel at the foot has the 

 figures of two warriors in panoply, and the 

 front panel exhibits the same pair of war- 

 riors engaged in mortal combat. Several 

 accessory figures are also to be seen. On 

 the panel at the head of the couch are rep- 

 resented four sitting figures in opposing 

 pairs, plunged in deep sorrow. The monu- 

 ment has no counterpart among those of its 

 kind hitherto discovered, the only one at 

 all resembling it being that of the Campana 

 Collection in the Louvre. The latter is, 

 however, of a much more recent date than 

 the former, nor is it adorned with either 

 reliefs or inscriptions. The Cervetri sar- 

 cophagus probably dates from the period of 

 Etruscan ascendency in Italy. 



Audible and Inaudible Sounds. The 



phenomenon of color-blindness is a familiar 

 fact ; but an analogous phenomenon, what 

 might be called pitch-deafness, though not 

 uncommon, is not so generally known. By 

 vitch-deafness is meant insensibility to cer- 

 tain sound-vibrations. Prof. Donaldson, of 

 the University of Edinburgh, used to illus- 

 trate the different grades of sensibility to 

 sound by a very simple experiment, namely, 

 by sounding a set of small organ-pipes of 

 great acuteness of tone. The gravest note 

 would be sounded first, and this would be 

 heard by the entire class. Soon some one 

 would remark, " There, 'tis silent," whereas 



all the rest, perhaps, would distinctly hear 

 the shrill piping continued. As the tone 

 rose, one after another of the students 

 would lose sensation of the acute sounds, 

 until finally they became inaudible to all. 



There is reason for supposing that per- 

 sons whose ear is sensitive to very acute 

 sounds are least able to hear very grave 

 notes, and vice versa. Probably the hear- 

 ing capacity of the human ear ranges over 

 no more than 12 octaves. The gravest 

 note audible to the human ear is supposed 

 to represent about 15 vibrations per second, 

 and the sharpest 48,000 per second. 



The auditory range of animals is doubt- 

 less very different from that of man ; they 

 hear sounds which are insensible to us, and 

 vice versa. Many persons are insensible to 

 the scream of the bat it is too acute. But 

 to the bat itself that sound must be in all 

 cases perfectly sensible. If, then, we sup- 

 pose the bat to have an auditory range of 

 12 octaves, and its scream or cry to stand 

 midway in that range, the animal would 

 hear tones some six octaves higher than 

 those audible to the human ear two and a 

 half million vibrations per second. 



Scoresby and other arctic voyagers and 

 whale-hunters have observed that whales 

 have some means of communicating with 

 one another at great distances. It is prob- 

 able that the animals bellow in a tone too 

 grave for the human ear, but quite within 

 the range of the cetacean ear. 



The Motions of the Dealt. According 

 to the generally-accepted teachings of phys- 

 iologists, the heart rests after each pulsa- 

 tion ; that is, each complete contraction 

 during which the auricles are emptied into 

 the ventricles, and the ventricles into the 

 vessels, is followed by a moment's repose, 

 when the organ is entirely at rest. Dr. J. 

 Bell Pettigrew, in his recently-published 

 lectures on the " Physiology of the Circula- 

 tion," takes a different view, affirming that 

 the normal action of the heart is a con- 

 tinuous one, and that as a whole it never 

 ceases to act until it comes to a final stop. 

 He says : " When the heart is beating nor- 

 mally, one or other part of it is always mov- 

 ing. When the veins cease to close, and 

 the auricles to open, the auricles begin to 

 close and the ventricles to open ; and so on 



