POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



861 



Then the bees in ay predict a storm when the 

 instruments indicate fair weather, and the 

 bees will prove the truer prophets. Prof. Era- 

 merig cites eight or nine incidents that have 

 occurred under his own observation within 

 three years, where the bees and the weather- 

 glasses failed to agree as to what the day's 

 weather should be, and the bees carried 

 their point. 



Capacity of Native Siberians. — N. Jad- 

 rinzen, who has recently published a book 

 about Siberia, expresses in it favorable 

 opinions respecting the capacity of the natives 

 of that land to receive civilization and of 

 their promise of talent. The Samoyeds, ac- 

 cording to School-Inspector Abramov, are a 

 quite capable people, and their children show 

 themselves proficient in mathematics. The 

 remarkable natural talents and wonderful 

 vital energy of the Tunguscs are set forth by 

 MiddendorfF. The Yakuts have been distin- 

 guished from the olden time for their clever- 

 ness, and take readily to civilization. The 

 Kirghis have furnished a considerable num- 

 ber of able men, and are distinguished for 

 their strong wit and rich fancy. The Altaians 

 are not less gifted in religious intuitions and 

 mental faculties ; and missionaries have given 

 accounts of very intelligent persons among 

 them. The Tilents and black Tartars show 

 decided inclinations toward civilization and 

 a settled life. The Sarts and Tartars are 

 sharper traders than even the Russians. M. 

 Jadrinzen hopes that the newly established 

 University of Tomsk, as its activity and 

 sphere of usefulness extend, will awaken 

 these people out of the torpor and hopeless- 

 ness into which they have fallen, to a new 

 life of enterprise and advancing knowledge. 



Rnnning Amok. — One of the most curious 

 and unaccountable manifestations of human 

 aberrations is in the Malay custom of running 

 " amok." It breaks out, apparently, under 

 the impulse of a momentary passion, but ap- 

 pears to depend, in the Malay's mind, upon 

 a kind of belief that the act is the proper 

 thing to do. In other words it is a conven- 

 tion. An instance of the frenzy recently 

 occurred at Singapore. A Malay hadji, a 

 "personal conductor" of pilgrimages, re- 

 ceived a message from Mecca announcing the 

 death of his daughter. He instantly decided, 



to appearance, that it was not worth while 

 under the circumstances for any one to live 

 longer, and, drawing his creese, stabbed the 

 owner of the house. A boy who was present 

 ran away and bolted the door outside. The 

 frenzied Malay escaped by the roof, went 

 into another house, stabbed two women, re- 

 turned to the street, killed a Chinaman, 

 attacked some other persons, and was finally 

 knocked down with a pole by a native police- 

 man, after having wounded six persons and 

 killed three in a very few minutes. lie soon 

 calmed down, and, when asked why he had 

 acted thus, answered that he did not know. 

 Mr. Frederick Boyle, in one of his books on 

 savage life, describes his emotions when he 

 saw amok coming upon a Malay servant wiio 

 was in the woods with him, and the frantic 

 passion stealing over his eyes, apparently 

 without any occasion whatever. 



The Matrix of the Diamond. — The rock 

 — a porphyritic peridotite — in which the 

 diamonds of South Africa arc contained, has 

 been microscopically examined by H. Carvill 

 Lewis, and found to be one of the most basic 

 rocks known, having a composition of equal 

 parts of olivine and sei'pentine impregnated 

 by calcite. In this structure and in some 

 other points it presents some analogies with 

 meteorites. It constitutes a new rock-type, 

 for which the name Kimberlite is proposed. 

 It probably occurs in several places in 

 Europe, and is known in Elliott County, Ky., 

 and at Syracuse, N". Y., in the United States, 

 at both of which places it is eruptive and 

 post-carboniferous, and similar in structure 

 and composition to the Kimberly rock. In 

 most other diamond localities, where the 

 gems are found in diluvial gravels and con- 

 glomerates of secondary origin, the original 

 matrix is hard to discover ; but in Borneo, 

 diamonds and platinum occur only in those 

 rivers which drain a serpentine district, and 

 in Timor Laut they also lie in serpentine dis- 

 tricts. In New South Wales, serpentine oc- 

 curs near each locality where there are dia- 

 monds, and the same is the case in the 

 Urals. Diamonds have been found in the 

 Carolinas, where peridotite occurs in great 

 beds and serpentine is abundant. All the 

 facts thus far collected indicate serpentine, 

 in the form of a decomposed eruptive peri- 

 dotite, as the original matrix of the diamond. 



