ii8 



NATURE 



[March 23, 191 1 



\ 



particular. This drug, introduced under the name of 

 " 606," is an organic arsenic compound (dioxy-diamino- 

 arsenobenzol), and has an almost specific curative effect on 

 diseases caused by spirillar micro-organisms, such as re- 

 lapsing fever and syphilis. For the latter a single dose 

 often suffices to cure, whereas the ordinarv nvrrurial 

 treatment must be continued for months. 



In a presidential address delivered before the Society 

 of American Bacteriologists, Prof. Veranus Moore pleads 

 for the inclusion of bacteriology in the curriculum of the 

 schools for the masses. He argues that information con- 

 cerning the cause of fermentations, the storing of nitrogen 

 in the soil, the causes of the changes in food-stuffs, and 

 the etiology of the common infectious diseases, is as 

 important, or the acquisition of such knowledge of as 

 much disciplinary value, as the study of the life-history of 

 the denizens of the deep as now required in many, if not 

 in most, biological courses. 



Wb record with regret the death of Lord .Mredale, on 

 March 16, at seventy-five years of age. Lord Airedale, 

 who was perhaps better known under his earlier name as 

 Sir James Kitson, devoted himself to the construction of 

 locomotives suited to the characteristics of the countries 

 for which they were required. He was president of the 

 Iron and Steel Institute from 1888 to 1890. In 1904 he 

 was awarded the Bessemer gold medal " for distinguished 

 services to the iron and steel industries of Great Britain." 

 The University of Leeds conferred upon him the degree 

 of Doctor of Science. 



The necessity of a systematic investigation of the pre- 

 historic antiquities in the Balkan Peninsula has been 

 impressed upon English scholars by the important results 

 which have already followed the partial examination of a 

 few of the more promising sites. It is now recognised 

 that this region holds the key to many problems beginning 

 from the early age of Greece and extending to the period 

 of the Byzantine and Bulgarian kingdoms. A new phase 

 of Neolithic culture independent of that of Crete has been 

 identified in Thessaly, and on the Adriatic coast the rela- 

 tionship between the Balkan peoples and those of southern 

 Italy, which is indicated by recent discoveries, needs 

 clearer definition. With the object of exploring these 

 regions, an influential committee of Oxford and Cambridge 

 scholars has been formed, with Dr. A. J. Evans as chair- 

 man. Prof. J. L. Myres as secretary, and Mr. Vincent 

 Yorke, The Farringdon Works, Shoe Lane, London, E.C., 

 as treasurer, who invite contributions to a project which 

 is sure to command the approval of all who are interested 

 in the prehistoric culture of the .i^gean area. 



The annual awards of the Royal Geographical Society 

 have been made as follows. The two Royal medals have 

 been awarded to Colonel P. K. Kozloff, who receives the 

 Founder's for his explorations in Central Asia since 1883, 

 and to Dr. J. Charcot, who receives the Patron's for his 

 expeditions to the Antarctic continent, first in 1903-5, and 

 second in 1909-10. The Victoria research medal has been 

 awarded to Captain H. G. Lyons, F.R.S., who was for 

 many years the Director-General of the Egyptian Survey 

 Department. During his tenure of office he carried 

 through the cadastral survey of Egypt. Captain Lyons is 

 at present lecturer in geography at the University of 

 Glasgow. The Murchison bequest has been awarded to 

 Dr. Wilfred Grenfell for his many years' work in 

 Labrador. The Gill memorial goes to Captain G. E. 

 Leachman, of the Royal Sussex Regiment, for the journey 

 he made last year in north-eastern Arabia. The Back 

 bequest goes to Dr. Arthur Neve, who has resided in 

 NO. 2160, VOL. 86] 



Kashmir for many years, and devoted himself to tlv 

 investigation of the Himalayas. The Cuthbert Peek fun'i 

 has been awarded to Mr. R. L. Reid, who, during his %\\ 

 years' residence in the northern portion of the Cong<- 

 State, carefully mapped the whole of the Mobangi River. 



We regret to record the death of Dr. Otto Puchstein, 

 secretary of the Imperial Institute of Archaeok>gy in Berlin, 

 and one of the leading authorities on classical archaeology, 

 especially in its relations to Western Asiatic culture. Dr. 

 Puchstcin, who was born in 1856, studied archaeology in 

 Strassburg, and it was while he was still at the University 

 that he undertook a careful examination of the Greek 

 inscriptions which had been brought back by Lepsius from 

 Egypt, his resulting dissertation obtaining him his doctor's 

 degree in 1880. His first journey in Kurdistan, which 

 largely determined the trend of his later studies, took pla. •• 

 two years later, when he was commissioned by the Berlin 

 .Academy to report on the tombs recently discovered by 

 Herr Sester, the engineer. The direct result of this re- 

 port was the organisation by the Academy of a more 

 important expedition to Asia Minor, on which Puchstein 

 accompanied Prof., Carl Humann and Prof, von Luschan. 

 The work recording the results of the expedition, entitled 

 " Reise in Kleinasien," and illustrated as it is from most 

 successful photographs, is still our principal authority for 

 the remains of Hittite art. In his brochure " Pseudo- 

 hettitische Kunst," and his suggestive studies of the 

 origin of the Ionic column, he made full use of his wide 

 acquaintance with eastern archaeology. Of his other 

 works, the most important were his monograph, in two 

 volumes, on the sculptures of Pergamon, and the work, 

 produced in collaboration with Dr. Robert Koldewey, on 

 the remains of south Italian and Sicilian temples. Since 

 1885, in addition to other duties, he had held the post of 

 assistant director of the Royal Museum in Berlin. 



In The Fortnightly Review for March, Mr. W. S. 

 Sparrow attempts to solve the problem how the primitive 

 round house became square and oblong. He traces this 

 transition from the period of the long barrows through the 

 bee-hive houses on the island of Skellig Michael in Kerrv. 

 The necessity, as agriculture developed, of forming a 

 winter shelter for cattle, led to the adoption of the oblong 

 shed, the ends of which were supported by the forked tree 

 known as gavel or crutch. This form of shed architecture 

 came gradually to be extended to the round family hut as 

 the needs of social life gave rise to the demand for larger 

 roofed structures, which could not be provided in the 

 circular building, and as the growth of the power of the 

 chief made it necessary for him to sit on a dais at some 

 distance from his retainers. The adoption of the crutch 

 as a roof support naturally led to the practice of doing 

 away with the curved spaces at the sides of the house by 

 flattening the outer wall, which, as in the lake village of 

 Glastonbury, then came to be made of long hurdles. 



Some of the papers in ser. 3, vol. xiii., of the Anales 

 del Mtiseo Nacional de Buenos Aires (of which we have 

 just received a complete copy), having been already noticed 

 in Nature as they were separately issued, it will suffice 

 to refer to an article on totemism, by Prof. L. M. Torres, 

 which forms the concluding portion of the volume. This 

 contains a long review and collation of the various theories 

 and opinions as to the origin, signification, and eflects of 

 the totem cult, together with the author's own views and 

 conclusions. 



In the course of a note on the local seals in The Irish 

 Naturalist for March, Dr. R. F. ScharfT states that a seal 

 which lived for some time in the Dublin Zoological 



