464 



NATURE 



\Sept. 21, 1876 



I cannot say that I can see any signs of that unless it be in the 

 development of that virtue of hospitality which prevails among all 

 savages. Another feature I have observed which fills me with a 

 certain amount of shame, when I think of what is going on in our 

 country. I have visited your great Universities of Yale and Harvard, 

 and have seen how your wealthy men contribute to scientific institu- 

 tions in a way to which we are totally unaccustomed in England. 

 The general notion of an Englishman who becomes rich is to 

 buy an estate and found a family. The general notion of an 

 American who becomes rich is to do something for the benefit 

 of the people, and to found an institution whose benefits shall 

 flow to all. I need hardly say which I regard as the noblest of 

 these two. It is commonly said there are no antiquities in 

 America, and you have to come to the Old World to see the 

 past. This may be, so far as regards the trumpery of 3,000 or 

 4,000 years of human history. But, in the larger sense America 

 is the country to study antiquity. I confess that the reality 

 somewhat exceeded my expectations. It was my great good 

 fortune to study in Newhaven the excellent collection made by 

 my good friend. Prof. Marsh. There does not exist in Europe 

 anything approaching it as regards extent and the geological 

 time it covers, and the light it throws on the wonderful problem 

 of evolution which has been so ably discussed before you by 

 Prof. Morse, and which has occupied so much attention since 

 Darwin's great work on species. Before the gathering of such 

 materials as those to which I have referred, evolution was a 

 matter of speculation and argument, though we who had adhered 

 to the doctrine had good grounds for our belief. Now things 

 are changed, and it has become a matter of fact and history. 

 The history of evolution, as a matter of fact, is now distinctly 

 traceable. We know it has happened, and what remains is the 

 subordinate question of how it happened. I wish you all good 

 speed, and that this Association, like its sister in Great Britain, 

 will sow the seeds of scientific inquiry in all the towns it visits, 

 and thus help on the great good work." 



On Tuesday the proceedings of the Iron and Steel Institute 

 were formally opened at Leeds, Mr. W. Menelaus, President, in 

 the chair. The choice of President for the ensuing Session has 

 fallen upon Dr. C. W. Siemens, F.R.S. The geological features 

 of the neighbourhood of Leeds was the subject of an interesting 

 and valuable paper by Prof. Green, F.G.S., of the Yorkshire 

 College of Science, read by the Secretary. The paper was 

 descriptive of the various geological formations of the district, the 

 coal measures and the iron deposits being specially referred to. 

 Referring to the coal mines of the district, he observed that there 

 was an area of forty square miles upon which no coal had as yet 

 been raised, although it was well known that coal-seams existed 

 beneath the surface. A very small proportion only of the York- 

 shire coal-fields had as yet been worked, a large area remaining 

 untouched which contained the vast store of coal for future use. 

 A paper was read by Mr. Dove, junior, on the North Lincoln- 

 shire Iron District. The author described the new iron district 

 of North Lincolnshire, the centre of which is Frodingham. It 

 appears the district has only been known for the past fifteen 

 years, during which time its rise and development have been 

 steady and rapid. The question of the open versus close-topped 

 blast-furnaces was then discussed. Mr. J. Lowthian Bell, M,P., 

 observed that as far as economy of fuel in the smelting process 

 was concerned, there was not much to choose between the two 

 systems in ordinary practice ; where the real economy lay in close- 

 topped furnaces was in the utilisation of the gases from the fur- 

 nace for heating '^the steam boilers and the stoves. Mr. John 

 Jones, the secretary of the Institute, then read a paper on tech- 

 nical education in connection with^the iron trade. He observed 

 that the great hindrance which had hitherto,been experienced in 

 dealing with technical education had been the unsatisfactory 

 condition of primary education] in England. Most of the time 



of the meeting during the week will be occupied in visiting the 

 various industrial establishments in Leeds and neighbourhood. 



Among the papers read at the Oriental Congress, in addition 

 to those already mentioned, are the following : — Mr. Smirnow 

 read an account of a Turkish MS. in the University Library of 

 St. Petersburg, "On the Mythology of the Asiatic Peoples." 

 The age of this MS. he thinks to be the 17th century. Prof, 

 de Rosny then discussed with much learning and at considerable 

 length the comparative philology of the languages vaguely styled 

 Turanian, the meaning and application of which term he criti- 

 cally investigated. He thought there was as safe a basis for the 

 scientific classification of these tongues — comprising the Chinese, 

 Japanese, Tatar, Finnish, Basque, &c. — as there was acknow- 

 ledged to be for that of the Aryan and Semitic languages. M. 

 Slovstof read an interesting paper on "The History of Public 

 Instruction in Western Siberia," and M. Neumann one on the 

 Tchouktchis, a generic name for three different peoples who 

 inhabit the whole of North-East Siberia — viz., (i) the Rennes, 

 (2) the Aigwanes, (3) the Nammolo. M. Sobruk, an Ostiak 

 gentleman, read a memoir of great interest on the idols of his 

 people and the Voguls, which, however, were no longer wor- 

 shipped in public, or at least very rarely. Those which exist 

 are confined to the huts of the believers. M. Solovief gave an 

 ethnographical survey of the Samoied tribes of Siberia. Mr. 

 Bonnell introduced the subject of the Scytho-Sarmatians and 

 other inhabitants of the coasts of the Euxine, whose for- 

 tunes and history he elaborately traced in the pages of 

 successive chroniclers, beginning with Herodotus. A com- 

 munication by M. Schmidt, of Gevelsberg, after tracing the 

 origin of Egyptian civilisation to Mesopotamia, from which 

 it migrated to the Nile across ' the ' Persian Gulf, by way of 

 Arabia and Ethiopia, was chiefly interesting for the attention 

 he drew to the striking analogies in the languages of the Ameri- 

 can tribes with those of the Armeno-Caucasians, which were 

 altogether too intimate, too frequent, and too decided to allow 

 of the entertainment of any hypothesis of accidental similarity. 

 From this suggestive line of thought M. Schmidt passed on to the 

 consideration of the ethnological antiquities of the Medes,the bulk 

 of whom he believed to be an Iranian people. M. Oppert developed 

 his ideas upon the cuneiform texts written in the language of ancient 

 Armenia and called Armeniac, but having no affinities with the 

 language known as Armenian. M. Sachau strongly urged the 

 importance of studying the scientific literature of the Arabs, 

 and praised most warmly the services rendered to such studies 

 by the publications of the St. Petersburg Academy, instancing 

 the translation of Abderahman al Sufi's "Description of the 

 Fixed Stars." Many other subjects of importance, mainly re- 

 lating to the traditions, mythology, history, and literature of the 

 varied peoples of the vast Russian territory, were discussed. 

 The Congress will hold its next meeting at Florence. 



The paper by Mr. J. A. Broun "On Simultaneous Variations 

 of the Barometer" {Proc. Roy. Soc, No. 171, 1876), is remark- 

 able as raising the inquiry whether there may not be other causes 

 of varying atmospheric pressure than change of the mass of air, 

 in other words, whether the attraction of gravitation be the only 

 force concerned in the barometric oscillations. It is shown from 

 observations made at places in Europe^ Asia, Australasia, Africa, 

 and America during the week March 31 to April 5, 1845, t^^t 

 all the curves exhibit a maximum near the beginning and another 

 near the end of the week, with a minimum near the middle, and 

 it is inferred that we have here an indication of the general action 

 of the same cause of barometric variation over the earth. Since 

 it would be impossible to over-estimate the importance of the 

 point here raised if it should turn out to be correct, we shall 

 look forward with much interest to the further investigation ol 

 the subject promised us by Mr. Broun. In this connection the 



