August i i, 1923] 



NA TURE 



217 



Research Items. 



i 



The Quipu Mystery. — Twenty years ago the 

 method of counting by the knotted Quipu was one of 

 the mysteries of Peruvian archaeology. Since that 

 time several explorers have found them in use by 

 shepherds in keeping account of their flocks. More 

 modern Quipus are easily understood and can be used 

 by any one. Prof. L. Leland Locke, to whom we are 

 largely indebted for the solution of the problem, has 

 now prepared for the American Museum of Natural 

 History an elaborate, well-illustrated monograph in 

 which all available evidence concerning the use of the 

 Quipu as a means of counting has been carefully 

 collected. 



Tattooing in the Marquesas. — In Bulletin No. i. 

 of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Mr. W. G. Handy 

 publishes an elaborate, well-illustrated monograph on 

 tattooing in the Marquesas. The operation was 

 extremely painful, and after each sitting local in- 

 flammation, followed by fever or swellings, persisted 

 for a period of eight or ten days. The practice has 

 now ceased, and the facts have been collected from an 

 examination of about a hundred and twenty -five of the 

 older generation. The designs, of which numerous 

 illustrations are given, show much artistic taste. It 

 cannot now be ascertained how far the practice 

 possessed a magical significance, but in one case a 

 woman seems to have been marked to protect her 

 from evil spirits. But at the time of the cessation of 

 the art it had become purely decorative. 



Stone Yokes from Mexico and Central 

 America. — Excavations in Mexico and Central 

 America have disclosed certain objects of unusual 

 and definite shape and of wide distribution, the 

 function of which is unknown. The stone yoke is 

 shaped like the letter U and is about two feet in 

 height, with the bevelled outer surface often carved 

 with elaborate designs. It has been impossible to 

 identify these objects either in native manuscripts or 

 in the many available examples of sculpture in stone 

 and clay. The evidence now collected by Mr. S. K. 

 Lothrop in the July issue of Man shows that the stone 

 yoke was worn round the waist and that it served no 

 utilitarian purpose. The suggestion now made is that 

 the yoke may represent the underworld, because the 

 outline resembles the Mexican symbol for that region, 

 and also because the yoke is associated with death and 

 sacrifice in the Santa Lucia sculptures. But the proof 

 of this theory must await the presentation of new 

 facts. 



Air Survey and Archeology. — Mr. O. G. S. 

 Crawford has reprinted his paper on " Air Survey 

 and Archaeology," read before the Royal Geographical 

 Society in March last. The main purpose of the 

 paper was to distinguish by the aid of ground-plans 

 and aerial photographs of camps like Cissbury and 

 the Soldier's Ring near Martin, now in Hants, two 

 varieties of the shelves and banks, known as lynchets. 

 The first, or Celtic type, he attributes to the first 

 wave of the Celtic-.speaking peoples about 700 B.C., 

 who introduced finger-tip pottery, new types of 

 bronze implements, the use of iron, square camps, 

 and the Celtic system of lynchets, boundary-ditches, 

 and roads. The Saxon or " open-field " system was 

 <iuite different from the Celtic type, and this is 

 instructively illustrated by sketch maps of the 

 Celtic and Saxon villages on Salisbury Plain. Mr. 

 Crawford writes : "I find it difficult to express in 

 suitable words my sense of the importance of air- 

 photographs for archaeological study. They provide 

 a new instrument of research comparable only to 

 that provided by excavation. They are second only 



NO. 2806, VOL. I I 2] 



to excavation in the results they will achieve. Their 

 invention will prove as valuable to archaeology as 

 that of the telescope has proved to astronomy. 

 They are not a substitute for field work, but they are 

 the most powerful ally of the field archaeologist." 



The Present Position of Darwinian Theory. — 

 In an article on this subject in the current number of 

 Science Progress, Prof. E. W. MacBride first outlines 

 Darwin's own position as developed in the first five 

 chapters of the " Origin of Species." Among the 

 points he emphasises are Darwin's belief that modifica- 

 tions due to vise and disuse are inherited, and his 

 view that acclimatisation and the inheritance of its 

 effects must have played a part in evolution. After 

 stating eight " laws " of Darwin, Prof. MacBride 

 concludes that they are reducible to two : (i) the 

 Lamarckian factor, ^z) an indefinite tendency to vary 

 to an unlimited extent in all directions. The second 

 factor he discards after a discussion of mutations in 

 several of their aspects. To reach this conclusion he 

 relies upon the principle of regulatory balance, and 

 states that the doctrine of the survival of the fittest 

 implies that all the organs of an animal (or plant) 

 shall be useful, meaning that the particular specific 

 form or character of every organ must be useful. 

 The article concludes with a discussion of recent 

 evidence concerning the inheritance of acquired char- 

 acters, a criticism of the age and area hypothesis, 

 and a short reference to recapitulation. 



Bio-Climatic Study in the Egyptian Desert. — 

 Bulletin No. 29 published by the Ministry of Agri- 

 culture, Egypt, gives a short discussion on the above 

 by Mr. C. B. Williams, senior entomologist. The 

 discussion is carried out to show that the statistics 

 gathered by meteorologists relative to desert condi- 

 tions greatly ignore the conditions for biological 

 studies. The author, while approving of the Steven- 

 son screen for meteorological purposes, suggests that 

 there is a strange lack of Stevenson screens for shelter- 

 ing purposes in the desert. An expedition was made 

 for a week in August 1922, all the time that could 

 be then spared, to get at the actual facts of local 

 variation. The locality chosen was in the Wadi 

 Digla, 12 miles south-east of Cairo and 7 miles in a 

 direct line from the Nile. Observations were made 

 at the camp on the south side of the wadi, mostly 

 shaded from the sun ; also just alongside the camp, 

 on the rock, beneath a large piece of which was a 

 cavity into which it was possible to crawl, and on 

 a large flat-topped rock in the middle of the wadi, 

 completely exposed, where black and white bulb 

 thermometers in vacuo were observed. Other obser- 

 vations were made in a body of sand, in a burrow, 

 in a bush, in a hole under stone, and in ant-lion pits. 

 During the week the temperature of the surface sand 

 showed a change from 17-5° to 58-2° C, while the 

 air shade varied from 21-2° to 35-9° C, and twelve 

 metres in a cave from 24-0° to 25-4° C. only. There 

 was a great range of humidity and other conditions 

 in the various positions. 



Cows' Milk for Human Consumption. — A con- 

 ference on the milk question was held at the meeting 

 of the Royal Society of Arts on April 25, of which an 

 account is given in Journ. Roy. Soc. Arts, June 29. 

 Prof. Stenhouse Williams maintained that it is not 

 an impossible proposition to provide the public with 

 a clean raw milk from cows which do not react to 

 tuberculin, at a price which consumers ought to be, and 

 are, willing to pay. Prof. Drummond, Dr. Zilva, and 

 Capt. Golding dealt with the changes which take place 

 in cows' milk on heating to various temperatures — 



