198 



NATURE 



\7an, 6, 1876 



near the confluence of large affluents draining a wide extent of 

 country. The following official statement of the numbers of the 

 persons drowned, classed according to the departments, will 

 indicate the line of greatest devastation :— Ari^ge, 73 ; Gironde, 

 I ; Haute Garonne, 330 ; Lot-et-Garonne, 20 ; Tam-et-Garonne, 

 116 ; total, 540. The discussion of these inundations with refe- 

 rence to the season of the year in which they have occurred in 

 different portions of the Garonne basin, and in their relations to 

 the physical configuration and annual maximum rainfall of each 

 district, indicates a line of inquiry which, if further prosecuted, 

 cannot but lead to most important practical results. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include three Moose or Elks {Alces machlis) from N. 

 America, two Arabian Gazelles {Gazella arabica) from Arabia, 

 deposited ; a Pig-tailed Monkey {Macacus nemestrinus) from 

 Java, presented by the Rev. W. Ewart; a Green Monkey {Cerco- 

 pithecus calHtrichus) from W. Africa, presented by the Rev. J. W. 

 Ayrej an Earle's Weka Rail {Ocydromus earlei) from New 

 Zealand, presented by Capt. H. Braddick. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



Bulletins de la Socieii d' Anthropologie dt Paris, fascicules 

 2 3, 1875.— The former of these numbers gives the discussion 

 which followed the reading of a paper by M. Pommerol, on the 

 rock-excavations, basins, rocking-stones, and holes observable 

 in many of the rocks of Puy-le-D6me. Contrary to the view 

 which he had advanced in regard to their connection with pre- 

 historic or early historic races, and their formation by man for 

 domestic or religious purposes, the society generally concurred 

 in the opinions maintained by MM. Leguay, Hamy, and Mor- 

 tillet, that such formations are for the most part the results ot 

 natural causes, and that flint implements would have been in- 

 capable of acting upon the hard granite of which they usually 

 consist. They admitted, however, that some of the depressions 

 and holes may in a few instances have been enlarged in process 

 of time through human agency, after having become the scene or 

 object of superstitious veneration.— M. Morice laid before the 

 Society a report of the various races which now occupy Cochin 

 China, the most numerous and characteristic of which are the 

 Annamites and Cambodians. Next in point of numbers stand the 

 Chams and the Mois, or mountain-men, and beside these a hybrid 

 race half-castes between Annamites and the Chinese settlers, and 

 known as Minuongs, is rapidly attaining consideration as a distinct 

 class — M. Hamy gave a brief summary of a memoir, which 

 he will soon publish z« <r;c/^«^^, on the craniological characters 

 of the race that now occupies the Island of Timor, and which 

 he considers to be not far removed from the Papuan Negritos. 

 His examination of a number of Timorian skuUs has led him to 

 accept as proved the distinctive characteristics assigned to the 

 race by Owen, Busk, and De Quatrefages.— M. Topmard's paper 

 on Australian hybrids gave rise to a long discussion, but can 

 scarcely be said to have contributed directly or indirectly to the 

 elucidation of any of the difficulties involved in the subject. --M. 

 Piette's communication of the result of his exploration of the 

 Gourdan and Lor 1 el caverns is interesting from the fact that, m 

 addition to the ordinary reindeer-lion, aurochs and other animal 

 remains found in such caves, he discovered parts of two human 

 iaws One of these— the lower maxillary bone of an adult man, 

 to which several much-worn teeth were still attached— was found 

 at Gourdan in close proximity to bones referred by the author 

 to Ceyvus canadensis, or a closely allied form. The other jav^, 

 apparently that of a child of seven, who had died during denti- 

 tion, was excavated from the floor of the Lortel cavern at a 

 depth of 6 metres.— M. Condereau laid a paper before the 

 Society, and explained the elaborate series of tables which he 

 has constructed to illustrate his system of the classificafon of 

 articulate sounds, and which he hopes to see accepted by 

 anthropologists as the basis of some uniform phonetico-physio- 

 logical alphabet, by which writers of different nationalities naay 

 be brought on a common ground for the comparison of the ditte- 

 rent articulate sounds of which the human voice is capable.— M. 

 Broca brought under the notice of the Society a negro skull 

 belonging to their museum, where it forms the fifteenth m the 

 Gannal collection, in order to show how the normal parietal 

 foramina may present such unusually large dimensions as to assume 



after death the appearance of artificially produced parietal per- 

 forations. At a previous meeting of the Society, on March 18, 

 M. Broca had exhibited a skull taken by M. de Palmas from 

 an ancient cemetery in the Canary Islands, which presented a 

 double parietal opening. — A very interesting and important paper 

 was read by M. Broca on May 20, when he laid before the 

 Society a resume of the " Craniometrical Instructions" which 

 they had commissioned him to draw up for the guidance of 

 anthropologists. In accordance with the directions of the Com- 

 mission these instructions are preceded by a description of the 

 anatomy of the head, in which an entirely new anatomical 

 nomenclature has been adopted, for which M. Broca craved the 

 approval of his confrires on the ground of the obscure termin- 

 ology hitherto in use in craniology. Among a number of novel 

 terms we may instance such words as endocranium and exo- 

 cranium ; pteron and discus for the ascending and the horizontal 

 parts of the greater ala ; inion for the external protuberance of 

 the occipital ; and basion, opisthion, staphanion, pterion for dis- 

 tinctive portions of the occipital, frontal, and temporal fossa. 

 M. Broca aimounces that this new system of cranial terminology 

 will be soon published in extenso in the " Memoires " of the 

 Society. — M. CoUineau, in connection with the subject of arrest 

 of development in the osseous and other parts of the brain, as 

 shown by M. Broca in his paper on parietal perforations, drew 

 attention to the extraordinary spread of religious mania in France, 

 of which he gave numerous instances amongst the higher as well as 

 lower classes, and appealed to medical and other scientific men to 

 devote themselves to the elucidation of this important subject. 



Der Naturforscher, November, 1875.— This number contains 

 an account of some interesting researches by M. Exner, on the 

 capability of perceiving a time-difference between two impressions 

 of sense. Suppose a stimulus to act at moment a, and another 

 at moment b, how near may a and b come together and the im- 

 pressions continue distinct? M. Exner examines the various 

 cases of two impressions on the same, and on different elements 

 of an organ of sense, on similar elements of a pair of organs, 

 and on elements of different sense organs.— From experiments 

 on decomposition of albumen in animal bodies, M. Forster 

 concludes that the blood of one animal introduced into the vas- 

 cular system of another behaves like the blood already present ; 

 that albumen solutions brought into the blood are decomposed 

 like albuminous substances received through the stomach and 

 intestine ; and that, of the albumen present in the body, that 

 which is firmly held in organs and cells is but little decomposed, 

 while that entering the intestine or blood-vessels in solution is 

 mostly decomposed.— The physical properties of a freezing mix 

 ture of sulphuric acid and ice are investigated in a paper by M. 

 Pfaundler, and M. de Coppet discusses superfusion and super- 

 saturation according to the mechanical theory of heat. ^^-'^ "*" 

 the remaining papers hardly call for notice here. 



Most of 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Royal Society, Dec. 16, 1875.— Note on the Placentation of 

 Hyrax, by Prof Wm. Turner, of Edinburgh. The author de- 

 scribes the result of his study of a spirit specimen, his object 

 being to verify or refute the recent statements of MM. H. Milne- 

 Edwards and George, which, contrary to the observations 

 of Sir E. Home, Owen, Huxley, and others, are to the effect 

 that the placenta of Hyrax is non-deciduate. He shows that 

 the placenta of Hyrax is deciduate, like that in the cat, which it 

 resembles in form ; it has also a large allantoic sac. 



Geological Society, Dec. 15, 1875.— Mr. John Evans, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair.— Francis James Bennett, Alfred Allinson 

 Bourne, Charles Thomas Clough, John Law Cherry, William 

 Herbert Dalton, Waker Saise, James Weeks Szlumper, 

 and Lamont Henry Graeme Young, were elected Fellows ; 

 and Prof. August Quenstedt, of Tiibingen, a Foreign 

 Member of the Society. — " Notes on the Physical Geology 

 of East Anglia during the Glacial Period, by Mr. W. H. 

 Penning. The author wished it to be understood that his 

 remarks were intended to form a sketch, rather than a detailed 

 account of the subject to which they relate. He mtended to 

 explain the origin of the so-called " middle glacial _ 

 gravels and sands, to account for their occurrence m certain 

 areas and their non-occurrence in others, where they inight 

 reasonably have been expected. Also to briefly describe » 

 certain series of gravels of doubtful age and ongm m the 



