68 



NATURE 



[May 1 6, 1889 



with the effects of stress on electrolyzing glass kept as nearly as 

 possible at different constant temperatures between ioo° and 

 360°. He finds generally that a Folid electrolyte like glass is a 

 better conductor of electricity when in a state of strain or torsion 

 than when free from strain. The influence of temperature in 

 changing the value of the electrolytic effect of stress is not 

 marked ; the same pull per unit section does not apparently in- 

 crease the conductivity of glass more at 350° than at roo°, if indeed 

 it increases it as much. — On the formation of siliceous sinter by 

 the vegetation of thermal springs, by Walter Harvey Weed. 

 These researches on the origin of the deposits of siliceous sinter 

 found in the basins of the Yellowstone National Park make it 

 evident that such deposits are largely formed by the vegetation 

 of the hot spring waters. Waters too poor in silica to form 

 sinter deposits by any other cause may be accompanied by beds 

 of siliceous sinter formed by plant life ; the extent and thickness 

 of these deposits establish the importance of this form of life a; 

 a geological agent. — -Marine shells and fragments of shells in the 

 Till near Boston, by Warren Upham. These fossils, occurring 

 ill drift deposits near Boston, are usually regarded as evidence of 

 a marine submergence within the Pleistocene or Quaternary 

 period. But Mr. Upham's observations made last year show 

 that they were transported from the bed of the sea on the north 

 by the ice-sheet in the same manner as the materials of the drift 

 have been carried southwards and often deposited at higher 

 elevations than the localities from which they were brought. 

 Hence these shells afford no proof of the former presence of the 

 sea at the level where they are now found. — A platiniferous 

 nickel ore from Canada, by F. W. Clarke and Charles Catlett. 

 ']"he careful analysis here made of these ores from the mines at 

 Sudbury, Ontario, places beyond all doubt the presence of 

 platinum in appreciable quantities. It probably exists in the ore 

 as sperrylite, though this point has not yet been determined. — 

 Stratigraphic position of the Olenellus fauna in North America 

 and Europe, by Chas. D. Walcott. The general result of these 

 researches is to remove the Olenellus fauna both in the Old and 

 New World from the Middle Cambrian to the base of the whole 

 Cambrian system. The paper, which is not concluded, gives 

 full tables of this fauna, with its areas of geographical distribu- 

 tion east and west of the North Atlantic— Earthquakes in 

 California, by Edward S. Holden. The statistics of seismic 

 disturbances in this region with incidental remarks are brought 

 down to the end of the year 1888. — Chemical action between 

 solids, by William Hallock. In his recent note on a new 

 method of forming alloys, the author undertook to carry out 

 some additional experiments, the results of which are here given. 

 He infers generally that chemical action may take place wherever 

 the products are liquid or gaseous, even though the reagents 

 are solid, with perhaps the added condition that one or both 

 reagents be soluble in the liquid produced. 



Revtie d'' Anthropologic, troisieme serie, tome iv., deux<^. fasc. 

 (Paris, 1889). — On the colour of the eyes and hair of the Ainos, 

 by M. Lefevre. These no^es were drawn up at the suggestion 

 of Dr. Colignon, while the author was acting as Professor at the 

 Military College of Japan. The principal point commended to 

 his notice was to determine whether there was any foundation for 

 the statement, made by various traveller-, that many of the 

 Ainos present the anomalous condition, that while the hair of 

 the head is red, the beard, and the hair with which various parts 

 of their bodies are profusely covered, are deep black, the skin 

 being sallow, and the eyes light. This coloration is completely 

 at variance with all known physiological relations, and it is 

 obvious from the author's observations that the statement must 

 have arisen from a misconception, due, perhaps, in part to the 

 practice pursued by the .Ainos of colouring their heads a bright 

 red, and tattooing the lip? in circular rings of black and blue. 

 The interest of racial coloration is considerable when judged 

 from an ethnological point of view, and special importance 

 attaches to the subject in regard to the Ainos, who, although 

 undoubtedly a white race, have undergone various modifications 

 in accordance with the different parts of the empire in which 

 they were settled. Thus, while in some districts the people have 

 been forced to adopt the dress and habits of the Japanese, in the 

 neighbourhood of Sapporo, the capital of the Island of Yesso, 

 they have hitherto been enabled to retain their old customs, and 

 keep themselves far more free than elsewhere from intermixture 

 with the Japanese. It is, therefore, the more worthy of notice 

 that in this district no blonde or blue-eyed Ainos are to be met 

 with, while the people generally have absolutely black hair. It 

 would, in fact, appear that the hair of the normal Ainos is of a 



jay-like blackness, coarse and stiff, but bright and lustrous, 

 although in the case of a few of those who have long occupied 

 the seacoast, the hair is of a dark brown, presenting almost the 

 same softness as that of Europeans. In no section of the people 

 is there the slightest evidence of any anomalous colouring of the 

 hair, eyes, and con^plexion. M. Lefevre considers that the stature 

 of the Ainos is somewhat higher than that of the normal Japanese, 

 while their cranial index, which is found to range from the 

 extremes of dolichocephalism to that of brachycephalism, 

 would seem to give very strong weight to the assumption that 

 these people are not a pure race, and that they differ in accord- 

 ance with the extent to which Mongolian or other ethnic elements 

 have modified their primitive character. — On the writings and 

 opinions of Samuel Zarza, by M. Salomon Reinach. Consider- 

 able interest was excited by a statement made in 1877 by Dr. 

 Topinard, in one of his lectures, afterwards published in the 

 Gazette Mcdicalc, according to which a Jew, named Samuel 

 Zarza, was burnt alive in 1450, for having maintained the anti- 

 quity of man. This statement excited much attention, and M, 

 Cartailhac, who doubted its accuracy, appealed to his confreres 

 for information in regard to the documents from which M. 

 Topinard had quoted. This appeal remained unanswered until 

 the question was lately taken up by M. Reinach, who associated 

 with himself in the necessary investigations a learned Russian Jew, 

 M. Salomon Fuchs. To the latter we are indebted for a com- 

 mentary on the numerous works of Zarza, surnamed Ben S'ne, 

 which, according to his own report, were undertaken in the hope 

 of reviving among his coreligionists in Spain their interest in 

 philosophical and theological inquiries, which had nearly died 

 out amid the miseries they had endured during the civil wars 

 between Peter the Cruel and his brother, Henry II. M. Fuchs 

 has failed to find in these works any opinion expressed concerning 

 the antiquity of man, although the writer appears to have adhered 

 to the belief of the eternity of the world. It is, moreover, 

 obvious from his reference to his age when he completed his 

 second work, entitled " Mikhalal-Yophi," i.e. " Perfection of 

 Beauty," in 1369, that he could not have survived until 1450, 

 which is given by the commentators of the seventeenth century, 

 from whom Dr. Topinard borrowed his references, as the date 

 of his presumed martyrdom. While M. Fuchs thus supplies 

 another proof of the inaccuracy of many of the earlier comment- 

 ators, he at the same time shows by his summary of Zarza's 

 writings that Hebraists might throw interesting light on the early 

 dawn of scientific inquiry by a careful study of the numerous 

 still unprinted remains of Zarza, and of his Spanish co-religionists, 

 who undoubtedly exercised an active influence on the progress 

 of learning in the Middle Ages. — On the belief in familiar 

 household spirits and other forms of superstition, by Dr. Berenger- 

 Feraud. The interest of this paper to the student of folk- 

 lore depends upon the writer's detailed narratives of the local 

 superstitions still prevailing, or only recently exploded, in the 

 rural districts of France ; his elaborate exposition of the 

 superstitions of other countries has little value for the English 

 reader. — On questions regarding the Aryans, by M. de Lapouge. 

 The author believes that, at the present stage of our knowledge, 

 we are justified in assuming that in the ancient Aryans we have 

 a blonde dolichocephalic race, whose cradle was in the north- 

 west of Europe as it existed in the second half of the Qujiternary 

 age. — On the steatopygia of the Hottentots in the Garden of 

 Acclimatization by M. Topinard. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, March 7. — "On the Wave-Length of the 

 Principal Line in the Spectrum of the Aurora." By William 

 Huggins, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. 



I think it is very desirable that I should put on record some 

 observations of the spectrum of the aurora which I made in the 

 year 1874, but which, up to the present time, have remained 

 unpublished. These observations were made with a powerful 

 spectroscope, and under conditions v/hich enabled me to deter- 

 mine the wave-length of the principal line within narrow limits 

 of error. The spectroscope was made by Sir Howard Grubb, 

 on the automatic principle of his father, Mr. Thomas Grubb. 

 It is furnished with two " Grubb " compound prisms ; each has 

 5 square inches of base, and gives nearly twice the dispersion 

 of a single prism of 60° — namely, about 9° 6' from A to H. 



