142 



A^A TURE 



\jfime 6, 1889 



shock in London. Mr. Ernest Myers writes from 31 Inverness 

 Terrace, W. : — " A slight but unmistakable shock was felt here 

 about 8.20 p.m. There was no rattling of windows or other 

 •sound. The vibration seemed to be from side to side." 

 Mr. E. W. Haines, of Alexandra Road, St. John's Wood, 

 says: — "The earthquake was distinctly, though slightly, felt 

 here last evening at 8.30." A member of the firm of Yates, 

 Crighton, and Co., of Cannon Street, E.C., while working in 

 their offices on Thursday evening, distinctly felt four shocks just 

 before 8.30. He says: — "It was the more noticeable as our 

 offices are situated in a huge building, on the third floor, and the 

 sensation was just as if the whole block were rocked by the 

 wind from south to north." " C. W. H." writes from the 

 General Post Office : — " Last evening I was sitting in my room, 

 situated in the south-west corner, top story of the General 

 Post Office, when I felt my chair oscillate with a slight 

 tremulous motion, which lasted perhaps four seconds. Thinking 

 it was a slight shock of earthquake, I stood up, and looking at 

 my watch saw the time was 8.20." A person living at West 

 Kensington reports having felt the shock at 8. 15. Mr. F. Yates, 

 writing from Park Street, Southwark, S. E., May 31, says : — 

 " Yesterday evening, between 8.20 and 8.25, while sitting in my 

 library at Surbiton, I distinctly felt two light shocks, which I 

 attributed to earthquake. The shocks were also observed by other 

 members of my family." 



Mr. J. Lloyd Bozward writes to us from Henwick, Worcester, 

 that the earthquake was perceptible there. While seated in a 

 room on the second floor of his house at about 8.23 p.m. on 

 Thursday, all being still, he felt five distin t tremors in rapid 

 succession, the third being the most notable. "On making 

 immediate inquiries," he says, " I learned that the tremors had 

 not been felt on the other floors, but my son, who happened to 

 be in the ba-ement on the occasion, says that at the time referred 

 to by me he noticed that the flame of a lamp burning on the 

 table suddenly shot up above the top of the glass chimney." 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The Annual Report of the Museums and Lec- 

 ture Rooms Syndicate, just issued, contains much interesting 

 information about the progress of natural science studies and 

 collections. 



Prof. Babington announces that the late Prof. Churchill 

 Babington's extensive herbarium has been presented to the 

 Botanical Museum by his widow, including the typical speci- 

 mens of lichens described by him. The type collection has 

 been enlarged, and demonstrations in organography and histo- 

 logy are regularly given. Mr. Potter has just returned from 

 Ceylon with a fine collection. A series of germinating seedlings 

 (prepared by Mr. Bai-ber), specimens showing the injuries 

 caused to plants by insects (by Mr. Shipley), and Kny's dia- 

 grams, given by Mr. Thiselton Dyer, are among the valuable 

 acquisitions. 



Mr. J. W. Clark, Superintendent of the Museum of Com- 

 parative Anatomy, reports the gift of a beautiful collection of 

 spiders, with accompanying drawings, by Mr. Warburton ; the 

 mounting of the skeleton of Rhytina gigas ; the deposit of a 

 valuable collection of skulls and bones of Bovidse and Cervida?, 

 by Mrs. Stewart, widow of Surgeon-General L. C. Stewart ; 

 Surgeon-General Day has given 357 birdskins from India and 

 Burmah ; and Messrs. Cordeaux have given over 100 valuable 

 Indian specimens. 



Two parts of the " Morphological Studies " have been issued 

 by Mr. Sedgwick since the last Report. The Elementary 

 Biolo^^y Class numbered 167 in the Easter term of 1888, and 139 

 in the Lent term of 18S9. The Morphology Class varied from 

 ■77 to 42 ; with a smaller advanced class. 



Prof. Macalister reports the addition of 131 Egyptian skulls, 

 25 skulls from the Saxon burial-place at Hauxton, and many 

 from that behind St. John's College. The Rev. J, Sanborn, of 

 Lockport, N.Y., has given valuable skulls from a burying-place 

 -of the Seneca Indians. 



Prof. Roy describes the careful and S3'stematic arrangement 

 he has adopted in his Pathological Laboratory (late the Chemical 

 Laboratory). 



Prof. Hughes once more deplores the long postponement of 

 the new Geological Museum. It certainly is not just to allow 

 •the donors of the funds to die out and never see the erection of 



the Museum towards which they contributed such large sums. 

 Important additions have been made to the Cambrian and 

 Silurian fossils by Mr. Marr, and many of them have been 

 described and figured by him. Thirty-four figured types from 

 the Inferior Oolite of Dorsetshire have been presented by the 

 Rev. G. F. Whidborne. About 130 slides have been added to 

 the cabinet of microscopical preparations of rocks. Much pro- 

 gress has been made in palccobotany, and two courses of lecturer 

 have been given by the lecturer, Mr. Seward. Mr. Strickland's 

 collection of fossils, numbering 7^00 specimens, has been pre- 

 sented by the late Mrs. Strickland. 



The new Chemical Laboratory proves to be very satisfactory 

 in working. 



The demonstrations in the Cavendish Laboratory were 

 attended by 136 students last Michaelmas term and 144 in the 

 Lent term. Twelve per.-ons have been doing original work in 

 the I aboratory during the year. Some important new apparatus 

 has been acquired. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



Memoircs de Id Societe d' Anthropologic de Paris, serie ii., tome 

 iv., fasc. r (Paris, 1889). — Pre-Columbian ethnography of 

 Venezuela, by Dr. Marcano. The author prefaces his special 

 ethnographical remarks with a short geographical notice of the 

 Venezuelian territory, entering more particularly into the physio- 

 graphical character of the fertile valleys of Aragua and Caracas. 

 The special feature of the landscape in these picturesque regions 

 is the range of low hills locally characterized as " Ccrritos," 

 which extend over a large area near the beautiful lake of 

 Valencia, first known to the Spaniards as Lake Tacarigua, and 

 which were regarded by the native Indians as natural features of 

 the soil. It has been discovered, however, by recent explorers, 

 that they are artificial elevations, raised in past ages by some 

 aboriginal Indian race long extinct, whose very name is unknown 

 to the present inhabitants of the district, although the shores 

 and bottom of the lake testify, through their vast accumulations 

 of bones and other debris, that the country must have been 

 densely populated at some remote prehistoric period. Dr. 

 Marcano, who devoted several years to the exploration of the 

 Cerritos, near Lake Valencia, has succeeded in laying bare the 

 interiors of twenty of these mounds, which prove to be sepulchral 

 caves filled with bone and other detritus. All present a uniform 

 plan of arrangement, and consist of a central circular walled-in 

 space, containing an enormous mass of whole and fractured 

 bones, and marine and fresh-water shells, with fragments of 

 stone, bone, and wood implements, and sherds of pottery, most 

 of which bear traces of the action of fire. The human remains 

 were deposited in round earthen jars or urns, each of which con- 

 tained only the separate bones of one body, the skull resting at 

 the base of the vessel, while the sacrum, with the long and the 

 small bones, was laid above it so as to fit into all the available 

 space. The appearance of these bones indicates that the flesh 

 had been detached from the dead body before its interment, but 

 their brittle condition rendered a minute examination impassible 

 in some cases, although Dr. Marcano was able to recover forty 

 crania which admitted of sufficiently exact investigation to 

 warrant the conclusion that they represent two distinct types of 

 brachycephalism. About half of these crania showed sigas 

 of deformity, due to artificial pressure over the frontal bones. 

 The most remarkable characteristic was their prognathism, which 

 exceeded that of any skull previously examined by him, although 

 his observations were based on the examination of mire than 

 2000 crania, of which some belonged to New Caledonians, who 

 have hitherto ranked as belonging to the most prognathic race 

 extant. The implements found in the Cerritos caves are nearly 

 identical with those associated with the Neolithic age in Europe, 

 while the animal remains are composed of types belonging to 

 the local terrestrial and aqueous faunas, including the broken 

 skull of a cebus ; while so enormous a mass of the banes of a 

 caiman (Crocodihis bava, which is peculiar to the Lake of 

 Valencia and its affluents) was found, that it is evident the flesh 

 of this animal must have served as food. A number of detailed 

 craniological tables, and numerous illustrations of the crania and 

 of the curious figurines and idols, the urns, tools, ornaments, 

 and other objects interred with the human bones, add greatly to 

 the value of Dr. Marcano' s exhaustive memoir. — The super- 

 stitions prevalent in Wales, by M. Maricourt. In this article 

 the author has drawn his materials so indiscriminately from 



