240 



NATURE 



[December 22, 1910 



philosophical of inquirers ; and the material results of 

 his own explorations give them a satisfying complete- 

 ness, like the buried gold which should always reward 

 the treasure-seeking hero of rom,ance. One of the 

 most exciting episodes in the volume, the exploration 

 of the limestone cave on Dicte, the legendary birth- 

 place of Zeus, affords an instance in pomt, and shows 

 how unexpected may be the treasure that sometimes 

 awaits the fortunate' explorer. Having blasted a way 

 into the cave through the fallen rock and boulders that 

 blocked its entrance, a fortnight's careful search of 

 the soil in the upper cave was rewarded by a certain 

 number of votive offerings around an altar 

 of burnt sacrifice. But it was at the end 

 of the excavation, when it only remained to 

 search the lower cave for objects that might 

 have slipped down during the secret digging of 

 the past few years, that the element of luck came in. 

 The floor of the lower cave is covered w^ith an icy 

 pool which runs far into the hill about the bases of 

 fantastic stalactite columns. Here, Mr. Hogarth tells 

 us, he did not expect to find much spoil, since no 

 native had ever found anything in the pool among the 

 columns, except a few scraps of water-borne pottery 

 from above. But with the true archaeologist's instmct 

 of seeing for himself, Mr. Hogarth ordered a thorough 

 search. Not much was found in the pool itself, but a 

 zealous worker, wanting to put both hands to his 

 work, happened to wedge his candle-end in the fluti.ig 

 of one of the stalactite columns, and by its light he 

 perceived the green edge of a bronze blade in the 

 slit. A further search w-as at once ordered : — 



" Men and girls dispersed themselves along the dark 

 aisles, and perching above the black waters on 

 natural crockets of the pillars, peered into the flutings. 

 They found at once— found blades, pins, tweezers, 

 brooches, and here and there a votive axe, and in 

 some niches as many as ten votive things together. 

 Most were picked out easily enough by the shm 

 fingers of the girls ; but to possess ourselves of others, 

 which the lights revealed, it was necessary to smash 

 stalactite lips that had almost closed in long ages." 



These were all votive objects, placed on the columns 

 of that silent pool that formed the shrine of the god 

 of Dicte. "As we saw those pillared aisles," Mr. 

 Hogarth remarks, "so with little change had the last 

 worshipper who offered a token to Zeus seen them 

 three thousand years ago." 



Another venture that was crowned with unexpected 

 spoil was the excavation of the great Artemisium at 

 Ephesus, when the resources of modern engineering 

 had to be invoked to pump out the flooded excavation 

 around the base of the "Great Altar " and the founda- 

 . tion-deposit. The illustrations to the volume, unlike 

 those in so manv modern works, really illustrate the 

 text, and each fits naturally into the narrative. Of 

 those w^e have chosen for reproduction, one shows the 

 rigging of the great pump at Ephesus ; another, repre- 

 senting a half-buried palm-forest at Baltim, well illus- 

 trates the constant eastward progression of the shift- 

 ing sand-dunes which fringe the great flats of the Nile 

 delta ; the other, taken in the theatre of Aspendus in 

 Pamphylia, forms a striking contrast to the Ephesus 

 photograph, and shows the remarkable state of com- 

 pleteness in which a building of classical antiquity 

 ■ may be preserved. Of all Roman theatres this is per- 

 haps the most perfectly preserved example. 



The book contains several good stories, such as that 

 of the young British subaltern who knew no word of 

 Greek, but arrived on a polo pony "to be a father to 

 some twenty Cretan villages," and whose judgments, 

 delivered in knickerbockers and a cricket shirt, were 

 worthy, in their practical aspects, of a Solomon. But 

 we have already trangressed the space allotted to us, 



NO. 2147, VOL. 85] 



and in any case we would not quote or summarise 

 the many passages we have marked. We prefer to 

 leave them unspoiled for the reader, to whom, whether 

 he be of an archaeological bent or not, we warmly 

 recommend the volume as excellent reading. 



L. W. K. 



ANTIMALARIAL MEASURES IN INDIA. 



APERM.ANENT committee dealing with anti- 

 malarial measures in India has been appointed 

 by the Government of India. Its members are Lieut.- 

 Col. Leslie (Sanitary Commissioner with the Govern- 

 ment of India), Major James, I. M.S., Captain Chris- 

 tophers, I. M.S., and Lieut. -Col. Semple. Excluding 

 the last-named, whose views on the matter have not 

 yet been made public, the members of the committee, 

 previous to their embodiment, allowed it to be under- 

 stood that, in the light of the reputed failure of the 

 Mean Mir "mosquito reduction" experiments of 

 190 1-3, they hold any effort beyond quinine pro- 

 phylaxis as "rarely applicable to India. Indeed, they 

 claim that conditions in that country are so different 

 from those found in other parts of the world that 

 further investigations — and not application of else- 

 where approved anti-malarial measures— is the neces- 

 sary role. 



An earnest of this attitude is exhibited in the pub- 

 lication by it, under the auspices of the Government 

 of India, of a brochure entitled "Paludism," which 

 it is announced will appear at irregular intervals—as 

 results from its labours become available. The editor 

 (Major James) in describing the functions of the com- 

 mittee and its relation to Sanitary Departments and 

 local bodies under provincial Governments, states that 

 the conference on anti-malarial measures in India, 

 held at Simla in 1909, "strongly supported the estab- 

 lishment of this organisation." The terms used by 

 the editor, how-ever, seem unduly optimistic. A refer- 

 ence to the Proceedings of that conference shows that 

 the appointment of this committee was not open to 

 option, but was definitely announced as an accom- 

 plished fact by the Government of India; and that 

 there are recorded marked objections by members, not 

 to the existence of the committee as a scientific body, 

 but to its possessing the extraordinary administrative 

 power to "direct (sic) and coordinate investigations" 

 throughout India, which, in the presence of Indian 

 official methods and the huge area involved, cannot 

 fail not only to trammel the initiative of local Govern- 

 ments and' their Sanitary Commissioners, but must 

 hopelessly delay the execution of practical measures. 



Althou'gh, doubtless, having regard to the excellent 

 personnel of the committee, the publication will_ from 

 time to time furnish scientific matter of value, in the 

 absence of insistence bv the Government of India that 

 practical anti-malarial measures be undertaken, public 

 opinion will be apt to hold that its primary function 

 is that of a convenient financial scapegoat. The first 

 number of Paludism, after referring to the functions of 

 the committee, affords an original paper by Captain 

 Christophers on the use of statistics in investigating- 

 the epidemiology of malaria, and gives abstracts of 

 papers relative to paludism in countries other than. 



In the meantime, sanitarians w^ith no lack of local! 

 experience have failed to see that there is in the^ 

 environment of the mosquito in India more startling^' 

 conditions than have been met with and overcome^ 

 elsewhere. Major Ross, C.B., especially, has from^ 

 time to time called in question the correctness of thej 

 Mean Mir experiments; and, in person, he challengedj 

 the methods and conclusions of the officers concerned* 



