JO 



NATURE 



[January 5, 191 1 



which has rendered the use of large-scale apparatus 

 practically possible. 



The new observatory will be powerfully equipped. 

 The lo-inch Repsold-Merz equatorial has been moved 

 from Hamburg, and is in working order. A 4-inch 

 Repsold transit instrument remains for the present at 

 Hamburg, and will be moved when the new institu- 

 tion is in a position to take over the time service. 

 This will be the case when the installation of a new 

 Repsold 72-inch meridian circle is complete. The 

 mounting of this fine instrument will embody the 

 ideas of Sir David Gill. The roof is of iron and in 

 the shape of a half-cylinder, the shutters rolling apart 

 over the east and west ends. The whole is protected 

 from the direct radiation of the sun by a louvred 

 wooden covering. Special arrangements are made to 

 control the instrumental errors. To the south is an 

 adjustable horizontal collimator of the ordinary type ; 

 to the north is a lens focussed on the mvre, which 



Dr. R. Schorr, the director, has expressed some 

 disappointment at delays, particularly in completing 

 the optical work. But in an undertaking of this mag- 

 nitude something of the kind is inevitable, and we can 

 only express admiration of the lines on which Dr. 

 Schorr has designed the new institution, and the«3 

 energy which is apparent in the progress already^ 

 made. H. C. P. 



HUE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF THE NILE* 

 VALLEYS 



SOME ten years ago, when Lord Cromer was 

 building up a medical school in Cairo, the task 

 of establishing the department of anatomy was en- 

 trusted to a junior fellow of St. John's College, Cam- 

 bridge, Dr. Elliot Smith. The young professor 

 reached Egypt at an interesting phase of the develop- 

 ment of our knowledge of the ancient inhabitants of 



Lippert Astrograph 



Meridian Circle. • Ruficctor. Mire. Kefracior. 



Fig. 2. — The Main Buildings of the New Hamburg Observatory. 



Transit Instrument. 



takes the form of a vertical collimator, as at the Cape 

 Observatory. Still further to the north, on the same 

 meridian^will be placed the 4-inch transit instrument, 

 which will use the same mire. The two instruments 

 are thus in line, and an independent check is possible 

 by comparing them directly. 



In addition, the observatory will possess a large 

 refractor of 24-inch aperture, a reflector of 40-inch 

 aperture and lo-feet focal length, and a photographic 

 combination. The mounting of the refractor will be 

 by Repsold, and the lens by Steinheil ; some delay 

 has been caused by the difficulty in obtaining the 

 discs of suitable quality. The large mirror has been 

 made by Zeiss. For the photographic combination 

 the observatory is indebted to Herr Lippert. It will 

 comprise a telescope of the normal astrographic type, 

 and two short-focus photographic objectives of 12- 

 inch aperture. This work has also been assigned to 

 Zeiss. 



that country. It was then becoming clearly recog- 

 nised, thanks to the labours of Prof. Flinders Petrie 

 and those associated with him, that certain of the 

 burials were older than the dynasties, and that it had 

 become possible to study the Egyptians of a pre- 

 historic or predynastic period. 



With the human remains of this ancient period Prof. 

 Elliot Smith was soon brought in contact; in 190 1 

 he had the good fortune to examine the bodies ex- 

 cavated by the Hearst Egyptian exploration of the 

 University of California from a predynastic cemetery 

 at Noga-ed-Deir, in upper Egypt; material which was 

 particularly valuable because of the accurate manner 

 in which it had been dated by Dr. G. A. Reisner. 

 During the following years, amidst the onerous duties 



1 " The Archseological Survey of Nubia." Report for 1907-8. Vol. ii., 

 Report on the Human Remains, by Drs. G. Elliot Smith, F.R.S., and 

 F. Wood Jones. Pp. 3734-vi plans. Plates to accompany Vol. ii., pp. 9 + 

 xlix plates. (Cairo : National Printing Dept., 1910.) Price 2 L.E. 



NO. 2149, VOL\ 85] 



