Dec. 12, 187S] 



NATURE 



i3i 



jast finished the model of a statue to be erected in memory of 

 Prof. Jacob Noggerath, the well-known mineralogist. 



The Chinese are about to commence the erection of a line of 

 telegraph from Tientsin to Taku at the mouth of the Pei-ho, and 

 also to make the necessary surveys for another line between 

 Tientsin, Paoting-fu, and Peking. 



According to the Colonies and India, the surseyor, in making 

 a sur^-ey of the new road at Mohikinui, in Buller County, New 

 Zealand, struck a coal-seam five feet thick at a distance of only 

 two miles from the township. The coal is bituminous and 

 excellent in quality ; it is, moreover, easily accessible and can be 

 brought to the port at a very small cost. 



The Council of the Society of Arts have'addressed a memorial 

 to Lord Salisbury asking him to request her Majesty's Ministers 

 abroad to collect information on the system of technical and 

 industrial education in foreign countries, in continuation of what 

 jyas published in 1868. Lord Salisbury has promised to give 

 the matter his consideration, though we think this is rather an 

 unfortunate time to address the Foreign Secretary on so peaceful 

 a subject. 



In reference to the statement that Sir William Armstrong 

 has employed electricity, generated by water power, a mile and 

 a half distant, to light his picture gallery, and that he proposes 

 to use the same force to turn machinery about his house, Mr. 

 D. R. Jones sends us a copy of a letter sent by him to the 

 Australasian, October 25, 1870, in which, referring to the 

 phenomena of dynamic electricity, he states that it is evident 

 that motion may be transformed into electricity, and vice versd. 

 He suggests that we may have here "the means of utilising the 

 motions of the air and of water, which, for want of means of 

 transmission, have been hitherto allowed to run to waste. 

 Various methods of converting, transmitting, and utilising force 

 will readily suggest themselves as a combination of these well- 

 known facts. While we have such superabundant constant sup- 

 plies of force it is not right that the stores of Nature should be 

 ransacked." 



The Times of Monday contains another letter from Dr. 

 Schliemann, giving an account of his further excavations on the 

 ate of Troy. He has succeeded in exploring much of the 

 lemains of the ancient structures so that the plan can be very 

 distinctly traced. Dr. Schliemann himself left London on 

 Monday for Paris, and intends to recomoience work on March I. 

 A nimiber of the objects found during the last explorations have 

 been deposited in the South Kensington Museum, where they 

 will be exhibited. 



The Midland Naturalist, we are glad to see, has con- 

 cluded a successful first volume. Its past twelve numbers 

 contain many papers of value, both on local and general 

 scientific matters, and its conduct is creditable to its editors 

 and to the many societies of which it is the organ. The 

 December nimiber contains a carefully compiled index, which 

 must be a great comfort to those in search of any paper or 

 subject in the volume. Several good contributions are 

 promised for the next volume, and we trust that the journal will 

 receive every encouragement from the members of the socie- 

 ties it represents, and that its conductors will strive to make it 

 thoroughly representative of the science of the Midlands. 



A CORRESPONDENT "R. C. J.," writes as foUows from Driefon- 

 tein, HeUbronn District, Orange Free State, South Africa, under 

 date October 14:— "Our last winter was dry throughout, and 

 untisually cold, that is, June, July, and August, and on August 

 3 a piece of country in the Transvaal, about seventy or eighty 

 miles north of this part, and on the road from this to Pretoria, 

 about fifteen or twenty miles wide, and perhaps the same in 

 length, was -i-isited in twenty-four hours with such a sudden 



change of temperature, from 85° to 42' F., that more than 100 

 bodies of dead Kafirs, besides oxen, were found as if killed by 

 the sudden abstraction of caloric. There was no wind or rain, 

 but a fall of snow. The land is aboat as high as this, about 

 4,600 feet." 



Excavations are now in progress on the Limburg, in the 

 Bavarian palatinate, which wiU lead to important results for 

 prehistoric investigation, inasmuch as they are directed to the 

 elucidation of the much contested question regarding the con- 

 structors and former inhabitants of the RingwaU near Diirkheim. 



La Semaine Franfaise is the title of a new weekly French 

 paper published in London for English readers, and which is 

 meant to appeal " to all those who wish to read good French in 

 the way in which it is most likely to be read w ith interest and 

 profit." The number before us is well selected as to contents, 

 and contains news of French matters and expressions of French 

 opinion in various departments. A small amount of space, we 

 are pleased to see, is devoted to science. 



Dr. Rae writes that at about 14m. past midnight of December 

 5-6, whilst there was bright moonlight, he observed a meteor of 

 intensely bright and white light passing obliquely downwards 

 from west to east. It was first noticed almost directly below the 

 western foot of Orion, and disappeared when slightly to eastward 

 of Sirius, having passed at 3° or 4° of arc below these stars. It 

 was spherical and apparently of 6' or 8' diameter, with a fiery 

 red tail four or five times that length. 



An earthquake occurred in Scotland on Tuesday morning last 

 week at Balnacara and other parts of the district of Loch Alsh, 

 on the west coast of the county of Ross, opposite the Isle of 

 Skye. The shock was very marked, the tremulous motion of 

 the earth being distinctly felt, and the houses shaking violently 

 At Balnacara the shock occurred at 5 o'clock, and at Plocton^ 

 five miles distant, between 7 and 8. 



An Indian paper states that in the Ferozepore district the rise of 

 the Sutlej has once more broken the head-works of the inundation 

 canals, and over 1 00 square miles of country are under water. 

 The damage done to property has been great, but on the other 

 hand a quantity of treasm-e has been uncovered by the floods in 

 the old fort of Momdote, a few miles from Ferozepore. 



Mr. Cornelius Walford has reprinted in a separate form 

 his elaborate and valuable paper on "The Famines of the World, 

 Past and Present," read in March last before the Statistical 

 Society. 



The Eleventh Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabody 

 Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology to the Presi- 

 dent and Fellows of Harvard College is an imusually interest- 

 ing one. The description of the new museum buildings at 

 Cambridge is very full, and illustrated with plans and a photo- 

 graphic view ; the building seems admirably adapted to the 

 purpose for which it is intended. Besides an account of the 

 additions to the Museiun and the work done_since the last Report, 

 the present publication contains the following papers : — " Second 

 Report on the Implements found in the Glacial Drift of New 

 Jersey," by Dr. C. C. Abbot ; " The Method of Manufacture of 

 several Articles by the former Indians of South Carolina," by 

 Mr. Paul Schu m acher ; "Cave Dwellings in Utah," by Mr. 

 Edward Palmer; "Notes on a Collection from an Ancient 

 Cemetery in Southern Peru," by Mr. J. H. Blake; " Archaeo- 

 logical Explorations in Tennessee," by Mr. F. W. Putnam (this 

 long and amply illustrated paper is separately reprinted) ; "Obser- 

 vations on the Crania from the Stone Graves in Tennessee," by 

 Mr. Lucien Carr ; " On the Tenure of Land Among the Ancient 

 Mexicans," by Mr. A. F. Bandelier. Besides Mr. Putnam's 

 paper most of the^ others are accompanied by numerous 

 illustrations. 



