396 



NA TURE 



{Feb. 27, 1879 



museum is being fitted up and will be opened in March for 

 public inspection, admittance free. It contains all the apparatus 

 devised for constructing or directing balloons or taking meteoro- 

 logical observations in the air. 



We regret to see from the Times correspondent at Daka, 

 that notwithstanding all that science has done for warfare, the 

 Afghan war has been an unscientific one. " India," he states, 

 " is unprepared for scientific war." " The enemy like ourselves 

 possesses arms of precision and artillery. Their artillery at Ali 

 Musjid and the Peiwar Kotal was probably equal if not superior 

 to our own. Rockets, however, so easily carried over rough 

 mountain roads, and so terrifying to barbarians from their eccen- 

 tric course, exciting their astonishment more than any other 

 appliances of art except the telegraph, have never been intro- 

 duced in the campaign. Nor have any steam launches been 

 sent to traverse the navigable Cabul river, explore its windings, 

 and secure the left flank from gatherings of the enemy. No 

 lime-lights or other lights, of which science boasts so many, have 

 ever been supplied to prevent the enemy perpetually harassing 

 our troops and disturbing their much-needed repose by creeping 

 within range under cover of night and firing into our camp." 

 This is rather disheartening, and we trust that in the campaign 

 against the Zulus more attention will be paid to recent applica- 

 tions of science, and that for example night surprises will be 

 made impossible by the use of one or other form of light which 

 by a little ingenuity might be made to light up all the ground 

 around any position. 



An unusually brilliant meteor was seen in the north of 

 England on Monday morning at about twelve minutes to three 

 o'clock. It is described as a pear-shaped ball of fire in the 

 northern heavens, which travelled slowly downwards towards the 

 horizon, and emitting scintillations and a light of great brilliancy 

 almost equal to that of day, so great indeed that it is said the 

 smallest print could have been read. The light having disap- 

 peared, a sound, described by some as resembling the discharge 

 of heavy cannon, and by others as that of the rumbling of 

 distant thunder, was heard, but in all cases it seems to have been 

 sufficiently violent to rattle windows, &c., and to have raised 

 various speculations as to what could be the cause, some ascribing 

 it to an earthquake, others to lightning, while others who saw 

 the meteor set it to the account of that unearthly visitor. 



A SMART shock of earthquake, lasting about four seconds, 

 was felt at North Unst Lighthouse, Shetland, on January 4, at 

 five minutes past one o'clock in the afternoon. At 7.45 a.m. on 

 Sunday week, a smart shock was felt at Milan and Brescia. 



A SIMPLE and convenient way of demonstrating the vibratory 

 movements of chords, is described by M. Schwedoff in a recent 

 number of the Journal de Physique. The stationary waves of 

 the chord are produced by means of an electric trembler (like 

 that used for bells), the chord being attached at one end to the 

 soft iron palette, and caused to vibrate transversely. The other 

 end of the chord is attached to a stretcher for varying the tension. 

 A movable runner allows of varying the length of the vibrating 

 portion. A blackened board with figures on it is supported 

 behind the chord. 



By last accounts from China we learn that Mr. C. Moreno, 

 the agent of the American projectors of a scheme for connecting 

 China with the west coast of America by a submarine cable, is 

 now at Tientsin for the purpose of soliciting the support of the 

 Chinese Government. The Japanese are said to have promised 

 asistance if the project finds favour at Peking. 



An interesting arcHftological observation has recently been 

 been made quite accidentally. It is well known that the urns 

 found on Roman burial-grounds and containing the bone remains 

 of cremated bodies are often covered with clay cups or dishes. 



The object of these dishes was supposed to have been to ontain 

 spices, which sent forth agreeable odours during the progress if the 

 cremation. Herr Dahlem, a well known German archaeologist, 

 was able to verify this view in the following manner. He had 

 obtained a dish of this kind which was broken, and after cement- 

 ing it had placed it upon a stove for the purpose of drying ;he 

 cement. Shortly afterwards he noticed a strong and by ro 

 means unpleasant odoiu- proceeding from the heated dish. It 

 seems therefore that the ingredients burnt in the dish some 

 fifteen centuries ago had left traces behind, which announced 

 their presence upon becoming heated. Herr Dahlem remarks 

 that the odour was not unlike that of storax. 



Prof. C. V. Riley, entomologist of the U.S. Department of 

 Agriculture, reports that serious complaints have come from the 

 Pacific slope dtu-ing the year of a new insect that is killing many 

 of the orchard and ornamental trees in that section of the 

 country. Specimens received from Mr. A. W. Saxe, of Santa 

 Clara, California, show it to be a species of Dorthesia, an abnor- 

 mal bark-louse (family Coccida). It is an Australian insect 

 (apparently D. characias, Westw.), and has of late years been 

 introduced on Australian plants into South Africa, where, 

 according to Mr. Roland Trimen, curator of the South African 

 Museum, it has multiplied at a terrible rate, and become such a 

 scourge as to attract the attention of the Government. It has 

 evidently been introduced (probably on the blue gum or euca- 

 lyptus) to California, either direct from Australia or from South 

 Africa, and will doubtless become a great evil, because most 

 introduced insects are brought over without the natural enemies 

 which keep them in check in their native country, and consequently 

 multiply at a prodigious rate. The best remedy is a judicious 

 use of kerosene or linseed-oil. 



In the Revue (TAnthropologie for January, 1879, Dr. Gustave 

 Le Bon contributes an important memoir, " Recherches anato- 

 miques et mathematiques sur les Lois des Variations du Volume 

 du Cerveau et sur leurs Relations avec 1' Intelligence." One of 

 the most interesting of his conclusions is that relating to the 

 cranial differences between the sexes, both in weight of brain 

 and dimension of skull. This question has long been studied by 

 English anthropologists, and recently conclusions have notably 

 been drawn by Mr. Darwin in his chapter on " Difference in the 

 Mental Powers of the Two Sexes," in his " Descent of Man," 

 and collaterally by Mr. Fras. Galton, in his work on '* Here- 

 ditary Genius." Dr. Le Bon states as the result of his investiga- 

 tions that the female brain is not only less in weight than that of 

 man, but that this inferiority exists " a age egal, a poids egal et 

 k taille egale," and that the cranial differences between the sexes 

 are greater among the cultivated and more highly-developed 

 races than among those in the most primitive condition, which 

 he ascribes to the fact that the mental activity of civilised society 

 is conducted in the aggregate by the male sex. These conclu- 

 sions are highly corroborative of the views advanced in a paper 

 read before the Anthropological Institute of London in 1874 

 (Distant, "On the Mental Differences between the Sexes," 

 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. iv. p. 78). 

 Dr. Le Bon points out also the important fact that though the 

 average capacity of the crania of the superior races is much 

 greater than that of the less- developed ones, still what really 

 constitutes the superiority of one race over the other is that the 

 civilised races contain necessarily more largely-developed crania 

 than can be found among the inferiorly developed races. As 

 regards a strong opinion often held as to the superiority in size 

 of the left hemisphere of the brain over that of the right. Dr. Le 

 Bon can add nothing in confirmation. From a measurement of 

 287 crania he found inequalities indicated on either side in such 

 proportion as to preclude his describing them as anything but a 

 variable character : " sans qu'il soit possible d'assigner des raisons 

 serieuses a cette inegalite de developpement. " 



