I lO 



NATURE 



[Nov. 30, 1876 



At Hood's Bay they sailed up a considerable river, and near the 

 coast found a large village, regularly laid out in streets and 

 squares, scrupulously clean, with gardens and carefully cultivated 

 flowers. Canoes of large size and excellent make they saw 

 being hewed out with stone hatchets. At a lagoon at Cape 

 Rodney a regular lake village was found, the lagoon leading up 

 to a considerable river. Near Table Point a large canoe 

 " manned " by at least twenty-one women, came alongside ; it 

 is reported at Port Moresby, and all along the coast, that there 

 is a village of women somewhere near Amazon Bay. 



At the last meeting of the French Geographical Society, the 

 president, M. Malte Brun, intim.ated that the Council General of 

 the Seine had voted a sum of 2,000 francs to assist M. Largeau 

 in bis exploration of the Sahara. M. Largeau left on November 

 19 for Algiers, whence he will proceed to Constantine, Tuggurth, 

 and Central Sahara. The subscription on his behalf is pro- 

 ceeding. The Geographical Council of Lyons has voted a small 

 subji'Jy of 12/., and the Municipal Council of Lyons will send 

 him, within a very few days, a considerable donation. M. 

 Melidin, a rich landed gentleman, has offered to the Society to 

 maint ain during one year any traveller approved by the Society. 

 The offer was accepted with thanks. On December 20 the 

 general secretary will deliver a lecture on "The Progress of 

 Geography during 1876," and on the following day the annual 

 banquet will take place at the Grand Hotel. 



At the Geographical Society on Monday night papers were 

 read on the results of Col. Gordon's expedition in Central Africa, 

 from General Stone, the Rev. E. J. Davis, and Signor Gessi- 

 Sir Rutherford Alcock announced the death of an African 

 missionary, Mr. Redman, who, by his explorations, had ma. 

 terially helped subsequent travellers, and who first suggested that 

 there was a great system of lakes in Central Africa. 



A GREAT extension of the medical department of the Univer. 

 sity of Heidelberg has been in progress for some time. Large 

 additions to the Medical School and the Hospital attached to it 

 Jiave been made, and when completed, as it will be shortly, this 

 institution will be one of the most complete in Europe. Every 

 provision has been made for scientific investigation in connection 

 with the healing art in all its departments. 



The A)xhiv filr Ant/iroJ>ologie (\x. 173) contains a paper by 

 Herr L. Lindenschmidt, in which he pronounces his conviction 

 that the drawings upon the fossil bones found in the Thayingen 

 Cave are spurious and the result of intentional deception. These 

 drawings, which represent a bear, a fox, and a stag, were 

 generally admired in scientific circles in 1874 (when they were 

 found) as being amongst the most perfect specimens of the kind ; 

 they also led to the supposition of the highly-civilised state of 

 the ancient cave inhabitants. Herr Lindenschmidt produces 

 evidence to the effect that precisely the same drawings are con- 

 tained in a little work by Leutemann, " Die Thiergarten und 

 Menagerien mit Ihren Insassen," which was published in 1868, 

 i.e. six years before the discovery of the cave near Thayingen. 

 As the work in question had a very wide circulation in Germany 

 the inference drawn is obvious. 



A NOTICE in the Osfsee Zeiiung accounts for the frequent de- 

 ficiencies in the aroma of foreign cigars by announcing that from 

 Guben whole waggon-loads of dried cherry-leaves are weekly 

 exported for the manufacture of "tobacco." 



A SUCCESSFUL soirie of the Manchester Scientific Students' 

 Association was held last Friday, when Prof. Williamson gave 

 an address on Insectivorous Plants. 



A VERY fine new university building has been erected at Kiel, 

 one marked peculiarity of which is that it has no " career," or 

 prison, which hitherto, it seems, has been an invariable append- 

 age to German universities. 



There met in Berlin, a few days ago, a German Government 

 Commission whose business it is to look after the moors and 

 marshes of Germany. They resolved to establish an experi- 

 mental station at Bremen, to be opened on April i next year, drew 

 up a plan for obtaining statistics and a topography of moors, and 

 made arrangements for the complete canalisation of the moors in 

 the Duchy of Bremen. The labours of the Commission will 

 include the whole of Germany. 



The directors of the Swedish Government railways have turned 

 their special attention to the frequent occurrence of colour-blind- 

 ness amongst their engine-drivers and other officials. Prof. 

 Holmgren has lately examined the whole staff of the Upsala- 

 Gefle Railway, and amongst the 266 persons examined has found 

 no less than eighteen who suffered from this defect, and who 

 therefore were utterly useless and unfit for railway service. 

 This investigation proves that cases of colour-blindness are far 

 more frequent than is generally supposed, and that our railway 

 companies would do well to follow the example of the Swedish 

 State railways. 



The Kijlnische Zeiiung of the 14th inst. declares that the recent 

 sudden cold was a perfectly abnormal meteorological phenome- 

 non, and all the more so since it did not only visit a part but 

 nearly the whole of Europe. Reports of heavy snowstorms have 

 come from the whole of North Germany, Austria, Servia, and 

 Roumania, and the temperature had fallen below freezing in all 

 these countries as well as in Western France, Italy as far south 

 as Rome, and the whole of European Turkey. In Hungary 

 the cold reached 13° C. Violent gales were raging in the Black 

 Sea, the Adriatic, and the Baltic. In another article, dated 

 from the Teutoburg forest, the paper reports that the whole of 

 that district is snowed up, and a valuable crop of vegetables, 

 beetroot, &c. , has been destroyed by the cold. 



A MoNS, MfeNiER, of Bordeaux, has invented a new con- 

 trivance for the steering of balloons. The mechanism is placed 

 behind the car, and by a clever arrangement of network acli 

 upon a belt which encircles the body of the balloon, extend- 

 ing about four or five degrees above and below a horizontal plana 

 through its centre — its equator, so to say. The rudder is plane, 

 and can be used as a sail. The balloons are said to move 

 obliquely upwards and downwards and also sideways, according to 

 the position of the rudder. The sideway motion is very likely 

 facilitated by changing the position of ballast. One circum- 

 stance, which may be of special practical use, is that a balloon 

 provided with this new apparatus, when falling to the ground, 

 can be made to touch the earth's surface very obliquely and thus 

 avoid any sudden shock, and at the same time facilitate a safe 

 anchoring. 



Herr Edward Trewendt, publisher, Breslau, has issued 

 the prospectus of a New Encyclopedia of the Natural Sciences, 

 which will include [all departments of science. The first part 

 will appear on January i, 1878. 



More than 18,000 francs have been already collected for the 

 erection of Arago's statue at Perpignan. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Bonnet Monkey {Macacus radiatus) from 

 India, presented by Mr. E. F. Mathews ; a Slender-billed 

 Cockatoo {Licmetis tenuirostris) from South Australia, presented 

 by Mr. Stevens ; a Gannet {Sula bassana), European, presented 

 by Mr. R. H. W. Leach; a VtxegxmQYa.\con{Falco peregritms)^ 

 captured at sea, presented by Mr. A. Whyte ; a Giivet Monkey 

 {Cercopithecus griseo-viridis) from Nubia, an Indian LeoparJ 

 i^Felis pardus) from India, a Hooded Crane {Gtus monachus)\ 

 from Japan, a Globose Curassow {Crax globicera) from Central] 

 America, deposited j an Indian Muntjac {Cervulus muntjac), al 

 Japanese Deer ( Cervus sika), boin in the Gardens. 



