AW. 8, 1877] 



NATURE 



35 



no slurring between one sound and another, but clear 

 jumps from one multiple to another, and every one of 

 them may be arrested and heard by itself by checking the 

 piston. But, although I am glad to produce this tube 

 before those who were not present on the last occasion, 

 and to do honour to the memory of our eminent vice- 

 president, who declined to refer in any way to himself, I 

 have another motive also. This is a principle which has 

 never been utilised. We have had pipes stopped at the 

 top, like the usual pitch-pipe, but they have been found 

 too slow in action to be suitable for any other purpose. 

 This is rapidity itself, and might surely be utilised for 

 some such purpose as pedal-pipes for an organ. The 

 piston can be balanced outside to the greatest nicety, 

 and one such pipe will take the scale of C, and 

 another that of F. All that is required is to blow across 

 the top in the manner of the Pandean pipes, or, as it 

 appears, better still, to set free a fan or cogged wheel at 

 the mouth tuned to each of the two fundamental notes. 

 The wheel might be set free by the action of the foot 

 upon the pedal. It is now well known that the length 

 of a 32 or a 16 foot pipe may be greatly reduced by breadth 

 of scale. We Europeans have made little, if any, use of 

 resonators, and yet they have been long in use in Java. 

 The drawing on the wall is of an instrument brought 

 from Java by Sir Stamford Raffles more than half a 

 century ago. There is one of the same kind in the 

 British Museum. But this is perhaps of greater interest, 

 as it may have suggested to Wheatstone the prin- 

 ciple of the resonating tube. The natives of Java cast 

 metal plates which they suspend in a row upon strings, 

 and strike them with drum-sticks, which are fitted into 

 circular heads. As all cast metal is more or less false in 

 tone, owing to inequalities and lack of homogeneity, they 

 place some of the largest bamboos, cut to short lengths, 

 and placed upright, under the metal to make the true 

 sounds of these resonators to overcome the false har- 

 monics of the metal plates. 



Resonators were used in the theatres of ancient Greece 

 • — we here find them used in Java ; but these powerful 

 auxiliaries to tone still await their development in modern 

 Europe. 



And now, in conclusion, permit me to draw your atten- 

 to a harmonium with two keyboards, the upper one 

 having four octaves of our scale tuned without tempering, 

 and the lower with the five octaves of the harmonic scale, 

 and the sixteen notes in the fifth octave. Much has been 

 said of the harmonic scale, and this is perhaps the only 

 instrument on which the harmonics can be fully heard 

 and sustained for experimental use. 



ROBERT SWINHOE, F,R.S. 



V\riTHIN the last thirty years or so their respective 

 * * vocations happen to have called two able lovers of 

 natural history in the direction of the Celestial Empire 

 — Mr. Robert Swinhoe, from England, and the P^re 

 Armand David, a Frenchman. The simultaneous inves- 

 tigations of these two biologists have added immensely 

 to our knowledge of a country whose fauna not long ago 

 was thought to be in no way interesting, because the huge 

 population had succeeded in extirpating all the indige- 

 nous species. How far from the truth such an assumption 

 is, has been demonstrated by the researches of the two 

 naturalists above mentioned, the lamented death of the 

 former of whom, at the early age of forty-one years, we 

 recorded last week. 



Mr. Swinhoe was born at Calcutta on September i, 

 1836, and was educated at King's College, London, 

 whence he matriculated at the University of London, in 

 1853. The next year he went, as supernumerary inter- 

 preter, to Hong Kong, being transferred to Amoy in 1855, 

 and to Shanghai in 1858. In the same year he was 

 attached to the Earl of Elgin's special mission to China, 



and afterwards to H.M.S. Inflexible as interpreter in a 

 circumnavigating expedition round Formosa, in search 

 of certain Europeans said to have been held in captivity 

 at the sulphur mines on the island. 



In i860 Mr, Swinhoe attended Gen. Napier, and after- 

 wards Sir Hope Grant, the Commander-in-Chief, as inter- 

 preter, and received a medal for war service. At the end 

 of the same year he was appointed Vice-Consul at Taiwan, 

 Formosa, and in 1865 to the full Consulship. In 1866 he 

 was Consul, temporarily, at Amoy, and in 1868 went to 

 explore the Island of Hainan. From May, 1871, to 

 February, 1873, he was acting Consul at Ningpo, and at 

 Chefoo until October of the latter year, when he had to 

 retire from the service, on account of increasing para- 

 plegia, from which he died on October 28 last. 



Mr. Swmhoe was a Fellow of the Asiatic Societies of 

 China and of Bengal, as well as of many other societies, 

 having been elected into the Royal Society in 1876. 



By far the majority of Mr. Swinhoe's scientific com- 

 munications — fifty-two in number — mostly on the mam- 

 malia and birds of China, are to be found in the Proceedings 

 of the Zoological Society of London between 1861 and 

 1874, Other papers appeared in the Ibis and the Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History within the same 

 period. Among the most important of these are the 

 I' Catalogues " of the mammals and birds of China and 

 its islands, in which are to be found descriptions of many 

 new species of both classes, among which are St. John's 

 Macaque {Macaciis sancii-johaimis), the Water Deer of 

 Shanghai {Hydropotes incrnris), the Mantchurian Deer 

 {Cerviis mantchnriciis), the Orange-bellied Helictis 

 \H elicits subaurantiaca), the Superb Flying Squirrel 

 [Pteromys grandis), Boyce's Stork .Ciconia boyciana), 

 together with a great number of other birds, for a com- 

 plete account of which we cannot do better than refer our 

 readers to a work upon the birds of China, by M. I'Abbd 

 David and M. E. Oustalet, published at Paris a week ago. 



Michie's Deer {^Lophotra^ris michianus) is the name 

 given by Mr. Swinhoe to a small deer from Ningpo, with 

 antlers more diminutive than many other species. This, 

 or a very closely-allied species, was previously sent to 

 Paris by Pere David, and described by M. A. Milne- 

 Edwards under the name Elaphodus cephalophus. 



Mr. Swinhoe, besides the coUecnons which he made, 

 was indefatigable and particularly successful in his 

 endeavours to send living animals from China to this 

 country, and there are many species, including Cervus 

 s7vinhoiiy Hydropotes incrnris, and Ciconia boyciana, 

 which were first procured by him. 



It will be some time, we fear, before so enterprising a 

 naturalist as Mr. Swinhoe takes up his residence in 

 China, and employs every available opportunity for the 

 prosecution of his favourite line of research. 



DOUGLAS A. SPALDING 



OUR readers 'must be familiar with this name as that 

 of an occasional contributor to Nature of thought- 

 ful and acute articles in the department of mental 

 science ; they will be sorry to hear— but those who knew 

 him will not be surprised — that Mr. Spalding died on 

 October 31, at Dunkirk, just as he was preparing to go to 

 the Mediterranean coast to spend the winter. Not much 

 is known of Mr. Spalding's early life, but we are told by 

 one who ought to know that his parents, belonging to 

 Aberdeenshire, were in very humble circumstances, and 

 that he was born in London about the year 1840. He 

 himself spent his early years in Aberdeen as a working 

 slater, doing his best to educate himself. By the kind- 

 ness of Prof. Bain Mr. Spalding was allowed to attend 

 the classes of Literature and Philosophy in Aberdeen 

 University free of charge, in the year 1862. After that 

 he got some teaching about London, and worked very 

 hard to support himself, and even managed to keep his 



