Nov. 2 2, 1877] 



NATURE 



71 



beau.iful, has an interest of its own as representing their secular 

 music, especially when contrasted with their capability for singing 

 Lutheran hymns. Schaferius gives the translation of some of 

 their love songs. Have these dieJ out since his time ? Mr. 

 Bock says they have no seculir songs. We are glad to know 

 that the Zoological Society has given a friendly hand to Mr. 

 Farini in offering a temporary home to five of his reindeer 

 in the gardens, Mr. Bock states that the place from which he 

 brought the party is Kautokeino, N. 69-/, E. 22*56. 



A REPORT has recently been presented to the State Board of 

 Health i.i Massachusetts by Dr. Nichols, regarding the health 

 of people who work with sewing machines. From observations 

 by the medical men engaged it is inferred that a healthy person of 

 average strength who does not make a business of sewing with the 

 machine, may work from three to four hours daily without much 

 fatigue or perceptible injury to haalth. Among work people, on 

 the other hand, one frequently meets with disorders of digestion, 

 due to sedeatary life and bad vea'.ilation, also pains in the 

 muscles of the trunk and the lo»er limbs, because these la'.ter 

 are always in motion. There occur a'so congestions of the 

 ventral organs, weakness, and in some rare cases neuralgias of the 

 legs and spinal irritations. It is recommended to the proprietors 

 of works in whi:h the sewing machine is used, to have (i) a good 

 ventilation ; (2) a shorter time forwoik, with periods of rest j {3) 

 another motor force than that of the feet, ft^., a steam engine. 



An Indo-Chinese Society has just been formed in Paris for 

 promoting the study of Transgangetic India and developing the 

 trade of France in that region. 



The Juvenile Christmas Lecture at the Society of Arts will be 

 by Prof. BarflF, on " Coal and its Components." 



The Moniteur Universel publishes an article on the manufac- 

 ture of types for printing with hardened glass {verre trempe). 

 It appears that the new types have worked admirably on the 

 improved revolving press for continuous paper. 



The death is announced of Mdlle. Henrietta Cerf, who was 

 born in Jamaica in 1810, and died in Brussels on the 22nd ult. 

 Mdile. Cerf, who for some years resided near Dinant, communi- 

 cated various articles on the botany t^f Kent and B.-lgiu^n to the 



Phytologisi. . . , ,' "'.' '; , 



Prince Bismarck's study at Varzin has been connected with 

 the Foreign Office at Berlin by a telephonic apparatus. The 

 demand for these instruments is said to be immense in Germany, 



A MONK of the monastery of Raigern, between Braun and 

 Vienna, has completed a very curious mechanical work, a 

 self-moving terrestrial globe, fourteen metres in diameter. A 

 combination of wheels effects a revolution similar to that of the 

 earth, and which lasts for three weeks. At the axis of the Noith 

 Pole there are dials which indicate the days, months, &c. ; above 

 this axis is another smaller globa which shows the rotation of the 

 eanh around the sun. The large globe is set in motion by a 

 dozen wheels. This ingenious mechanism has cost ten years' 

 labour, and has only been achieved after many experiments. A 

 map drawn upon the globe shows geographical details, and 

 includes the most recent discoveries, routes of steamers, railways, 

 telegraphs, mountain-heights, depths of the sea, &c. 



We have received a reduced photo-electrotype faciimile, by 

 Mr. G. E. Emery, of Lynn, Mass., of the map which accom- 

 panied the narrative of the brothers Zeni, published at Venice in 

 1558. The Zeni it will be remembered rnalc a voyage to the 

 Arctic regions in the fourteenth century, and one of the problems 

 of geography is to identify the places mentioned in their narrative 

 and map. This has already been ably attempted by Mr. Major, 

 and while Mr. Lynn's identifications agree in the main with those 



of Mr. Major, there are some important differences. " Icaria," 

 e.g., which Mr. Major makes out to be Kerry, Irel ind, Mr. Lynn 

 identifies with the Rockall Islands. The lost East Greenland 

 Colony, the latter places on the east of Spitzbergen, apparently 

 on Wiche Land, and most extraordinary of all, Crolandia, he 

 maintains is the recently-discovered Franz-Josef Land. These 

 two last identifications are very daring, and geographers will 

 look with interest for Mr. Emery's reasons, which no doubt he 

 will publish. 



Inteliigence has rea:hed the Royal Italian Geographical 

 Society that the Ma'-quis Antinori, heading the Italian expedition 

 of discovery in Africa, is dead. Chiarini, his fellow-traveller, is 

 a prisoner in Abyssinia. 



A SECOND edition of Capt. Luigi Gatta's Italian translation of 

 Mairy's "Physical Geography of the Sea" has just been 

 published at Rome. It contains extensive and valuable footnotes 

 by the translator. Capt. Gatta is, we understand, engaged in a 

 translation of I^yell's " Principles of Geology," 



Dr. Harmand, who has been exploring in Cochin China, has 

 arrived in France, bringing with him, we believe, results of much 

 value. 



On October 18, the first pioneers of the International African 

 Exploration Society, consisting of the two Belgian officers, 

 Capts. Crespel and Cambier, and the naturilisf, Dr. Maes, left 

 Southampton for Lake Tanganyika via Port Natal, on one of the 

 vessels of the Union Mail Steamship Company. This Com- 

 pany, with praiseworthy generosity, conveys the first party entirely 

 free, and will make a deduction of twenty per cent, in the fares of 

 all subsequently sent out by the society. The royal auspices under 

 which the society enters upon its field of activity have ensured to 

 it support in a variety of directions. The Sultan of Zanzibar has 

 promised to render the utmost assl-tance possible, and the com- 

 mercial houte of Roux de Fraissinet and Co., has instructed its 

 widely-spread agencies on the east-coast to second the efforts of 

 the exploring party. There seems to be no lack of fun is in the 

 treasury of the society. Among the late subscriptions are 3,000 

 francs from the Hungarian Africm Society, while the collections 

 in France amount already to 32,000 francs. Belgium, small as it 

 is, contributed 300,000 francs outright in June last, while yearly 

 subscriptions to the amount of 100,000 were given in addi- 

 tion. There is every prospect that this magnificent united effort 

 will succeed in solving some, at least, of the problems connected 

 with the remaining terra incogn'ta of equatorial Africa. 



We regret to record the untimely end of the well-known geolo- 

 gist and African explorer. Dr. Erwiu von Eary, whose recent 

 explorations have frequently been referred to in our columns. 

 Dr. V. Bary started in August, 1876, from Tripolis, on his 

 journey into the interior of the Sahara, supported partly by the 

 Karl Ritter Endowment Fund, and partly by the Berlin Afnkan- 

 ische Gesellscha''t. The aim of this expedition was to make a 

 thorough study of these ahnost unknown regions, with especial 

 reference to topographical and geological questions, more par- 

 ticularly the age and formation of the great desert. The chief 

 resulsof this first journey were the observations leading to the 

 conclusion that the Sahara was not formerly the bed of an inland 

 sea as hitherto supposed. The traveller returned from this very 

 exhaustive and fatiguing tour to the Berber town of Chat to 

 recruit his impaired energies, and prepare for a more extended 

 trip into the district of the Tuarej Hog^ar, which has not as yet 

 been visited by Europeans. Here he met the sad fate of so 

 many African explorers, and died on October 2, from the effects 

 of excessive exposure and privation. Von Bary's varied qualifi- 

 cations and complete devotion to the cause for which he perished, 

 had led to high expectations among his fellow German geologisU, 



