Ap7'il \, 1878] 



NATURE 



455 



sanctioned by the Ministry of Public Instruction, and these 

 excursions are quite distinct from the lectures which will be 

 organised on a large scale, as we mentioneda few weeks ago. 



The museum in the Paris Jardin des Plantes has ately been 

 enriched by two very valuable collections. The first includes a 

 vast variety of anthropological and ethnographical objects 

 gathered by M. Pinart during his voyages in Polynesia, among 

 which might be mentioned more especially the ancient stone 

 statues from Easter Island, executed by a race unknown to the 

 present inhabitants. The second consists of over 40,000 speci- 

 mens in natural history, collected by M. Raffray in New Guinea, 

 chiefly birds and insects. 



M. SoLEiL, the well-known optician of Paris, who invented 

 and patented the optical saccharimeter, patronised by Arago, 

 has died at St. Gratian. He was eighty years of age, and 

 had retired for the last twenty years. 



One of the newly-opened streets in the Luxembourg Gardens, 

 Paris, close to the Observatory, has been called "Rue 

 Herschel," as a compliment to English astronomy. 



In the February session of the Deutsche anthropologische Ge- 

 sellschaft, Prof. Basdan gave an interesting address on the occur- 

 rence of similar weapons among widely-separated African tribes, 

 describing more particularly a peculiar kind of javelin, found 

 by Schweinfurth on the eastern coast, by Pogge in the Gaboon 

 region, and by other explorers in the Fan tribe of the interior. 

 On the Gaboon coast it is preserved at present as a fetish, being 

 no longer used. This, as well as other examples, tends to show 

 the common origin of all the African races. The remains of an 

 art closely allied to that of ancient Egypt even, have been dis- 

 covered on the western coast by Dr. Pogge, who has brought 

 back images, on which the beard and coiffure were the counter- 

 parts of those decorating the Egyptian statues 3,000 years ago. 



It has been stated by Mr. Rodwell (Nature, vol. ix. p. 8), 

 that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with the principle of 

 the "rider" in the balance. According to M. Wiedemann 

 {Annalen der Physik) who has examined over 100 representations 

 of Egyptian balances, this is based on a mistake. The Egyptian 

 balance is a simple equal-armed one ; a hook on the upper part 

 of the stand [supports a cord with terminal weight, or a plumb- 

 line. In representation (perspective being unknown to the 

 Egyptians), the hook and weight, as seen from the side, were 

 drawn in the plane of the balance, so that the weight, in badly 

 made figures, seems to hang, not from the hook, but from the 

 bidance-beam. 



We have received the Report of the Registrar-General of the 

 province of Ontario for 1 876. To the usual tables with the Report is 

 added an interesting appendix by Mr. T. H. Monk, on the influence 

 of the weather on the mortality of Toronto. The results show, so 

 far as can be looked for, from one year's [mortality numbering 

 only 1,664 deaths, a general correspondence with those obtained 

 by Mr. Buchan and Dr. Arthur Mitchell in their large inquiry 

 into the influence of weather on the mortality of London. We 

 hope Mr. Monk's suggestions will be carried out and that the 

 inquiry will be extended so as to embrace the whole province, 

 the health as well as the mortality of the people, and the regis- 

 trations of the more prominent, if not of all the diseases, be 

 printed for each week, in order to test more decisively the con- 

 nection between weather and health and how far changes in the 

 health and mortality of the people and the spread of epidemics 

 may be foretold, as well as changes of weather, now so efficiently 

 carried on in North America. 



Since Mr. Darwin demonstrated processes similar to digestion 

 in the plant organism, attention has been largely given to the 

 discovery of substances of the nature of ferment in plants. M. 

 van der Harst, of Utrecht, has lately examined the seeds of 



the garden bean {Phaseoltis vulgaris) in this respect. He fiii:ls 

 in these, when in germuiation, a ferment which can be extracted 

 by means of glycerine. It has the power of transforming 

 albuminous matter into peptones, and starch meal into glucose. 

 It occurs exclusively in the seed lobes, 



A CORRESPONDENT sends US the following extract from a 

 letter of one of the officers of the ship Newcastle, of London. It 

 is dated Brisbane, Sunday, 30th December, 1877, "Last 

 Friday (28th) in the afternoon, it came over very black, so we 

 expected a thunderstorm. Well, it came on to blow from the 

 south, and then to hail. ~; At first the hailstones were about the 

 size of a marble, but they continued to increase, untd they 

 became as large and exactly the shape of a tomato. The 

 captain weighed three and found that the three together weighed 

 one pound. I was on the poop, under the awning, but the 

 awning was blown adrift, which compelled me to beat a hasty 

 retreat. Nearly all the glass in our large saloon ports on the 

 starboard side is broken. To-day, when I was on shore, the 

 houses in QueeniStreet, facing the south, looked as though there 

 had been a great fire, not a pane of glass left, and in many cases 

 the frames gone altogether. Of course, the backs of the houses 

 on the other side of the street must have sufl"ered to the same 

 extent. During the squall, which lasted about three-quarters of 

 an hour, the river was one mass of foam, caused by the hail- 

 stones raining upon its surface in such numbers. " 



An interesting archfeological discovery has been made at 

 Cancello in the neighbourhood of Naples, by the uncovering of 

 the cemetery of the ancient city of Luessula. The excavations 

 made thus far have brought to light an immense number of 

 interesting objects of ancient Greek civilisation. At Clermont- 

 Ferrand, also, in Southern France, an old Roman villa has been 

 laid bare and found to possess a rich treasure in the way of 

 ornaments, &c. 



An interesting geological discovery has recently been made 

 at Donaueschingen (Baden), A complete and very well-pre- 

 served skeleton of the prehistoric musk-deer {Cervus elaphus 

 muscosus) has been found in the neighbourhood of this little 

 town. The horns are of gigantic size and show over forty ends ; 

 it is aserted that this skeleton is the first complete one known. 



M, LuiGi PoNCi describes, in L' Eletlricista, a new electric 

 battery of great simplicity. It consists of the usual glass jar and 

 porous cylinder ; the latter, however, is filled with a solution of 

 ferrous chloride (35° Beaume), and has for a pole an iron plate, 

 while the external solution is of ferric chloride (also 35'' B.), and 

 contains a carbon pole. The electro-motive power is 09 of that 

 of a Daniel cell, 



A St. Petersburg correspondent, "C, S.," desiring to 

 pjirchase a dictionary of chemistry, writes that he would gladly 

 avail himself of a critical comparison of existing works of the 

 kind. He suggests that a comparative estimate might be 

 given through the pages of this journal. At the same time 

 one of our Paris correspondents writes us on the appear- 

 ance in Paris of the 25th number of the French "Dic- 

 tionnaire de Chimie pure et appliquee," edited by Prof. 

 Wiirtz; closing with the article on Vanadium. This important 

 work was commenced by Prof, Wiirtz in 1869, assisted by a 

 corps of twenty-five leading French chemists, and although de- 

 layed materially by the war and its results, has been pushed 

 forward vigorously, until it is now on the eve of completion. It 

 will form altogether five volumes, numbering nearly 5,000 pages, 

 and will be the first record of chemistry approaching com- 

 pleteness in the French language. The chemist is still depen- 

 dent in a great measure on the English language, for the seven 

 bulky volumes of Watts's " Dictionary," including its two 

 supplements, form the most extensive as well as most recent 



