August 9, 1888] 



NATURE 



145 



the most durable seed and the best protected rhizome 

 must have lost all vitality during the intense heat, and 

 not a germ was left. The whole island from the summit 

 of the peak down to the water's edge is now covered with 

 a layer of cinders and pumice stone, varying from one to 

 sixty metres in thickness. Furthermore, the possibility 

 of the new vegetation having been conveyed thither by 

 man is out of the question, because the island is 

 uninhabited, uninhabitable, and difficult of access. 



Therefore, the present vegetation must be due to other 

 agencies, of which three different ones may have operated 

 — namely, winds, waves, and birds. 



Now, as to the composition of the vegetation met with 

 on Krakatab by Dr. Treub in June 1886, nearly three 

 years after the eruption, the bulk consisted of ferns 

 with isolated plants of Phanerogams, both on the shore 

 and on the mountain itself. Eleven species of ferns were 

 collected, and some of them were already common. They 

 are all species of wide distribution, and it may be of 

 interest to give their names : Gymnogramme calo- 

 melanos, Acrostichum scandens, Blechnum. oricntale, 

 Acrostichum anreum, Pteris lotigifolia, Nephrolepis exal- 

 tata, Ncphrodium calcaralum, N. jlaccidiim, rteris 

 aquilina, P. marginata, mid Onychium auratum. 



It is not at all surprising that the spores of the fore- 

 going and many other ferns should have been carried to 

 the island by winds ; but, as Dr. Treub remarks, it is 

 almost incomprehensible that they should grow under 

 such extraordinarily disadvantageous conditions. Chem- 

 ically and physically the volcanic matter covering the 

 island is as sterile as could well be, yet the prothallia of 

 ferns readily developed. A closer investigation, however, 

 revealed the fact that ferns were not the first organisms 

 in the new vegetation of Krakatab, the cinders and 

 pumice-stone being almost everywhere covered with a 

 thin coating of Cya7iophyccce (fresh-water Alga?) belonging 

 to the genera Lyngbya, Tolypothrix, &c, — altogether six 

 species. The presence of these Alga? gives the surface of 

 the soil a gelatinous and hygroscopic property, in the 

 absence of which Dr. Treub doubts the possibility of 

 fern-growth. Thus these microscopic organisms prepare 

 the soil for the ferns, much as the latter provide the con- 

 ditions under which the seeds of Phanerogams can 

 germinate and grow. 



The phanerogamic element (flowering plants) of the new 

 vegetation consisted, on the shore, of young plants of 

 Calophyllum Inopliyllum, Cerbera Odollam, Hernandia 

 sonora, Sccevola Kcenigii, Ipomoea fies-caprce, a species of 

 Erythrina, two species of Cyperacece, and Gymnothrix 

 elegans. With the exception of Gymnothrix elegans, a 

 common grass in Java, all the plants named are among 

 those which take possession of newly-raised coral islands. 



In the interior of the island, on the mountain itself, 

 Dr. Treub discovered Sccevola Kcenigii, Tournefortia 

 argentea, a species of Wollastonia, a species of Senecio, 

 two species of Conyza, Phragmites Roxburghii, and 

 Gymnothrix elegans. 



In addition to the foregoing Phanerogams, Dr. Treub 

 observed on the sea-coast seeds or fruits of Heritiera 

 littoralis, Terminalia Catappa, Cocos nucifera, Barring- 

 tonia speciosa, and Pandanus. These also are among the 

 commonest sea-shore and coral island trees throughout 

 the Malayan Archipelago and Polynesia. 



A more interesting record of the processes of a new 

 flora can hardly be imagined, especially that in relation to 

 the preparation of the soil by microscopic sporiferous 

 plants. Of course this is not a new discovery ; but it is 

 perhaps the first actual observation of the renewal of the 

 vegetation of a volcanic island. 



Dr. Treub intends visiting Krakata'b again, and report- 

 ing fully on the progress of the new flora, and his report 

 will doubtless be looked forward to with great interest. 



W. B. Hemsley. 



THE NON-CHINESE RACES OF CHINA. 



A VALUABLE Report which has just been laid before 

 -**■ Parliament contains an account of a journey made 

 by Mr. Bourne, British Consular Agent at Chung-King in 

 Szechuen province, through South-Western and Southern 

 China, to study certain commercial questions in these 

 regions. The journey lasted 193 days, and carried the 

 traveller through the great provinces of Yunnan, Kwangsi, 

 Kweichow, and Szechuen. Mr. Bourne was constantly 

 brought into contact with various non-Chinese tribes in- 

 habiting these provinces, and his Report contains a large 

 amount of information respecting their language and 

 habits. He also devotes a special appendix to them. 

 He says that there is probably no family of the human 

 race, certainly none with such claims to consideration, of 

 which so little is accurately known as the non-Chinese 

 races of Southern China, and he attributes this to the 

 " perfect maze of senseless names" in which the subject 

 has been involved by the Chinese. The " Topography of 

 the Yunnan Province," published in 1836, gives a cata- 

 logue of 141 classes of aborigines, each with a separate 

 name and illustration, without any attempt to arrive at a 

 broader classification. To Mr. Bourne it appeared that 

 before the tribes could be scientifically assigned by 

 ethnologists, they must be reduced to order amongst 

 themselves, and that something might be done in this 

 direction by taking a short vocabulary and obtaining its 

 equivalent in the dialect of every tribe met with, when a 

 comparison would reveal affinities and differences. Ac- 

 cordingly he gives twenty-two vocabularies, containing 

 the numerals up to 12, 20, 30, 100, 1000, father, mother, 

 brother, sister, heaven, gold, hand, foot, sun, dog, horse, 

 iron, &c. — in all, thirty-six words. In each case the date, 

 place, the name by which each tribe calls itself, the name 

 by which the Chinese know it, and the name by which it 

 knows the Chinese, is given. A comparison of these 

 vocabularies and a study of Chinese books lead him to 

 the conviction that, exclusive of the Tibetans, there are 

 but three great non-Chinese races in Southern China — 

 the Lolo, the Shan, and the Miao-tsze. The vocabularies 

 do not convey the whole evidence that these scattered 

 people respectively speak the same language, for the 

 Lolo, Shan, and Miao-tsze are all languages of the 

 Chinese type that make up for poverty of sound by 

 " tones " ; the resemblance is much more striking to the 

 ear accustomed to these distinctions of sound than when 

 the words are written in English, when the similarity of 

 tone is lost. Among the 141 tribes described in the 

 Chinese topography of Yunnan, with short vocabularies 

 of the principal dialects, there are very few, and those 

 unimportant, that cannot be identified from the illustra- 

 tions or letterpress as belonging to one or other of the 

 three families or to Tibetan. As to the names of these 

 families, Lolo is a Chinese corruption of Lulu, the name 

 of a former chieftain of the people, who call themselves 

 Nersu, and has come to stand for the people themselves. 

 Shan is the Burmese term adopted by Europeans for the 

 people who call themselves "Tai," " Pu-nong," &c. 

 Miao-tsze, a Chinese word, meaning " roots," is confined 

 by the more accurate to the aborigines of Kweichow and 

 Western Hunan. 



The Lolos were formerly called by the Chinese 

 the "Tsuan barbarians," a name taken from one of 

 their chiefs. They call themselves Nersu, and the 

 vocabularies show that they stretch in scattered com- 

 munities as far as Ssu-mao, and along the whole southern 

 border of Yunnan. They are also said by the Chinese to 

 be found on the Burmese frontier. In a topography of 

 Momien, a town not far from Bahmo, in the extreme 

 south-west of Yunnan, the following information is given 

 about them, which is at least surprising : — " The old 

 Tsuan (Lolo) of Mengshan do not die. When old, they 

 grow tails, eat men, not distinguishing their own children, 



