Sept. 6, 1888] 



NATURE 



453 



The Session of the Central Institution of the City and Guilds 

 of London Institute will commence on October 2. The Cloth- 

 workers', Siemens's, Mitchell, and Institute's Scholarships will be 

 competed for at an examination held on September 25 to 28- 

 According to the Annual Report for the past year there has 

 again been a large increase in the total number of candidates 

 examined. In 1887, 5508 were examined, of whom 3090 passed ; 

 in 1888, 6166 were examined, of whom 3510 passed. The 

 number of centres increased in the same period from 216 to 240, 

 while another subject, viz. practical bread-making, was added 

 to the list of subjects, which now number 49. This year, 

 for the second time, examinations were held in New South 

 Wales, candidates presenting themselves from Sydney, Bathurst, 

 and Newcastle. The worked papers, as well as specimens of the 

 hand-work of the candidates, were forwarded to this country in 

 time for the inclusion of the results in the present Report. The 

 number of colonial candidates has increased from 48 to 51, and 

 the number of those who have passed from 31 to 34. 10,404 

 students were receiving instruction in the United Kingdom in 

 475 classes, in 183 different towns. Last year the corresponding 

 numbers were 8613 students, 365 classes, and 121 towns ; and 

 these figures do not include the students at the Finsbury 

 Technical College, the Yorkshire College, Leeds, and other 

 Colleges the Professors of which do not receive grants on results, 

 and the candidates from which are classed as "external." With 

 the establishment of new Polytechnic Institutions in different 

 parts of London, it is anticipated that there will be a large 

 increase in the number of students in the technical classes 

 registered by the Institute and in the number of candidates for 

 examination. In most of the chemical subjects the number of 

 candidates is diminishing, and the majority have received their 

 instruction in institutions which obtain no help from the Institute 

 by way of payment on results. 



The most interesting paper in the recent number of the 

 Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay is Mr. 

 Fawcett's account of the Saoros or Sowrahs of the Ganjam 

 Hill Tracts. A good deal of Mr. Fawcett's paper is devoted 

 to the investigation of the religious ideas, sacrifices, and funeral 

 rites of the Saoros, and his account furnishes an interesting 

 illustration of several well-known phenomena of early forms of 

 religious belief. The objects of worship fall into two classes : 

 malevolent deities, such as Jalia, Kanni, and Laukan, the sun, 

 and ancestral spirits. Every human being possesses a kulba, 

 or soul, which departs from the body at death, but which still 

 retains the ordinary tastes of the Saoro — e.g. for tobacco and 

 liquor — and which must be satisfied, or it will haunt the living. 

 In the more primitive parts of the country, everything a man 

 possesses — weapons, cloths, his reaping-hook, and some money 

 — are burnt with him ; but this is falling out of use. A hut is 

 built for the kulba to dwell in, and food is placed there ; but 

 the more important ceremony is the guar, which occurs later, 

 the great feature of which is the erection of a stone to the 

 memory of the deceased. Near each village, clusters of such 

 stones, standing upright in the ground, may be seen. The guar 

 gives the kulba considerable satisfaction ; but it is not quite 

 satisfied till the karja is celebrated : this being a great bien- 

 nial feast to the dead, when, after the sacrifice of many buffaloes 

 and the consumption of much liquor, every house in which 

 there has been a death is burnt ; the kulba is finally driven 

 away to the jungle or the hill-side. Sacrifices are made to 

 appease deities or kulbas who have done harm, and in every 

 paddy-field, when the paddy is sprouting, as well as at harvest, 

 an offering of a goat must be made. It does not appear, how- 

 ever, that human sacrifice, once so common among the Khonds, 

 was ever practised by the Saoros. Like all other savages, the 

 Saoros have their priests, or diviners, called kudangs, whose 

 occupation seems to be partly hereditary. The kudang, like 



the modern medium, is able to interview the spirit of the de- 

 ceased and to ascertain his wishes. The method of divination* 

 usually practised is that of dropping from a leaf-cup grains of 

 rice, uttering the name of a deity as each falls, and so ascertain- 

 ing which divinity is the cause of the disease or other calamity. 

 A similar practice has long been known to be in force among 

 the Khonds, though Mr. Fawcett does not mention the fact. 

 An account is given of an exorcism witnessed by the author, in 

 the case of a boy who had suffered much from fever, which was 

 supposed to be caused by the sun. The kudang told Mr. 

 Fawcett afterwards that he had given the deity a good talking, 

 to and turned him out. " No fear of that deity returning to the 

 boy after what he had said to him ! " The kudangs, however, 

 it must be added, generally work like ordinary mortals, and 

 even when they are called in to officiate as priests they do not 

 seem, from the account given of their fasting and exertions, to- 

 get their rewards for nothing. 



Europe cannot compete with the United States in the lofti- 

 ness of its stations for taking meteorological observations. There 

 are only two stations on the European continent which reach any 

 very great height, being about 10,000 feet and 1 1,000 feet re- 

 spectively. Among the stations in America is Pike's Peak, 

 which has an 'altitude of 14,100 feet — or only about 1600 feet 

 lower than the summit of Mont Blanc — and exceeding by more 

 than 3000 feet any meteorological station in Europe. These 

 great heights are much more accessible in the United States than 

 in Europe, there being five stations in America where a height of 

 11,000 feet or more is reached by railroads built fo facilitating 

 mining work. The highest of those in North America Mount 

 Lincoln, in Colorado, the mining works on which are 14,297 feet 

 above the sea-level, and it has a meteorological station conducted 

 by Harvard College. Another station is placed part way up the 

 mountain, at a height of 13,500 feet. In the Andes Range, in 

 Peru, continuous meteorological observations are also carried on, 

 the loftiest point for this purpose being 14,300 feet above the 

 level of the sea. 



A correspondent of the Daily News in Lucerne sends to 

 that paper an account of an electric mountain railway — the first 

 of its kind — which has recently been opened to the public at the 

 Burgenstock, near Lucerne. Hitherto it has been considered 

 impossible to construct a funicular mountain railway with a 

 curve ; but the new line up the Burgenstock has achieved that 

 feat under the superintendence of Mr. Abt, the Swiss electrical 

 engineer. The rails describe one grand curve formed upon an- 

 angle of 1 12°, and the journey is made as steadily and smoothly 

 as upon any of the straight funiculars previously constructed. A 

 bed has been cut, for the most part out of the solid rock, in the 

 mountain-side from the shore of the Lake of Lucerne to the 

 height of the Burgenstock — 1330 feet above its level, and 2860 

 feet above the level of the sea. The total length of the line is 

 938 metres, and it commences with a gradient of 32 per cent., 

 which is increased to 58 per cent, after the first 400 metres, and 

 this is maintained for the rest of the journey. A single pair of 

 rails is used throughout, with the exception of a few yards at 

 half distance to permit the two cars to pass. Through the op- 

 position of the Swiss Government, each car is at the present time 

 only allowed to run the half distance, and they insist upon the 

 passengers changing, in order, as they say, to avoid collision or 

 accident. A number of journeys were made up and down 

 the mountain in company with an engineer, and the experience 

 is sufficient to prove that the prohibition is altogether unneces- 

 sary. The motive power, electricity, is generated by two dynamos*- 

 each of 25 horse-power, which are worked by a water-wheel of 

 125 horse-power, erected upon the River Aar at its mouth at 

 Buochs three miles away. Only one man is required to manage 

 the train, and the movement of the cars is completely under his 

 control. One dynamo is sufficient to perform the work of haul- 



