64 



NATURE 



\_Nov. I J, 1887 



We are glad to hear that the Scottish University Extension 

 Scheme is likely to prove successful. A brilliant start has been 

 made in Perth, where Dr. H. R. Mill is giving a course of 

 lectures on physiography to a class of over 240 students. 



Some time ago it was arranged that three lectures on 

 "Heredity and Nurture" should be delivered at the South 

 Kensington Museum, on behalf of the Anthropological Institute, 

 by Mr. Francis Galton, President of the Institute. We are 

 requested to state that these lectures have been postponed in 

 consequence of Mr. Galton's indisposition. 



Prof. J. McK. Cattell's paper on "The Psychological 

 Laboratory at Leipzig," to be read before the Aristotelian 

 Society on the 21st, will contain an account of the aim of experi- 

 mental psychology, of the Leipzig Laboratory, and of the 

 researches which have been carried on and are being carried on 

 in it. The paper will be published in the January number of 

 Mind. 



The borings in the Delia of the Nile carried on by the Royal 

 Society have been brought to a standstill by the breaking of the 

 pipe. The depth reached is over 324 feet, still without the 

 solid rock being found. It is possible that the work may be 

 recommenced upon a larger scale. 



Several years ago three Russian " lady doctors " started at 

 Tashkend a consulting hospital for Mussulman women. From 

 the beginning the experiment proved a success, and the popularity 

 of the hospital has been increasing ever since. During the last 

 twelve months no fewer than 15,000 consultations have been 

 given. 



The Russian Consul at Kashgar writes to the Russian 

 Geographical Society that his endeavours to obtain from the 

 Chinese authorities permission to erect a memorial to Adolf 

 Schlagintweit on the very spot where Schlagintweit was killed 

 have not been successful. The memorial will be erected in 

 the Russian cemetery, where it will be at least protected from 

 injuries. 



The money necessary for sending out M. Wilkitski to make 

 pendulum observations in Novaya Zemlya has been granted by 

 the Russian Geographical Society. He will be accompanied by 

 a naturalist, M. A. Grigorieff. 



The Moscow Society of Naturalists invites those scientific 

 bodies which would like to receive, in return for their own 

 publications, the series of the Moscow Bulletin, to communicate 

 with the Secretary of the Society. 



Reports from Bergen, in Norway, seem to indicate that 

 another great rush of herring under the west coast maybe expected 

 this winter, similar to those which have taken place periodically 

 during the last two centuries through some unknown cause. The 

 two greatest rushes on record were those of 1740 and 1807. 



During a hailstorm at Mors, in Denmark, a few days ago, a 

 flash of forked lightning — the only one occurring — struck a farm, 

 and, having demolished the chimney-stack and made a wreck of 

 the loft, descended into the living-rooms on the ground-floor 

 below. Here its career appears to have been most extraordinary ; 

 all the plaster around doors and windows having been torn 

 down, and the bed-curtains in the bed-rooms rent to pieces. An 

 old Dutch clock was smashed into atoms, but a canary and cage 

 hanging a few inches from it were quite uninjured. The light-, 

 ning also broke sixty windows and all the mirrors in the 

 house. On leaving the rooms it passed clean through the 

 door into the yard, where it killed a cat, two fowls, and a pig, 

 and then buried itself in the earth. In one of the rooms were 

 two women, both of whom were struck to the ground, but 

 neither was injured. 



The last two numbers of the Folk- Lore Journal (vol. v. Parts 

 3 and 4) exhibit very varied fare, and show how this interesting 

 Society is gradually embracing the whole world. Side by side 

 with Miss Courtney's Cornish folk-lore, we have Mr. Mitchell- 

 Linne's birth, marriage, and death rites of the Chinese, followed 

 by the indefatigable Mrs. Murray-Aynsley's account of secular 

 and religious dances in Asia and Africa, which extends over both 

 numbers, and in Part 3 is succeeded by Mr. Clouston's two 

 Pacific folk-tales. Folk-lore amongst the Somali tribes follows 

 that of British Guiana, and is succeeded by Cornish, Irish, 

 Malay, and North Friesland tales. Dr. Caster's paper, in the 

 same part, on the modern origin of fairy-tales, is a very sug- 

 gestive one. Its conclusion, after an examination of certain 

 examples, which "can be infinitely multiplied," is "that the 

 literature of romance and novel, be it a religious romance or one 

 of chivalry, has passed nowadays to a great extent into the 

 literature of fairy-tales, and that, far from being the basis, the 

 fairy-tales are the top of the pyramid formed by the lore of the 

 people. They are the outcome of a long literary influence, as 

 well as an oral one, which was exercised upon the mind and 

 soul of the people during centuries." What may be called the 

 editorial matter — the notes, news, &c. — is of the usual varied 

 and interesting character. 



Sir D. Salomon's little work on accumulators, issued by 

 Messrs. Whittaker and Co., has passed rapidly through two 

 editions. A third and much improved edition, with many 

 illustrations in the text, will be ready shortly. 



We have received the first instalment of what promises to be 

 an important book, " Die Elektricitat des Himmels und der 

 Erde," by Dr. Alfred Ritter von Urbanitzky. The complete 

 work will contain about 400 illustrations, including several 

 coloured plates. The publisher is A. Hartleben, Vienna. 



We have received the first number of the American Journal 

 of Psychology, edited by Prof. G. S. Hall. The object of 

 this periodical, as the editor explains, is to record psychological 

 work of a scientific, as distinct from a speculative, character. 

 The present number contains, besides reviews and notes, articles 

 on the following subjects : the variations of the normal knee- 

 jerk and their relation to the activity of the central nervous 

 system, by Dr. W, P. Lombard ; dermal sensitiveness to gradual 

 pressure-changes, by Prof. G. S. Hall and Mr. Y. Motoro ; a 

 method for the experimental determination of the horopter, by 

 Christine Ladd-Franklin ; and the psycho-physic law and star 

 magnitudes, by Dr. J. Jastrow. 



Six Bulletins of the United States Geological Survey, Nos, 

 34-39, have been sent to us. The subjects are : on the 

 relation of the Laramie Molluscan fauna to that of the 

 succeeding fresh-water Eocene and other groups, by Dr. C. A. 

 White; physical properties of the iron-carburets, by Mr. C. 

 Barus and Mr. V. Strouhal ; the subsidence of fine solid 

 particles in liquids, by Mr. C. Barus ; types of the Laramie 

 flora, by Mr. L. F. Ward ; peridotite of Elliott County, Ken- 

 tucky, by Mr. J. S. Diller ; and the upper beaches and deltas of 

 the glacial Lake Agassiz, by Mr. W. Upham. 



In a paper which has just been reprinted from the Transac- 

 tions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Mr. J. S. Newberry 

 maintains that the decorative ideas expressed in the monuments 

 of the ancient inhabitants of Central America have a close 

 resemblance to the carvings executed by the Indians of the 

 north-western coast of America, and by the people of the 

 Pacific Islands. " Hence," says Mr. Newberry, "I am inclined 

 to believe, as has been suggested by Baldwin, that the seeds of 

 this ancient civilization were brought from the East Indian 

 Archipelago from island to island across the Pacific, and that 

 finally reaching our continent, and prevented by the great and 



