Nov. 17, 1887] 



NATURE 



65 



continuous chain of the Cordilleras from further eastward 

 migration, it slowly spread southward to Chili, and northward 

 to our western territories." 



Five years ago the increase of wolves in France had become 

 so serious that the Government found it necessary to raise the 

 awards for killing them. In 1882, 423 wolves were killed ; in 

 1883, 1316 ; in 1884, 1035 ; in 1885, 900 ; and in 1886, 760. 

 The awards are now 200 francs for the killing of a wolf which 

 has attacked human beings ; 150 francs for one in young ; 100 

 francs for a male wolf, and 40 francs for a cub. 



In the current number (vol. i. No. 4) of the Journal of the 

 Pekin Oriental Society, the well-known scholar Dr. Edkins 

 writes on local value in Chinese arithmetical notation. The 

 principle of local value is used in Chinese commerce, strokes 

 being used instead of special symbols for i, 2, 3, &c. , the rela- 

 tion of the strokes to each other showing the value of the 

 symbol. The abacus, with its upright strings and balls, is only 

 a help to calculation, and does mt contain any new principle. 

 Dr. Edkins describes calculating slips which have been in use in 

 China from the most ancient times. It is curious to notice that 

 the principle of local value adopted by the Chinese was from left 

 to right as with ourselves. The slips here mentioned, in which local 

 value played an important part, had been in use fourteen centuries 

 and probably more, when in the fourteentii century the abacus 

 was introduced. Dr. Edkins assigns the origin of the principle 

 of local value to the Babylonians, for several reasons. The first 

 Chinese example known to us is dated B.C. 542, while in the 

 sixteenth century B.C. the Babylonians could extract the cube 

 and square roots of numbers : the Hindoos do not seem to have 

 been proficients in mathematics at so early a date as B.C. 542 ; 

 so that the probability is the principle of local value in arith- 

 metical notation found its way to China through the Phoenician 

 traders. The Chinese, in fact, acquired it where they acquired a 

 knowledge of the clepsydra, the dial, astronomy, and astrology. 



The creation of provincial museums in Eastern Siberia is 

 progressing very favourably. The example given by the 

 Minusinsk Museum has been followed at Yeniseisk, and will be 

 followed at several other towns. The Minusinsk Museum has now 

 4000 specimens of plants, 2000 of animals, and 1500 of minerals. 

 The anthropological department has numerous models of huts and 

 houses of the Russian and native population. The archaeological 

 collection is especially interesting ; it contains 218 implements 

 of the Stone Age, 1260 of the Bronze Age, and 1850 of the Iron 

 Age. There is, moreover, a collection of implements used in, 

 and produced by, local domestic trades. The whole is described 

 in a good catalogue. Last year the Museum was visited by 8000 

 ])ersons. 



Two bones which were found some time ago at Pitchery 

 Creek, Central Queensland, attracted the attention of several 

 persons interested in science. They were lately exhibited at a 

 meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales, and Mr. 

 Etheridge explained that they were portions of the vertebral 

 column of an extinct reptile, Plesiosaurus . From the transverse 

 elongation of the portions preserved, the bones partook more of 

 the facies of the Plesiosauri of the Cretaceous group than of 

 those found in the Lower Mesozoic deposits. 



Dr. SCHWERiN, who was despatched last year by the Swedish 

 Government to the Congo, in order to ascertain whether that 

 place was suitable for the establishment of a Swedish colony, 

 and to make scientific researches, has returned to Sweden with 

 good results. He also reports having made an interesting dis- 

 covery at the mouth of the river, viz. the marble pillar or padro 

 erected here by Diego Cam in 1484, the first Portuguese traveller 

 who reached the Congo. The Portuguese were in the habit of 

 raising %\xc}a padroes, bearing the arms of Portugal, in prominent 



places on the West Coast of Africa, when taking possession of 

 territory, and it was known that one had been erected by Cam 

 at the mouth of the Congo, but it was believed that it had 

 been destroyed. However, Dr. Schwerin, having worked out a 

 theory of his own, searched for this ancient monument some 

 6 miles further inland than the position Indicated on English 

 charts, viz. Point Padro, and here he found it. Dr. Schwerin 

 is preparing an exhaustive account of his work on the Congo, at 

 the expense of the Swedish Government. 



An electric railway for the dinner-table is one of the recent 

 achievements of French ingenuity {La Nature, October 29). It 

 makes the presence of servants unnecessary. The train, which 

 runs on a line along either side of the table before the diners, 

 consists of a platform pivoted on two bogies, one of which carries 

 the motor, while the other is merely a supporting truck. The 

 expenditure of electric energy is but slight, and the train is said 

 to be thoroughly under control of the host. 



There has been much speculation as to bow the ancient 

 Egyptians managed to erect their enormous monoliths, sometimes 

 100 feet in height and weighing hundreds of tons. An interest- 

 ing recent article in the Revue Scientifique, by M. Arnaudeau, 

 offers the explanation that water was employed. Round the 

 obelisk, lying horizontally, with the base towards the pedestal, 

 was raised a circular inclosure, of height equal to that of the 

 monolith. This latter had pieces of wood, or other floats, fitted 

 to it, especially at the upper part ; so that when water was 

 brought into the inclosure, the obelisk rose gradually to the 

 vertical. The process may be simply imitated by introducing 

 the end of a screw nail into a piece of cork, putting it in a basin, 

 and then introducing water. 



The pulverizing of minerals for analysis often consumes much 

 time, requiring, as it does, great care. A mill for the purpose, 

 constructed on' the model of the wet mill in porcelain work, has 

 been recently brought before the Berlin Chemical Society by 

 Herr Zulkowsky {Berichte, October 24). The grinding-surfaces 

 are both agate, and the circular runner, on a vertical axis, has a 

 sector cut out of it, and one edge of this rounded. The mill is 

 driven by water-power, a pressure of two to three atmospheres 

 being sufficient. 



In a paper on colour-blindness, contributed to vol. v. Part 2, 

 of the Proceedings of the Bristol Naturalists' Society, Prof. W. 

 Ramsay suggests that the particular defect which causes colour- 

 blindness may lie in the brain, not in the eye. Certain persons, 

 he points out, are incapable of judging which of two musical 

 tones is the higher, even when they are more than an octave 

 apart. Yet such persons hear either tone perfectly ; the defect 

 is not one of deafness. "It must be concluded," says Prof. 

 Ramsay, "that in such a case the brain is the defaulter. And 

 it may equally well be the case that the inability to perceive 

 certain colours is not due to a defect in the instrument of sight 

 — the eye, but to the power of interpreting the impressions con- 

 veyed to the brain by the optic nerve. If this is the case, the 

 problem is no longer a physical one : it falls among those with 

 which the mental physiologist has to deal." 



A supplementary mail has just arrived from Iceland, from 

 which we learn that in spite of the ice which has blockaded the 

 eastern and northern shores of the island there has been a good 

 summer and autumn inland, and the harvest has been above the 

 average. However, on the east coast the ice did not disappear 

 till the middle of September, and on the north coast it has not 

 remained so long as during this summer since 1846, and even then 

 the ice-masses were far smaller than this year. In spite of this the 

 weather has been unusually warm inland. Dr. Th. Thoroddsen, 

 the well-known Iceland explorer, has been travelling in the 

 north-western peninsula this year. The fisheries have entirely 



