474 



NATURE 



{_March 15, 1888 



give some idea of what yet remains in the Cehic mind of Ire- 

 land. It is, however, but a small part of the mental treasure 

 still in possession of the people." 



In the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 

 (July-December 1887) there is a most interesting paper 

 by Dr. D. G. Brinton on ancient footprints in Nicaragua. 

 The discovery of human footprints in volcanic rocks near 

 the shore of Lake Managua, Nicaragua, under circumstances 

 which seemed to assign to them a remote antiquity, was 

 announced several years ago. Dr. Brinton refers especially to 

 a specimen on tufa sent to him from Nicaragua, by Dr. Flint, 

 an accurate representation of which accompanies the paper. It 

 is the impression of a left foot. The total length of the impres 

 sion is 9g inches, the breadth at the heel 3 inches, at the toes 

 \\ inches. The apparent length of the foot itself was 8 inches. 

 The instep was high, and the great toe large, prominent, and 

 exceeding in length the second toe. The greatest depth of the 

 impression is at the ball of the foot, the weight being evidently 

 thrown forward, as in vigorous walking. At this part the maxi- 

 mal depression below the plane of the superficies is 2 inches. 

 Dr. Brinton has no doubt as to the genuineness of the foot- 

 prints ; but their antiquity, he thinks, is uncertain. His own 

 opinion is that there is not sufficient evidence to remove them 

 beyond the present post-Pliocene or Quaternary period. 



Prof. David P. Todd, astronomer in charge of the recent 

 American Eclipse Expedition to Japan, has issued a Preliminary 

 Report (unofficial) on the total solar eclipse of 1887. Asso- 

 ciated with this document is a Preliminary Report by Dr. W. J. 

 Holland, naturalist of the Expedition. 



We have received an illustrated catalogue of the astronomical 

 instruments and observatories of Sir Howard Grubb, Dublin. 

 During the last few years Sir Howard Grabb has executed 

 important astronomical work for many Governments, Universi- 

 ties, scientific Societies and Academies, and the catalog-ue affords 

 striking proof of the care he tak^s to bring his various methods 

 and processes to perfection. 



Me. Stanford has issued an interesting volume, by Mr. A. 

 B. Macdowall, entitled "Facts about Ireland." It is an 

 attempt to show, by means of curves, the recent history of 

 various elements in the social life of the Irish people. Sections 

 are devoted to population, agriculture, education, emigration, 

 evictions and drunkenness, crime, consumption of spirits, bank 

 deposits, &c., and occupations. The mode of repre-entation, 

 which has been made familiar to most people by weather charts, 

 has enabled Mr. Macdowall to bring together in brief compass 

 a great mass of information about some very complicated and 

 difficult subjects. 



Last month Mr. J. Clayton read before the Bradford 

 Naturalists' Society a paper on Piinis syh'estris. This fact is 

 worth mentioning, because by using the autocopyist apparatus 

 the author was able to give each member a sheet of drawings, 

 and another of explanations. We have received specimens of 

 these sheets, and it seems to us that the plan might often be 

 adopted with advantage by readers of papers, and by lecturers, 

 on scientific subjects. 



Inquiries have been made by several correspondents as to 

 the photographic apparatus used by M. Marey in obtaining the 

 results as to the flight of birds set forth in the article in La 

 Nature of which we lately printed a translation (p. 369). No 

 complete account of the apparatus has yet appeared, but a 

 summary of the facts relating to it was given in the Comptes 

 rendtis for July 3, 1882. A note on the subject was printed in 

 the same publication on August 7, 1882. M. Marey proposes 

 to give a full description in a work on the flight of birds and 

 insects, which wiil be issued in the course of the present year. 



The object is to obtain an indication, at every instant, of the 

 swiftness of the moving body which is to be photographed, in its 

 passage from point to point. To secure this indication it is 

 necessary to produce, at known intervals, equal to one another, 

 and as short as possible, interruptions in the arrival of light 

 into the interior of the photographic apparatus. These inter- 

 ruptions M. Marey obtains by causing to turn, before the 

 objective, by means of machinery, a wheel which makes 

 ten revolutions in a second. This wheel has ten spokes, 

 each one of which, in its passage, interrupts the light. 

 The "eclipses" thus caused occur, therefore, a hundred 

 times per second ; so that in the photograph the space between 

 two consecutive points represents the space crossed by the 

 photographed body in i/ioo of a second. In order to indi- 

 cate the relative positions of the different parts of the body at 

 the same instant, M. Marey makes one of the spokes of the 

 wheel twice as large as the others. The result, of course, is 

 that there is a longer " eclipse " at the moment when this spoke 

 passes. This ari-angement enables the observer to determine 

 without hesitation the relative positions of the different points 

 of the body at every tenth of a second ; and it has also the 

 advantage of facilitating the calculation of the times in which 

 the movements are made. 



At Stevens's rooms, on Monday, an egg of the extinct great 

 auk {Alca inipcnnis) was sold to Mr. J. Gardner for ^220. It 

 belonged to the collection of Mrs. Wise, whose husband bought 

 it of a dealer in Oxford Street in 1851 for ;^i8. It was origin- 

 ally brought to England from Paris, and is now said to have 

 been bought for America. 



The Exhibition of Japanese eng''avings at the Burlington 

 Fine Arts Club, and that of Japanese pictures in the White 

 Gallery in the British Museum, contain much that is of a 

 specially scientific interest ; as, indeed, could scarcely fail to be 

 the case with such exhaustive and well-arranged collections of 

 the pictorial art of a people who, beyond all others, went to 

 Nature herself as the fount of their inspiration. Thus the col- 

 lection of guide-books and topographical liand-boolis in cases 

 K, L, and M, at the Burlington Club, give a remarkable picture 

 of the physical features of Japan, and one that, taken in 

 conjunction with such a work as Dr. Rein's, should be of much 

 assistance to geographers. Probably no literature in the world 

 1 is so plentifully supplied with guide-books ns that of Japan ; 

 every province, town, and district, has one or more of its own. 

 In many cases they are works of am.bitious scope and v.ide 

 utility. They indicate "all the spots famous for landscape 

 beauties, collect learned records of the historical and legendary 

 lore of the localities described, enumerate the various objects 

 of curiosity and archaeological importance preserved in the neigh- 

 bourhood, contribute scientific notes upon the flora and fauna 

 of the district, and open a fund of practical information as to 

 industries, commerce, and a hundred other matters of interest 

 both to resident and visitor." Botany is remarkably welt 

 illustrated in the books shown in case O ; while the silhouettes 

 in case H, traced with great accuracy from nature, represent 

 almost every type of the lower middle class Japanese, and should 

 be of some ethnographical value, especially as there is a con- 

 siderable number of them. The many hundreds of birds and 

 oiher animals represented in the British Museum collection 

 (it will of course be understood that we are now referring to the 

 whole of the Anderson Collection, consisting of about 4500 ex- 

 amples, not merely to the 273 on exhibition) would form a supple- 

 ment to the works of Siebold and later writers. For the student of 

 religions the Buddhistic pictures supply many details not to be 

 found in any written records, and the many volumes of popular 

 picture books show a thousand elements of Oriental folk-lore, 

 customs, and handicrafts that are now on the verge of extinction. 



