544 



NATURE 



'{April s, 1888 



lomas, or for the Associateship of the College, or who are 

 studying some definite subject with the view of teaching, or 

 original research, or with regard to its practical application to 

 manufacturing industries. 



We have received the Proceedings of the Royal Physical 

 Society, Edinburgh, for the session 1886-87. Among the 

 contents is an interesting Presidential Address, by Mr. John A. 

 Harvie-Brown, on the faunal importance of the Isle of May, 

 purely from an ornithological point of view. 



We have received the first part of what promises to be an 

 admirable work — "An Illustrated Manual of British Birds," by 

 Mr. Howard Saunders. The book will be completed in about 

 twenty monthly parts. It is being issued by Messrs. Gurney and 

 Jackson. 



A TWELFTH edition of the late Dr. David Page's "Intro- 

 ductory Text-book of Geology" (Blackwood) has been issued. 

 It has been edited by Prof. Charles Lapworth, who, in order to 

 bring all the departments up to date, has found it necessary to 

 recast or re-write almost the whole of the work, with the 

 exception of the introductory and concluding chapters. 



Mr. Haly, Director of the Colombo Museum, has published 

 a first Report on the Collection of Birds in that institution. 

 It fills about eighty pages demy octavo. 



The new number (the third) of the American periodical — the 

 Technology Quarterly — opens with a valuable account, by 

 Mr. W. O. Crosby, of the methods of instruction in mineralogy 

 and structural geology in the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology. Mr. S. W. Hunt continues his discussion of the 

 precision of measurements; and Mr. F. W. Clark contributes 

 notes on the assaying of lead, silver, and gold. 



The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, has received from 

 the Maryland Academy of Sciences a considerable portion of 

 its scientific collection. Among the specimens is the skeleton of 

 a young fin-back whale captured in the lower part of Chesapeake 

 Bay. Stumps of cycads, which were presented to the Academy 

 by Mr. P. T. Tyson, are also greatly valued. They were taken 

 from the Upper Jurassic clays of Maryland. 



According to a communication by M. A. Pavloif to the 

 Moscow Society of Naturalists, the meteorite which fell in 

 August last at Okhansk, in Perm, is one of the largest yet 

 known. Its weight, before it was broken, was about 1 100 lbs. 

 It belongs to the group of stony meteorites. As it contains 

 particles of unoxidized nickel iron, it must be classified with the 

 sporado-siderites. Its spherical mineral aggregates bring it 

 under the heading of chondrites. 



The following extract from a private letter by a British 

 officer, dated Sittang, Upper Chindwin, February 4, 1888, may 

 be of interest to anthropologists : — " We have arrived here after 

 eight days of hill-marching with very many ups and downs — the 

 highest point just over 5000 feet. We are now completely out 

 of Burma — the hills were sparsely inhabited by uncivilized Chins 

 and Nagas — and are now in a small State, a plateau in the 

 mountains at a level of nearly 3000 feet. The ruler and his 

 people are Hindus by conversion or adoption some hundred 

 years or less ago — the only example I know of Hindu prose- 

 lytes. The Burmans are tattooed from waist to knee with a fine 

 pattern in blue, looking as if dressed in short dark tights. They 

 wear the hair long, rolled on the top of the head, and covered 

 with a bright-coloured silk kerchief, put on somewhat as one 

 sees in pictures of Negro women of the Southern States in 

 America. The Shans, who were our neighbours in the hills 

 near the Ruby_Mines, wear very baggy trousers, like the Chinese, 

 of coarse blue cotton stuff, have uncut hair, and for a head- 

 covering a hat, either of straw or a coarser kind of wicker, of 



colossal circumference. This hat is as big" as an ordinary silk 

 umbrella, but flat except in the middle, which is conical for the 

 reception of the top-knot, and as this might sometimes prove an 

 insecure hold they often wear a fastening under the jaw. They 

 tattoo more extensively than the Burmans, and sometimes stow 

 away jewels under the skin. I have seen lumps which 

 may have been so caused, from their appearance, but I 

 never had the chance of proving their secretion by enuclea- 

 tion. The Nagas, whom we have used in the last few days 

 as carriers, do not tattoo, and wear a skimpy kilt. The 

 hair is uncut and coiled on the front of the head, the lump 

 or coil of hair secured by a band round the base ; the band often 

 made of strings of blue beads or a tape of leather, on which two 

 or three rows of small white shells are sewn. A silver or other 

 metal skewer, about ten inches long, is often stuck through the 

 hair, like the arrows worn by some belles of the West — whether 

 only for adornment, or used as a fork or harpoon, I know not. 

 All these savages have the ears pierced. The Naga carries his 

 snuff in a bit of bamboo thicker than an ordinary lead-pencil ; 

 and the Burman, who smokes eternally, sticks his cigar in his 

 ear-lobe — and his cigar is about the size of that Mr. Verdant 

 Green was induced to smoke, of such calibre that it would not 

 pass through a Colt's revolver barrel. The Nagas here are not 

 tall, but their calves and thighs would attract attention even at 

 a Highland gathering at Athol or Braemar. Their loads they 

 carry with a neatly made neck-and-shoulder yoke. From the 

 yoke in front is a brow-band, while behind a rope-loop jiasses 

 under the load." 



The Students' Engineering Society of the University Col- 

 lege, Bristol, concluded the winter session, on March 26, 

 with a public disputation on the gas-engine v. the steam-engine, 

 and on March 27 gave a eonversazione. The electrical and 

 engineering exhibits attracted much attention, and a highly 

 appreciated concert was rendered by the students and their 

 friends. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Gannet (^Sula bassana), a Greater Black- 

 backed Gull {Larus 7?iarinus), British, presented by Mrs. 

 Rickards ; a Hawfinch [Coccothraustes vulgaris), British, pre- 

 sented by Mr. Chas. Faulkner ; a Common Swan {Cygnus olor), 



British, a Penguin (Eudyptes pac/iyrhynchus, from New 



Zealand, deposited. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



The Period of Algol. — Mr. S. C. Chandler publishes, in 

 Nos. 165, 166, and 16"] oi Gouhfs Astronomical Journal, a careful 

 and thorough discussion of the period of this interesting variable. 

 Starting with the observations of Goodricke in 1782, he had at 

 his disposal the times of nearly 700 minima as observed by 

 about fifty astronomers, spread over a little more than a century. 

 His first task was to reduce these observations to a common 

 system — an operation the more necessary, since, in the present 

 low state of our knowledge, differences in the processes of re- 

 duction are more important in their effect, if they do not com- 

 pletely overshadow personal differences in observation. Mr. 

 Chandler decided, therefore, to abandon the use of the minimum 

 phase as a reference-point, and re-reduced the entire mass of 

 observations on a method the essential principle of which con- 

 sisted in taking, as the reference-point, the mean between the 

 times cf equal brightness on the descending and a-cending 

 branches of the light curve. This involved the abandonment of 

 199 minima, for which sufficient details could not be procured, 

 but left 496 to be employed in the investigation. Unfortunately 

 these are not by any means evenly distributed as to time, and in 

 the earlier part of the present century satisfactory observations 

 are very scarce. 



That the period of Algol was itself subject to change was 

 suspected by Wurm and proved by Argelander, but the formuLx 

 deduced by the latter have not represented later observations. 

 Mr. Chandler has succeeded, however, in reducing its apparently 

 highly complicated anomalies to a comparatively simple law. 



