October 21, 1920] 



NATURE 



241 



Organic Chemisiry ]or Medical, Intermediate 

 Science, and Pharmaceutical Students. By Dr. 

 A. Killen Macbeth. Pp. xi + 235. (London : 

 Longmans, Green, and Co., 1920. J Price 

 b5. 6ii. net. 

 As an introductory text-book for the classes of 

 students indicated in the title, this should be very 

 useful. It is clearly written, and provided with 

 exercises. One might have wished for a little 

 more experimental detail ; beginners in organic 

 chemistry are liable to get into the habit of " re- 

 moving hydroxyl groups," or "adding halogen 

 atoms to double-bonds," or similar hypothetical 

 operations, when they are asked to describe some 

 simple laboratory operation. Chap, xviii., on 

 "Schematic Representation," should be found 

 helpful by students, as the subject is not usually 

 dealt with in text-books. Slight weakness in 

 physico-chemical theory is sometimes detected — 

 e.g. on p. 5, with reference to fractional distilla- 

 tion, one finds only the misleading statement that 

 "the more volatile vapour passes on to the con- 

 denser, and a sharp separation is effected." The 

 elementary facts of fractional distillation are not 

 often explained in text-books on organic 

 chemistry. 



Lead: Including Lead Pigments and tin; De- 

 silverisation of Lead. By Dr. J. A. Smythe. 

 (Pitman's Common Commodities and Indus- 

 tries.) Pp. vii+i20. (London: Sir Isaac 

 Pitman and Sons, Ltd., n.d.) Price 3s. net. 



Dk. Smythe's interesting account of the mining, 

 extraction, and uses of lead should be found useful 

 by teachers and students of chemistry, as well as 

 entertaining by the general reader. The illustra- 

 tions, partly reproductions of old cuts from .\gri- 

 cola and partly of modern plant, add considerably 

 to the interest and value of the book. A good 

 description is given of the manufacture of white 

 lead, and of the methods of separating silver from 

 argentiferous lead. 



Letters to the Editor. 



ITht Editor does not hold himtelf reiponsiblt /or opinlont 

 expressed by hit correspondents. Neither can he undertake to 

 return, or to correspond with lh« ■wrliers ol, rejected trwnu- 

 scripts Intended lor this or any other part of NATtllUI. NO 

 notice is taken of anonymous eotnmunications.] 



" Momiai." 



In (nn. .Mexamior ('unnin}^h.iin\ ' l.aclMk," i!>S4> 

 p. 237, we have probably ^^H• first mention of this 

 subslxince amon}< the mineral productions of that 

 country. Gen. Cunninjjham savs : "The common 

 momiai of Indian m«Hlicine is, ot course, a manufac- 

 tured article ; nllhouj^h not m.-ulc, as fjenerally asserted, 

 of the melted fat of .\bysslni.in Iiovh who have been 

 roa»te<l for the purpcwe. . . . The original mntniai 

 was only mummy, whii h at one time was held in 

 much repute in Europe." 



It is interesting to note that the extraction from 

 young children still finds b«-llef in India; furtN-r, 

 thnt it is ma«lo again a strong k'Ver in \h>- hands of 

 dangerous .Tgitators to «listurb and rou.«*e the f<-elings 

 of the people and set them against their rulers. 



I am led to write on this because in the Morning 

 Post of September 2() there is a communication from 

 NO. 2660, VOL, 106] 



its Calcutta correspondent (dated September 3) which 

 is worth reading just at present, when all is not going 

 well in India, events taking place which recall the 

 days before the Mutiny of 1857. " .\ crazy rumour 

 and its effects " is the subject I especially notice, a part 

 of which 1 must quote; it is so similar to what was 

 in circulation in the Mutiny year : 



".At Khargpur, the Swindon of one of the largest 

 railways in India, the ignorant people, including some 

 of the workmen in the railway workshops, had been 

 for some time much excited ov«r a ridiculous and 

 false rumour which still obtains currency all over the 

 countrj- wherever large building works are in con- 

 temphuion, to the effect that the Government wanted 

 a number of children for sacrifice, without which the 

 buildings of the new district headquarters could not 

 stand. In this instance the people believed that 

 several men had been authorised by the District 

 -Magistrate to wander throughout the district kid- 

 napping children. The rumour obtained such wide 

 currency that the District Magistrate went to Kharg- 

 pur several times, and both the executive and the 

 railway authorities did their best to remove the super- 

 stitious belief. The District Magistrate also issued 

 notices in the vernaculars contradicting the rumour." 



History is repeating itself. In .\pnl, 1857, I was 

 on my way to join the Kashmir .Survey Party at 

 Rawui Pindi ; there the first rumblings of the coming 

 Mutiny were heard by me. \'ery few Europeans then 

 had a notion that such a conflagration was soon to 

 come. Warnings were not taken seriously, and were 

 more often received with ridicule. There was unrest 

 in manv forms, not so widespread as it is now. To 

 give an idea of the reports then in circulation, one 

 of mv servants, on returning from the city where he 

 had gone to make purchases, came, at once to ask 

 me whether it was true that the Queen of England 

 was sending out to India an army of several lakhs 

 of men to force the population of India to be Chris- 

 tians. I told him it was nonsense, and asked where 

 he had heard it. He said two Faqirs (religious mendi- 

 cants) were preaching on the invasion in the streets 

 of the city. The storv had evidently made an impres- 

 sion on him, and it fed to my having a conversation 

 with another native, in which I heard for the first 

 time of momifii, and was told that we sahibs made it. 

 He gave me a very circumstantial account : that 

 children were kidnapp<Hl, hung up by the heels, head 

 downwards, and an incision made in the breast from 

 which flowed the wonderful substance which gave us 

 so much power. To prove his words, my informant, 

 who was a Kashmiri resident in Rawul Pindi, said 

 he could show me the very bungalow in which all this 

 was done. It turned out to be the Masonic Lodge — 

 "The Star in the East," I think it is cnlled— situated 

 in the cantonment of Rawul Pindi — the "Jadu 

 Ghur,'* or mystery hou.se, as it is always called by 

 the natives. In my wanderings in the Kashmir Hima. 

 lava up to 1863 the story of the "Jadu Ghur" would 

 crop up. It was thoroughly known in Kashmir, on 

 into Litdak. and extendMl, Ibelieve, into Central .Vsia, 

 wherever Kashmir merchants are to be found. 



I much fear my explanation of what is done in a 

 masonic lodge, and of what its use is, did little to 

 alter whatever was in the mind of my informant. I 

 do know that these impossible tales carry enormous 

 weight for evil among the mass of tlie people, both 

 male and female. Their disst-mination should be 

 watched an<l met. " Th<- Viceroy's suggestion that 

 a dangerous agitation in India can be allowed to take 

 its own course unguided and unimi>eded by those in 

 authority " is folly, and shows utter ignorance of the 

 people he has been sent to rule. 



H. H. Oonwtv-At'sTKv. 



Nore, Godalming, October 3. 



