79 



N4 TURE 



{Nov. 15, .1888 



his sail that the ves.-el will not forereach (or lay to) on the port 

 tack, and wait until the storm passes on. 



But on the right-hand semicircle the case is very different, 

 and the starboard-tack rule is the proper one to adopt both with 

 regard to the wind-shifts and also to the fact of the vessel always 

 coming more and more " head on " to the sea — an all-important 

 consideration. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge.— Mr. Francis Darwin, F.R.S., of Trinity 

 College, has been appointed Reader in Botany in succession to 

 Dr. Vines. Mr. E. H. Douty, M.A., of King's College, has 

 been appointed Senior Demonstrator in Anatomy ; and Messrs. 

 W. S. Melsome, Fellow of Queen's College, and Mr. R. W, 

 Michell, of Gonville and Caius College, Junior Demonstrators 

 of the same. 



The elections to the Council of the Senate this year may be 

 regarded as generally favourable to science ; Dr. Peile, Prof. 

 Macalister, Dr. Routh, Prof. Browne, and Mr. E. Hill, being 

 six of the eight elected. Dr. Lea, however, was unsuccessful, 

 this being his first candidature. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Science, November. — On the deflection 

 of the plumb-line and variations of gravity in thellawaiian Islands, 

 by E. D. Preston. The observations for gravity were carried 

 out in 1887 on Mount Haleakala on the Island of Maui, which 

 is rather over 10,000 feet high with one of the largest extinct 

 craters in the world on its summit. From these researches it 

 appears that deflections of the plumb-line are greater on insular 

 than on continental mountains, presumably owing to the lighter 

 surrounding sea-water ; that gravity is not in defect, because it 

 is here estimated from the true sea-level, and not from a sea- 

 level elevated by continental attraction ; that deflections are 

 greater in ihe vicinity of extinct volcanoes than near active ones ; 

 and that the so-called "hidden causes," which in the Himalayas 

 give a variation of gravity several times as great as those arising 

 from the attraction of the mountains themselves, do not exist in 

 the Hawaiian Islands. — Mineralogical notes, by S. L. Penfield 

 and E. S. Sperry. Beryl and phenacite are here studied for the 

 purpose of determining the presence of alkalies in these crystal- 

 line bodies. Analytical studies are also given of several other 

 rare minerals, such as a specimen of monazite and oligoclase from 

 North Carolina, sussexite from New Jersey, barium feldspar 

 from Pennsylvania. — The absorption sjsectra of certain blue 

 solutions. Part 2, by F. B. Pitcher. Here it is shown that 

 blues and violets obtained by absorption in pigments and 

 solutions, differ in several respects from those colours which 

 approximate in hue to the longer wave-lengths of the spectrum. 

 As a rule they are much less completely saturated, and they show 

 irregularities of composition rarely met with in absorption reds 

 and yellows. — An instrument for demonstrating the laws of 

 transverse vibrations of cords and wires, by George S. Moler, 

 The apparatus here described was designed to meet a want, felt 

 in the laboratory, for an improvement over Melde's method of 

 producing transverse vibrations of cords and wires. — Rhsetic 

 plants from Honduras, by J. S. Newbury. These fossils, 

 chiefly from the San Juancito district, are clearly Upper Triassic, 

 and greatly resemble those of the coal-bearing strata on the 

 Yaki River, Sonora. — Energy and vision, by S. P. Langley. In 

 this investigation the author has had mainly in view the assump- 

 tion of H. F. Weber and others that the luminosity of a colour 

 is proportionate to the energy that produces it, an assumption 

 which is shown to be absolutely groundless. — Mr. J. H. Long 

 has a paper on circular polarization of certain tartrate solutions, 

 and Mr. W. E. Hidden sends some notes on some specimens of 

 xenotime from New York and North Carolina. 



Bulletins de la Sociele (T Anthropologic, tome xi. Serie 3 

 fasc. I (Paris, i888). — On aphasia, by M. Herve, who draws 

 attention to a case recorded by Larrey sixty years ago, 

 of a soldier, wounded at Waterloo on the left frontal, who lost 

 his memory of words, more especially nouns. After death the 

 ball was found close to the dura mater, but separated from it by 

 the portion of bone embedded with it at the moment of the 



accident. The case is curious as having been recorded so 

 long before Broca's discovery of the localization of speech. — 

 Monstrosity of the left upper extremity, by M. Variot. The 

 relatively small but otherwise normally formed left hand appears 

 to proceed directly from the stump of the flattened shoulder with 

 no trace of arm, or forearm. The body presents no other 

 anomaly. — The history of the various modifications effected in 

 the ship's rudder, by M. O. Beauregard. — On certain customs, 

 connected with phallic worship, common to the Abyssinians 

 and the ancient Spartans. — On cannibalism and its assumed 

 origin. The consideration of these questions at an earlier 

 meeting by M. de Nadaillac has been again made the subject of 

 an animated discussion between himself and M. Mprtillet ; for, 

 while the latter believes that this practice must originally have 

 emanated from some perverted religious idea, M. de Nadaillac 

 refers it solely to the promptings of famine, which is capable of 

 engendering in man, if not mania, a depraved taste, and bestial 

 inclinations, which civilization has never been able wholly to 

 eradicate. The absence of animals adapted for human food he 

 considers to have been a powerful factor in widely remote 

 lands, as Mexico, Tierra del Fuego, New Zealand, the Pacific 

 Islands, &c. , where the people under various stages of civilization 

 and barbarism have alike practised cannibalism, whether as a 

 national rite or a social custom. The discussion supplies an 

 exhaustive treatise on the su'oject, which at a subsequent meeting 

 of the Society was again considered at great length by Dr. 

 Bordier, who concludes'his comprehensive essay by showing that, 

 as the dental system in man, as in the other Primates, does not 

 allow us to assume that in his primitive condition he was 

 carnivorous, we must consider cannibalism as an acquired and 

 not an original custom. — Communication, by M, D'Acy, regard- 

 ing Palaeolithic mortuary deposits in rock-caves. This paper gave 

 rise to a discussion as to the age of human remains found at 

 Solutre, Furfooz, Spy, Mentone, &c., M. de Mortillet regarding 

 them in opposition to M. D'Acy as Neolithic, rather than 

 Paleolithic. — On the choice of a fixed point of departure for 

 cranial measurements, by Dr. Fauvelle. This the writer 

 considers is to be sought at the base of the cranium, at the 

 cerebral extremity of the vertebral column, where alone one 

 definite point can be found which is always the same in the 

 entire series of the Vertebrata, being indicated in the embryo by 

 the anterior terminus of the dorsal cord, and in the adult by the 

 posterior portion of the first cervical nerve. — The present number 

 of the Bulletins contains the ordinary annual report of the 

 statutes, rules, &c., of the Society. 



Fasc. 2. — Continuation of the discussion on cannibalism re- 

 ported in the previous number, and treating specially of the char- 

 acter and adaptability of the dental system in man. — On woman 

 in relation to cannibalism in Polynesia, by M. Letourneau. The 

 exclusion of women from cannibal feasts in some members of this 

 group is referred to a greedy desire on the part of the chiefs to 

 reserve such enjoyments for themselves. Human flesh being 

 early tabooed to women, they gradually acquired a strong distaste 

 for it, which in course of time was transmitted as an hereditary 

 characteristic even to their male descendantr, some of whom, as 

 the majority of the Tahitians, had begun to manifest a repugnance 

 for this species of food as early as the lime the islands were first 

 visited by Captain Cook.— On the ethnology of Le Rouergne, by 

 M. Durand de Gros. The author regards this district as chiefly 

 Iberian in character, and considered that the whole of the 

 Department of Aveyron, with L'Herault and La Lozere, forms the 

 eastern confines of a remarkable linguistic region, comprising 

 the whole of ancient Aquitania. He points out that the Garonne 

 is a phonetic frontier, to the north of which all forms of local 

 falois possess the letter /, while on the opposite side that char- 

 acter is replaced by h, \h&fillia, ferre {ftlle, fer), of the peasants 

 on the right bank, being pronounced hil/ia, herre, by those on the 

 left. The paper supplies much interesting matter in regard to 

 the various linguistic currents that have been successively incorpor- 

 ated in the main stream of the vernacular through consecutive 

 immigrations ; Latin, Celtic and Teutonic suffixes being often 

 associated with some alien root in the names of families and places. 

 The brachy cephalic character of the district is at present very 

 strongly marked, while the crania belonging to ancient times, as 

 those found in the dolmens of La Lozere, are without exception 

 dolichocephalic. — On the stature of the Parisians, by M. 

 Manouvrier. A comparative analysis of the results yielded for the 

 twenty arrondissemeni.s of Paris shows that, other conditions 

 being equal, affluence, and the absence of want and of the necessity 

 for excessive labour, have a favourable influence on the stature 



