March 9, 1922J 



NA TURE 



319 



Research Items. 



The Taboo of Women among Gypsies. — The 

 Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, now happily 

 revived with good prospects of success, publishes in its 

 opening number an article by Mr. T. W. Thompson 

 on " The Unclcanness of Women among Enghsh 

 Gypsies," which brings us back, in this England of 

 ours, to savage taboos which Sir James Frazer has 

 copiously illustrated in the " Golden Bough," and 

 reminds us that the Gypsies are a foreign, oriental 

 !ce estabhshed in our midst. Women, not only at 

 iiecial periodical seasons, are treated as impure. 

 ( . \-psies will destroy any piece of crockery or any 

 ccioking utensil touched by a woman's skirt : no 

 woman may walk over a stream or spring from which 

 drinking water is taken, lest it may become defiled : 

 and this power of contamination without contact 

 applies to things Uke crockery : " Suppose now," 

 said a girl, " my mother or one'm the girls had stepped 

 over the tea-things as we was getting our teas, 

 d'ye think my father 'd ha' eaten another bite ? " 

 Women engaged in cooking never touch " red meat " 

 — beef, mutton, or liver — but roll up their sleeves and 

 put the meat into the pot with a fork. Men object 

 to women using for washing up the crockery the soap 

 they use for washing themselves. The article deserves 

 consideration as describing a remarkable survival of 

 taboo among a civiUsed race. 



The Tomb of Confucius. — The Museum Journal, 

 issued by the University of Philadelphia (vol. xii.. 

 No. 2), is devoted to an article by Mr. C. W. Bishop 

 on " Shantung, China's Holy Land," and the tomb 

 of Confucius. The cult of T'ai Shan, holiest of 

 mountains, belongs to Taoism, the real creed of the 

 common people, contrasted with that of Confucius, 

 whose teachings represent the ideals of character 

 and conduct of the ancestor-worshipping feudal 

 aristocracy to which he belonged. There is also a 

 goddess of T'ai Shan, but the most striking fact 

 about the rehgion of China in feudal times is the 

 entire absence of female divinities. Some forty miles 

 south of the holy mountain, at Chu'u-fu, is the tomb 

 of Confucius, a splendid temple within which is 

 the gigantic seated figure of the sage, arrayed in 

 royal robes, and round him statues of his principal 

 disciples. The cemetery, said to be thirteen miles in 

 circumference, contains tens of thousands of the 

 graves of his descendants, perhaps the most wonderful 

 graveyard in the world, continuously occupied by 

 the descendants of a single man for more than two 

 thousand years. The excellent photographs accom- 

 panying the article enable us clearly to reaUse this 

 Chinese Holy Land. 



Naturalistic Art in Egypt. — Under the heading 

 " A New Chapter in the History of Egyptian Art," 

 in the February issue of Discovery, Dr. A. M. Black- 

 mann describes a new development of naturalistic 

 art found in the tombs of the barons of Cusae, the 

 modem Kusiyeh, about 200 miles south of Cairo. It 

 is possible that this school of art did not originate 

 locally, but at Heracleopolis Magna, the capital during 

 the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties, which lasted from 

 about 2500 to 2220 B.C. There is nothing quite so 

 reaUstic and vigorous in the art of Memphis as the 

 Cusite sculptor's representations of the lion catching 

 a bull by the muzzle, the hartbeests, antelopes, and 

 gazelles pursued by the hounds, and, more wonderful 

 still, the tense, nervous figure of the noble hunter, 

 raising himself on the toes of his right foot as 

 he leans forward to discharge an arrow from his 



NO. 2732, VOL. 109] 



bow at the flying deer. Equally remarkable are the 

 figures of two fellaliin binding a bundle of papyrus 

 reeds, the typical hulking Upper Egyptian yokels, 

 the butt of the town-bred clerk in a coffee-house. 

 Dr. Blackmann's review of this notable chapter in 

 the art of Egypt is in every way to be commended. 



Mount Everest Maps. — During the Mount Everest 

 expedition of last year Major Morshead and his plane- 

 tablers mapped the whole country traversed on a 

 scale of 4 miles to i inch, with the exception of the 

 area within 10 miles of Mount Everest, which was 

 surveyed photographically by Major Wheeler. On 

 the return of the expedition this map was rapidly 

 reproduced in colours by the Survey of India. The 

 Geographical Journal for February contains a reduced 

 reproduction on a scale of i : 750,000 of Major Mor- 

 shead's map in outline, time being insufficient for the 

 preparation of a hill shaded or hachured plate which 

 has now been taken in hand. On this sheet the area 

 around Mount Everest has not been taken from Major 

 Wheeler's photographic survey, which did not reach 

 London in time, but has been filled in by a map 

 constructed at the Royal Geographical Society from 

 panorama photographs. The positions of certain 

 stations east and west of the mountain were resected 

 from the few peaks the positions of which had 

 been triangulated from the plains of India. When 

 these stations were fixed other points could be inter- 

 sected, and a framework was thus constructed on 

 which the topography was sketched from photo- 

 graphs. This map is also reproduced, but on a scale 

 of I : 100,000. 



New Surveys in Kerguelen. — Considerable addi- 

 tions to the chart of Kerguelen were the outcome of 

 Capt. R. RalUer du Baty's expedition in the Curieuse 

 in the southern summer of 1913-14. Previous surveys 

 of the coasts were very incomplete in many parts and 

 Uttle of value had been done since the visit of the 

 Challenger in 1873. Capt. du Baty's work, the pub- 

 Hcation of which was delayed by the war, now appears 

 in La Geographic (January 1922) in a revised large- 

 scale chart of Kerguelen, on which many new sound- 

 ings appear, and two sheets of harbour plans. Six 

 harbours were surveyed in detail, including Port 

 Curieuse, an unexpected discovery on the smooth 

 storm-beaten west coast. Three other harbours were 

 partly surveyed. The charts are admirably repro- 

 duced in colour. Some meteorological data for six 

 months are appended to the paper. 



Nuclear Division in Opalina. — Prof. R. W. 

 Hegner and Dr. Wu {American Naturalist, vol. 55, 

 pp. 335-46, 1921) have analysed the relation between 

 growth and nuclear division in the well-known 

 multinucleate ciliate OpaUna, from the frog's rectum, 

 based on the study and measurements of 455 speci- 

 mens. The investigation was undertaken with the 

 view of affording further evidence on the nucleo- 

 cytoplasmic relation theory, according to which an 

 increase in the amount of cytoplasm as compared 

 with the amount of nuclear material furnishes the 

 stimulus which initiates nuclear division. The multi- 

 nucleate condition and the absence of cell-walls make 

 Opalina a favourable object for such study. By 

 comparing the area of specimens in various stages 

 with the number, size, and state of division of the 

 nuclei the authors have been able to determine 

 approximately the amount of increase of cytoplasm 

 which stimulates nuclear division in Opalina. Nuclear 



