340 



NATURE 



[November 25, 1915 



exhilarating- reading, and the pictures not only 

 illustrate the text, but drive home the lesson, 

 sometimes with irresistible force. To the author 

 science is the basis of healthy life and successful 

 industry. The child is led to ask and answer 

 questions; his appetite is whetted, but never 

 satiated, and he is taught to look for scientific 

 guidance to the State Experimental Station or 

 the proper Government Department, the doors 

 of which (in America) are always open to the 

 inquiries even of children. The school has its 

 proper relation, in some ways almost subordinate, 

 to home and environment in the education of the 

 child. If dollars are often mentioned, it is be- 

 cause they are a measure of the success of each 

 worker in contributing to the well-beingf of the 

 community. Among- some pithy maxims in the 

 preface the following may be commended to 

 teachers : " Do not let such matters as an ex- 

 pensive fence prevent gardening. Get along 

 without the fence. A radish more or less will 

 cut no figure." 

 7^ Venus Inhabited? By C. E. Housden. Pp. 39. 



(London: Long-mans, Green and Co., 1915.) 



Price 15. 6d. net. 

 The uninhabitability of most of the worlds of our 

 system — the sun and moon, Mercury, and the 

 giant planets — is practically assured. Our nearest 

 neighbours, Venus and Mars, remain doubtful ; 

 speculation as to life on these worlds is natural 

 and quite legitimate, provided it does not claim 

 g-reater assurance than the evidence warrants. 



Mr. Housden is an enthusiastic adherent of 

 Prof. Lowell's views, and has already written 

 "The Riddle of Mars," supporting- the artificial 

 nature of its canal system. He now deals with 

 Venus, assuming- the 225-day rotation, and the 

 reality of the spoke-like markings drawn by 

 Lowell. The g-reat heat on the day hemisphere 

 causes convection currents, which deposit the 

 moisture as ice and snow just inside the dark 

 hemisphere, whence some of it is supposed to flow- 

 in the form of glaciers into the day hemisphere. 

 He supposes that the zone of this hemisphere 

 where the sun is low is inhabited by intelligent 

 beings, who pump the water back along several 

 conduits (Lowell's spoke markings). He claims 

 to reconcile the contradictory conclusions (i) that 

 the 225-day rotation would precipitate all moisture 

 on the dark side, and (2) that the bright side is 

 largely cloud-covered. But he has built a large 

 superstructure on a slender basis of observed 

 fact. 



The Romance of the Spanish Main. Bv Xorman 

 J. Davidson. Pp. 313. (London': Seelev, j 

 Service and Co., Ltd., 1916.) Price 55. ' j 



This "Record of the most daring deeds of some 

 of the most famous adventurers, buccaneers, 

 filibusters, and pirates in the western seas," as 

 the sub-title describes the volume, will fascinate 

 boy readers and incidentally teach them much 

 history and a helpful amount of g-eography, especi- 

 ally if they will trace the various voyages de- 

 scribed on a good map. The book is well illus- 

 trated and attractively bound. 

 NO. 2404. VOL. 96] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the ivriters of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



Pre-Columbian Representations of the Elephant in 

 America. 



Moke than sixty years ago, in his " Incidents of 

 Travel in Central America," Stephens directed atten- 

 tion to an elaborately carved "idol" at Copan, and 

 stated that "the two ornaments at the top look like 

 the trunks of elephants, an animal unknown in that 

 country." 



No one who looks at the accompanying tracing', 

 which I have taken from Dr. A. P. Maudslay's mag- 

 nificent atlas of photographs and drawings of the 

 Central American monuments (Godman and Salvin's 

 " Biologia Centrali-Americana," Archaeology, plate 

 xxxiv.), should have any doubt about the justification 

 for Stephens's comment. Moreover, the outline of the 

 head is so accurately drawn as to enable the zoologist 

 to identify t h e 

 original model for 

 the design as the 

 Indian species of 

 elephant. It is 

 equally clear that 

 the sculptor of the 

 monument was 

 not familiar with 

 the actual animal, 

 for, according -to 

 D r s. Maudslay 

 and Seler, he has 

 mistaken the eye 

 for the nostril, 

 and the auditory 

 meatus for the 

 eye, and repre- 

 sented the tusk 

 (note its relation 

 to the lower lip) 

 and the ventral 

 surface of the 

 trunk in a con- 

 ventionalised manner, without any adequate realisa- 

 tion of the true nature of the features he was model- 

 luig. 



Certain early Chinese craftsmen adopted a similar 

 convention in their representation of the elephant's 

 tusk and the ventral aspect of the trunk (see, for 

 example, "Chinese Art," vol. ii.. Fig. ;;c, Victoria and 

 Albert Museum Handbooks). 



Having converted the auditory meatus into an eve 

 the sculptor had to deal with the auditory pinna, tno 

 meaning of which no doubt was a puzzle to him. He 

 resolved these difficulties by converting it into a geo- 

 metrical pattern, which, however, he was careful to 

 restrict to the area occupied by the relatively small 

 pinna that is distinctive of the Indian species of 

 elephant. (In the representation of elephants on a 

 beautiful Chinese vase of the Ming period, now in the 

 Victoria and Albert Museum, the posterior border of 

 the pinna is lobulated, and suggests a transition to 

 the geometrical pattern of the Copan design.) 



The designer also lost his bearings when he came 

 to deal with the turbaned rider of the elephant. No 

 doubt in the original model the rider's leg wa- 

 obscured by the pinna ; but in the Copan sculpture he 

 has lost his trunk also. 



All these features go to prove quite conclusively 



