February 24, 19 16] 



NATURE 



703 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



jThe Editor dues not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications. \ 



Scottish "Elephant" Designs. 



I'kuI'. G. Elliot Smith has referred in Nature of 

 uuiary 27 to the "conventionalised drawings of the 

 i(j)hant in ... Scotland," and has been helped by 

 ihcse designs in his building up of an important theory. 

 I>ut, alas ! these Scottish drawings are not of elephants. 

 I have gone most carefully into every known speci- 

 men, whole or fragmentary, of these so-called 

 • elephants," for the purpose ot attempting an elucida- 

 ' 111 and reading of the corpus of Pictish symbolism, 

 hey are invariably accompanied by other Pictish sym- 

 nls. From consideration of their positions in series, 

 iheir varying dimensions, the angles at which they 

 li<', and other factors, I believe I have been able to 

 arrive at a correct solution of the problem of their 

 meaning. I am sure that they never had anything to 

 do with elephants. But whether my solution is right 

 or not, I merely here desire to point out that a close 

 study of the draw-ings reveals that the supposed trunk 

 consists of two elongated jaws. The other parts of 

 the anatomy are likewise quite non-elephantine in 

 character. 



The fancied resemblance of these very early Christian 

 sculpturings to elephant figures was first promulgated 

 some forty years ago by a writer familiar with Indian 

 mythology, who attempted to connect up Scottish with 

 Indian inscriptions and designs. The attempt, how- 



Irer, was speedily abandoned. 

 i LuDovic MacLkllan Mann. 



Royal Societies Club, February 1. 

 »Ir. Mann's letter serves as a reminder that the 

 scussion of the significance of the Scotch pictures 

 of the elephant has followed a course remarkably 

 analogous to that which has been waged for a century 

 around the American representations of the elephant. 



In both cases all the early scholars, as well as those 

 of our contemporaries who do not claim to have a 

 special ethnological insight, arc satisfied to regard them 

 as pictures of elephants ; but the ingenuity of modern 

 pundits insists on interpreting these sculptures in some 

 more recondite way. In .\merica the ethnologists are 

 not sure whether the creature depicted was a tapir, a 

 tortoise, or a macaw. In Scotland and Scandinavia 

 the dispute around the elephant is maintained by scholars 

 who are wrangling as to whether it is a walrus, a sun- 

 bear, or a lion-rampant! (For the literature the reader 

 should consult Haddon's "Evolution in Art," p. 194; 

 the Earl of Southesk's "Origin of Pictish Symbolism," 

 1893; and Hildebrand's "Industrial Arts of Scandi- 

 navia," 1882.) Your correspondent tells us he has 

 "been able to arrive at a correct solution of the 

 problem," but with singular modesty he declines to 

 tell us what it is. 



In 1856 and 1867 the Spalding Club published two 

 magnificent volumes dealing with "The Sculptured 

 Stones of Scotland." in which the learned editor, Mr. 

 John Stuart, brought his wide knowledge and common 

 sense to bear upon the problems raised by the pictures 

 of the elephant, and, I believe, settled the question for 

 all time. He had no doubt whatever that the animal 

 depicted was the Indian elephant, the knowledge of 

 which "was broucrht into Europe bv the Greeks after 

 the Indian exjjeditions of Alexand'>r the Great " (vol. ii., 

 pp. xi. and xii.). 



NO. 2417, VOL. 96] 



•The elephant of the Scotch stones cannot be re- 

 garded as a likeness but rather as a con- 

 ventional representation of the animal, and 

 the unvaryigg adherence to one form would sug- 

 gest that the sculptors were unacquainted with the 

 original and were not working from a traditional de- 

 . .scription . . . but rather were copying a figure with 

 defined form " (p. xii). He adds further that the orna- 

 mental scrolls found on the elephant were not found 

 on any other beast. These scrolls were derived from 

 the Indian sea-elephant type of "makara." 



Mr. Mann's remark that "the fancied resemblance 

 of these . . , sculpturings to elephant figures was first 

 promulgated some forty years ago by a writer familiar 

 \vith Indian mythology," presumably refers to Col. 

 Forbes Leslie, who, on the first page of his book on 

 "The Early Races of Scotland," states that Mr. John 

 Stuart's work " has been taken as the basis of the 

 present work." 



I presume, therefore, that Mr. Mann is not 

 acquainted with the real evidence upon which my case 

 is established. 



There is, of course, a very considerable mass of 

 other literature relating to these elephants, both serious 

 argument and modern speculation ; but the only other 

 item that I need refer to now is an episode in one 

 of the Norse fairy tales, as translated by Sir (ieorge 

 Dasent, of " an old hag drawing water out of a well 

 with her nose, so long was it. " 



One might make the same remark about this story 

 as Mr. (now Sir) Edward Tylor made in reference to 

 the American legend of the " great elk," told by Father 

 Charleroix (" History of New France," 1744, vol. v., 

 p. 187) : "it is hard to imagine that anything but the 

 actual sight of a live elephant could have given rise to 

 this tradition" ("Early History of Mankind"). 



G. Elliot .Smith. 



The University of Manchester, February 3. 



The Remarkable Warmth of January, 1916. 



A comparison of the Greenwich tennjeratures for 

 January, 1916, w^ith past records may be of .some 

 interest. 



Retx)rd temperatures for the time of year have 

 occurred with considerable frequency this winter, and 

 the warmth of January was unique in many respects. 

 The maximum and minimum temperature observa- 

 tions taken at the Greenwich Observatory are used 

 for the examination of the exceptional character of 

 the month, and the Greenwich records afford trust- 

 worthy means of comparison extending over a lon^ 

 jjeriod. 



The average temperature for January obtained from 

 the maximum and minimum observations for the last 

 seventy-five years is 385°, and the mean for January 

 this year was 457°, which is 72° higher than the 

 average, and it is 20° hifjher than in any January since 

 1841, the previous highest mean being 437° in 1846, 

 which is followed by 435° in 1884. There have only 

 been six previous Januarys in the last seventy-five 

 years with the mean temperature as high as 43°. The 

 mean of January, 1916, was 1-5° warmer than Decem- 

 ber, and 65° warmer than Novemlxr last, whilst the 

 month was warmer than in five .\prils during the last 

 thirty years. 



The mean maximum or highest day temperature 

 for the month was 506°, which is 7-5° warmer than 

 the average, and is 21° above the previous highest 

 mean maximum, 485° in 1890, and there have only 

 been four previous Januarys with the mean maximum 

 temperature as high as 48°. 



The mean minimum, or night temperature, was 

 408°, which is 7-0° above the seventy-five years' aver- 



