432 



NATURE 



[August i, 1918 



Mr. Eckley B. Coxe, jun. Portions of the palace of 

 Meremptah have been excavated with important 

 results. On the dais where the king's throne stood 

 were found four large panels, each containing a bound 

 captive — a negro, a Libyan, a Sardinian, and a fourth 

 not yet identified. In the stratum assigned to 

 Ahmose II. there was found a cache of gold and 

 silver jewelry. At Dendereh was discovered a neck- 

 lace composed of selected amethysts and carnelians, 

 the large beads bearing the name of Sesostris I. 

 (B.C. 1980-35) inscribed upon them. 



In Folklore (vol. xxix., No. i) Mrs. M. A. Holland, 

 in a paper entitled " The Influence of Burial Customs 

 on the Belief in a Future State," examines Sir James 

 Frazer's well-known paper, " On Certain Burial 

 Customs as Illustrating the Primitive Theory of the 

 Soul " (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1885). 

 The author examines this theory from the pre- 

 animistic point of view, and discusses certain customs 

 associated with burial and the modes adopted by early 

 man for the disposal of the corpse. As an illus- 

 tration of the method of inquiry, she inquires 

 why, according to Plutarch, an exile, reported to be 

 dead, for vjhom funeral ceremonies have been per- 

 formed, may not re-enter his house through the door, 

 but must find a way through the roof. The hitherto 

 accepted explanation is that he is still officially dead, 

 must be considered a ghost, and as such it is phy- 

 sically impossible for him to cross the threshold, which 

 has been rendered ghost-proof by a mystic barrier of 

 fire and water. But the more primitive motive may 

 have been that he was regarded as uncanny because, 

 officially speaking, he had been once dead, and so 

 must not be given the chance of contaminating a holy 

 place like the threshold. The paper gives a good 

 rdsumi of the more recent views on animism, and 

 deserves study. 



Since the house-fly has been clearly recognised as 

 a great danger to the health of the community much 

 attention has been paid to a study of its habits, and 

 particularly to the conditions which are favourable for 

 breeding. One aspect of the subject— the over- 

 wintering of the house-fly — is dealt with in an article 

 by Mr. R. H. Hutchison in the Journal of Agricul- 

 tural Research (vol. xiii., No. 3). The conclusion of 

 the author, after about three years' experimental work 

 on the subject, is that there is no evidence to show 

 that house-flies persist as adults in houses or stables 

 from November to April, for a temperature lower than 

 32° F. is fatal if' continued for any length of time. 

 On the other hand, if flies find access in the autumn 

 to buildings such as restaurants, where insufficient 

 attention is given to the disposal of kitchen waste, 

 they will continue breeding throughout the winter. In 

 such cases the flies present in March or April, which 

 are the offspring and not the survivors of those which 

 found their way into such places in the preceding 

 autumn, will escape on warm days and produce the 

 hordes which appear late in May. From experiments 

 with larvae and pupae, and from the fact that house- 

 flies do not appear in large number until late in May, 

 the author concludes that only a small percentage of 

 the larvae present in manure-heaps in the autumn live 

 through the winter to give rise to adults in the spring. 

 These conclusions emphasise once more that the proper 

 disposal of kitchen waste is the only effectual method 

 of attacking the house-fly. 



Mr. R. S. Lull {Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. xlv., 

 P- 337» J918) describes under the new name Laoporus 

 a number of quadrupedal tracks from Carboniferous 

 strata in the Grand Canon of the Colorado River. In 



NO. 2544, VOL. lOl] 



referring some smaller impressions to Exocampe, a 

 genus known in the Trias of Connecticut, the author 

 remarks that these tracks are surely not reptilian, nor 

 are they proved to be amphibian. He places them in 

 Williston's Protopoda, a group so far known only by 

 its footprints. 



The subject of the deposition of flint is further 

 pursued by Mr. R. S. Dean in reference to the Mis- 

 souri cherts (Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. xlv., p. 411, 

 1918). It is urged that the association of carbon 

 dioxide with the silica hydrosol in the presence of 

 calcium carbonate leads to the formation of an acid 

 carbonate that becomes readily dissociated. Calcium ' 

 ions thus arise and precipitate colloidal silica, with 

 greater effect than the hydrogen ions of less valency 

 that are formed from the dissociation of carbonic acid. 

 Experiment shows that without carbon dioxide a col- 

 loidal silica solution may remain stable in the presence 

 of ground calcite for more than a year, while the 

 presence of carbon dioxide promotes precipitation in 

 an hour. In Mr. Dean's experiments actual silicifica- 

 tion of the calcite did not occur, but in this matter the 

 author regards time as an important factor. 



The Agricultural Statistics of India (vol. i.) for 

 1915-16 were published early this yegir by the Govern- 

 ment Printing Office, Calcutta, Considerable progress 

 has been made since 1906-7; the total number of bovine 

 livestock has increased by 60 per cent., and is now 

 149 millions ; the totals for " cultivable area " and 

 "net area cropped" show a steady increase. The 

 areas devoted to cotton and jute suffered a decline 

 (exceeding 25 per cent.) from the previous year, prob- 

 ably caused by a fall in price due to the war. On 

 the other hand, the area under indigo (chiefly in 

 Madras Province) was more than doubled. It is re- 

 ported that the official trials of the yield of the 

 various crops indicate a general increase in the yield 

 per acre since 1911-12; in the case of sugar-cane in 

 Bengal the increase exceeded 16 per cent. The in- 

 creased cotton yield in Sind (more than 20 per cent.) 

 is ascribed to the use of Egyptian cotton-seed. 



Iron, though a common component of thermo- 

 couples, has the disadvantage of oxidising rapidly 

 when exposed to temperatures beyond 500° C. It 

 would be possible (according to O. L. Kowalke, in 

 American Electro-chemical Society Proceedings, 

 October, 19 17) greatly to extend the use of iron in 

 thermo-couples if a method could be devised of pro- 

 tecting it from oxidisation by a covering which would 

 not appreciably affect the e.m.f. This result is 

 achieved by " calorising '' the iron, i.e. forming on its 

 surface a coating of a rich alloy of aluminium. Iron 

 so treated can be exposed to temperatures as high 

 as 1000° C. without oxidising. Tests show that 

 calorised iron when used with constantan gives the 

 same thermo-e.m.f. as ordinarv iron, and has a longer 

 life. 



In the Cairo Scientific Journal (vol. ix.. No. loi, 

 19 17) is a paper by the late Sir Armand Ruffer on 

 the use of natron and salt by the ancient Egyptians. 

 Natron is a natural soda deposit consisting of impure 

 sodium carbonate and bicarbonate, and the question 

 of its use for the embalming of mummies by immer- 

 sion in a natron bath, as indicated by Herodotus, has 

 been investigated by chemical and microscopical 

 methods. In the result it is agreed that salt and 

 natron were used bv embalmers, but no evidence was 

 found that the bodies were placed in a natron bath 

 or a salt bath. It is not intended to deny that the 

 accounts given by Herodotus are correct; indeed, 

 thev are corroborated in some of the other details, and 



