January 3, 19 18] 



NATURE 



349 



directors of the Paris Pasteur Institute in succession 

 to the late Profs. Metchnikoff and Chamberland. 



After a succession of shocks, which began early on 

 December 26, Guatemala City was destroyed by an 

 earthquake on Saturday, December 29. It is reported 

 that the whole city is in ruins, and that at least one 

 thousand people have been killed. 



Mr. E. E. Lowe, honorary secretary of the Museums 

 Association, has been invited by the Ministry of Food 

 to organise and control food economy exhibitions 

 throughout the country. The Leicester Museum and 

 Library Committee has released Mr. Lowe temporarily 

 in order that he may undertake this important national 

 . work. 



Maori pictographs have long been known to exist in 

 the limestone caves and rock-shelters of the South 

 Island, New Zealand, but recent examination by an 

 American ethnologist. Dr. Elmore, has proved them to 

 be of unexpected interest. On the suggestion of Dr. 

 Benham, the museums of Wellington and Auckland 

 have joined forces with the Otago Museum, and have 

 removed a number of slabs from the caves for per- 

 manent preservation in the three museums. 



On January 2 the Institution of Civil Engineers 

 completed the hundredth year of its existence, having 

 been established in 1818 at a meeting of eight engineers 

 at the Kendal Coffee House in Fleet Street. At the 

 next ordinary meeting of the institution on January 8, 

 before the discussion of papers, a statement com- 

 memorative of the founding of the institution will be 

 imade, present conditions precluding more formal cele- 

 bration of the centenary. 



Mr. T. F. Cheeseman, author of the " Manual of 

 the New Zealand Flora," has formed by his own pri- 

 vate efforts, extending over forty-five years, a large 

 collection of New Zealand plants.' To this the trustees 

 of the British Museum, in recognition of Mr. Cheese- 

 man's valuable help, have recently added a nearly 

 complete set of the plants collected in New Zealand 

 by Banks and Solander (1769-70). The collection and 

 its cabinets now occupy a room 25 ft. long, and Mr; 

 Cheeseman has offered to present the whole to the 

 Auckland Museum, of which he is curator, if that in- 

 stitution will engage to place it in a separate room and 

 maintain it as a public herbarium. Since there is as 

 yet no botanical museum in New Zealand, this offer is 

 certainly one to be accepted. 



The report of the council of the Scottish Meteoro- 

 logical Society, adopted at the general meeting of the 

 society held on December 20, states that the council 

 has continued to keep steadily in view the encourage- 

 ment of rainfall observation in Scotland, and there are 

 available in the Journal monthly and annual figures 

 for fully 750 stations. Much time has been devoted to 

 tabulating and arranging the great mass of rainfall 

 statistics now available. There are at present 261 mem- 

 bers of the society, of whom eighty-one are life mem- 

 bers. The council for the ensuing twelve months is 

 constituted as follows r—Pre^/denf : Prof. R. A. Samp- 

 son; Vice-Presidents : Mr. M. M'Callum Fairgrieve and 

 Dr. C. G. Knott; Council: Prof. T. Hudson Beare, 

 Dr. J. D. Falconer, Mr. J. Mackav Bernard, Mr. 

 D. A. Stevenson, Mr. R. Cross, Mr. S. B. Hog, Mr. 

 G. Thomson, Dr. A. Crichton Mitchell, and Mr. G. A. 

 Mitchell; Hon. Secretary: Dr. E. M. Wedderburn ; 

 Hon. Treasurer: Mr. W. B. Wilson. 



The last report of the Bristol Museum and Art 

 Gallery describes an excellent scheme for popularising 



NO. 2514, VOL. 100] 



the collections. A large hall capable of accommodat- 

 ing 300-400 wounded soldiers was opened. The men 

 were received by guides, who explained the pictures 

 and exhibits; lantern lectures and demonstrations by 

 members of the staff were organised, and the scheme 

 was supported by the Lord Mayor and other leading 

 citizens. "The keen interest and enthusiasm of the 

 soldiers reacted upon the staff, who found the work a 

 delight, and many men returned on leave-days to con- 

 tinue the studies thus begun." 



In this country we are unfortunately still prone to 

 regard our museums as places of " innocent amuse- 

 ment " rather than as centres of education. It is 

 otherwise in America. There the Natural History 

 Museum, for example, is regarded as an indispensable 

 factor in national well-being, serving both as a centre 

 of instruction to the general public as to the natural 

 resources of the country, and as the repository of the 

 material necessary to those engaged in the develop- 

 ment and conservation of such resources. To further 

 these aims the American Museum of Natural History 

 publishes an admirable Museum Journal, ably written 

 and most profusely illustrated. The November issue of 

 this journal well demonstrates the range of these activi- 

 ties, for it contains, among other things, a number 

 of exceptionally fine photographs of the bird-life of the 

 Falkland Islands, including nesting colonies of pen- 

 guins, king-shags, and giant petrels, and two valuable 

 accounts of explorations in New Mexico and the 

 Navaho region. The former deals with the ancient 

 and buried cities of the La Plata region, while the 

 latter describes the customs of the Navaho Indians, 

 incidentally directing attention to cave-dwellings of 

 extinct peoples awaiting investigation. 



The theory that early society was organised on the 

 patriarchal model, popularised by Sir H. Maine in his 

 work on "Ancient Law," was generally accepted until 

 the priority of matrilinear kinship was urged by 

 writers like Bachofen and McLennan. Their view was 

 supported by the investigations into the organisation 

 of the Central Australian tribes by Messrs. Spencer 

 and Gillen. At present among European anthropolo- 

 gists the priority of matrilinear kinship is generally 

 j recognised. But two eminent American anthropolo- 

 gists, Dr. Lowie and Dr. Swanton, have questioned 

 its existence among the American Indian tribes. Their 

 conclusions have been criticised in an elaborate paper 

 by Dr. E. Sidney Hartland (Memoirs of the American 

 Anthropological Association, vol. iv., No. i), in which 

 he proves that in most of these tribes there is evidence 

 of a previous stage of matrilinear organisation, and, 

 where it is wanting, "its absence is due to vicissitudes 

 and external influences to which these tribes have been 

 exposed. 



Under the name of the " Inometer," Prof. T. John- 



son, of the Royal College of Science for Ireland, has 



introduced a new form of food chart, constructed on 



the principle of the thermometer. The degrees on the 



scale represent large Calories, and the principal points 



are placed at 4000 Cal., 3500 Cal.,3000 Cal., 2500 Cal., 



I and 2000 Cal. These represent the food energy (ex- 



j pressed in Calories) requisite for the performance of 



I a day's work, ranging from heavy muscular work at 



4000 Cal. to sedentary work at 2500 Cal., the energy 



j expenditure of a man resting in bed being placed at 



1 2000 Cal. In addition, there are interpolated at various 



! points on the scale the numbers of Calories furnished 



I by definite quantities of a variety of common foods, 



, together with their cost in Dublin' in April, 1917. The 



chart is accompanied by eight pages of letterpress, in 



