November 20, 1919] 



NATURE 



o' / 



in Cape Colony were lighter iri colour and far less 



ugly than the Hottentots farther to the north-west 

 or inland, and their culture was higher, as though 

 they had preserved more of the Nilotic or Hamitic 

 intermixture. 



The pygmies of the Nile Delta, of prehistoric 

 Egypt, seem certainly to have been Negroid, but 

 more like the Asiatic Negroes, and presenting few 

 resemblances to the Bushmen. The steatopygy 

 of Bushmen and Hottentots developed into a local 

 exaggeration (chiefly in the women), but occa- 

 sionally appears in the Congo pygmies, the East 

 African Bantu, the Nilotic Negroes, and even the 

 W'hiteman races of the Mediterranean. 



I cannot quite share Dr. Theal's theories con- 

 cerning the origin of the Bantu languages, but r.s 

 I have already exceeded the space allotted to me, 

 J must deal with mv points of difference else- 



FlG. 5. — Portrait of a Cap€ Bushman of the orthognathic typo. 



where. On the other hand, I am obstinately in 

 agreement with his views on the subject of the 

 earlier stone buildings of South-east .'Vfrica, of 

 the Zimbabwe type; they were never (the earlier 

 and more elaborate) built by Negroes, Bantu or 

 Hottentot ; they were — so far as we can be 

 certain on any subject that has not at present 

 conclusive proof — built by a non-Negro people, 

 possibly the Phoenicians coming from- some base 

 in southern Arabia. The secondary and much 

 later work was very likely done by Arab gold- 

 seekers prior to the Islamic period. All that the 

 more intelligent Bantu peoples, such as the. 

 Karana or their allies, did on the verge of their 

 entry into the history of South Africa was to carry 

 on very clumsily surface gdld-mining and the use 

 of stone for building rough, low walls and 

 circular huts. 



The accompanying reproductions illustrate my 

 XO. 2612, VOL. 104] 



own as well as Dr. Theal's theories. 'Ihe first is 

 copied from Peringuey and Shrubsall's "Stone 

 .Vge in South Africa " ; the second was given me 

 by Prof. Flinders Petrie; the third by Mr. Leo 

 Weinthal; the fourth is from a photo by Dr. 

 Leonhard Schultz ; and the fifth is from the 

 collection of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 



H. H. Johnston. 



LT.-COL. B. F. E. KEELING. 

 T)Y the death of Lt.-Col. Keeling Surveyor: 

 ^ General of Egypt, that country'has lost one 

 of its ablest officials. Lt.-Col. Keeling was born 

 in 1880, and educated at, Bradford Grammar 

 School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where 

 he took firsts in the Natural Sciences and Me- 

 chanical Science (Engineering) Triposes. On 

 leaving Cambridge he went to the Royal Arsenal, 

 Woolwich, and then to the National Physical 

 Laboratory, where he worked especially on 

 metrology. 



In 1904 Keeling joined the Egyptian Survey 

 Department, where he took charge of the major 

 triangulation, and in the next year of the Helwan 

 Observatory also. Here he designed and built 

 the comparator houses for the comparison of the 

 standards of the .Survey, and organised the geo- 

 detic survey of l^gypt, in connection with wliich 

 a gravity survey of the Nile Valley and neighbour- 

 ing regions was undertaken. He also started 

 precise levelling in Egypt, and under his direction 

 a network of bench-marks has been formed in the 

 Delta of the greatest value to irrigation. An in- 

 vestigation into the subsoil water-level of the 

 Nile Valley, and its effect on the cotton crop, 

 came also under his direction, while his work 

 on standards of length led to the formation of 

 the Weights and Aleasures Office under his 

 direction. 



In meteorology Keeling introduced research on 

 the upper air at Helwan Observatory, where kites 

 and pilot balloons were regularly used, and in 

 1908 he made a journey to the Upper Nile for the 

 study of the upper-air currents during the rainy 

 season. In 191 3 the more scientific branches of 

 the work carried out in the Survey Department 

 were amalgamated to form the Physical Service, 

 with Keeling as director, and in 1915 this service 

 was transferred to the Ministry of Public \\'orks 

 as a separate Dcparlmcnt. 



In December, i9f4, Keeling left Egypt in order 

 to take up military duties, and received a com- 

 mission in the Royal Engineers. He was at first 

 attached to the Ordnance Survey, and placed in 

 charge of the map publication department ; but 

 it was his keen desire to serve at the front, and 

 in February,. 1916, he joined a Fi^'ld .Survey com- 

 pany in France. He was wounded in the autumn 

 of 1916, and did not return to Frince until 191.7, 

 when he commanded first the Depot Field Survey 

 Corripany, and then the 3rd Field Survey Bat- 

 talion ; he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant- 

 colonel. The .Survey battalions were now Organ- 



