298 



NA TURE 



[July 28, 1898 



Moki sun-worship than the following. Shortly after the 

 ceremonies mentioned above, a number of men, bearing 

 shields with appropriate totems, arrange themselves in 

 two clusters, one on each side of the room, and in their 

 midst stands a performer representing the sun, also 

 bearing a sun-shield (Fig. 2). At a signal the parti- 

 cipants, with shields adorned with their totems, engaged 

 in a mimic combat, surging against each other with wild 

 shouting and rhythmic stamping on the floor. This 

 combat is a dramatic representation of the assault of 

 hostile gods on the personator of the sun, who is ulti- 

 mately victorious over his opponents. It vividly suggests 

 certain Mexican ceremonies performed at the vernal 

 equinox before an idol, Totec (a solar god), save that in 

 the sanguinary Aztec rites men representing hostile gods 

 were sacrificed to recuperate the sun. This episode in 



combat of warriors, for human sacrifice is unknown to 

 them, except in legends. The dramatic combat in the 

 ceremonial room before the altar of the Great Serpent 

 is a bloodless one, but its object is not greatly different 

 from the Mexican variant, viz. to recuperate and draw 

 back the sun by the defeat of hostile powers represented 

 by dramatisation in the sacred room of the pueblo. 



J. W. F. 



CLOSING OF THE BEN NEVIS 



OBSERVATORIES. 



A ^/"E have received for publication the following extract 



* * from the Report of the Scottish Meteorological 



Society. It is to be hoped some means will be found of 



keeping the Observatories going. 



Fig. 2 — Sun Shield of the Horn Society. 



the Mexican ceremony is thus referred to by Mr. E. J. 

 Payne in his valuable work on the " History of America." 

 ■"The victims of the festival, attired like the various 

 •deities whom they represented, were conducted to one 

 of those enclosed courts open to the sky, which have 

 been mentioned ; here a gladiatorial stone and an altar, 

 ■elevated on a low platform, stood side by side. Each 

 victim was first placed on the temalacatl and compelled 

 to engage in an imitation of the gladiatorial combat. . . ." 

 On receiving the first wound, he was sacrificed on the 

 solar altar. 



In the winter solstice sun-worship among the Mokis 

 there is no such sanguinary outcome to their mimic 

 NO. 1500, VOL. 58] 



"The Directors greatly regret to have to announce that 



the High and the Low-level Observatories at Ben 



Nevis will cease to exist in October of this year. This is 



the necessary outcome of the want of funds. There is no 



I way, so far as the Directors can see, by which these 



{ great first-class Meteorological Observatories can be con- 



j tinued, except by aid from the State. In other words, 



[ the Directors have no grounds for expecting that further 



i assistance will come from private sources." 



" This decision has been come to in consequence of 

 estimates submitted by the Honorary Treasurer, from 

 which it appears that if, in October next, the property 

 belonging to the Directors were realised and all obliga- 



