July 28, 1898] 



NATURE 



301 



Botrychium virginianum, &c , growing at the doors of the 

 house. Four persons, all botanists, worked at the station last 

 summer. The lake was carefully mapped, its depth was 

 measured in its wide part, and the phyto-plankton was studied 

 by L. A. Ivanoff, who discovered several interesting forms, in- 

 cluding the diatoms Attheya Zachariasid.nd Rhizolenia longiseta, 

 akin to marine forms. 



Ax interesting article is contributed to the June part of the 

 Afiiericaii Anthropologist by Mr. J. W. Fewkes, on " An 

 Ancient Human Effigy \'ase from Arizona." The ancient 

 people of southern Arizona manufactured human effigies in clay, 

 the typical forms of which, so far as the author is aware, have 

 not been described. The vase in question was obtained by Mr. 

 Fewkes in the summer of 1897, on behalf of the U.S. National 

 Museum, from a cave at Pima, a settlement in the Pueblo Viejo 

 N.iUey. In his opinion the vase was manufactured by the 

 .ncient people of Arizona, probably by a people whose ruined 

 houses are found in the neighbourhood from whence the speci- 

 men was obtained. The accompanying illustration, copied from 

 a figure appearing in the American Anthropologist^ shows the 

 general form of the vase. It is made of coarse material, and 



"^•^. 



has a rough exterior, with patches of calcareous secretions on 

 the surface. The form of the head is shown by a constriction 

 forming the neck, and the eyes, nose, mouth, chin and ears are 

 well represented. No attempt is made to represent the legs, 

 and the arms, it will be noticed, are simply irregular ridges, one 

 on each side of the body. It is supposed that the vase was filled 

 with votive offerings when it was placed in the cave, and that in 

 course of time the contents were washed out. The nature 

 of these offerings may be conjectured from the fragments of 

 tihells, turquoises, and other objects strewn about the floor of the 

 cavern. 



The Lancet prints the following note on Egyptian native 

 remedies for hydrophobia : — " Though there are no medical 

 accounts of rabies in times past, there are plenty of supposed 

 cures which make it appear as if the disease were well known. 

 Papyri contain mention of the dangers ol a bite from serpent, 

 crocodile, or dog. Charms were sold in old days to protect 

 from these three, and there is a folk-lore story where the wicked 

 'fairy condemned the heir at his birth to be killed by one of these 

 three biting creature?. He destroyed a serpent who attacked 

 him, and he and his favourite hound killed a crocodile, but the 

 master died in consequence of an accidental bite from the dog 

 NO. 1500, VOL. 58] 



during the fight. The modern treatment for a person bitten by 

 a presumably mad dog in Upper Egypt is to kill the dog, 

 extract the spinal cord, bruise the cord with pestle and mortar 

 until a paste is made, and then rub the patient's body all over 

 with paste. Sometimes, too, they burn the dog's hair, and 

 apply the ashes to the bite. The Bedouin make the patient 

 eat the raw liver of the dog, and this is done, too, in the Haussa 

 State of the Western Soudan. In Lower Egypt the favourite 

 remedy has been acquired from the Syrians of Mount Lebanon. 

 It is the Mylabris punctata, a dark-blue beetle used instead 

 of cantharides, and well known in the south of France and 

 Spain." 



It is reported that a drainage scheme for Cairo, based on 

 plans by Sir B. Baker, F. R. S. , has been submitted to the Ministry 

 of Public Works on behalf of the Cairo Water Company. The 

 estimated cost is ;,fE. 600,000, but this does not include anything 

 for maintenance. 



An agricultural department, having for its object the increase, 

 if possible, of the number of the staple products of Zanzibar, 

 has been established in that State. It is under the superin- 

 tetidence of an English horticulturist whose duties are not only to 

 try to improve the methods by which the old-established crops 

 are reared and harvested, but to introduce and cultivate ex- 

 perimentally any other plants which may be likely to thrive in a 

 tropical soil, and which, if successful, would add to the com- 

 mercial prosperity of the country. Experiments, which already 

 give some promise of good results, have been made with cocoa, 

 kola, vanilla, anatto, and several varieties of rubber, and trials 

 are still being carried on with coffee, candle nut, eucalyptus, 

 and other plants of economic value. Camphor, olives, safflower, 

 nJ sarsapirilla are said to have failed. 



The Rev. M. Dechevrens, S.J., Director of the St. Louis 

 Observatory, Jersey, and formerly Director of the Observatory 

 at Zikawei, China, has communicated to the Academy of the 

 Nuovi Lincei an interesting discussion of the variations of air 

 temperature in cyclones, and their principal cause. The investi- 

 gation is based upon an examination of the weather charts 

 published in the daily Bulletin International issued by the 

 Meteorological Office of Paris, and particularly those for 

 January to March 1895. The author finds that the extremes 

 of heat and cold, which are observed respectively in areas of 

 low and high barometric pressure, do not occur at the centres of 

 these systems, but are met with in the neighbourhood of the 

 mean isobars. Also that the descending current of air in an 

 area of high pressure escapes along divergent lines, and that it 

 is principally due to this divergence that the cold usual in 

 anticyclones is observed. Similarly, that the relatively high 

 temperature in areas of low pressure is due to the convergence 

 of the ascending air currents. The paper is accompanied by a 

 number of examples, and is illustrated by diagrams, which 

 materially add to its value. 



The twelfth volume (for the year 1896) of the Analele of the 

 Meteorological Institute of Roumania, a work of 800 quarto 

 pages, has recently been issued. In addition to the usual 

 meteorological tables it contains ten memoirs, se%-eral of which 

 are printed in parallel columns in French and Roumanian. 

 The painstaking director. Dr. S. C. Hepites, writes, among 

 other subjects, on the drought in the Dobrudscha in 1896, on 

 the Roumanian rainfall in 1896, and on the results of twelve years 

 of meteorological observations at Bucharest ( 1 885- 1 896). He also 

 continues his valuable register of Roumanian earthquakes, from 

 which we learn that, during 1896, eleven shocks were recorded. 

 The majority were of slight intensity, only one (that of March 12) 

 being felt over a large part of the countr)', and causing small 

 landslips within a limited district. 



