622 



NA TURE 



[April 28, 1892 



One of the chief of the iconoclasts was Archbishop Diego 

 <ie Landa ; but, luckily, his zeal was tempered by a considerable 

 appreciation of the ingenuity of the Indians, and an interest in 

 their manners and customs, which induced him to make some 

 notes on their method of writing and recording events. 



It is to this that we owe what is commonly known as " Landa's 

 alphabet"; but, as this was an attempt to make an alphabet 

 of a language which in all probability was not written alpha- 

 betically but syllabically, it was a signal failure, and has proved, 

 to the few scholars who have attempted to employ it, about as 

 puzzling as the hieroglyphics themselves. However, it may 

 ultimately be of some use, and it was accompanied by an ex- 

 planation of the calendar system, and a list of the signs for the 

 days and months, with their names, which is of the greatest 

 value. 



Although no Maya books are known to exist in America, 

 three examples of what are undoubtedly genuine Maya manu- 

 scripts have turned up in Europe. 



No information whatever is forthcoming as to how they got 

 here, but it is not unlikely that they were sent over as curiosities 

 at the time of the Spanish conquest, and were afterwards lost 

 sight of. 



They are the " Codex Troano," now preserved in the Archseo- 

 logical Museum at Madrid, a chromolithographic copy of which 

 ■was published by the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg ; the 

 "Dresden Codex," preserved in the Royal Library at Dresden, 

 of which a beautiful photolithographic copy has been published 

 under the direction of Prof. Forsteman ; and the " Codex Pere- 

 sianus," in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. Another 

 manuscript at Madrid, which has been called the "Codex 

 Cortesianus," appears to be only a detached portion of the 

 " Codex Troano." 



An examination which I have made of the two first-mentioned 

 Codices leaves no doubt on my mind about the similarity of 

 the written to the carved inscriptions. Many of the glyphs are 

 identical, and others only vary as much as might be expected by 

 the change from carving on stone to writing on paper. In 

 addition to this evidence of the eyes, there is the distinct state- 

 ment of Cogolludo, the historian of Yucatan, that the Indians 

 had " characters by which they could understand one another in 

 writing, such as those yet seen in great numbers on the ruins of 

 their buildings." 



So that we arrive at the important conclusion that the lan- 

 guage of the carved inscriptions of Copan, Quirigua, and Palenque 

 is still a living tongue, although it has doubtless been much 

 changed in the course of years, 



Alfred P. Maudslay. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge.— Mr. C. E. Ashford, B.A. of Trinity College, 

 has been appointed Assistant Demonstrator of Physics in the 

 Cavendish Laboratory. 



Dr. William Ewart and Mr. Frederick Treves have been 

 appointed additional examiners in Medicine and Surgery 

 respectively. 



The Cavendish Professor announces a course of lectures on 

 Electrolysis and Solution, to be given by Mr. W. C. D. 

 Whetham on Thursdays and Saturdays during the present term. 



Seventeen candidates were approved for the diploma in 

 Public Health at the extra examination held at the beginning of 

 the month. 



T. Clifford Allbutt, M.D., F.R.S., the newly appointed 

 Regius Professor of Physic, has been elected to a Fellowship 

 at Gonville and Caius College. 



The Shuttleworth Scholarship in Botany has been awarded to 

 I. H. Burkill, B.A., Assistant Curator of the Herbarium. 



The memorial in Westminster Abbey to the late Prof. J. C. 

 Adams, will be placed in the sill of the window on the north 

 side, nearest to the monument of Newton. A large and very 

 influential committee has been formed for the purpose of estab- 

 lishing the memorial. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American J ournal of Science, March.— Mount St. Elias and 



its glaciers, by Israel C. Russell. Account is given of the 



country explored by two parties sent to Alaska by the National 



Geographic Survey, in connection with the U.S. Geological 



NO. II 74, VOL. 45] 



Survey, in 1890 and 1891. — Hudson River "Fiord," by Dr. 

 Arthur M. Edwards. — Contributions to mineralogy, No. 52, by 

 F. A. Genth ; with crystallographic notes by Samuel L. Penfield. 

 The minerals described are hiibnerite, hessite, bismutite, and 

 natrolite. — Tschermak's theory of the chlorite group and its 

 alternative, by F. W. Clarke.— Recent fossils near Boston, by 

 Warren Upham. Fossil marine shells of the post- Glacial epoch 

 have been lately discovered near Boston, indicating slight recent 

 changes in the relative levels of land and sea, and proving con- 

 siderable changes in the temperature of the sea there. — The 

 highest old shore line on Mackinac Island, by F. B. Taylor.— 

 On the nature of colloid solutions, by C. E. Linebarger. It is 

 generally believed that solutions of colloid substances, such as 

 albumen or silicic acid, differ in their nature .from solutions of 

 crystalloid substances. The author's experiments indicate that 

 colloid solutions are solutions in the ordinary acceptation of the 

 term, and not "suspensions." — Observations upon the structural 

 relations of the Upper Huronian, Lower Huronian, and Base- 

 ment Complex on the north shore of Lake Huron, by Raphael 

 Pumpelly and C. R. Van Ilise.— A phasemeter, by John 

 Trowbridge. The phasemeter is an instrument devised for the 

 investigation of questions of the phase of alternating electric 

 currents in transformers and in branch circuits. Two telephone 

 diaphragms have mirrors fixed upon them. A spot of light 

 reflected from one of the mirrors is given a horizontal movement 

 when the diaphragm is vibrating, while the other mirror, when 

 its diaphragm moves, gives a spot of light a vertical motion. 

 By the combination of the two motions, figures are obtained 

 similar to those of Lissajous in the case of tuning-forks ; and 

 from these, the difference in phase of the currents which set the 

 diaphragms in motion can be found. — Preliminary report of 

 observations at the Deep Well, Wheeling, West Virginia, by 

 William Hallock.— Mount Bob, Mount Ida, or Snake Hill, by 

 T. W. Harris. 



April. — On the action of vacuum discharge streamers upon 

 each other, by Dr. M. I. Pupin. The experiments described 

 show that two electric current filaments in a rarefied gas may 

 repel each other in cases where electrodynamic action would 

 produce an attraction. The repulsion does not appear to be 

 due to electrostatic action, but rather to "a strain in the vacuum 

 produced by the peculiar distribution of the gas pressure result- 

 ing from the peculiar distribution of temperature." — On a 

 melilite-bearing rock (AInoite) from Ste. Anne de Bellevue, near 

 Montreal, Canada, by Frank D. Adams.— On an azure-blue 

 pyroxenic rock from the Middle Gila, New Mexico, by George 

 P. Merrill and R. L. Packard.— On the correlation of moraines 

 with raised beaches of Lake Erie, by Frank Leverett. — 

 Magnesium as a source of light, by Frederick J. Rogers. The 

 results of this investigation are summed up as follow : — (i) The 

 spectrum of burning magnesium approaches much more nearly 

 that of sunlight than does the spectrum of any other artificial 

 illuminant. (2) The temperature of the magnesium flame, about 

 1340° C, lies between that of the Bunsen burner and that of the 

 air-blast lamp, although the character of its spectrum is such as 

 would correspond to a temperature of nearly 5000° C. were its 

 light due to ordinary incandescence. (3) The "radiant 

 efficiency" is 13J percent., a value higher than that for any 

 other artificial illuminant, excepting, perhaps, the light of the 

 electric discharge in vacuo for which Dr. Staub, of Zurich, has 

 found an efficiency of about 34 per cent. (4) The radiant 

 energy emitted by burning magnesium is about 4630 calories 

 per gram of the metal burned, or 75 per cent, of the total heat 

 of combustion, as compared with 15 per cent, to 20 per cent, 

 in the case of illuminating gas. (5) The thermal equivalent 

 of one candle-power-minute of magnesium light is about 2*4 

 lesser calories, as against 3 "5 to 4 "O for other artificial illuminants. 



(6) The total efficiency ot the magnesium light is about 10 

 per cent., as compared with 025 per cent, for illuminating gas, 



(7) Taking into consideration the greater average luminosity of 

 the rays of the visible spectrum of the magnesium flame, it is 

 certain that per unit of energy expended, the light-giving power 

 of burning magnesium is from fifty to sixty times greater than 

 that of gas. — A method for the quantitative separation of barium 

 from calcium by the action of amyl alcohol on the nitrates by 

 P. E. Browning. — On plicated cleavage foliation, by T, Nelson 

 Dale. — Geological age of the Saganaga syenite, by A. R. C. 

 Selwyn. — A third occurrence of peridotite in Central New 

 York, by C. H. Smith. — A fulgurite from Waterville, Maine, 

 by W. S. Bayley. — Mineralogical notes on brookite, octahedrite, 

 quartz, and ruby, by G. F, Kunz. — Recent polydactyle horses, 

 by O, C. Marsh. 



