192 



NATURE 



[May 8, 1919 



for the researches arising out of the needs of the elec- 

 trical scientific instrument, the X-ray, and the electro- 

 medical instrument industries. Applications for the 

 appointment, accompanied by not more than three 

 testimonials or references, must reach the secretary 

 of the association, 26 Russell Square, W.C.i, by, at 

 latest. May 21. 



At the meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers 

 on April 29 H.M. the King of Italy and H.R.H. the 

 Prince of Wales were elected as honorary members 

 of the institution. It was announced that the council 

 had made the following awards for papers read and 

 discussed at the meetings during the session 1918-19 : 

 —A Telford gold medalto George Hughes (Horwich), 

 a Telford gold medal and an Indian premium to 

 R. B. Joyner (Bombay), a Watt gold medal to W. S. 

 Abell (London), a George Stephenson gold medal to 

 the Hon. R. C. Parsons (London), a Webb prize to 

 F. E. Gobey (Horwich), Telford premiums to James 

 Caldwell (London), H. B. Savers (London), J. Reney 

 Smith (Liverpool), and F. W. Scott (Benoni, Trans- 

 vaal), and a Manby prize to E. L. Leeming (Man- 

 chester). 



In the March issue of Man Mr. A. C. Breton 

 describes some Mexican small clay heads found in 

 great numbers on the site of Teotihuacan. Almost 

 everv site in that region has. its distinctive type of 

 these little heads. Although much battered and 

 archaic in style, they deserve reproduction for the 

 treatment of the eyes, which consist of double 

 hollows separated by a ridge, with no pretensions to 

 represent the actual eye. Another figure in stone 

 represents a frog, and is apparently a rain-charm, 

 the frog being in Mexico and elsewhere intimately 

 associated with the coming of the rain. In this 

 example the frog is depicted with hands uplifted in 

 a praying attitude, while the tongue hangs out as if 

 with thirst. Mexicans sav that the frogs pray for 

 the rain, and in Yucatan the croaking of the large 

 frog is a sure si^n of rain within three days. 



In the Rivista Italiana di Sociologia (vol. xxi.) Prof. 

 Giuffrida-Ruggeri attempts to analyse into its com- 

 ponent elements the population of Abyssinia and the 

 Italian colony of Eritrea. He claims that what he 

 calls the "prehistoric stratifications" were composed 

 of small negroes (pygmies), who came from the west 

 and south, and the proto-Ethiopic people. To these 

 were added the "historic stratifications," Semites from 

 Arabia and the " deutero-Ethiopians " or Gallas, who 

 entered the Abyssinian domain in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. Abyssinia may be regarded as an immense 

 fortress or crucible in which these four racial in- 

 gredients were mixed. In conformity with the 

 popular dogma of ethnology, Prof. Giuffrida-Ruggeri 

 attempts to associate certain types of culture with the 

 different races, ignoring the fact that in the course of 

 the development of any invention it has always hap- 

 pened that the leaven of a new discovery is diffused 

 abroad among the intelligent minorities of other 

 peoples long before it has permeated the unintelligent 

 lump of the bulk of the population in the home of its 

 birth, so that by the time a practice or belief has 

 been definitely shaped it is no longer the property of 

 one " race," but of many peoples. Prof. Giuffrida- 

 Ruggeri attributes the invention of agriculture, hut- 

 construction, and the use of the bow to the primi- 

 tive negro stratum; and to the proto-Ethiopians the 

 practice of erecting dolmens and monoliths, and the 

 worship of the sun and stars, of fire and water, of 

 trees, serpents, birds, elephants, etc., as well as of 

 the force of fertility. No adequate reasons are sug- 

 gested for these daring speculations. 



NO. 2584, VOL. 103] 



The Journal of the American Museum of Natural 

 History (part i) contains a delightful article on the 

 water-birds of Louisiana, illustrated by some very 

 remarkable photographs. Thanks to very efficient 

 measures of protection, the white egret, until lately 

 the victim of the cruelty and greed of the plume- 

 hunters, is now recovering its numbers, even though 

 it had been reduced to the verge of extinction. T^e 

 author, Mr. Alfred Bailey, is also able to report that 

 the roseate spoonbill, similarly terribly reduced in 

 numbers by the plume-hunters, is now in a fair way 

 to recovery. Their guardian is an ex-plume-hunter ! 

 Finally, this number contains a series of " In 

 Memoriam" articles on the late Col. Theodore Roose- 

 velt, John Burroughs and Prof. H. F. Osborn being 

 among the contributors. 



The report of the National Park Board, Tasmania, 

 has just reached us. We gather from it that in 

 19 17 some 27,000 acres were enclosed to form a 

 reservation for the native fauna and flora of Tas- 

 mania. Though late in the day, this reservation, if 

 it can be adequately protected against poachers — 

 about which there seems to be some doubt — should 

 perform a very real service to the State and the 

 world at large from the point of view of the man of 

 science. The larger lakes in this enclosure, we are 

 told, have been "restocked with fish. The Fisheries 

 Cornmission assisted by defraying half the cost of 

 distributing 12,000 rainbow-trout fry." We trust that 

 this experiment will not be at the expense of the 

 native fish, which would defeat the avowed ends of 

 the Board. The Government was asked for an annual 

 grant of 500I. in order to develop the area. As a 

 result 150I. was voted for the first year. 



In February last the New Zealand Institute, which 

 consists of eight affiliated societies located in different 

 centres of the "Dominion, held a science congress at 

 Christchurch under the presidency of Dr. L. 

 Cockayne. The arrangements seem to have been 

 modelled on the lines of the British Association, 

 with public lectures, papers and discussions, excur- 

 sions and a garden-party, the congress being opened 

 bv his Excellency the Governor-General. Apparently 

 the New Zealand scientific workers no longer find the 

 Australasian Association for the Advancement of 

 Science adequate for their requirements, but we hope 

 that the interchange of ideas and hospitality between 

 the scientific workers in Australia and those in New- 

 Zealand will not suffer any diminution as a result of 

 this interesting new departure. 



The study of cytology, and more especially oi the 

 mitotic phenomena tha't accompany the division of 

 the nucleus, has made such rapid progress in recent 

 years that the question of terminology has become a 

 very troublesome one, and the student who is not a 

 specialist in this department is apt to find some diffi- 

 cultv in following the voluminous literature of the 

 subject. In a memoir on "The Somatic Mitosis of 

 Stegomyia fasciata;' published in the__ Quarterly 

 Journal of Microscopical Science (vol. Ixiii., part 3), 

 Miss Lucv A. Carter, at the request of the editor, 

 has given a glossary of the principal terms employed. 

 Some of these terms are, no doubt, already sufficiently 

 familiar to ordinary students, but the idea is one 

 which should be welcomed by many. The derivation 

 of " svnizesis "— " svn," with; " hizo," place— is^^not 

 verv satisfactory, for the word clearly means "as- 

 sembling together" or "placing together." 



A SUB-COMMITTEE of the Food (War) Committee of 

 the Roval Societv has recently issued a report _ on 

 the composition "of potatoes grown in the United 

 Kingdom. The report is based on the results of deter- 



