July io, 1919] 



NATURE 



371 



and geographer of note. The son of an A'>erdeenshire 

 farmer, he was educated for the medical profession, 

 and, like Cecil Rhodes, in order to save his life ac- 

 cepted the ajipointment of Medical Officer at Seychelles, 

 -Mauritius, and Fiji. Sir William Macgregor's oppor- 

 tunity came in i88S, when he was posted to British 

 New Guinea as Administrator. For eleven years he 

 was occupied in reducing the pagan savage tribes to 

 order, and while his annual reports gave a clear 

 account of his novel experiences, ethnologists in 

 Europe were not slow to recognise the value of the 

 material he had collected. He quickly realised the 

 importance of New (iuinea as the place of contact 

 between the Melanesian and Papuan cultures, and it 

 was largelv due to his stimulus that valuable work 

 has been carried out in this region by English ethno- 

 logists — Haddon, Rivers, Seligmann, and Williamson. 

 Aifter Sir William Macgregor's period of service in 

 New Guinea he held in succession the office of 

 Lieutenant-fjovernor of Lagos, Newfoundland, and 

 Queensland, retiring from the last position in 11)14. 

 He received the honorary degrees of LL.D. from the 

 Universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Queensland, 

 and of D.Sc. from Cambridge, and he was a fellow of 

 several learned societies. 



The strong earthquake which occurred on June 29 

 in the Mugello X'alley, near Florence, seems, from the 

 few details which have reached us, to have originated 

 at or near \'icchio, fifteen miles north-east of Florence. 

 This village and eight others are said to have been 

 destro\ed. The shock was also severely felt at 

 Florerice, Bologna, Pistoia, Pisa, and Pontedera. The 

 Mugello Valley is a well-marked seismic zone, though 

 not verv often in action. In 1542, 1597, and 161 1 

 earthquakes causing considerable damage occurred in 

 the neighbourhood of Scarperia, about seven miles 

 north-west of Vicchio, and a fourth in 1762 near Sant' 

 Agata, one mile farther to the north-west. In 1835 

 an earthquake just strong enough to fracture walls 

 originated at or near Vicchio, and in 1843 and 1864 

 others of the same or slightly greater strength at 

 Barberino and Firenzuola. There can be little doubt 

 that the recent shock is the strongest of those which 

 have occurred in the Mugello Valley during the last 

 four hundred vears With regard to the statement, 

 however, referred to last week, that ttie earthquake 

 is the strongest experienced in Italy since 1895, Dr. 

 Charles Davison informs us that the authority quoted 

 must have been referring to the Florentine district. 

 'The last earthquake there of importance occurred in 

 1895. Since then there have been far greater earth- 

 quakes in Italv, such as the Messina earthquake of 

 1908 and the Avezzano earthquake of 19 15." 



In the Publications of the University of California 

 on American Archaeologv and Ethnology (vol. xiv.. 

 No. 3) Mr. Llewellyn L.Loud publishes a memoir on 

 the ethnogeography and archaeology of the Wiyot 

 Territorv, Iving on' the shores of Humboldt Bay and 

 the lower courses of the Mad and Eel rivers. Ex- 

 cavations show that among this tribe earth-burial 

 replaced cremation. Their relation to the more 

 northern Indians is best illustrated by the implements 

 known as "slave-killers," though it is still uncertain 

 whether these were actually used to kill slaves. From 

 the little that is known of the culture of the Oregon 

 Indians, particularly those of the Columbia Valley, 

 we are able to trace some cultural relationship between 

 these two groups of tribes, and it may be expected 

 that further investigations will reveal other re- 

 semblances of these people to the Wiyot. 



Mr. R. F. Barton in his account of Ifugao law, 

 in the LIniversity of California Publications on 

 American .\rchaeology and Ethnology (vol. xv., No. 1), 

 NO. 2593, VOL. 103] 



gives a valuable account of savage law. The Ifugaos 

 of the Philippine Islands are a tribe of barbarian head- 

 hunters, but, at the same time, they have reached a high 

 level of material culture. Their system of terrace cultiva- 

 tion is specially noteworthy. One example, of which 

 a photograph is given, is 12 km. long without a break 

 in its continuity, and some of the terrace-walls are 

 60 ft. high. There is, of course, no written law 

 literature, but their traditional social rules are most 

 elaborate. As Mr. Barton writes: — "This people, 

 having no vestige of constitutional authoritv or 

 government, and therefore living in literal anarchy, 

 dwell in comparative peace and security of life and 

 property. This is owing to the fact of their homo- 

 geneity, and to the fact that their law is based entirely 

 on custom and taboo." He adds that, before the 

 American Government was established, the loss of life 

 from violence of all descriptions was not nearly so 

 great as in civilised communities. 



In the April issue of the Journal of Mental Science, 

 under the title of "' Psychoses in the Expeditionary 

 Forces," Capt. O. P. Napier Pearn describes the 

 differences and similarities in the actual insanities 

 (psychoses) found in military and civil practice respec- 

 tively. Of such cases he has personally investigated 

 2000 at the Lord Derby War Hospital, Warrington, 

 which up to April, 1919, had admitted 6000. All these 

 had seen some form of service with an expeditionary 

 force. He has collected and tabulated the facts re- 

 lating to 200 cases which made a sufficiently good 

 recovery to warrant their being returned to duty, as 

 being those concerning whom it is easiest to obtain 

 some form of after-history. Capt. Pearn 's article is 

 welcome as affording material with which to compare 

 our much more extensive data of the military psycho- 

 neuroses, i.e. those functional mental and nervous dis- 

 orders which do not constitute actual insanity. He 

 points out how, while at the onset of a mental disorder 

 in civil life the friends and relatives usually co-operate 

 with the sick person in shielding him from medical 

 advice, such a patient in the Army, owing to exi- 

 gencies of discipline, is much more likely to receive 

 attention from his medical officer at an early stage. 

 The effect of this early care is that these cases 

 respond to treatment in a very gratifying way. The 

 author insists that the patient's mental re-adaptation 

 must be aided by therapeutic conversations, giving 

 him insight into his mental make-up in order that 

 when he meets again with difficulties in the outside 

 world he will be more able to surmount them. The 

 article, while laying claim to no new discovery, lays 

 additional emphasis upon the urgency of the early 

 treatment of mental disorders. 



In a note recently received from Prof. J. Mascart a 

 striking cloud phenomenon seen in north-east France 

 on July 8, 1918, is described. At 7.25 p.m. (S.T.) 

 a wide belt of thin cirro-cumulus cloud had formed 

 over the sky, and in this belt was traced out in the 

 course of a few seconds a looped curve consisting of 

 a roughlv circular loop with two arms extend*- 

 ing from it. The shape somewhat resembled the 

 figure 6, but with the end of the ring continued out 

 to the left hand. The curve, of a width of about a 

 semi-lunar diameter, was marked by a complete 

 absence of cloud in the otherwise uniform cirro- 

 cumjalus sheet, clear blue sky being visible throughout 

 its length. The circular ring, which was somewhat 

 flattened, was of about 20° diameter, and at an eleva- 

 tion of about 60-70° above the western horizon. The 

 phenomenon remained visible for twenty-five minutes 

 until th<' cloud-sheet evaporated. During this period 

 the cloud drifted slowlv from south-west to north-east, 

 and the looped curve appeared to maintiiin its position 



