September 8, 1892] 



NATURE 



451 



visited England, France, Germany, Austria, Roumania, Turkey, 

 Italy, Greece, and found everywhere that a lively interest was 

 taken in the Columbian Exhibition. In an interview in the 

 daily press he says, " Many eminent electricians of different 

 countries are expected to attend the congress, including a large 

 number from Great Britain. The work of the World's Congress 

 auxiliary has been done so quietly that the general public is not 

 aware of its extent and efficiency. There seems now to be no 

 question that the World's Congress of 1893 will be very much 

 more largely attended and will be conducted on a more impos- 

 ing scale than those of any previous occasion in the world's 

 history." 



A MODEL of ocean currents is to be shown at the Chicago 

 Exhibition. The surface of the earth is represented on " a 

 huge scientific tank " by an area of about 30 feet square, the 

 ocean and seas being shown by actual water. Small streams 

 of water are ejected through pipes under the model so that the 

 whole body of water moves exactly as the ocean currents move. 

 The direction of the currents is shown distinctly by a white 

 powder on the surface of the water. Near the model will be 

 placed a large map giving details as to the force, volume, and 

 direction of the various ocean currents. 



A USEFUL catalogue of Michigan plants, prepared for the 

 thirteenth annual report of the Secretary of the Michigan Board 

 of Agriculture, has been issued separately. It has been drawn 

 up by W. J. Beal and C. F. Wheeler. It is based on a " Cata- 

 logue of the Phaenogamous and Vascular Cryptogamous Plants 

 of Michigan, Indigenous, Naturalized, and Adventive," by C. 

 F. Wheeler and E. F. Smith. The compilers hope that the 

 publication of their list will stimulate local observers and 

 collectors to do what they can to add to what is known about 

 the plants of Michigan, especially in the matter of geographical 

 distribution. 



Dr. R. W. Shufeldt contributes to the Proceedings of the 

 U.S. National Museum (vol. xv., pp. 29-31) a short but 

 interesting paper on "A Maid of Wolpai" — a girl of about 

 fifteen years of age, belonging to the pueblo of Wolpai in north- 

 western Arizona. A portrait of her accompanies the paper. 

 The writer's object is not so much to talk about this particular 

 girl, as to describe the life of a Wolpai woman at the various 

 stages of her career. His conclusion is that, upon the whole, 

 it is by no means an unhappy life. " From her babyhood to 

 maturity," he says, "it is filled in with many pleasurable 

 chapters, and no doubt a great deal of this is due to their con- 

 tented dispositions, their love of home, and their untiring 

 industry," 



In another paper contributed to the same volume (pp. 279- 

 282) Dr. Shufeldt discusses the evolution of house building 

 among the Navajo Indians. From November, 1884, to the 

 early spring of 1889 Dr. Shufeldt lived at Fort Wingate, a 

 military station in north-western New Mexico, and during the 

 early part of this period there was always to be found a floating 

 population of Navajos living on the outskirts of the fort. He 

 had thus many opportunities of studying their various arts and 

 industries. He shows that contact with the civilization of the 

 white man has led these Indians to improve their plans of house 

 building, and has had " the effect of bringing about an evolution 

 of the same." 



A VERY original mode of treatment of some nervous com- 

 plaints has been recently developed by Dr. Charcot, at the 

 Salpetriere, in Paris (Z« Nature). He was led to it by observ- 

 ing that patients afflicted with paralysis agitans, or shaking 

 palsy, often seemed greatly relieved after long journeys by rail 

 or carriage. The greater the train speed and oscillation, the 

 rougher the road and the shaking, the more they liked it and 

 NO. 1193, VOL. 46] 



were benefited. Dr. Charcot, taking up the idea, had a chair 

 made, to which a rapid movement from side to side was imparted 

 by electrical agency ; like what one sees in processes of sifting 

 by machinery. To a healthy person the experience is execrable ; 

 he very soon seeks relief. Not so the patient, however ; he 

 enjoys the shaking, and after a quarter of an hour of it, is 

 another man. He stretches his limbs, loses fatigue, and enjoys 

 a good night's sleep afterwards. There are various other nervous 

 diseases to which the method applies. Certain physicians, 

 indeed, have before used such things as tuning-forks and vibrat- 

 ing rods in treatment of neuralgia, &c. A student of Dr. 

 Charcot, Dr. Gilles de la Tourette, has had a vibrating helmet 

 constructed for nervous headaches. It is applied to the head by 

 means of a number of steel strips. Above is a small electric 

 motor making 600 turns a minute ; and at each turn a uniform 

 vibration is imparted to the metallic strips, and so to the head. 

 The sensation is not unpleasant ; it induces lassitude and 

 sleepiness. 



On Friday last Prof. R. L. Gardner, of Virginia, addressed 

 the Balloon Society of Great Britain on his researches relating to 

 what he calls the speech of monkeys. He defined speech as that 

 form of materialized thought which was restricted to such sounds 

 as were designed to convey a definite idea from mind to mind. 

 It was, therefore, only one mode of expressing thought ; and to 

 come within the limits of speech the sounds must be voluntary, 

 have fixed values, and be intended to suggest to another mind a 

 certain idea or group of ideas more or less complete. Not only 

 did these marks characterize the sounds of monkeys as speech, 

 but, in addition, the sounds were always addressed to certain 

 individuals, with the evident purpose of being understood. 

 Monkeys usually looked at the individual addressed and did not 

 utter these sounds when alone or as a mere pastime. They 

 understood and acted in accordance with the sounds when 

 imitated by the phonograph or other mechanical means, and 

 this indicated that they were guided by sounds alone, and not 

 by signs, gestures, or a physical influence. He had also dis- 

 covered that some monkeys could count three and had favourite 

 colours, but he did not think they had names for them. He 

 had for hours together watched monkeys convey to each other 

 by sound the apprehension of danger and other emotions. His 

 task, which was not easy, was to perpetuate or imitate these 

 sounds. In some cases he was successful, but to no great ex- 

 tent. At last he turned to the phonograph— an instrument 

 which was practically unknown in this country, save as a clumsy 

 toy. But a properly manipulated phonograph could repeat 

 sounds, previously recorded, with mathematical precision. He 

 had the good fortune to find that the sounds so carefully pre- 

 served in one zoological garden provoked interest, and were 

 apparently quite intelligible to monkeys in other gardens in dis- 

 tant countries. His observations had hitherto been conducted 

 with monkeys in captivity, but he was now on his way to the 

 deep forests of Western Africa, once visited by Paul du Chaillu, 

 in order to study the language and habits of the great apes. He 

 was carrying with him an outfit of the most complete aOd 

 unique character that had ever been brought into use for such 

 purposes. He meant to live in a cage and to provide himself 

 with an electrical apparatus. His cage was convertible, and 

 weighed 3201b., and he could make four cages of it and bring 

 home a gorilla in one of them. 



At the last prize contest instituted by the City of Paris for the 

 best electric meter the prize of 5000 francs was awarded to 

 Prof. Elihu Thomson. Desiring that this sum should serve for 

 the development of the theoretical knowledge of electricity^ 

 Prof. Thomson requested M. Ernst Thurnauer, General Manager 

 for Europe of the Thomson- Houston International Electric 

 Company, to offer a prize for the best work on a theorelica 



