January i6, 1896] 



NA TURE 



247 



Now I could find no place for the fossil Javanese form, which I 

 consider as intermediate between Man and Anthropoid apes, 

 in any of the branches of that tree, only in the third chief hne, 

 the main stem, very near to the point of divarication. 



Owing to the same circumstances, which indirectly prevented 

 me from explaining my own views on the matter at Dublin, I 

 did not then reply to two remarks of Prof. Cunningham, which 

 omission I now wish to repair by the following declaration. 



(i) I did not exaggerate the relative height and quality of the 

 cranial arch, which Prof. Cunningham had in view (the arch of 

 the glabella-inion part of the calvaria) in Hylobates. The 

 profile outline of the skull of Hylobates agilis figured, directly 

 from the bisected skull, on p. 8 of my memoir, is even somewhat 

 higher than that of Pithecanthropus, of which I have an accurate 

 bisected cast before me. In the latter the height of the said cranial 

 arch is exactly equal to the one-third part of the glabella-inion line, 

 and in the skull of a Hylobates agilis it is about 2 mm. higher 

 than the third part of the corresponding line. If in the 

 mentioned diagram in my memoir that line in the gibbon skull 

 were drawn equal in length to that of the fossil calvaria, instead 

 of the natural size, this would be more apparent there than it is 

 even now. The said cranial arch of a Hylobates syndactylus in 

 the same diagram is much lower than that of the other gibbon 

 species, and the same arch in the chimpanzee would even be 

 lower than in Hylobates syndactylus. It is easy to find skulls of 

 Semnopithecus with a higher "cranial arch" than the chim- 

 panzee has. Further, between different individuals of the same 

 ape species and of man, we find great differences in the height of 

 that arch. 



All these facts tend to show that there is no reason for regard- 

 ing the height of the siiprainial part of the calvaria as of real im- 

 portance in our judgment on the place which any human-like 

 being should occupy in the genealogical tree. 



(2) In my original memoir (p. 7), I have already pointed out that 

 the occiput of the fossil skull is very ape-like, especially gibbon- 

 like. But, nevertheless, the inclination of the planum nuchale 

 on the glabella-inion line is very different from that of all the Old 

 World apes. These accord very nearly with one another in the 

 degree of this inclination, whilst the angle in Pithecanthropus 

 approaches closely human conditions. I not only compared 

 photographs of the median line of the skulls, but also the bisected 

 skulls with the bisected exact cast of the fossil calvaria. The 

 means which I have taken to determine the degree of this 

 declination are therefore, I believe, entirely calculated to yield 

 trustworthy results. Eug. Dubois. 



An Anagram, 

 Is it too frivolous to suggest the accompanying anagram ? 



Pithecanthropus erectus. 



Pursue the person, catch it ! 

 Kew, December 10, 1895. E. H. 



The Barisal Guns and Similar Sounds. 

 With reference to the letters that have appeared in Nature 

 on the above subject, I have read with interest that by Mr. 

 G. B. Scott, of the Indian Survey, in your last issue. The 

 question, I think, arises, Are we not dealing, in India at least, 

 with two very different phenomena? Are these sounds like 

 that of heavy ordnance, which are heard occasionally at the 

 base of the Eastern Himalayas and the Garo and Khasi Hill 

 Range, ^ the same as those longer known and more familiar as 

 the " Barisal Guns " ? Mr. Scott's description of the sounds he 

 heard when on board the steamer moored in the narrow channels 

 near the sea, are remarkably like wave action. He says : 

 '"Sometimes a single report, at others two, three or more in 

 succession, never near, always distant, but not equally 

 distant. Sometimes the reports would resemble cannon from 

 two rather widely separated opposing forces, at others from 

 different directions but apparently always from the southward, 

 that is, seaward." This is precisely what one would hear on a 

 still night, when an ocean swell was coming up the Bay of 

 Bengal and breaking all along a low shore with an undulating 

 outline stretching many miles east and west.^ I have been 

 twice round by Barisal in a river steamer, and once by native 

 boat, which took many days ; but I was not fortunate enough to 

 hear the sounds. 



1 Vide P. A. S. Bengal. Mr. La Touche, of the Geological Survey, 

 p. 201, in "Report on Barisal Guns." 



2 yjdc same Report. Letter by Mr. A. Manson, p. 208. 



NO. 1368, VOL. 53] 



Regarding the distant booming reports, that are heard further 

 inland, I was, I think, one of the first to notice and put them 

 on record. In the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 

 March 1869, vide " Notes from Asaloo, North Cachar, on the 

 Great Earthquake of January 10, 1869," after giving some 

 details of the daily shocks that were recorded up to the 17th 

 of that month, I find the following on p. 98. "Very note- 

 worthy is the distant report of a heavy gun on January 19, 

 heard towards the west at ih. 49m. 19s. p.m. (I was sitting at 

 work at a table outside the office tent) ; the time I took imme- 

 diately by chronometer, as I fully expected a shock to follow. 

 Another very loud explosion was heard from Mahadeo Peak at 

 midnight of the 29th, and again from the same peak at 7 a.m. 

 the next morning, the 30th ; but no shock came after, on either 

 occasion. 



" I may here mention that last cold weather, on several 

 occasions when I was in the North Cachar Hills, I heard, at 

 various times, the like distant reports, resembling exactly the 

 firing of big guns at a great distance. In one or two places 

 the country people had noticed it, and they even used the 

 expression that it proceeded from the earth {the earth speaks). 



" These subterranean explosions must be heard over lai^e 

 areas, and it would be interesting if they could be noticed, or 

 rather if those hearing them would make the matter public ; I 

 have no doubt there are many individuals who will remember 

 having heard such sounds." The reports like big guns, "top 

 chalta," as the natives expressed the sound, heard at Asaloo in 

 January, during a period of great seismic activity, were, I 

 consider, intimately connected with it ; and that the similar 

 reports, solitary instances not continuous, heard in the previous, 

 year at different places in the same range, were also of a 

 subterranean nature. Seismic sounds are not always accom- 

 panied by a disturbance of the earth conveyed to the senses. I 

 find in my journal the following. 



" Nongtung, in Jain tia Hills, December 21, 1887." 

 " While seated at dinner, a curious rumbling sound was heard 

 in the west. Mr. Ogle immediately said, ' that is the rumble of 

 an earthquake,' and we waited with intense expectation for 

 several seconds for the shock, I with my watch out ready to 

 take its duration ; but it never came. We then thought it might 

 have been a herd of elephants coming up the ridge, and, disturbed 

 by our camp fires, had rushed off through the jungle ; but on 

 going into Jawai on Christmas Day, we learnt that a shock had 

 been felt there on the same date and time, and that it apparently 

 came from the west." 



The best-defined unaccountable sound occurred when I was 

 surveying the Bhutan Dooars in the spring of 1865. I have 

 some remembrance of putting it on record at the time, perhaps 

 in my annual report. I was standing at the plane-table in the 

 forest twelve miles south-west of Buxa, when the report of a 

 heavy gun was heard in the direction of the mountains, clear and 

 distinct, yet a long way off, followed closely and at irregular 

 intervals by two other discharges. The natives with me imme- 

 diately said "the Bhutias have attacked Buxa," which was not 

 unexpected, for they had only lately retaken Dewan Giri. A 

 short time after, on reaching the main path from Buxa to Balla, 

 an irregular cavalryman of the Jat Horse came by, carrying 

 despatches for Buxa Fort. I wrote a hasty note to an officer 

 there to ask what was going on, and I received in due course a 

 reply saying not a shot had been fired there or anywhere else. 

 These reports were louder and more distinctly like artillery fire 

 than any I afterwards heard in the hills further to the east.. 

 These last had the nature of a very, very distant boom, coming 

 from' no well-defined direction. Particularly do I recall one 

 occasion when we were going down a narrow spur on the 

 southern face of the Jaintia Hills, on a glorious fine day, the 

 view over the basal slopes all clothed in forest, and the plains 

 and low hills of Sylhet beyond fading into the high horizon of 

 the delta of the Brahmaputra. The sound seemed to come 

 from out of the distance along the foot of the mountains — west 

 and south. 



As a primary cause, every possible kind of force has been 

 suggested — fireworks, i.e. bombs, cannon, bursting bamboos irv 

 jungle-fires, thunder-claps, landslips, and the falling of river- 

 banks. I am familiar with the sounds produced by all these 

 causes, and the last-named was particularly brought under my 

 notice when proceeding by boat on the Megua and Brahmaputra, 

 and from Gowhatty on a raft made of two dug-out canoes to 

 Doobri, 125 miles. I have often seen and heard the report which 



