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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



its chief value for decorative purposes to 

 its translucency, fine venation, and color. 

 Sometimes the original hues have become 

 enhanced by oxidation and through the de- 

 velopment of reticulating veins of small 

 size, into which percolating waters have in- 

 troduced new coloring substances or locally 

 oxidized the protoxide carbonates which 

 seem to form the chief colouring constituent. 

 The finer grades of stone of this type are 

 obtained from few and scattered localities, 

 and, except those that are of cave origin, 

 generally, so far as the author has observed, 

 the most eminently desirable for ornamental 

 purposes are from hot and arid countries and 

 regions not far distant from recent volcanic 

 activity. 



Giant Mountain Plants. Two Swiss bot- 

 anists, MM. Sommier and Sevier, who have 

 recently explored the Caucasus, tell of the 

 discovery of a mountain flora of giant her- 

 baceous plants, of which little was known 

 before, and which they designate as macro- 

 fora. At the altitude of about fifty-eight 

 hundred feet some plants reach a size 

 which they never attain in the valleys. A 

 campanula, which does not exceed about two 

 feet below, grows to about six feet at that 

 height, with an unpliable stem. The large, 

 kidney-shaped leaves of a valerian are borne 

 at the end of petioles so rigid that they can 

 be carried as parasols. These fields resem- 

 ble the pampas, and the rocks are hidden in 

 a growth of large plants of different kinds. 

 The luxuriance of this vegetation is ascribed 

 by the authors partly to the extraordinary 

 fertility of the soil, from which the accu- 

 mulated mold of ages has never been re- 

 moved ; while, as a second way of accounting 

 for them, they are regarded as survivals of 

 the grand flora of some former geological age. 



A New Race of Ancient Egyptians. The 



continued explorations of Mr. W. Flinders 

 Petrie on the west side of the Nile below 

 Thebes have resulted in the discovery of 

 what he regards as a hitherto unknown race 

 of men, who probably lived in Egypt about 

 five thousand years ago. In the near neigh- 

 borhood of sites yielding potteries of the 

 best known Egyptian dynasties he found 

 the remains of a town, with cemeteries of 

 which about two thousand graves were ex- 



cavated, in which there was not a single 

 Egyptian object or the trace of the observ- 

 ance of any Egyptian custom. The bodies, 

 instead of being mummified or buried at full 

 length, were contracted, with heads to the 

 south and faces to the west. They were of 

 fine physiognomy, without prognathism ; of 

 remarkable stature some being more than 

 six feet high and of development of legs 

 indicating a hill race ; with brown and wavy 

 but not crisp hair, aquiline nose, and long, 

 pointed head. No hieroglyphics or char- 

 acters suggesting writing were found, be- 

 yond a few scratches on vases. Their ves- 

 sels were perfect in form all hand-made 

 yet their art was of the rudest. A picture 

 in monochrome on one of the vases repre- 

 sents a boat with two cabins, rowed with 

 oars, bearing the ensign of five hills, with 

 ranges of hills on either side, and ostriches 

 striding along. A game of ninepins was 

 found, hi which the pieces are formed of 

 stone, with balls of syenite about the size of 

 peas. The people used green paint made 

 from malachite for marking their eyes, and 

 many of the slate palettes on which this 

 was ground were found. Their funeral rites 

 appear to have included a kind of ceremonial 

 cannibalism. They are supposed to have 

 lived about the time from the seventh to 

 the ninth dynasties. In the same region, in 

 a spot exactly resembling the river gravels 

 of England and France, large quantities of 

 similar palaeolithic remains were found. 



Signs of the Times. In an article under 

 the above title, by Edward Atkinson, in the 

 August number of the Engineering Magazine, 

 is the following comment on the recent cele- 

 bration of the opening of the ship canal at 

 Kiel : " There is something rather grotesque 

 in the picture which the nations have made 

 at the opening of the ship canal at Kiel. 

 The object of that canal is mainly to pro- 

 mote commerce, to facilitate exchange, to 

 bring to the occupants of a rather poor soil 

 in middle Europe a necessary supply of food 

 and fibres from other parts of the world, and 

 also a necessary supply of the crude products 

 of the non-machine-using nations for conver- 

 sion into finished goods for home use and ex- 

 port. In order to celebrate the opening of 

 this peaceful way for commerce, there gath- 

 ered a collection of naval bulldogs, each for 



