March 20, 1885.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



245 



" Let Knowledge grow from more to mom." — Ai.kbed Tennybon. 



Only a ^fnall profortioii of Lcttetg rect'ived can possibly bf in- 

 $frted. Correspondents must not le offtnded, therefore, should their 

 letters not appear. 



All Editorial communiraTions shoult^ he addressed to the Editor Of 

 Knowledge; all Business cimmunicu'.'ns to the I'ublishkrs, at the 

 Office, 74, Great Queen-street, IV.C li" this is not iTTENDED TO 



DELAYS ABISK FOB WHICH THE EDITOR m NOT RESPONSIBLE. 



All Remittances, Chequp^, nnd Post Office Orders should he made 

 pa\,able to Messes. Wyman & Sons. 



The Editor is not respmisibie for ths opinions of co^respondenis, 



Ko COMMUNICATIONS ABE ANSWEPPIi H> POST, K^EN TliOCGB STAMPED 

 ADD DIBECTED ENVELOPE BE E>'CIO!«"u. 



FERTILITY OF JEWISH MAKEIAGES WITH CHRISTIANS. 



[1639] — With reference to the curious assertion made b_v Mr. 

 Jacobs, and reported on page 188 of Knowledge, will you allow me 

 to state the following less curious facts ^ 



Of those Jews with whoso history I am sufficiently acquaiutccl, 

 ten are married to ladies of their own race, two to Christians 

 (English). Of the former, seven have from two to eight children 

 each ; three have none. Both the mixed marriages were fertile, 

 four remarkably well-developed boys and seven handsome girls 

 being at this time alive to testify to this fact. W.vtikiieit. 



INSCRIBED ROCKS. 



[1640] — As to these (1619) there are a great many in North- 

 umberland, about which a good deal appeared in the Ntn.'castle 

 WeeUy Chronicle, in (I think) 1870 or 1H80. As I have not seen 

 thorn, I shall not express any opinion, l)Ht shall bo glad of an 

 opportunity to record what I know about one here (Pornic). 



In 1875, a tumulus with Megalitluc chambers was opened at the 

 expense of the Antiquarian Association of the Department (Loire 

 Inferieure), under the personal superintendence of one of its 

 members, Baron de Wismes. In 1870, I came here in the early 

 summer, and spent many days in this and other Megalithic remains. 

 In the one opened the previous year I was attracted by apparent 



inscriptions on an upright block of red sandstone (stetch sub- 

 joined). On one was a cross, another like a small pi. I certainly 

 took them for hand-work, till I found in the two lower ones proof 

 positive that they had all been done by the stems of some shrub. 

 The filaments of the stem were, in situ, as regular as herring- 

 bones (I scraped some out, and have preserved them) ; there then 

 came very hot weather which dried them to tinder, then weather 

 which washed them out. 



When Baron do Wismes came hero in .\ugust, 1876, I showed 

 him the marks. Ho was rather vexed at not having noticed them 

 himself, but would not hear a word as to the shrub hypothesis. He 

 made beautiful drawings of them, and wrote a " llomoiro," which 

 he read at an aichieological congress at Presburg (Hungary) that 

 year. Thereon 1 wrote to the Academy (since the Baron assured 

 mo the world was excited at this, the only known case of inscrip- 

 tions on megaliths), brielly stating the above fac-ts, declaring that it 

 was as much an antiquary's mare's-nest as the ''A.D.Ij.L. of 

 Jlonkbarns, or the 



B.T.L.S.T. 

 I-.M.P.S.II.I. 

 S.M.A.R.K. 

 of Mr. I'icKwick, and signing my name. The Acmlemy took no 

 notice of my letter. It tluTcfoio is an aocreditod fact that there la 

 owe proof tliat the rude i-avnges who built these refuges h.-id cutting 

 instruments, and trac(?d characters. Viclri.r causa Dns plac.uU, 

 sed ricta Catoiii. (Mv fntlior was a midshipman with Sir John 

 Ross in 181S-l;t, and with Parry in 1820-21, and he used to say 

 that much of the landscape (notably the Crokcr Mountains) sketched 

 by Sir J. Ross had no existence, but was clouds.) 



I suppose the i)lant which ate these channels in the stone must 

 have been ivy. I am puzzled to account for its growing in dark- 

 ness, as it must have done. Tho sterna were probably torn away 

 by the Baron's own workmen. 1 have dug down, but the roots are 

 not to be found ; whence 1 conclude that the stems ran along the 

 ground until they met the stone, then climbed up it. 'The curve 

 they take a little way up is at once explained on inspection. The 

 stone just above each juts out ; they turned away to avoid it. The 

 marks are always on a higher plane than the rest of the stone; the 

 stems, no doubt, bridged over the hollows without disintegrating 

 the stone. 



I inspected tho stone afresh yesterday, and must own that now, 

 as for years past, the channels have all the appearance of human 

 work. Had I not f(mnd tlio .lelinqnent rootlets actually in them, 

 I should not have dreamed of any other origin. 



The spirals [in lUlO] may have had the same origin. But also 

 they may not. "There are stones so inscribed in Switzerland which 

 are said to be rude maps of the neighbouring country. The stono 

 I have written of is between four and five feet high. 



Uallyabds. 



[It struck me, on looking at Mr. McMeister's illustration to his 

 letter [1619], on p. 181, that the markings strongly resembled 

 sections or impressions of univalve fossil shells. — Ed.] 



DUALITY OP THE BRAIN. 



[1011]— I woke one night, having just dreamed a situation in 

 which I was addressed in a sequence of heroic verse as the hard 

 who had made Odysseus— 



" A'/ii'j/it of his rocky Isle." 



In some way I recognised that the allusion was to my having 

 given the title "Sir" to Odysseus in translating, a few days 

 before, the interview between Odysseus and Achilles in Hades. 

 Odyssey xi. 480. Thus; — 



*' A truce to consolation, Sir, he said, 

 I'd rather be a hind fur what he'd give 

 To some poor churl who scarce has means to live. 

 Than reign in Hell the King of all the dead." 



Here " Sir" stands for "(p'licifi " 'OcvtuiI. 



I just gave so much thought to the manner of rendering as to 

 decide that it should not stand ; and so dismissed it from my mind. 

 When, lo ! it pops up again in this comical manner in a dream 

 some days after ! 



I suppose we have all of us been sometimes surprised by dream- 

 thoughts or suggestions that do not belong to our waking per- 

 sonality ; sometimes with a positive and disagreeable antagonism. 



Does not the duality of the brain suggest some light on this 

 phenomenon ? Does it not at least suggest that the two sides of 

 the brain can even play at being tn-o persons within us ?^ 



Here we are met by a conception antecedently c|uite inappre- 

 hensible : Duality of persons in one individuality. Nothing can be 

 more certain than that we feel ourselves to be one. Yet it is 

 coming out with more and more certainty from the line of observa- 

 tion and thought you have been pursuing, that this oneness is 

 perfectly consistent with a fundamental duality. 



Leonard H. Rudd. 



GROWTH OF THE HEAD. 



[1642] — Whom can we believe ? On p. 194 you quote Dr. Brown- 

 Sequard as declaring that all heads increase in girth from the 

 twentieth to (he fortieth year, and that his own hats, unworn for 

 .sir months, would always prove too small ! Might not this be from 

 shrinkage of the hat ? Hats have a leather band round tho head ; 



