August 20, 1903] 



NATURE 



2>7i 



July-August festival of the Kurum, when they dance 

 round the national mother, the kurum almond tree 

 {Nauclea Parvifolia), wearing barley shoots in their 

 hair, and the festival corresponds to the Hindu Nag 

 Punchami, the five mother snakes held in the same 

 month. The union of the rice-eating sons of the south 

 w^ith the northern eaters of barley is marked by the 

 Magh festivals of January-February (p. 102) in Chutia 

 Nagpore, and the Magh festival of Puryag at the junc- 

 tion of the Jumna and Ganges, where the union with 

 the men of the south of the Kushika Gonds, who came 

 down the Jumna, is celebrated by the offering as 

 sacrifices of living victims brought in by the northern 

 people as additions to the southern ritual, in which the 

 only sacrifices had been the first fruits of the soil 

 offered by the primitive villagers, and the fowls slain 

 by the Munda sun worshippers. 



It was the castes who form the northern stratum of 

 the community who began the custom of wedding 

 brides and bridegrooms to mahua and mango trees, 

 while almost all castes still retain the leafy marriage 

 bower in which weddings are celebrated as a reminis- 

 cence of their ancestors, who were sons of the tree 

 before the northern growers of oil-seeds, barley, and 

 other crops of Asia Minor substituted individual 

 marriages for village unions. 



The last stage in primitive national history is that 

 of the race of the trading Jains of the Bronze age, and 

 its length is marked by the vast excavations they have 

 made in the copper hills of Lando in Seraikela and 

 Baragunda, under Parisnath. They formed the port 

 of Tamluk, called Tamra-lipti or Copper-port, and 

 have left lasting memorials of their rule in the ruins 

 of their capital at Dalmix on the Subanrikha, their 

 temples at Telkupi (p. 177), and along the ancient road 

 to Orissa, and in the establishment of the brass-ware 

 industry of Manbhum, which supplied the brass 

 vessels looked on as sacred in modem Hindu domestic 

 ritual. J- F. Hewitt. 



THE SEISMOLOGICAL CONGRESS IN 

 ST R ASS BURG. 



TN July of last year the British Government received 

 ■■• an official invitation from Germany to take part 

 in a conference the object of which was to establish 

 an international inquiry about earthquakes. The 

 meetings of this conference, which took place in 

 Strassburg — July 23 to 28 — usually commenced at 9 

 or 10 a.m., and concluded at about 5 or 6 in the 

 afternoon. The proceedings were reported at length 

 in the Strassburger Korrespondenz and other papers. 



At the opening ceremony the chair was occupied by 

 His Highness Prince Hohenlohe-Langenburg, his 

 supporters being representatives of the Imperial 

 Government and other officials. Twenty-five States 

 or countries were represented, but the total number of 

 delegates and guests who were at liberty to take part 

 in the proceedings up to the time when final votes were 

 demanded seems to have been exactly one hundred. 

 As sixty-two of these were Germans, it can be easily 

 imagined that German language and German in- 

 fluence preponderated in debates, and although ulti- 

 mate results were arrived at by the single voices of 

 separate countries, when Great Britain and her 

 colonies, like the German Empire, had each one vote 

 only, it is difficult to suppose that these results are en- 

 tirely free from German bias. 



France was not officially represented. When we 

 consider the powerful influence exercised by this 

 country upon the progress of science, the impetus 

 given to seismology by Perrey, Montessus and other 

 workers, together with the desirability of establishing 

 NO. 1764, VOL. 68] 



stations in French colonies, a feeling of regret arises, 

 that so important a State was unable to assist the con- 

 gress. Whether this would have been the case had 

 the same been held in some other town than Strassburg 

 is a matter for conjecture. The chief results arrived 

 at were as follows : — 



A central association is to be formed with its head- 

 quarters in Strassburg. Each contributing country 

 will be represented by one member on a governing 

 committee which elects a president, a chief for the 

 central office, and a general secretary. The chief will 

 reside in Strassburg, but it was decided that the presi- 

 dent and secretary should be elected from outside 

 Germany. Although it is desirable that these officers 

 should represent different nationalities, it is also 

 desirable that the chief of the central office and his 

 secretary should reside at the central office. 



It was suggested that the work of the association 

 should be as follows : — 



(i) To make observations after a common plan 

 approved by the association. Inasmuch as there now 

 exists in connection with the British Association, in 

 Italy, in Japan, and in other countries established 

 systems for seismic observations, which on account of 

 the expenditure it would involve and for other reasons 

 could not be reduced to a common plan, and further, 

 that as direction from a centre would destroy incentive 

 to investigation, this proposition was abandoned. 



(2) To carry out experiments on important matters. 



(3) To establish and support observatories. 



(4) To collect, study, and publish reports or 

 rdsumes of the same. 



The detailed investigations referred to in the 

 second suggestion are not unlike headings for 

 chapters in a treatise on seismology. This work, 

 and that embodied in the third and fourth proposals, 

 are for the first twelve years to be carried out 

 at a cost of loooL per annum, and this sum is ta 

 include a salary for the general secretary. The con- 

 tributions to this inadequate sum are to be apportioned 

 amongst the cooperating States according to popula- 

 tion, the British contribution to be \6ol. per year. 

 Whether the British and other Governments will take 

 part in the scheme remains to be seen. Assuming 

 that they do, inasmuch as loooZ. per year is far too 

 small an amount to meet expenses connected with the 

 proposed programme, it seems likely that the central 

 office at Strassburg, in its early days at least, will be- 

 come a depdt from which reports are issued and a 

 distributing centre for earthquake registers and other 

 materials bearing upon recent seismological research. 

 This in itself is a work of a magnitude not generally 

 realised, a mere catalogue of earthquakes which have 

 been recorded during ten years in Japan, for example, 

 making in itself a volume of 1000 pages. To reduce 

 publications of this description, written in Chinese 

 characters, to a form in which European investigators 

 might wash to see them would be a labour which 

 but few would undertake. Yet Germany offers men 

 who are willing to face such labours', whilst her 

 Imperial Government asks the civilised world to co- 

 operate in carrying out the gigantic task. Now at the 

 eleventh hour, in the name of science and because 

 other nations are apparently unprepared or indifferent 

 to the advantages of centralisation, it seems likely 

 that the seismological work of all countries is to be 

 swept into one great net. 



Germany has but few observing stations and no 

 organised system for seismological investigations of her 

 own, yet she is willing to take beneath her aegis 

 the organisations of the w'orld. Whether it be in the 

 relief of a beleaguered city or in the study of an obscure 

 science, Germany desires to take the lead. To turn 

 the eyes of the world towards Berlin as the centre of 



