414 
MAT OTE, 
[ FEBRUARY 28, 1907 
EETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 
expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 
to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 
manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE. 
No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 
One Vote, One Value. 
A cERTAIN class of problems do not as yet appear to be 
solved according to scientific rules, though they are 
of much importance and of frequent recurrence. Two 
examples will suffice. (1) A jury has to assess damages. 
(2) The council of a society has to fix on a sum of money, 
suitable for some particular purpose. Each voter, whether 
of the jury or of the council, has equal authority with 
each of his colleagues. How can the right conclusion be 
reached, considering that there may be as many different 
estimates as there are members? That conclusion is 
clearly not the average of all the estimates, which would 
give a voting power to ‘‘cranks’’ in proportion to their 
crankiness. One absurdly large or small estimate would 
leave a greater impress on the result than one of reason- 
able amount, and the more an estimate diverges from the 
bulk of the rest, the more influence would it exert. I 
wish to point out that the estimate to which least objec- 
tion can be raised is the middlemost estimate, the number 
of votes that it is too high being exactly balanced by the 
number of votes that it is too low. Every other estimate 
is condemned by a majority of voters as being either too 
high or too low, the middlemost alone escaping this con- 
demnation. The number of voters may be odd or even. 
If odd, there is one middlemost value; thus in 11 votes the 
middlemost is the 6th; in 99 votes the middlemost is the 
5soth. If the number of voters be even, there are two 
middlemost values, the mean of which must be taken; 
thus in 12 votes the middlemost lies between the 6th and 
the 7th; in 100 votes between the 5oth and the sist. 
Generally, in 2n—1 votes the middlemost is the mth; in 
2n votes it lies between the mth and the (n+1)th. 
I suggest that the process for a jury on their retirement 
should be (1) to discuss and interchange views ; (2) for each 
juryman to write his own independent estimate on a 
separate slip of paper; (3) for the foreman to arrange 
the slips in the order of the values written on them; 
(4) to take the average of the 6th and 7th as the verdict, 
which might be finally approved as a substantive pro- 
position. Similarly as regards the resolutions of councils, 
having regard to the above (2n—1) and 2n remarks. 
Francis Gatton. 
A New Volcanic Island. 
Tue officer in charge of the Marine Survey of India, 
Commander W. G. Beauchamp, R.I.M., has forwarded 
the following description of Volcano Island derived from 
an examination made about sixteen days after its appear- 
ance above water. The island is situated off the coast 
of Arakan, in the Bay of Bengal, about nine miles to the 
north-westward of Chebuda Island, and has a greatest 
length of 307 yards in a S.S.W. and N.N.E. direction, and 
a greatest breadth of 217 yards in a N.W. and S.E. direc- 
tion; the summit is 19 feet above high water. 
Except close to the shore, the soundings in the neigh- 
bourhood appear to be unaltered, including the shoal to 
the N.N.W. which was touched on one line of soundings. 
The ship approached the island from the north-eastward, 
and left in an E.S.E. direction. A steam cutter left to 
the southward for ten miles and returned from S.S.E., 
and on neither course was any discrepancy in the chart 
discovered. 
The island is still in an active condition at the northern 
end, several hot springs of liquid mud overflowing. It 
is steeper on the western side. 
Temperatures (Fahrenheit) were taken at different parts 
of the island, the surface registering 81°, being the same 
as the atmosphere; at 2 feet below the surface 96°, 3 feet 
below surface 104°. But at the observation spot on the 
summit, and evidently the main crater, the temperature 
at 1 foot below the surface was 104°, at 2 feet below 108°, 
at 3 feet below 138°, and at 33 feet the thermometer 
NO. 1948, VOL. 75 | 
rose to 148°. No self-registering thermometer was avail- 
able to take the temperature of the liquid mud. The 
ordinary thermometer could not be cleaned quickly enough 
to get an accurate reading. 
The island is evidently becoming hard, but the action 
of the sea and tide is washing it away considerably at 
present, leaving a wake of discoloured water, giving the 
appearance of a shoal spit. The Admiralty charts show 
that several mud volcanoes exist in the neighbourhood. 
Drift-wood, sand, and stones were found, although the 
island was only fifteen or sixteen days old. Fourteen 
kinds of seed were collected by the surgeon naturalist, 
from whose geological report it appears that the island 
is composed wholly of greyish-brown mud of uniform 
quality throughout; with this are a few angular fragments 
of rocks of various kinds intermingled. These must have 
been thrown up with the mud; they include :—(a) portions 
of a laminated sandstone; (b) a compact grey rock which 
has the appearance of a limestone, but which is only 
partially soluble in strong acids; (c) lumps of crystalline 
calcite; (d) a soft green stone, probably a basic igneous 
rock. 
On December 31, 1906, the surface was sun-dried and 
hardened, so as readily to support the weight of a man. 
The dried surface is very uneven throughout; it has a 
nodular and bubbly appearance; besides this, it is split up 
by deep fissures, due to shrinkage in drying. 
On the north side of the island are several small vents. 
Three of these open into round pools of liquid mud, to 
the surface of which large bubbles of gas are continually 
rising. This gas is non-inflammable, and does not support 
combustion; it has an objectionable sulphurous smell. 
In regard to the permanence of this island, considering 
the nature of the material of which it is composed it is 
likely that heavy rains and sea action in the south-west 
monsoon will cause rapid disintegration and total dis 
appearance, always provided that no more material is 
erupted. 
The following case may be quoted from Lyell’s ‘‘ Prin- 
ciples of Geology,’’ vol. ii. :—In 1811 the Isle of Sabrina 
was formed off the Azores by submarine volcanic action. 
This, although 300 feet high, *‘ was soon washed away 
by the waves.” A. Mostyn FIeE.p. 
Hydrographic Department, Admiralty, London, S.W. 
The Forest-pig of Central Africa. 
As will be remembered, the singular and interesting 
forest-pig, Hylochoerus meinertzhageni, which appears to 
be an intermediate link between the true Sus and the 
aberrant Phacochcerus was first mentioned and named by 
my friend Mr. Oldfield Thomas in these pages (NATURE, 
vol. 1xx., p. 577, 1904). I believe, therefore, that some 
further information which widens considerably its range 
may prove of interest to readers of NATURE. 
The type of this remarkable pig is the cranium of a 
nearly adult male from the Nandi country (E.N.E. of the 
Victoria Nyanza), sent home by Lieut. R. Meinertzhagen, 
and now in the British Museum; this, with parts of the 
skulls of an older male specimen and of a sow, with por- 
tions of the skin covered with long black hair of the first, 
are the materials on which Mr. O. Thomas has described 
this species (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1904, ii., p. 193, 
pl. xiv., xv.). Since then further materials have been 
received by the British Museum, also the skull of what 
appears to be a second species (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 
1906, p. 2). 
The Royal Zoological Museum of Florence received a 
few months ago from Lieut. Ernesto Brissoni, an officer 
in the service of the Congo Free State, a perfect cranium 
of a large full-grown male of H. meinertzhageni, shot by 
him at Sendue, on the Upper Congo River, where he was 
stationed for many months in November, 1904. It is a 
remarkably big and massive skull, as will be seen by the 
principal measurements, which, to facilitate comparison, 
I give in the same order as those taken on the type- 
specimen by Mr. Thomas; they are in millimetres :-— 
greatest median length, above 425; basal length, 360; 
zygomatic breadth, 250; nasals, length 260, breadth 70; 
interorbital breadth, 123; tip to tip of post-orbital pro- 
cesses, 155; intertemporal breadth, 98; breadth across 
