3 6 ° 



NA TURE 



[August 9, 1883 



the Semitic group of Abyssinia in the midst of the Hamitic 

 populations of Somaliland. The town of Harar itself was 

 never the capital of an independent kingdom, as has been 

 wrongly stated by many writers, but simply a large emporium 

 and station of great importance between the old Abyssinian 

 empire and Massawa on the Gulf of Aden. Some years a<p it 

 was attached to the possessions of the Khedive, but on the with- 

 draw al of the Egyptian troops the district was overran by the 

 fierce Oromo (Galla) people, who exterminated most of the 

 old Amharic (Abyssinian) populat : on.— In the same number 

 is an editorial note, with illustration, on a human foot incised 

 by the Bushmen of South Africa on a stone, which has been 

 presented by Dr. Holub to the Society, and is now deposited in 

 the Royal Prehistoric Museum, Rome. 



The general census of Japan, taken on the first day of the 

 present year, gives the total population of the country at 

 36,700,110, made up of 18,598,998 males, and 18,101,112 

 females. The population of the larger towns is given as fol- 

 lows :— Osaka, 1,772,333; Hiogo, 1,418,521; Nagasaki, 

 1,204,629; Tokio, 987,887; Kioto, 835,215. To avoid erro- 

 neous conclusions it may be well to state that the figures here 

 given are not the populations of the towns and cities mentioned, 

 but of the administrative districts, locally known as /« or ken, 

 bearing these names. In some instances, e.g. Hiogo and Naga- 

 saki, these districts are as large as a medium-sized English 

 county, and in all cases they include the towns and villages for 

 several (from ten to thirty) miles around. Thus these statistics 

 can by no means be accepted as data for the respective sizes of 

 the towns. These would run, we believe, as follows : Tokio, 

 Osaka, Kioto, Nagasaki, Hiogo ; the two latter being smaller 

 than probably a dozen other Japanese towns which might be 

 mentioned — Nagoya, Sendai, Niigata, Kagoshima, Shimo- 

 noseki, &c. Statisticians s'lould therefore receive these figures 

 with the explanation here given. 



Among the papers in parts 3 and 4 of the Verhandlungen der 

 Gesel/schaft fur Erdkunde m Berlin for the current year, we find 

 one by Dr. Schwarz on Montenegro, the land and people ; 

 another by Dr. Uhle of Dresden on the divinity Ba'ara Guru of 

 the Malays ; and also some geographical sketches of Portugal 

 by Herr Miiller-Beeck. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, July 30. — M. Blanchard, president, 

 n the chair. — Active or dynamic resistance of solids. Graphic 

 representation of the laws of longitudinal thrust applied to one 

 end of a prismatic rod, the other end of which is fixed (con- 

 tinued!, by MM. de Saint-Venant and Flamant. — Experiments 

 on the reproduction of albite (white shorl) in an aqueous 

 medium, by MM. C. Freidel and Ed. Sarasin. From a compo- 

 sition of silicate of soda and abate (Na„0, Ak0 3 , 6Si0 2 ) in a 

 temperature ranging from 432° to 517° C, abundant precipitates 

 of albite were obtained in the form of minute particles, which 

 appeared as fine needle-points and short thick crystals with facets 

 distinctly visible under the microscope. Steel and platinum 

 vessels strong enough to resist this high temperature were 

 specially constructed by MM. Golaz, pere et fils.— Separation of 

 gallium (continued). Separation from vanadium, by M. Lecoq 

 de Boisbandran. — Experimental researches on the action of a 

 liquid introduced by a special process into the tissues of the vine 

 for the purpose of destroying phylloxera (continued), by M. P. 

 de Lafitte. — Capacity of various soils for retaining water under 

 conditions suitable for viticulture, by M. P. Pichard. Appended 

 is a c nnparative table showing the various degrees of resistance 

 offered to the infiltration of water by siliceous, argillaceous, cal- 

 careous, and other soils in the south-east of France.— On the inte- 

 gral im of a cerlain class of partial differential equations of the 

 second order w ith two independent variants, by M. A. Picart. — On 

 the critical temperature and critical pressure of oxygen, by M. S. 

 Wroblewsky. The critical point is approximately determined 

 at -113° C — A deter,] ination of the inward inert resistance of 

 any electric system, independen'ly of the disturbing action of 

 erior electromotor forces, whose number, seat, and size 

 I, mill unknown quantities, by M. G. Cabanellas. — Onthevisi- 

 I ility of the ultra-violet rays, by M. J. L. Soret — A silicophos- 

 phate of crystallised lime obtained by liberating phosphorus in 

 the process of iron-smelting, by MM. Ad. Carnot and Richard. 

 —On the artificial production of rhodonite (silicate of man- 



ganese) and tephroite, by M. Alex. Gorgeu. A new and easy 

 method is explained for producing these two natural crystallised 

 silicates of manganese based on the reciprocal action of silicium 

 and the red chloride of manganese in aqueous vapour. — On the 

 "chloride of menthylum" obtained by Oppenheim from menthol 

 by the action of a concentrated solution of chlorhydric acid, by 

 M. G. Arth. — Experiments on poisoning by the oxide of carbon, 

 with a view to ascertain whether this gas passes from the mother 

 to the foetus, by MM. Grehant and Quinquaud. The authors, 

 who experimented or. bitches, arrived at an opposite conclusion 

 from Andreas Hogyes of Klausenburg, who experimented on 

 rabbits, and who concluded that the foetus remained unaffected 

 by the poison which was fatal to the mother. — On the 

 open epithelium ("cellule epitheliale fenetree") ol the closed 

 follicules of the intestine of the rabbit, and its temporary 

 stomata, by M. J. Renaut. — Researches on the structure of 

 the constituent parts of the vent in Cephalopods, by M. P. 

 Girod. — Observations and experiments on the circulation of 

 the sap in plants under the tropics, by M. V. Marcano. 

 From the experiments carried on at Caracas, Venezuela 

 (10° 30' 50" N. lat.), the author considers that in in- 

 tertropical vegetation the cycle of circulation is completed 

 w ithin a period of twenty-four hours, presenting two maxima 

 of relative fixity, and that the inner pressure of the sap is 

 inferior to that of the atmosphere during the dry but far greater 

 during the rainy season, a phenomenon attributed mainly to the 

 water directly absorbed by the leaves. — On the differentiation 

 and anatomic variations of the branches of forest and fruit- 

 bearing trees, and some other plants, by M. Laborie. — On the 

 action of silica on the growth of maize, by M. V. Jodin. — On 

 the alterations produced by age on wheat-flour pre : erved in bins 

 and sacks, by M. Balland. — Experiments on evaporation made 

 at Aries during the years 1876-82, by M. A. Salles. In his 

 remarks on this paper, M. I.alanne dwells on the great import- 

 ance of the subject in connection with the projected inland sea 

 towards the southern frontier of Tunis. — Observations on Part 

 IV. of M. de Koninck's work on the carboniferous fauna of 

 Belgium, by M. Hebert. 



CONTENTS Page 



Two " Eminent Scotsmen " 337 



The Heavenly Bodies 338 



Our Book Shelf:— 



" United States Commis ion of Fish and Fisheries " . 339 

 Letters to the Editor : — 



Cyanogen in Small Induction Sparks in Free Air. — 



Prof. C. Piazzi Smyth {With Diagrams) . . . 340 

 The Earliest Known Plotting Scale. — W. M. 



Flinders Petrie 341 



A Result of our Testimonial System. — Dr. M. Foster, 



F.K.S 341 



Birds and Cholera. — Rev. O. Fisher ; Henry 



Cecil ; D. Wn 342 



Animal Intelligence. — F. R. Mallet ; Joseph 



Stevens; J. de B. F. P 342 



Different Sources of Illumination. — George Forbes. 343 

 A Remarkable Form of Cloud. — Rev. W. Clement 



Ley 343 



Disease of Potatoes. — A. Stephen Wilson . . . 343 

 " Zoology at the Fisheries Exhibition." — Bryce- 



Wright 344 



"The Student's Mechanics." — Walter R. Browne . 344 



Sand. — James Melvin 344 



Treble Primary Rainbow. — R 344 



Fuegian Ethnology. By Prof. A. H. Keane . . . 344 



The Ischian Earthquake 345 



The Norwegian North Sea Expedition (With ///us- 



/rations) 348 



The Shooting Stars of the July Meteoric Epoch. 



By W. F. Denning 351 



Notes 35 2 



A Contribution to the Study of the Transmission 

 Eastwards round the Globe of Barometric Ab- 

 normal Movements. By A. N. Pearson, Acg. 

 Meteorological Reporter for Western India {With 



Chart) 354 



The Institution of Mechanical Engineers in Belgium 356 



Geographical Notes 359 



Societies and Academies 360 



