230 
NATURE 
[ JANUARY 7, 1897 
painted on some of the pebbles indicate entirely con- 
ventionalised phonetic characters. Most of them are 
isolated markings, as in Fig. 10, which resembles the 
Greek TI and the Cypriot go. In a very few instances 
two or more symbols are associated together, as in 
Fig. 11. Thisis, as a matter of fact, the nearest approach 
to an inscription. M. Piette makes full use of the recent 
discoveries of Mr. Arthur J. Evans in early Mediterranean 
scripts, and we must leave it to experts to discuss the 
problems opened up by M. Piette’s astonishing dis- 
coveries. Assuming these markings to be syllabic signs, 
can it be possible that these pebbles were employed in 
building up words and sentences, much as children use 
boxes of letters? The author states that “thirteen out 
of twenty-three Phoenician characters were equally 
Asylian graphic signs.” 
Fic. 11. 
Fic. 10. 
No longer can markings or designs, made by savage or 
primitive peoples, be ignored or be superciliously smiled 
upon as of no moment. We now recognise that such 
peoples do not while away their idle hours in making 
meaningless cabalistic signs, or in aimlessly decorating 
objects. When one looks through the twenty-five 
beautifully coloured plates of the atlas that accompanies 
this memoir, the belief is irresistible that these hundreds 
of pebbles have not wantonly been painted, but that 
thereon is recorded a hitherto unsuspected phase of 
prehistoric culture. At times one may feel a little good- 
natured amusement at the ingenuity displayed by M. 
Piette ; but, at the same time, we respect his enthusiasm, 
and trust that he may be fortunate enough to bring 
further evidence to light. ANG wide 
EMIL DU BOIS-RE YMOND. 
S was stated in our last issue, Emil du Bois-Reymond, 
Professor of Physiology in the University of 
Berlin, and Perpetual Secretary of the Berlin Academy, 
died on December 26, after a severe illness. 
He was born in Berlin on November 7, 1818, where his 
father, who had begun life as a watchmaker in. Neuchatel, 
had attained an important position. His mother was of 
Huguenot descent, her family having been driven out of 
their native country in the seventeenth century. He 
received his early education at the Collége Francais at 
Berlin, and subsequently at the College of Neuchatel. 
He entered the university at Berlin when he was eighteen 
years of age, and was matriculated in the Philosophical 
Faculty. 
At the outset of his university career his pursuits would 
appear to have been eclectic, for it is stated that he 
attended Neander’s lectures, and was much interested in 
theology ; but about 1837 he took to the serious studies 
of his life. Aftera year or two devoted to mathematics, 
physics and chemistry, he became a pupil of the illus- 
trious J. Miller, and eventually his assistant. In 1841, 
he was asked by his chief to repeat the observations of 
Matteucci in his essay “Sur les phénoménes électriques 
des animaux,” which had been published the year before 
in Paris. This led to the historical studies which he 
embodied in his dissertation for the degree of D.M. 
(“Quae apad veteres de piscibus electricis exstant argu- 
menta”), and to the discovery of the main facts of what 
we now call electro-physiology. His first research .on 
this subject was published in the fifty-eighth volume of 
Poggendorfs Annalen, under the title, “Ueber den 
NO. 1419, VOL. 55] 
sogenannten Froschstrom und iiber die elektromotor- 
ischen Fische.” During the next ten years he devoted 
himself entirely to the line of inquiry he had determined 
to follow. The fruits of his labour were embodied, not 
in separate papers, but in his great work on “Animal 
Electricity,” which was not completed till about ten years 
ago, although the first volume appeared in 1848. When, 
in 1855, he visited London, he had already acquired a 
European reputation. Some readers may, perhaps, re- 
member the interest excited by a Friday evening lecture, 
with demonstrative experiments, which he gave at that 
time at the Royal Institution. In 1858 he succeeded 
Miiller as Professor of Physiology at Berlin, and in 1867 
became Secretary of the Berlin Academy. After the 
Franco-German war the palatial building in the Neue 
Wilhelmstrasse was erected according to plans which, 
with much forethought, he had designed, so as to provide 
for all the branches of physiological teaching and 
research. ‘These were carried out with a completeness 
which has made the Berlin laboratory a model for similar 
institutions in all parts of the world. 
About 1878 du Bois-Reymond published his “ Collected 
Papers,” in which all the scientific work done by him up 
to that time is included, excepting what had been 
recorded in the “ Thierische Elektricitat,’ and in 1881 
a volume appeared, shortly after the accident which 
deprived his assistant, Dr. Sachs, of his life, containing 
the results of Sachs’ experimental investigations of the 
Gymnotus electricus in its native country. 
To many readers who have no special interest in the 
scientific problems which it was the aim of his life to 
solve, du Bois-Reymond is known by his contributions to 
literature, and by the admirable literary style of his essays. 
Of his numerous writings on historical, biographical, and 
philosophical subjects, we can mention only the best 
known, such as (1) the historical introduction contained 
in the first chapters of his great work ; (2) the essay on 
university organisation (1870) ; (3) on present and past 
of physiological teaching, and on the relations of natural 
history to natural science (1878) ; and (4) on the limits of 
natural knowledge (1882). ; 
Du Bois-Reymond’s life-work was the investigation of 
the electrical phenomena of animals and plants, and the 
relation between them and the vital endowments of the 
structures in which they manifest themselves. The first 
part of this task he accomplished all but perfectly. As’ 
regards the second, he arrived at theoretical conceptions 
which, although no longer so predominant as they were, 
still serve as points of departure in all electro-physio- 
logical discussions. To exemplify this, we must go back 
for a moment to the time fifty years ago, when he under- 
took the experimental criticism of Matteucci’s work. 
Recognising that the electrical properties which had been 
described by his predecessors with relation to the whole 
organism could only be understood by referring them 
to the parts in which they manifested themselves, he at 
once limited his inquiry to the electromotive properties 
of the muscles, choosing for his purpose those of 
simplest construction—those which consist of parallel 
fibres. Considering that in such a muscle each fibre must 
be an epitome of the whole, and that if it were possible 
to break up a fibre into its constituent fibrils, its proper- 
ties would also represent those of the whole, and having 
found experimentally that the surface of a cylinder ob- 
tained from a living cylindrical bundle of fibres by 
cutting it across in two places, exhibited in different 
parts differences of potential which could be expressed by 
avery simple law (the so-called law of the muscle current, 
according to which the centre of each cut surface is 
negative to every other part), it required but little use 
of the scientific imagination to suppose that if the cylinder 
contained elements of indefinite minuteness endowed 
with properties corresponding to its own, the result would 
