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SEPTEMBER II, 1913] 
Tue first installation of wireless telephony in a coal 
mine in Great Britain has just been fitted up at 
Dinnington Main Colliery, South Yorkshire, with, it 
is said, satisfactory results. The system is the in- 
vention of Mr. J. H. Reinecke, of Bochum, West- 
phalia, and is in use in German collieries. According 
to The Times each instrument is connected by two 
wires with a piece of metal buried in the ground. 
The wires can also be attached to ordinary tramway 
rails, water-pipes, &c. At Dinnington instruments 
have been placed at two points—one in the trans- 
former house near the pit bottom and the other 1000 
yards ‘‘in-bye,’’ and conversation has been carried on 
between these points just as through an ordinary 
telephone with the use of only about 20 yards of wire. 
The system also admits of the use of portable instru- 
ments weighing about 20 Ib. each by means of which 
it is possible to communicate with the fixed stations 
from any part of the mine. All that is necessary is 
for the operator to attach the two wires of the instru- 
ment to any metallic substance at hand. Thus in the 
event of a disaster in a pit miners entombed by falls 
would be able to open up communication with other 
parts of the colliery. In ordinary working the port- 
able instruments should be very useful in the case of a 
breakdown of the signalling apparatus, and coal turn- 
ing could be carried on while the repairs were being 
The portable instrument can also be used in 
the cage while ascending or descending the shaft. 
Tue Italian archzological mission to Crete, under 
the leadership of Prof. Halbherr, announces the dis- 
covery at Cortina of a temple dedicated to Egyptian 
deities, bearing a dedication by Flavia Philyra, the 
foundress. In the inner cella were found images of 
Jupiter, Serapis, Isis, and Mercury, with fragments 
of a colossal statue, supposed to be that of the 
foundress. A little flight of steps leads down to a 
subterranean chamber in which ceremonies of purifi- 
cation were performed. 
Tue excavation of the numerous prehistoric sites 
in the island of Malta is being actively prosecuted 
under the direction of Prof. T. Zammit. The most 
important discovery is that of a series of well tombs 
of the Punic type at the Kallilia plateau, north-west 
of Rabat. A large number of skeletons, with pottery, 
lamps, spindle-whorls, and a circular bronze mirror, 
has been unearthed. A partial exploration of the 
Ghar Dalam cave, conducted by Prof. Tagliaferro and 
Mr. C. Rizzo, produced bones of a hippopotamus and 
a deer, above which lay a quantity of prehistoric 
sherds. The museum, by the bequest of the late Mr. 
Parnis, has received a large collection of books about 
Malta and numerous antique objects. The Malta 
Herald, in recording the progress of excavation, very 
reasonably urges that means should be taken to pro- 
tect the sites partially examined from spoliation by the 
villagers. 
Less than 300 miles to the north of Rio de Janeiro, 
on the coast range of Minas Geraes, live the Uti-krag, 
a tribe of Botocudos still retaining some of their old 
customs, but rapidly succumbing to the fostering care 
of the recently established Board of Protection of the 
Native Indians. Mr. W. Knocke paid them a very 
NO. 2289, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
49 
short visit in the month of October, 1912, and he 
describes his observations in a pamphlet entitled 
“Algunas Indicaciones sobre los Uti-krag del Rio 
Doce,”’ issued separately from the Revista de Historia 
y Geografia (vol. v., 1913). The name of Botocudos, 
given them by the Portuguese, refers to the plugs 
with which the men distend their ear lobes, the women 
also the lower lip; this is now becoming unfashion- 
able. When in their wilds the women are stark 
naked. They are the ugly and less intelligent sex, 
with a considerably darker colour than the decidedly 
intelligent men. Their household goods seem to be 
restricted to bows and arrows, plaited bags, and bam- 
boo water-vessels; consequently they cannot cook, but 
only roast their food. They are clay-eaters. The 
nasal flute is disappearing. They are able to count 
up to five, have three kinds of dances, and bury their 
dead. There is the following curious parallelism be- 
tween these Uti-krag, which in their idiom means 
Tortoise-Sierra, and the Mimba of New Guinea (cf. 
Pilhofer, Petermann’s Mittheil., September, 1912) :— 
They construct stockades by putting numbers of 
sharpened sticks, 4 to 5 in. in length, into the ground, 
covered with leaves. As the enemy, when treading 
on these spikes, is sure to stumble, he falls upon a 
second line of larger sharpened sticks, also concealed. 
The author thinks that this little tribe is not so much 
a sample of the vigorous primitive savage as rather 
ethically impoverished through life in the forest. 
There are eight photographs of the people, their arms, 
and the stockade spikes. 
Tue excellence of the work being done by French 
physical anthropologists is exemplified by the elaborate 
descriptive memoir by Prof. M. R. Anthony on the 
fossil skull of La Quina, contributed to Bulletins et 
Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie (No. 2, for 
1913). The writer identifies it with the Neanderthal 
group, including the Spy, La Chapelle, and Gibraltar 
skulls. This comprehensive, well-illustrated memoir 
is an important contribution to our knowledge of 
palzolithic man. 
Tue seventh annual report on the results of the 
chemical and bacteriological examination of London 
waters for the twelve months ending March 31, 1913, 
by Dr. Houston, has been issued by the Metropolitan 
Water Board. After a summary of the condition of 
the raw water and the effects of storage and filtration, 
Dr. Houston’s final conclusion is that the ‘‘ quality 
policy” of the Metropolitan Water Board should be 
directed towards securing an _ ‘‘epidemiologically 
sterile’ water (i.e., a water containing none of the 
microbes associated with water-borne disease) ante- 
cedent to filtration, by means of storage (sedimenta- 
tion, devitalisation, and equalisation), aided, if need 
be, by the occasional employment of supplementary 
processes of water purification. 
Tue final report of the Luangwa Sleeping Sickness 
Commission, by Dr. Kinghorn, Dr. Yorke, and Mr. 
Lloyd, published in a recent number of the Annals of 
Tropical Medicine and Parasitology (vol. vii., No. 2) 
with many illustrations, is a very important contribu- 
tion to the study of trypanosomiasis in man and 
animals. Especially valuable are the observations on 
