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NA TURE 



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across the inhabitants of Agutayo, one of the Cuyos Islands. 

 They left their home, where they could hardly get enough to 

 bring them to Busuanga, to fish for trepang and for small prawns, 

 which they dried in the sun, and then sold to Chinese and 

 Indians. M. Marche was able to take measurements of a 

 certain number of these Agutaino. He gives long and interest- 

 ing ethnographical details of the Tagbannas of this island, on 

 their marriage ceremonies, funeral rites, &c. M. Marche then 

 went in succession to the islands of Penon, Coron, Magao- 

 Puyao, and Dibatac. In the last he observed that the hills, 

 which are almost disafforested by the natives, and which are 

 about two hundred metres in height, surround fertile plains in 

 the form of a horse-shoe, more or less closed, and in the centre 

 a depression is observable. The whole has the appearance of a 

 funnel, and it is suggested that this is an extinct volcanic region. 

 In the same island of Dibatac, crocodiles and boa-constrictors 

 are very numerous, and M. Marche was able to capture one of 

 the latter, which had swallowed a calf several months old. 



On the 2nd inst. Mr. H. M. Stanley inaugurated the newly- 

 formed Scottish Geographical Association in the Music Hall, 

 Edinburgh. Lord Balfour of Burleigh presided. On the 4th 

 Mr. Stanley formally opened the rooms of the Society, and 

 on Saturday last he opened the Dundee branch of the Scot- 

 tish Geographical Society in the Kinnaird Hall. 



M. Romanet de Caillaud has communicated to the Geo- 

 graphical Society of Paris two papers on Tonquin. One refers 

 to routes from the delta of the Red River into Yunnan, the 

 other on the history of the Thai or Laos race in Tonquin and 

 Southern Kwangsi. In the former he describes in detail live 

 routes, two by river and three by land, into South-Western China. 

 The only one of these of importance is that by the Songkoi, or 

 Red River, and M. de Caillaud makes light of its difficulties, 

 and insists that Paris is practically nearer to the Yunnan frontier 

 than either Canton or Pekin. Paris is at the most, he says, 

 fifty days' journey, while Canton is sixty, and Hankow, on the 

 Yang-tse, eighty days. He also advocates this route for an 

 invasion of China, and says that Lao-kai, on the upper Songkoi, 

 is really for France the vulnerable point of that Empire. As has 

 been already pointed out, discussion of the Songkoi route above 

 Hong-hoa must for the most part be based on speculation, as 

 only one European has travelled down or up the river from or to 

 Manhao, and his journey was undertaken in circumstances 

 which hardly admitted of accurate observation. A German 

 geographer has recently expressed the opinion that one of the 

 chief difficulties to be encountered in this route will be ethno- 

 logical, and M. de Caillaud, in his second paper, traces briefly 

 the fortunes of the principal race of the region — the Laos or Thai. 

 This people has apparently had its day. At one time it domi- 

 nated the whole Indo-Chinese peninsula, but now it is split up 

 among a number of independent or semi-independent princelets, 

 whose main business is war and piracy. Their various attempts 

 to recover a portion of their old power have been repressed by 

 the Annamites, assisted, when necessary, by the Chinese. 



Lieut. Bove, of the Italian Navy, has written to Dr. Hyades 

 of Paris a letter respecting his second expedition to Terra del 

 Fuego. The first, he says, was to some extent scientific. He 

 was ordered by the Argentine Government to study the south of 

 Patagonia and Terra del Fuego from an economical point of 

 view, and scientific observations were merely adjuncts. Never 

 thekss a scientific commission to investigate the geology, 

 botany, zoology, and hydrography of these regions was sent 

 with him. Lieut. Bove's official report is about to appear in 

 Spanish in Buenos Ayres, and will be accompanied by those of 

 the scientific men engaged. The Bolletino of the Italian Geo- 

 graphical Society will contain a paper on his journey in the 

 interior of Terra del Fuego among the Ona. He started from 

 Ouchonaya with an escort of twenty-four Fuegians of the 

 mission, who proved very useful to him. After crossing the 

 mountains behind this place, he descended into the valley which 

 run;, down to Admiralty Sound. He describes the interior of 

 the island as magnificent, and much richer than Patagonia. The 

 Ona were met with but twice, and their total number is esti- 

 mated at from 300 to 400. The total number of Fuegians in 

 the whole archipelago is stated, according to a careful census 

 made by an English missionary, the Rev. Thomas Bridges, to 

 be only 949 men, women, and children. 



M. Michel 'Venukoff has addressed a note to the Geo- 

 graphical Society of Paris, referring to a new map of the island 

 of Saghalin, prepared by M. Nikitine, the topographer. It 



differs from all the other maps of the island in some respects. It 

 shows it to be considerably larger than had been previously 

 believed. M. Reclus gives the area as 63,600 square kilometres. 

 M. Strelbitsky 67,018, and Venukoff 73,529. Although the 

 writer claims that his bases for calculation were necessarily more 

 detailed and exact than those of his predecessors, he nevertheless 

 considers his figures as approximate rather than final. 



SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS AND ISSUES OF THE 



INTERNATIONAL HEALTH EXHIBITION 1 

 HTHE first Wednesday lecture at the Society of Arts was 

 •- devoted to an address on this subject — in accordance with 



precedents— the Duke of Buckingham, Chairman of the Ex- 

 hibition Council, taking the chair. The following are the parts 

 of the address relating to the scientific departments of the Exhi- 

 bition, and the proposal which the lecturer is understood to have 

 laid before the Council for some time for the disposal of the 

 surplus to such objects.] 



There was only one exhibit in the food department to which I 

 would specially call attention, it was that from the collections of 

 the Science and Art Department and the Parkes Museum, illus- 

 trating the constituents of food and food values, and the con- 

 nected exhibit by the Society of Public Analysts, of materials 

 used as adulterants of articles of food ; of adulterated articles 

 of food commonly sold in this country ; of adulterations which 

 have been suppressed ; of adulterations practised abroad, and 

 mixtures generally protected by labelling. This latter was 

 added in consequence of a suggestion made by the late Mr. 

 Wigner, President of the Society of Analysts, at a late date in 

 the progress of the Exhibition. I am afraid that it did not 

 attract all the attention that it deserved. I trust, however, we 

 shall be able to reserve it for continual public reference. Mr. 

 Wigner, in communicating with me, pointed out that, although 

 the Exhibition was most successfully arranged so as to display 

 in a prominent manner all the articles connected with food, yet 

 the public were only shown what is done by the most careful and 

 respectable firms, whose names are a sufficient guarantee that 

 only materials of the highest quality are used in the preparation 

 of the goods which they show. 



All who are connected with food produce know how, from 

 time to time, the desire on the part of the consumer for cheap 

 goods is the cause of the introduction of articles called "sub- 

 stitutes," which are offered to the manufacturer at one-third the 

 price of the genuine material, and which frequently consist of 

 some cheap and simple preparation, the very opposite in its 

 chemical character to the article for which it is said to be 

 an efficient substitute : several cases of this kind had recently 

 been I rought t^ Mr. Wigner's notice. For instance, he referred 

 to an article to be used as a substitute for tartaric acid, the 

 cpmposition of which has been found to be acid sulphate of 

 alumina in solution — a substance which, if introduced into the 

 manufacture of bread or biscuits, is as objectionable as alum, 

 and quite as much an adulterant. Bisulphate of potash is also 

 sold under a name similar to tartaric acid, and is equally as 

 worthless as sulphate of alumina. These are only two instances 

 out of many, and serve as an additional argument to show the 

 keen competition in trade, which causes the manufacturer to 

 produce, and unscrupulous firms to sell, such articles under 

 "Royal Letters Patent," or some other heading of this sort, 

 to attract the notice of the consumer. 



The public analyst, Mr. Wigner added, although, of course, 

 lie should be cognisant of these facts, has quite enough work 

 for the remuneration paid to him, and in addition to this, 

 there is the fact that the Sale of Foods and Drugs Act is so 

 limited in its aim and scope as to practically prevent the 

 analyst from testing anything but the common articles of food, 

 such as bread and milk, unless they are sold under some recog- 

 nised name. Let him once travel outside these lines, and a 

 whole host of objections are raised. What is really wanted is 

 more stringent legislation, similar in character to that at present 

 in operation in the United States and Paris. 



In the French Section were shown the monthly reports of 

 the Municipal Laboratory, showing the complete and thorough 

 manner in [which the food-supply of that city is protected. 

 Why cannot something of the same sort be done in London? 

 What is wanted is a measure defining what is and what is not 

 adulteration, and prohibiting the use of articles which are fre- 



1 Extracts from an Address delivered at the Society of Arts on Wednesday, 

 November 26, by Mr. Ernest Hart, Member of the Executive Council. 



