348 



NA TURE 



[Feb. 12, 1885 



Under (lie title <> r " The Cost of a Fog," Mr. W. T. Makins, 

 Governor of tin ( ;• Light and Coke Company, writes to the 

 Times under date of January 24 : — " Perhaps your readers may be 

 interested to read the experience of the Gas Light and Coke 

 Company on the occasion of last Tuesday's fog. Ninety-six 

 million cubic feet of gas were sent out during the twenty-four 

 hours ending at midnight on Tuesday. This quantity was an 

 increase on that of the corresponding day in 1884, which may 

 be taken to have been an ordinary January day, of 37 per cent., 

 or over 35,000,000 feet. The price being 3*. per 1000 feet, the 

 public had to pay this une company 5250/. extra on account of 

 the fog. Nine thousand five hundred tons of coal were carbon- 

 ised during the twenty-four hours to produce the 96,000,000 feet, 

 the largest quantity we have ever sent out in one day." 



The Times Alexandria correspondent, in reference to the 

 Egyptian Sanitary Board, takes occasion to mention the immense 

 services which might be rendered to that country and to science 

 by the appointment of a scientific microscopist and analyst to 

 the uncontrolled charge of the Health Department. An eminent 

 physician a :sures in that half the population are mentally and 

 physically incapacitated fur woik, owing to the existence of 

 certain diseases, which sanitary study might remedy. 



Following the example of the United States Geological 

 Survey, that of Canada has lately enlarged the sphere of its 

 operations, so as to include ethnological work in its publications. 

 The first result of this wise measure is a volume containing 

 copious comparative vocabularies of the chief Indian languages 

 still current in British Columbia, for which the authors, W. 

 Fraser Tolmie and George M. Dawson, have been collecting 

 materials since the year 1875. I' 1 this collection, which was 

 issued in 1884 by Dawson Brothers of Montreal, the list of words 

 proposed by Mr. Gibb.-. in his " Instructions for Research Rela- 

 tive to the Ethnology and Philology of America," has been 

 adopted as a basis, and his orthographic system has also been 

 largely adhered to. The vocabularies thus comprise over 200 

 words of one or more dialects of every stock language spoken on 

 the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains from Alaska south- 

 wards to the Columbia River. Appendices are added containing 

 comparative tables of other native languages from vocabularies 

 already printed, and from these tables it appears evident that, 

 contrary to the hitherto prevalent impression, the widespread 

 Tinne (Athabascan) family is represented on the Pacific slope in 

 the T.-himsian group about the Nasse and Skeena rivers over 

 against the Queen Charlotte Islands. Nevertheless on the 

 accompanying linguistic map, which is on a large scale, this 

 group is still coloured separately as if it were a stock language, 

 and not a branch of the Athabascan, as is now for the first time 

 made evident. The other stock languages of this region — Haida 

 (Queen Charlotte Islands), Thlinkit (from Alaska to the Nasse 

 River), Kwakiool, Aht, and Kawitshin (Vancouver Island), 

 Niskwalli (Puge: Sound), Cheheili (Washington Territory), 

 Tshinook (Lowe- Columbia River), Bilhoola (Bentinck and 

 Dean Inlets), Selish (Fraser River), Sahaptin (Right Bank 

 Columbia River , and Kootenuha (Kootenay and Upper 

 Columbia Rivers) — all are represented in one or more of their 

 branches. Altogether valuable materials are here collected and 

 conveniently arranged for the comparative study of nearly thirty 

 languages or distinct dialects current in one of the most intricate 

 linguistic domains on the American Continent. 



The African A -„ ciation will shortly send to the Congo the 

 apparatus required fur establishing telephonic communications 

 between certain stations on the lower river. 



According to the report of Capt. E. Backhaus, of the German 

 ship Ctrl (published in llama), that vessel, while on her voyage 

 from New York to Trieste, experienced an earthquake at sea 



on the night of December 21-22 last. For about five minutes 

 the ship was violently shaken. The lamp shades were thrown 

 to the ground, and the upper layers of the tins of petroleum 

 between decks were pitched up against the deck. She was then 

 at 36° 34' N. lat. and 22° 26' E. of Greenwich, that is, near 

 Cape Matapan in the south of Greece. Those on board thought 

 the ship had struck on a rock, and the pumps were rigged and 

 set working. The sea was still, but had a whitish colour; the 

 wind was east and light, and the rate was about three nautical 

 miles per hour. When examination was made subsequently, no 

 trace of injury was found on the wood or copper outside. The 

 captain was led to make a report of the occurrence at Trieste by 

 hearing of the Spanish earthquake, as well as from another ship- 

 master, who had experienced the same phenomenon also to the 

 south of Greece. 



The last four years have been a period of unusual activity in 

 railway construction in Japan. How much has been done in 

 that period, and is now being done, is not generally understood 

 in Europe. The following statement on the subject is sum- 

 marised from a paper communicated to the Geographical Society 

 of Toulouse by Capt. Fouque, Professor of Mathematics in 

 Tokio. The line between Tokio and Yokohama, eighteen 

 miles in length, was opened in June, 1872 ; that between Hiojo 

 and Osaka in .March, 1874, its extension to Kioto in 1876, and 

 a further extension to Otsu, making the total length from Hiogo 

 about sixty miles, in 1879. At Otsu it reached the shores of 

 Lake Biwa. What may be regarded, therefore, as a prolonga- 

 tion of this line is that from Nagahama, at the head of the lake, 

 to Tsuruga, an important harbour on the sea of Japan, a distance 

 of over twenty-five miles. There is thus a direct steam connection 

 (as there is a fleet of steamers on the lake) between Hiogo on 

 '.he Inland Sea, and the Sea of Japan on the west. On May 25 

 last a line was finished between the same — Nagahama and 

 Sekigahara —with a continuation to Ogaki, a total distance of 

 about fifty-five miles, through the centre of the province of 

 Mino, one of the most productive in Japan. The last line 

 finished is that between Tokio and Tagasaki, which was opened 

 by the Emperor on June 25, 1884. The length is about sixty- 

 two miles, and it taps the rich provinces of Joshin, Shinshin, 

 and Boshin, the great centres of silk, tea, and tobacco cultiva- 

 tion. There were no serious engineering difficulties on this line, 

 perhaps the most important of any yet constructed in Japan, for 

 it traversed large and fertile plains. Thus the total length of 

 the railways actually constructed in Japan is about twenty-three 

 miles. Two short lines in course of construction are those 

 between Shinagawa, near Tokio, and Kawaguchi, and one from 

 Tagasaki to Mayebashi, the capital of the silk trade. The 

 latter is only about eight miles long, and may be regarded .1 5 

 complete. Of projected lines the construction of the following 

 have been decided on, and the work should be commenced by 

 this time : (1) one from Tokio due north through the centre of 

 the main island to Awomori, opposite Hakodate, in the Island 

 of Jezo. This would be one of the main trunk lines of Japan, 

 and its length will be about 450 English miles. (2) From 

 Takasaki to Ogatchi, the first part of a line which will ultimately 

 reach Yokkaichi, an important seaport on Owari Gulf, on the 

 east coast. The length of this will be about 200 miles. (3) 

 From Nyeda, in Shinano province (in the centre of the main 

 island) to Niigata, the principal part of the west coast, 150 

 miles, and two shorter lines intended to connect important towns 

 with neighbouring ports. It has been decided recently to con- 

 struct tramways between some of the principal towns omitted in 

 the railway scheme, the first being between Tokio and Kofu, a 

 distance of about 700 miles. The amount of money available 

 fur public works of this description is necessarily limited, and 

 the progress is therefore, everything considered, exceedingly 

 rapid. 



